Revue Romane. Langue et littérature - Volume 54, Issue 2, 2019

Résumé

It is well known that the distribution of the Spanish verbs ser and estar, both equivalent of be in English, depends upon the stage or individual level of the predicates. Ser and estar are used to express respectively inherent or episodic properties. As a consequence, spatial location is denoted by means of estar and not ser. There is an exception to this principle: event-denoting nouns (ENs) combine only with ser in locative expressions. In this article, we further investigate the construction of ser with ENs. By comparing the semantics of ENs with that of object-denoting nouns, we claim that spatial location is treated as an inherent property of events because of the temporal features of ENs. Evidence for this correlation can be found in the nonprototypical use of ENs as adverbials of place, and in the variations of spatial denotation between ENs depending upon their variations of temporal denotation.

Abstract

This work focuses on a variety of Spanish se constructions which are often assigned a property interpretation and which are usually referred to as passive middle (Esta camisa se lava muy bien) and impersonal middle structures (A los políticos se les soborna fácilmente). On the basis of a nonlogical conception of the sentence and a genuinely functional understanding of sentential syntactic functions, our goals are: (1) to demonstrate that it is not convenient to characterize the so-called passive middle constructions as passive nor the so-called impersonal middle constructions as impersonal; (2) to establish the role of information structure and modality in the property interpretation of these structures; (3) to determine the function of se in this type of constructions, specifically,whether or not this function is related with the property interpretation and whether it manages to distinguish these structures from other se constructions, and (4) to define the requirements that verbs occurring in this type of structures must fulfill.

Abstract

Against the background of recent debate on Grammaticalization Theory, this study will provide an overview of some Italian quantifying expressions whose original head is a measure noun. The binominal expressions analysed indicate a quantity, either large or small; as such, they can be substituted by canonical quantifiers such as molto “much” or un po’ “a little”. I claim that their functioning as quantifier is the result of a process of grammaticalization, through which the original head noun of the complex construction has been reanalysed as quantifier. At a closer look, however, the degrees of grammaticalization appear different for specific items, as well as the sources providing the recruitment of new quantifiers. The specific collocational patterns that trigger the pragmatic inferences prior to their semanticization and reanalysis have not as yet received sufficient attention. Adopting a diachronic Construction Grammar approach, the paper discusses various case studies and provides a number of descriptive and theoretical insights concerning the rise of distinct grammaticalization patterns.

Résumé

This paper offers a diachronic analysis of a pair of subject complement constructions (répondre présent/absent: litt. ‘to answer “present”/“absent”) originating from quotative expressions. It shows how they lexicalized into fixed expressions denoting a routinized “delocutive” (Benveniste) procedure and how they finally got reanalyzed into a subject complement construction with an internalized projective and proactive meaning (“to act as expected”). The latter appears to be the result of the pragmatic strengthening of conversational implicatures related to the speech act. Further, it is argued that the remarkably similar evolution of répondre absent is due to analogization. Finally, the discussion of potential further host class expansion leads to a provisional answer to the question of whether or not these developments could be the symptoms of the constructionalization of a new copular verb.

Abstract

The present article is an attempt to propose the semiotic aspect that produces the ”religious- sublime”. Most of the semiotic characteristics that we use to represent (and produce) the signifiers of the religious-sublime, nevertheless, share their mechanisms with other modalities of ”sublimeness”. The sublime will be regarded as the representation (in the sense of staging) of a perception. I will propose how the subjective perception – in this case of the divinity – is (re)constructed by the subject in a piece of Spanish Gothic literature, in sacred music and in architecture – the room which houses the subjective perception of divinity.

Résumé

A linguistic and genetic study of La servante au grand cœur… (in Les Fleurs du Mal) shows that Baudelaire endeavoured to attribute a complex network of emotive and/or hallucinatory mental states to the poetic self by resorting to a rich inventory of formal and expressive devices: syntax and its interface with meter; the deontic and evidential readings of the modal verb devoir; pragmatic connectives (pourtant, certes); evaluative items (the verb trouver, the adverb bien, the preposition à introducing an infinitival clause); the intertextual dimension of the poetic lexicon; contrasts between elevated and everyday language. The analysis provided paves the way to an integrated interpretation of the poem and definitely refutes Valéry’s and Benjamin’s comments on its first two verses.

Abstract

The present study exposes the keys and characteristics of a forgotten and recently digitalised manuscript by the National Library of Madrid. It is the first and only translation into Castilian of the work of Stefano Guazzo (1530–1593). The civil conversation (Brescia, 1574) is known as one of the Renaissance dialogues on moral education and was one of the most successful in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries of its kind. The work was translated into Spanish by Joseph Gerardo de Hervás at the beginning of the 18th century and until this present time, its handwritten version has never received any kind of consideration. The civil conversazione, together with The Courtier of Baltasar Castiglione and the Galateo of Giovanni della Casa, served as the most renowned three manuals on modalities in trend among the European Renaissance societies. Its purpose was to introduce not only Italian customs and the belle maniere but also to powerfully shape societies. This research proposes a multidisciplinary view on the discovery of the Spanish version of the civil conversation covering a general overview of the Renaissance dialogue as well as the importance of Guazzo’s work in Spain. It provides an overview of the translator himself and gives an in-depth analysis on the reasons for such a translation, carefully considering its Castilian anachronistic version.

This article reviews Frontières de l’humour