Auxiliary selection across Catalan dialects: an overview

Anna Pineda; Sebastià Salvà; Elga Cremades

doi:10.7557/1.13.2.7844

Authors

Anna Pineda Universitat de Barcelona
Sebastià Salvà Universitat de les Illes Balears
Elga Cremades Universitat de les Illes Balears

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7557/1.13.2.7844

Keywords:

auxiliary selection; Catalan; unaccusativity; event/argument structure; person-driven auxiliary selection; syntactic microvariation.

Abstract

This article presents a comprehensive description of auxiliary selection in Catalan. Specifically, after explaining how the phenomenon worked in Old Catalan, we show what are the factors (such as the event/argument structure or the grammatical person, among others) that determine the use of be and have in those Catalan varieties that, although with some innovations, retain this distinction: (i) Algherese Catalan, (ii) Northern Catalan and some varieties of Central Catalan, (iii) Ribagorçan Catalan, and (iv) Balearic Catalan. Likewise, we show a series of theoretical considerations that we believe relevant for the analysis of the patterns of variation found in Catalan and, by extension, in Romance.

References

Acedo-Matellán, Víctor (2016). The Morphosyntax of Transitions: A Case Study in Latin and Other Languages. Oxford, Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198733287.001.0001

Actes del I Congrés Internacional de la Llengua Catalana (1908). Barcelona, Estampa d’En Joaquim Horta. Available online: https://archive.org/details/primercongresinternacionaldelallen

Alcover, Antoni M. (1903). Questions de llengua y literatura catalana, in Bolletí del Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, vol. 1(15) (April-October). Palma, Estampa de Ca N’Amengual y Muntaner, pp. 209-556.

Alturo, Núria (1995). La variació d’haver auxiliar en el català nord-occidental, in M. Teresa Turell Julià (ed.), La sociolingüística de la variació. Barcelona, PPU, pp. 221-255.

Amato, Irene (2021). Auxiliary Selection in Italo-Romance, in D. K. E. Reisinger & Marianne Huijsmans (eds.), Proceedings of the 37th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics. Somerville (MA), Cascadilla Proceedings Project.

Amato, Irene (2022). Auxiliary selection is Agree: person-driven and argument-structure-based splits, Isogloss 8(2)/10. https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/isogloss.131

Amato, Irene (2023). Auxiliary Selection in Italo-Romance. A Nested-Agree Approach. Amsterdam, John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/la.281

Aranovich, Raúl (2003). The semantics of auxiliary selection in Old Spanish. Studies in Language 27(1), pp. 1-37. https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.27.1.02ara

Avram, Larisa, and Virginia Hill (2007). An irrealis BE auxiliary in Romanian, in Raúl Aranovich (ed.), Split Auxiliary Systems. A Cross-linguistic Perspective. Amsterdam, John Benjamins, pp. 47-64. https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.69.04avr

Badia i Margarit, Antoni M. (1951). Gramática histórica catalana. Barcelona, Noguer. (We cite using the Catalan translation: València, Tres i Quatre, 1981).

Badia i Margarit, Antoni M. (1993). Atles Lingüístic del Domini Català: qüestionari. Barcelona, IEC.

Badia i Margarit, Antoni M. (1994). Gramàtica de la llengua catalana: descriptiva, normativa, diatòpica i diastrática. Barcelona, Proa.

Batlle, Mar (2002). L’expressió dels temps compostos en la veu mitjana i la passiva pronominal. El procés de substitució de l’auxiliar ésser per haver. Barcelona, Institut d’Estudis Catalans / Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat.

Batlle, Mar, Joan Martí i Castell, Josep Moran & Joan Anton Rabella (2016). Gramàtica històrica de la llengua catalana, Barcelona, Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat.

Benveniste, Émile (1966). Problèmes de linguistique générale. Paris, Gallimard.

Bonet, Eulàlia, & Joan Mascaró (2016). Phase theory and prosodic domains. Handout, CLT-UAB seminar, 20/05/2016.

Bonet, Eulàlia, Lisa L. S. Cheng, Laura Downing & Joan Mascaró (2019). (In)direct reference in the phonology-syntax interface under Phase Theory: A response to modular PIC, Linguistic Inquiry 50(4), pp. 751-777. https://doi.org/10.1162/ling_a_00324

Borer, Hagit (2004). Structuring sense. Oxford / New York, Oxford University Press.

Bucheli, Claudia & Elvira Glaser (2002). The Syntactic Atlas of Swiss German Dialects: empirical and methodological problems, in Sjef Barbiers, Leonie Cornips & Susanne van der Kleij (eds.), Syntactic Microvariation. Amsterdam, Meertens Institute Electronic Publications in Linguistics, pp. 41-74.

Burzio, Luigi (1986). Italian Syntax. A Government-Binding Approach. Dordrecht, Kluwer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-4522-7

Cocchi, Gloria (1995). La selezione dell’ausiliare. Padua, Unipress.

Coon, Jessica & Omer Preminger (2012). Towards a unified account of person splits, in WCCFL 29: Proceedings of the 29th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics. Somerville (MA), Cascadilla Press, pp. 310-318.

D’Alessandro, Roberta (2012). Merging probes. A Typology of person splits and person-driven differential object marking. Unpublished ms, LUCL Leiden.

D’Alessandro, Roberta (2017). When you have too many features: Auxiliaries, agreement and clitics in Italian varieties, Glossa 2(1), pp. 1-36. https://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.102

D’Alessandro, Roberta (2020). Agreement across the board: Topic agreement in Ripano, in Peter W. Smith, Johannes Mursell & Katharina Hartmann (eds.), Agree to Agree: Agreement in the Minimalist Programme. Berlin, Language Science Press, pp. 235-270.

D’Alessandro, Roberta & Ian Roberts (2010). Past participle agreement in Abruzzese: Split auxiliary selection and the null-Subject Parameter, Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 28, pp. 41-72. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-009-9085-1

D’Alessandro, Roberta & Tobias Scheer (2015). Modular PIC, Linguistic Inquiry 46(4), pp. 593-624. https://doi.org/10.1162/LING_a_00195

Dixon, Robert M. W. (1994). Ergativity. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511611896

Dols, Nicolau (2023). Canvi lingüístic i normativa en la construcció de la llengua estàndard: tres estructures morfosintàctiques del català de Mallorca, Anuari de Filologia. Estudis de Lingüística 13.

Dorca, Jordi (2006). El parlar del Lluçanès: aportació al coneixement del català central. Lluçà, Solc, Àmbit de recerca i documentació del Lluçanès.

Dorca, Jordi (2007). El parlar de la Vall del Ges, Orís i Bisaura. Torelló, Ajuntament de Torelló.

Dorca, Jordi (2008). El parlar de Collsacabra. Aproximació i assaig de descripció. Barcelona, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.

Duarte, Carles & Àlex Alsina (1986). Gramàtica històrica del català, vol. II. Barcelona, Curial.

Fabra, Pompeu (1905a). Carta a Jaume Massó i Torrents (Bilbao, 01/09/1905), in Xavier Lamuela & Josep Murgades (1984), Teoria de la llengua literària segons Fabra. Barcelona, Quaderns Crema, p. 220.

Fabra, Pompeu (1905b). Comptes rendus (recensió de J. Saroïhandy, Remarques sur la conjugaison catalane, 1905), Revue Hispanique XIII, pp. 269-276.

Fabra, Pompeu (1912). Gramática de la lengua catalana. Barcelona, L’Avenç.

Fabra, Pompeu (1922). Converses filològiques (17/12/1922), reproduced in Jordi Mir & Joan Solà (eds.) (2010), Pompeu Fabra: Obres completes 7. Barcelona/València/Palma, Institut d’Estudis Catalans / Enciclopèdia Catalana / Proa / Tres i Quatre / Moll, pp. 388-389.

Fabra, Pompeu (1956). Gramàtica catalana. Barcelona, Teide.

Forteza, Tomàs (1915). Gramática de la lengua catalana. Palma, Escuela Tipográfica Provincial. [We cite using the 2009 edition, Palma, Edicions UIB, Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat, Institut d’Estudis Baleàrics.

Gallego, Ángel J. & Juan Uriagereka (2016). Estar = ser + X, Borealis: An International Journal of Hispanic Linguistics 5(1), pp. 123-156. https://doi.org/10.7557/1.5.1.3634

Gibert-Sotelo, Elisabet (2017). Source and negative prefixes: On the syntax-lexicon interface and the encoding of spatial relations. Universitat de Girona, PhD thesis. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/461414

Gibert-Sotelo, Elisabet (2018). Deriving ablative, privative, and reversative meanings in Catalan and Spanish, Borealis: An International Journal of Hispanic Linguistics 7(2), pp. 161-185. https://doi.org/10.7557/1.7.2.4565

GIEC (2016) = Gramàtica de la llengua catalana. Barcelona, Institut d’Estudis Catalans. 2nd edition (2022) available online: https://giec.iec.cat/

Goldberg, Adele Eva (1995). Constructions: A Constructional Approach to Argument Structure Constructions. Chicago / London, The University of Chicago Press.

Gómez, Gemma (2011). Gramàtica del català rossellonès. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, PhD thesis.

Gràcia, Lluïsa (1989). Els verbs ergatius en català. Ciutadella, IME.

Griera, Antoni (1931). Gramàtica històrica del català antic. Barcelona, Institució Patxot.

Hale, Kenneth L. (1986). Notes on world view and semantic categories: Some Warlpiri examples, in Pieter Muysken & Henk van Riemsdijk (eds.), Features and Projections. Dordrecht, Foris, pp. 233-254. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110871661-009

Hale, Kenneth L. & Samuel J. Keyser (1993). On Argument Structure and the Lexical Expression of Syntactic Relations, in K. L. Hale & S. J. Keyser (eds.), The View from Building 20: Essays in Linguistics in Honor of Sylvain Bromberger. Cambridge (MA), MIT Press, pp. 53-109.

Hale, Kenneth L. & Samuel J. Keyser (2002). Prolegomenon to a theory of argument structure. Cambridge (MA), MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/5634.001.0001

Harley, Heidi & Elizabeth Ritter (2002). Person and number in pronouns: A feature-geometric analysis, Language 78, pp. 484–526. https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.2002.0158

Iannace, Gaetano (1983). Interferenza linguistica ai confini fra Stato e Regno. Il dialetto di San Leucio del Sannio. Ravenna, Longo.

IEC = Institut d’Estudis Catalans (2003). El català de l’Alguer: un model d’àmbit restringit. Barcelona, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.

Kallulli, Dalina (2008). There is Secondary Preedication in Theere-Existentials, in Charles B. Chang & Hannah J. Haynie (eds.), Proceedings of the 26th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (WCCFL). Somerville (MA), Cascadilla Proceedings Project, pp. 279-287.

Kayne, Richard (1993). Toward a modular theory of auxiliary selection, Studia Linguistica 47, pp. 3-31. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9582.1993.tb00837.x

Kratzer, Angelica (1996). Severing the external argument from the verb, in Johan Rooryck & Laurie Zaring (eds.), Phrase Structure and the Lexicon. Dordrecht, Kluver, pp. 109-138. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8617-7_5

Keller, Frank & Antonella Sorace (2003). Gradient auxiliary selection and impersonal passivization in German: an experimental investigation, Journal of Linguistics 39, pp. 57-108. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022226702001676

La Fauci, Nuncio (1988). Oggetti e soggetti nella formazione della morfosintassi romanza. Pisa, Giardini.

Ledgeway, Adam (2012). From Latin to Romance. Morphosyntactic Typology and Change. Oxford, Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199584376.001.0001

Ledgeway, Adam (2019). Parameters in the Development of Romance Perfective Auxiliary Selection, in Michela Cennamo & Claudia Fabrizio (eds.), Historical Linguistics 2015. Selected Papers from the 22nd International Conference on Historical Linguistics. Amsterdam, John Benjamins, pp. 343-384. https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.348.17led

Ledgeway, Adam (2022). Residues and extensions of perfective auxiliary BE: Modal conditioning, Languages 7, 160. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages7030160

Legendre, Geraldine (2010). A formal typology of person-based auxiliary selection in Italo-Romance, in R. D’Alessandro, A. Ledgeway, & I. Roberts (eds.), Syntactic Variation: The Dialects of Italy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 86- 101.

Longenbaugh, Nicholas (2019). On Expletives and the Agreement-Movement Correlation. MIT, PhD thesis.

Loporcaro, Michele (1998). Sintassi comparata dell’accordo participiale romanzo. Torino, Rosenberg & Sellier.

Loporcaro, Michele (2001). La selezione dell’ausiliare nei dialetti italiani: Dati e teorie, in R. Sornicola, E. Stenta Krosbakken, & C. Stromboli (eds.), Dati empirici e teorie linguistiche: Atti del XXXIII Congresso della Società di Linguistica Italiana (Napoli, 28-30 ottobre 1999). Roma, Bulzoni, pp. 455-476.

Loporcaro, Michele (2007). On triple auxiliation in Romance. Linguistics 45, pp. 173-222. https://doi.org/10.1515/LING.2007.005

Loporcaro, Michele (2014). Perfective auxiliation in Italo-Romance: The complementarity of historical and modern cross-dialectal evidence, in Adam Ledgeway, Paola Benincà, & Nigel Vincent (eds.), Diachrony and Dialects: Grammatical Change in the Dialects of Italy. Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 48-70. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198701781.003.0003

Loporcaro, Michele (2015). Perfective auxiliation with eflexives in Medieval Romance: Syntactic vs. semantic gradients, in Rolf Kailuweit & Malte Rosemeyer (eds.), Auxiliary Selection Revisited: Gradience and Gradualness. Berlin/Munich/Boston, Walter de Gruyter GmbH, pp. 43-78. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110348866-003

Loporcaro, Michele (2016). Auxiliary selection and participial agreement, in Adam Ledgeway & Martin Maiden (eds.), The Oxford Guide to Romance Languages, ch. 49. Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 802-818. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199677108.003.0049

Manzini, Maria Rita & Leonardo Maria Savoia (2005). I dialetti italiani e romanci: Morfosintassi generativa. Alessandria, Edizioni dell’Orso.

Manzini, Maria Rita & Leonardo Maria Savoia (2007). A Unification of Morphology and Syntax: Studies in Romance and Albanian dialects. London, Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203968154

Manzini, Maria Rita & Leonardo Maria Savoia (2011). Grammatical categories: Variation in Romance languages. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511974489

Massanell, Mar (2017). Los atlas lingüísticos como fuente para estudios de sintaxis dialectal: el caso del Atles Lingüístic del Domini Català (ALDC). Verba 44, pp. 271-315. https://doi.org/10.15304/verba.44.2949

Massanell, Mar (2020). “No m’à romasa sinó la honestat”. Rere la petja d’una innovació lingüística en el pas del català antic al modern. Barcelona, Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat.

Massanell, Mar (2021). Using linguistic atlases to explore syntactic issues: the case of auxiliary selection in Catalan, in Alba Cerrudo, Ángel J. Gallego & Francesc Roca (eds.), Syntactic geolectal variation: traditional approaches, current challenges and new tools. Amsterdam / New York, John Benjamins, pp. 35-76. https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.34.02mas

Massanell, Mar (in press). L’auxiliar dels temps de perfet, in Josep Martines, Manuel Pérez Saldanya & Gemma Rigau (eds.), Gramàtica del català antic. València, Publicacions de la Universitat de València.

Massanell, Mar, & Jaume Mateu (2018). Gran bé vos ha vengut: Construccions existencials i selecció de l’auxiliar en el català antic, Estudis Romànics 40, pp. 89-115.

Mateu, Jaume (2002). Argument Structure. Relational Construal at she Syntax-Semantics Interface. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, PhD thesis.

Mateu, Jaume (2005). La selecció de l’auxiliar en els verbs intransitius del català antic: alguns aspectes descriptius i explicatius, Caplletra 38, pp. 211-240.

Mateu, Jaume (2009). Gradience and Auxiliary Selection in Old Catalan and Old Spanish, in Paola Crisma & Giuseppe Longobardi (eds.), Historical Syntax and Linguistic Theory. Oxford, OUP, pp. 176-193. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199560547.003.0011

Mateu, Jaume (2015). La inacusativitat i la selecció de l’auxiliar en català antic, in Maria-Rosa Lloret, Clàudia Pons-Moll & Eva Pons Bosch Roura (eds.), Clàssics d’ahir i d’avui en la gramàtica del català. Barcelona, Universitat de Barcelona, pp. 127-151.

Mateu, Jaume (2016). Auxiliary Selection, in Susann Fischer & Christoph Gabriel (eds.), Manual of Grammatical Interfaces in Romance. Berlin, De Gruyter, pp. 295-326. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110311860-013

Mateu, Jaume & Mar Massanell (2015). A constructional approach to auxiliary selection: evidence from existential constructions, in Rolf Kailuweit & Malte Rosemeyer (eds.), Auxiliary Selection Revisited. Gradience and Gradualness. Berlin/Munic/Boston, De Gruyter, pp. 183-211. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110348866-007

Moll, Francesc de B. (1952). Gramática histórica catalana, Madrid, Gredos. (We cite using the Catalan translation: València, Publicacions de la Universitat de València, 1991/2006.)

Pais, Joan (1970). Gramàtica algueresa, ed. by Pasqual Scanu, vol. I. Barcelona, Barcino.

Par, Anfós (1923). Sintaxi Catalana: segons los Escrits en Prosa de Bernat Metge (1398). Halle (Saale), Max Niemeyer. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783112324929

Perlmutter, David M. (1978). Impersonal Passives and the Unaccusative Hypothesis, in Jeri J. Jaeger et al. (eds.), Proceedings of the 4th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistic Society. Berkeley, CA, pp. 157-189. https://doi.org/10.3765/bls.v4i0.2198

Perlmutter, David M. (1989). Multiattachment and the unaccusative hypothesis: The perfect auxiliary in Italian, Probus 1, pp. 63-119. https://doi.org/10.1515/prbs.1989.1.1.63

Pineda, Anna (2008). Anàlisi del parlar del Lluçanès. Universitat de Barcelona, unpublished ms.

Puig i Calvet, Pilar (1990). La Comarca del Baix Montseny: estudi dialectològic i sociolingüístic de la frontera comarcal entre el Vallès Oriental i la Selva: la suposada comarca del Baix Montseny. Sant Celoni, Impr. Bilbeny.

Ramchand, Gillian (2008). Verb Meaning and the Lexicon: A First-Phase Syntax. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511486319

Ramos, Joan-Rafael (2005). Els auxiliars dels temps compostos en català medieval, Caplletra 38, pp. 179-209.

Riera, Carles (1993). Caracterització de l’idiolecte d’un parlant de Moià. Barcelona, Claret.

Rigau, Gemma (1991). On the functional properties of AGR, Catalan Working Papers in Linguistics 1, pp. 235-260.

Rigau, Gemma (1993a). Aspects of Catalan dialectal syntax: unaccusative sentences and related structures, Journal of Hispanic Research 1(2), pp. 315-329.

Rigau, Gemma (1993b). El comportamiento sintáctico de los predicados existenciales en catalán, Revista de Lenguas y Literaturas Catalana, Gallega y Vasca 3, pp. 33-53. https://doi.org/10.5944/rllcgv.vol.3.1993.5695

Rigau, Gemma (1997). Locative sentences and related constructions in Catalan: ésser/haver alternation, in Amaya Mendikoetxea & Myriam Uribe-Etxebarria (eds.), Theoretical Issues at the Morphology-Syntax Interface. Bilbao, Euskal Herriko Universitatea, pp. 395-421.

Rigau, Gemma (1998). La variació sintàctica: uniformitat en la diversitat, Caplletra 25, 63-81.

Rigau, Gemma (2005). Number agreement variation in Catalan dialects, in Guglielmo Cinque & Richard Kayne (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Syntax. Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 775-805.

Rigau, Gemma (2013). La preposició silent d’alguns verbs de moviment local, Els Marges 100, pp. 125-132.

Rosselló, Joana (2000). A minimalist approach to the null subject parameter, Catalan Working Papers in Linguistics 8, pp. 97-128.

Rosselló, Joana (2002 [2008]). El SV (I): El verb i arguments verbals, in Joan Solà, Maria-Rosa Lloret, Joan Mascaró & Manuel Pérez Saldanya (eds.), Gramàtica del català contemporani, vol. 2. Barcelona, Empúries, pp. 1853-1949.

Sala, Ernesta (1983). El parlar de Cadaqués. Girona, Diputació.

Salvà, Sebastià (2020). Split auxiliary selection with affected subjects in Old Majorcan Catalan, in Irene Vogel (ed.), Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 16: Selected Papers from the 47th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Newark, Delaware, Amsterdam, John Benjamins.

Salvà, Sebastià (2021). La concordança del participi en el català de Mallorca: marcatge de l’estructura informativa i de l’aspecte. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, PhD thesis.

Silverstein, Michael (1976). Hierarchy of features and ergativity, in Robert M. W. Dixon (ed.), Grammatical Categories in Australian Languages. Canberra, Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, pp. 112-171.

Solà, Joan (1973). Estudis de sintaxi catalana / 2. Barcelona, Edicions 62.

Solà, Joan (1987). Qüestions controvertides de sintaxi catalana. Barcelona, Edicions 62.

Solà, Joan (1994). Sintaxi normativa: estat de la qüestió. Barcelona, Empúries.

Sorace, Antonella (2000). Gradients in auxiliary selection with intransitive verbs. Language 76(4), pp. 859-890. https://doi.org/10.2307/417202

Sorace, Antonella (2004). Gradience at the lexicon-syntax interface: Evidence from auxiliary selection and implications for unaccusativity, in Artemis Alexiadou, Elena Anagnostopoulou & Martin Everaert (eds.), The Unaccusativity Puzzle. Explorations of the Syntax-Lexicon Interface. Oxford / New York, Oxford University Press, pp. 332-353. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199257652.003.0010

Suïls, Jordi (2008). La distribució d’haver i ser en ribagorçà: una aproximació, Llengua & Literatura 19, pp. 221-253.

Veny, Joan (1978). La geolingüística als Països Catalana, in Joan Veny (ed.), Estudis de geolingüística catalana. Barcelona, Edicions 62, pp. 7-37

Veny, Joan (1986). Introducció a la dialectologia catalana. Barcelona, Enciclopèdia Catalana.

Veny, Joan (1998). Els parlars catalans, 12th edition. Mallorca, Editorial Moll.