Author: Winters, Richard

Source: Hispanic Research Journal, Volume 10, Number 4, September 2009 , pp. 289-302(14)

Publisher: Maney Publishing

Abstract:

The present investigation comprises a statistical analysis of the use in Spanish of the possessive dative versus the use of possessive adjectives, with nouns that have the grammatical role of subject, direct object, or copula predicate. The corpus analysed here consists of dialogue taken from four Spanish-language plays dating from the second half of the twentieth century. The results of the analysis provide statistically significant support for the claim that there is a relationship in Spanish between the choice of possessor encoding and the noun class of the possessum and the class of verb. The dative encoding reflects the affected state of the possessor, casting the possessor as a participant in the event. These results follow from Hopper and Thompson's (1980) Transitivity Hypothesis and from the conceptual proximity that obtains between possessor and possessum (Maldonado 2002).

Spanish
La presente investigación constituye un análisis estadístico del uso en español del dativo posesivo versus el de los adjetivos posesivos, con sustantivos que tienen el papel gramatical de sujeto, de complemento directo, o de predicado copulativo. El corpus analizado aquí consiste en diálogo de cuatro obras de teatro escritas en español que datan de la segunda mitad del siglo xx. Los resultados del análisis notablemente apoyan, con estadísticas significativas, la afirmación de que en español hay una relación entre la manera de representar al poseedor y la clase de sustantivo de lo poseído y la del verbo. El dativo refleja el estado afectado del poseedor, dándole un papel de participante en el suceso que afecta a lo poseído. Estos resultados se deducen de la Hipótesis de Transitividad de Hopper & Thompson (1980) y de la proximidad conceptual que se realiza entre el poseedor y lo poseído (Maldonado 2002).

Keywords: TRANSITIVITY; VERB CLASS; SPANISH; NOUN CLASS; POSSESSIVE ADJECTIVE; DATIVE POSSESSIVE

Document Type: Research Article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/146827309X12447961290131

Affiliations: Professor, Department of Modern Languages, University of Louisiana, Lafayettte, Louisiana 70504-3331, USA;, Email: rwinters@louisiana.edu

Publication date: 2009-09-01

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