Binominal Quantifiers in Spanish: Conceptually-driven Analogy in Diachrony and Synchrony

Description

Quantification is central to human experience (cf. Aristotle’s Organon): the most basic aspects of human life and reasoning involve quantity assessment. This study sheds lights on a highly frequent way to express quantification in Spanish, viz. the binominal quantifier (e.g. un aluviónN1 de llamadasN2 ‘a flood of calls’) which assesses the quantity of N2 in terms of N1. This volume offers a corpus-based, cognitive-functional analysis of binominal quantifiers (BQ) in Spanish. The first part is dedicated to the development of BQs and starts from the assumption that BQs are cross-linguistically involved in grammaticalization. This monograph frames the history of BQs in Spanish in terms of constructional levels of change and highlights the complex interplay between analogical thinking and conceptual persistence. The second part motivates both the ample variation in the paradigm of quantifying nouns and their combinatorial pattern by the very same mechanism of conceptually-driven analogy. The study thus yields an innovative functional model of BQs in Spanish, in synchrony and in diachrony, with major implications for reference grammars and theory building. Contents List of abbreviations Introduction 1 Introduction: from quantifying nouns to binominal quantifiers 1.1 Aim 1: Towards a constructional network model of the development of BQs 1.2 AIM 2: Towards a cognitive-functional model of the organization of BQs 1.3 Aim 3: Towards a reassessment of persistence and analogy Part 1 Preliminaries 2 Framework, state of the art and methodology 2.1 Description of the framework 2.1.1 Definition of five interrelated key-concepts 2.1.1.1 Iconicity 2.1.1.2 Construal 2.1.1.3 Schematicity 2.1.1.4 Subjectivity 2.1.1.5 Construction 2.1.2 Towards a cognitive-functional model of binominal quantifiers 2.1.2.1 Nouns and noun phrases 2.1.2.2 Quantification and quantifiers in noun phrases 2.1.2.3 A cognitive-functional model of binominal quantifiers 2.2 State of the art 2.2.1 Description of QNs in GDLE (Bosque 1999) and in NGLE (RAE 2009) 2.2.2 Synchronic case-studies 2.2.3 Diachronic case-studies 2.2.4 Identification of the head of the construction 2.2.5 Gradient boundaries between partitive, pseudopartitive and appositional binominals 2.2.5.1 Partitive and pseudopartitive constructions 2.2.5.2 Pseudopartitive and appositional constructions 2.3 Methodology 3 Binominal quantifiers as a locus of grammaticalization 3.1 Grammaticalization and grammaticalization theory 3.1.1 Definition 3.1.2 Characteristics 3.1.3 Conditions 3.1.4 Desemanticization and decategorialization 3.1.5 Mechanisms 3.1.6 Parameters 3.1.7 Discussion 3.2 Lexical and functional uses 3.2.1 Head uses of binominal quantifiers 3.2.2 Quantifier uses of binominal quantifiers 3.2.3 Two-way specifier uses of binomianl quantifiers 3.2.4 Ambivalent uses 3.2.5 Concluding remarks 3.3 The grammaticalization of binominal quantifier constructions 3.3.1 The underlying conceptual motivation of GR in BQs 3.3.2 The Spanish BQ as a locus of GR: towards the case-studies 3.3.3 Concluding remarks Part 2 Diachronic case-studies – towards a constructional network model 4 The development of montón de, a typical locus of grammaticalization 4.1 Methodological background 4.2 Encyclopaedic information on montón 4.3 A diachronic corpus analysis of montón 4.3.1 Medieval Spanish: the emergence of quantifying pragmatic inferences 4.3.2 Classical Spanish: the emergence of the specifier use 4.3.2.1 Head uses of montón de in Classical Spanish 4.3.2.2 Quantifying uses of montón de in Classical Spanish 4.3.2.3 Specifying uses of montón de in Classical Spanish 4.3.2.4 The combinatorial pattern of montón de in Classical Spanish 4.3.3 Modern Spanish: partial continuation and gradual extension 4.3.3.1 Head uses of montón de in Modern Spanish 4.3.3.2 Quantifying uses of montón de in Modern Spanish 4.3.3.3 Specifying uses of montón de in Modern Spanish 4.3.3.4 The combinatorial pattern of montón de in Modern Spanish 4.3.4 Present-Day Spanish: advanced grammaticalization stage 4.3.4.1 Head uses of montón de in Present-Day Spanish 4.3.4.2 Quantifying uses of montón de in Present-Day Spanish 4.3.4.3 Specifying uses of montón de in Present-Day Spanish 4.3.4.4 Conventionalization of the grammaticalized uses 4.3.5 Intermediary conclusion 4.4 Conclusions 5 The role of conceptual persistence and analogy in the development of BQs 5.1 Methodological background 5.2 The development of binominal quantifiers 5.2.1 Outline of the history of pila de 5.2.2 Outline of the history of aluvión de 5.2.3 Outline of the history of letanía de 5.2.4 Outline of the history of (h)atajo de 5.2.5 Outline of the history of barbaridad de 5.2.6 Outline of the history of mar de 5.2.7 Concluding remarks 5.3 The role of persistence and analogy 5.3.1 Persistence and analogy in the extension towards new N1s 5.3.2 Persistence and analogy in the extension towards new N2s 5.3.3 Concluding remarks 5.4 Conclusion 6 Theoretical reflection: a constructional network model of the development of BQs 6.1 The challenges for the diachronic account of BQs 6.1.1 The complex frequency pattern 6.1.2 The formal and semantic persistence 6.1.3 The exceptional role of (un) montón de N2 6.2 The explanatory scope of existing accounts 6.3 The constructional network model revisited 6.3.1 Revisiting the analogical model(s) 6.3.2 The explanatory scope of the redefined analogical model 6.3.3 Revisiting the macro-constructional level 6.3.3.1 Binominal quantity and quality assessment as comparison construals 6.3.3.2 Co-extensiveness as the motivation of the comparison construal 6.3.4 The explanatory scope of the revisited macro-constructional level 6.4 The grammaticalization of the BQ-construction 6.4.1 BQs as the locus of grammaticalization 6.4.2 GR of the binominal quantifier macro-construction 6.5 Conclusion Part 3 Synchronic case-studies – towards a constructional network model 7 QN-related schematization and N2-profiling 7.1 Methodological background 7.2 Quantification construal in BQs 7.2.1 Construal difference in the minimal pair un alud / aluvión de N2 7.2.1.1 Lexicographical accounts 7.2.1.2 The conceptual image of alud and aluvión de 7.2.1.3 The conceptual images broken down into conceptual facets 7.2.1.4 Differences in the image schemas of alud de and aluvión de 7.2.1.5 Context and combinatorial pattern of alud de and aluvión de 7.2.1.6 Concluding remarks 7.2.2 Construal difference in the minimal pairs una pila/un montón de N2 and un montón/mogollón de N2 7.2.2.1 Lexicographical accounts 7.2.2.2 Conceptual image of (una) pila de N2 7.2.2.3 Conceptual image of (un) montón de N2 7.2.2.4 Conceptual image of (un) mogollón de N2 7.2.3 Outline of the conceptual images of the remaining QNs 7.2.3.1 Conceptual image of (un) racimo de N2 7.2.3.1.1 Lexicographical accounts 7.2.3.1.2 The conceptual image of (un) racimo de N2 7.2.3.2 Conceptual image of (un) hatajo de N2 7.2.3.2.1 Lexicographical accounts 7.2.3.2.2 The conceptual image of (un) hatajo de N2 7.2.3.3 Conceptual image of (una) letanía de N2 7.2.3.3.1 Lexicographical accounts 7.2.3.3.2 The conceptual image of (una) letanía de N2 7.2.3.4 Conceptual image of (una) barbaridad de N2 7.2.3.4.1 Lexicographical accounts 7.2.3.4.2 The conceptual image of (una) barbaridad de N2 7.2.4 The contribution of the plural morpheme 7.3 Conclusion 8 The motivated nature of the QN-related co-selection patterns 8.1 Morphosyntactic description of the BQ in the literature 8.1.1 Collective or distributive reading 8.1.2 Pluralization of N1 8.1.3 Suffixation of N1 8.1.4 Determiner pattern of N1 and N2 8.1.5 Adjectival modification to N1 and N2 8.1.6 (Lexical) restriction on N2 8.1.7 Verb agreement 8.1.7.1 Traditional account of the verb agreement of collective nouns 8.1.7.2 Studies on verb agreement of (pseudo-)partitive constructions 8.1.8 Topicalization and extraposition of the prepositional phrase 8.1.9 The scope of quantification by BQs 8.1.10 Conclusion 8.2 Morphosyntactic variation of BQs in the corpus data 8.2.1 Fluctuation in the N1-determiner pattern 8.2.2 Fluctuation in the premodification pattern 8.2.3 Fluctuation in the N2-pattern 8.2.4 Fluctuation as to verb agreement 8.2.4.1 Methodological note 8.2.4.2 Explanatroy scope of the existing accounts 8.2.4.3 Towards the case-study 8.2.4.3.1 Definiteness of N1 8.2.4.3.2 Distance between the subject and the verb 8.2.4.3.3 Position of the subject with respect to the verb 8.2.4.3.4 Partitive versus pseudopartitive constructions 8.2.4.3.5 Verb agreement in relative clauses 8.2.4.3.6 Type of verb and contextual cues 8.2.4.3.7 Function of N2 8.2.4.3.8 Concluding remarks 8.2.4.4 CIP as a complementary factor in verb agreement 8.2.4.5 Agreement hierarchy of BQ-constructions 8.3 Conclusion 9 Theoretical reflection: the notion of CIP revisited 9.1 The notion of CIP revisited 9.1.1 CIP as a gradual phenomenon 9.1.2 CIP as an unpredictable phenomenon 9.1.3 CIP as two-way discourse phenomenon 9.2 Theoretical implications for the notion of analogy 9.2.1 The concept of analogy in a nutshell 9.2.2 The notion of analogy revisited 9.2.2.1 The usage-based model of analogy (De Smet 2013) 9.2.2.2 Discourse level as an additional motivation for analogy 9.3 Conclusion Part 4 Conclusions 10 Conclusion 10.1 Concluding remarks 10.2 Further research References