Acceso usuarios
[1]
Graz, Austria
This study focuses on an understudied phenomenon in European Spanish: por + topicalized infinitive (= por TI). This pattern is contrasted with the more common bare topicalized infinitive construction (= bare TI), e.g., por comer, come versus comer, come (both of which mean ‘as for eating, s/he eats’). Based on pertinent literature and bolstered by corpus examples, this paper formulates the hypothesis that the por TI variant is preferred in scalar contexts, i.e., combined with scalar focus adverbs such as hasta ‘even’, whereas bare TI is preferred in adversative contexts, i.e., continuations beginning with pero ‘but’. In a forced-choice questionnaire, scalarity and adversativity were manipulated as independent variables and tested against each other. The results show a clear positive correlation between scalarity and the por TI variant, whereas adversativity is not correlated with either variant. Furthermore, the results suggest that por TI is more likely to occur in exaggerated, unexpected, unreal, or hypothetical contexts. These findings are also supported by the answers to a metalinguistic question in the questionnaire.
