Las oraciones de relativo predicativas en español: pronombres reasuntivos y variación dialectal

Abstract

Abstract Predicative or pronominal relative clauses in Spanish take a pronominal category as their head. These configurations show some grammatical traits and a geographical variation which have not yet been inquiried into. These structures, as it is argued in this paper, may host two different types of resumptive pronouns: what will be called asymmetric resumption, triggered by subject-object asymmetries; and resumption as a case-matching mechanism, available in non-matching semi-free relative clauses. As for the head of the construction, dialects of Peninsular Spanish are grouped into those which resort to the explicit pronoun and those which show a propensity to use the implicit pronominal category. The variant headed by the implicit pronoun is similar in some respects to relative clause extraposition, but some new data are brought to the fore that distinguish one construction from the other.