Deconstructing Voice. The syntax and semantics of u-syncretism in Spanish

Abstract

This paper focuses on a well-known pattern of systematic syncretism in Spanish se constructions. Detailed syntactic and semantic analyses are provided with the aim of sustaining two main theses. First, I conceive of se as a probe for A-movement. This probe is merged with Voice in order to satisfy a subcategorization restriction. Yet, being defective, it cannot receive a θ-role from Voice. As a probe it looks for a goal in its complement domain. If there is such a goal, then it A-moves to Spec,VoiceP, position in which it agrees with se and receives an additional agent θ-role from Voice, if there is one. This results in most, if not all, instances of the so-called “paradigmatic” se (se reflexives, inherent se, benefactive se and so on). There are cases in which there is no such a goal for se. In those scenarios, Agree fails and the clitic receives third person singular by default. This results in the so-called “non-paradigmatic” se (essentially, passive/impersonal se). Second, at LF, these two syntactic scenarios feed two different LF realizations. Whenever se has a goal with which it agrees, se itself is realized as a λ-abstractor, but as an indefinite variable whenever Agree fails, as in the case of passive/impersonal se. This theory dispenses, then, with particular Voice features (e.g., Active vs. Non-active) and with different types of se (paradigmatic vs. non-paradigmatic) but, more importantly, it does so by appealing to well-motivated restrictions on A-dependencies, namely, Activity and Miminality.