Agentive reflexive clitics and transitive 'se' constructions in Spanish

Abstract

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-right: 25.15pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-left: 1.0cm; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;ＭＳ 明朝&quot;; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;" lang="EN-GB">This paper investigates the structure of transitive sentences that contain a non-doubling reflexive clitic such as <em>Juan <strong>se </strong>lav&oacute; todos los platos</em> and <em>Mar&iacute;a <strong>se</strong> ley&oacute; un libro</em>. Though these are traditionally labelled unselected (non-core) agreeing datives or aspectual datives, I argue that this label obscures a relevant difference between two classes of constructions. <span style="font-variant: small-caps;">agentive reflexive clitic</span> (= ARC) constructions are characterized by a uniform set of effects on the external argument (= it must be an agent) and the aspectual interpretation of the VP (= it must be an accomplishment). On the other hand, <span style="font-variant: small-caps;">transitive se clitic</span> (= TSC) constructions do not impose any type of uniform restrictions on the kind of external argument they take or on the aspectual interpretation of the VP. I propose that the difference between these two constructions may be captured by treating <span style="font-variant: small-caps;">se </span>in the ARC construction as the realization of a special <em>v</em>_DO head, based on an idea in Folli &amp; Harley (2005), while <span style="font-variant: small-caps;">se</span> in the TSC construction is generated in the complement position of the verb and incorporates into V, forming a complex predicate, following work by De Cuyper (2006), MacDonald (2004, 2008) and MacDonald &amp; Huidobro (2010). It is shown that many of the empirical and theoretical disagreements that plague the literature on the role of non-doubling <span style="font-variant: small-caps;">se</span> in transitive sentences have a simple solution given the new division established here</span></p>