Processing Spanish ser and estar: Discourse and Gender-Based Differences
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چکیده
Background: Spanish copulas ser and estar (translated as English “be”) have distinct distributional patterns [1,2,3,4,5]. Locative predicates typically appear with estar, while nominal predicates typically appear with ser. Adjectival predicates sometimes, but not always, may combine with either copula, and this gives rise to differing interpretations. Crucially for our purposes, individuallevel adjectival predicates (ILs) such as (1a) and (1b) are typically unacceptable with estar without a supporting context and they will be the focus of the present study. (1) a. La carretera es/?está ancha. ‘The road ser/?estar wide.’ b. Las escaleras son/?están peligrosas. ‘The stairs ser/?estar dangerous.’ According to Maienborn [4], ser and estar have the same truth-conditional component, but differ in their presuppositional component. Estar carries the presupposition that the embedded proposition is restricted to a specific discourse situation, whereas ser remains neutral on this issue. Estar licensing contexts are thus those in which the discourse situation described by estar can be contrasted against alternative discourse situations. For example, the acceptability of estar in (1a) improves when it is presented in a context such as (2), which contrasts the discourse situation with alternative situations (distinct parts of the Panamerican road) in which the property of being wide may not apply. (2) Context: A journalist is reporting on the Panamerican road. She is now near Lima. La carretera está ancha. ‘The road estar wide.’ Predictions: On Maienborn’s analysis, the felicity of [estar+ILs] crucially depends on the contextual conditions and the accessibility of contrasting alternatives. The acceptability of [estar+ILs] is expected to increase if the context supports a link to a particular discourse situation in contrast to alternative situations (SUPPORTING CONTEXT, ‘SC’). A context that is neutral with respect to the existence of contrasting alternative situations (NEUTRAL CONTEXT, ‘NC’) will decrease the acceptability of [estar+ILs]. These predictions were tested in two studies: Study 1 explores whether native speakers’ acceptability judgments and copula choice are influenced by context modulation, and Study 2 investigates the online processing of the copulas using a selfpaced reading paradigm. Materials (2x2 Design) (sentences are presented in English for brevity):
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Copula Distinction and Constrained Variability of Copula Use in Iberian and Mexican Spanish
Spanish has two copulas, ser and estar, which are often translated as English ‘be’. Here, we study their differences by investigating their contrastive distributional patterns in combination with adjectival predicates. Specifically, we test the processing predictions of a presupposition-based analysis (Deo et al. 2016) that accounts for a wide range of distributional patterns of the copulas. Th...
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