Between Morphology and Syntax: Toward the creation of verbs with the accusative pronoun «la»

Abstract

The article aims to describe an innovative process of word formation in Spanish from Río de la Plata (Argentina), where the accusative feminine pronoun la can be linked to inherited and neological stems, especially to four types of verbal stems: non-derivative (colgarla), derived from nouns and adjectives (gordearla), lexical borrowings (flopearla), and proper names (berlinearla). By using our own data base containing examples found in social networks, we intend to establish whether this process is halfway between morphology and syntax because it shares features of both levels, or whether it is located in one of them. The analysis of the reference, idiomaticity, regularity, and productivity of the pronoun la and the new verbal units show that it is actually in an in-between state, for one can postulate two different types of creation that correspond to two formation instances: the first is more syntactic and the second has features of morphological evolution.