A usage-based perspective on Spanish variable clitic placement

Abstract

This study provides a usage-based analysis of Spaniah Variable Clitic Placement (VCP). A variationist analysis of VCP3 in spoken Argentine Spanish indicates that VCP grammar is constrained by lexical (finite verb) and semantic (animacy) factors. Considering; the finite effect, the study focuses on usage-based accounts for the gradience attested across finite verb constructions. Grammaticalized meaning and tncreafed frequency tend to account: For VCP in general. However, one [tener que + infinitive] construction is found exceptional in that it favors enclisis despite its grammaticalized meaning of obligation and its high frequency of use. Data from larger corpus indicate that the [tener que + infinitive] construction lacks unithood, signaling great analyzability of its component elements. Through an exemplar analysis, the [haber que 'must' + infinitive] construction that categorically takes etcelisis and which is strongly linked to [fener que + infinitive] diachronically, semantically, and structurally emerges as a ltkely analogical model for VCP wiih tener que, pushing tPner rue towards enclisis. This study not only illustrates how utage-based linguistics can capture VCP more generally, but also how this tramework provides powerful tools to discover the constraints on VCP in naturalistic use in order to account for individual construction behavior.