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SUBCATEGORIZATION

 

 

1. Complements

Another term that will be used quite a lot in this chapter is ‘subcategorization’, which stems from the work of the American linguist Noam Chomsky. We will say that item X is subcategorized for an item of type Y if X requires or specifically goes with Y. For example, the verb soñar ‘to dream’ can be said to be subcategorized for a PP headed by the preposition con, rather than one headed by de, say:

 

(1)                   Sueña con una nueva moto. (Not, e.g., *Sueña de una nueva moto.)

                        ‘He/She dreams of a new motorbike.’

 

Similarly, the noun insistencia ‘insistence’ is subcategorized for a PP headed by the preposition en:

 

(2)                   su insistencia en la idea (Not, e.g., *su insistencia sobre la idea)

                        his/her insistence on the idea’

 

An item that is subcategorized by a word can be said to function as a complement of that word. Thus con una nueva moto is a complement of sueña in (1), and en la idea is a complement of insistencia in (2). The full specification of the range of complement types permitted by a given word can be referred to as that word’s subcategorization frame.

 

 

2. Direct and Indirect Object

Except when it occurs after a copular or linking verb such as ser ‘to be’ (e.g. María es [NP una amiga mía] ‘María is a friend of mine’) and except when it occurs as a secondary predicate, an NP that is the complement of a verb is said to function as the verb’s direct object (denoted by ‘DO’). Thus la casa roja ‘the red house’ in (11) below is the direct object of the verb ven:

 

(3)                   Ven [DO la casa roja].

                        ‘They see the red house.’

 

In the same tradition, the term ‘indirect object’ (‘IO’) is often applied to a PP complement that (i) is headed by the preposition a and (ii) is pronominalized using a form from the ‘indirect object’ series. For example, we can substitute the indirect object pronoun le for the PP a María in (4) below (thus: Pedro le dio las llaves ‘Pedro gave her the keys’) but we cannot (in standard Spanish, at least) substitute an item from the exclusively ‘direct object’ series of pronouns, viz. lo, los, la and las. Accordingly a María functions as the indirect object of the verb dio in (4):

 

(4)                   Pedro dio las llaves [IO a María].

                        ‘Pedro gave the keys to María.’

 

Somewhat confusingly, however, when a direct object NP refers to a person, it too is normally preceded in Spanish by the preposition a. For example, if we replace non-human la casa roja in (3) with human la niña ‘the girl’, we also have to introduce the preposition a into the sentence:

 

(5)                   Ven a la niña.

                        ‘They see the girl.’

 

We know that the NP la niña is the direct object in (5), despite the presence of the preposition a, because other evidence (e.g. sentence (3)) demonstrates that the verb ver is subcategorized for a direct object and not for an indirect object. (See also ‘prepositional direct objects’ in the prepositions page).

 

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