Zahler, Sara
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Publication The Continuous Path of Grammaticalization in Modern Peninsular Spanish(2014-01-01) Day, Meagan; Zahler, SaraHaber + past participle (PP) is an example of a resultative construction that evolved into a perfect form, known as the present perfect. This form derived from the Latin periphrastic perfect, which was “a possessive construction consisting of transitive habere followed by a direct object and agreeing past passive participle” (Lopez-Couso & Seoane 2008: 135-136). It was originally used similarly to tener + PP, which in modern peninsular Spanish may signify the present result of a past action (Harre 1991; Kato 1993), and also shared the same formal characteristics as tener + PP. Furthermore, this construction has grammaticalized as the default past perfective in the peninsular variety of Spanish (Schwenter & Torres Cacoullos 2008), following the perfect to perfective path of grammaticalization (Bybee et al. 1994; Squartini & Bertinetto 2000). The current study considers whether tener + PP is following the same evolution as haber + PP by diachronically extending into the realm of the perfect. 550 tokens of tener + PP and 1083 of haber + PP were extracted from the Corpus de Referencia del Español Actual (CREA). All tokens were coded for several variables in order to determine if tener + PP expresses any of the four primary uses of the perfect (Dahl 1985:132, Comrie 1976: 56-61). The data were then analyzed using the statistical program Goldvarb X. Results indicate that tener + PP remains principally a resultative form, as it most frequently occurs with several factors indicative of resultative uses. However, uses of this construction with psychological, perception, and communicative verbs, as well as frequency adverbs, non-specific temporal reference, and without a direct object, are indicative of an extension to perfect uses. These first steps are consistent with accounts of the evolution of the Romance habeo (Pinkster 1987, Vincent 1982, Benveniste 1968) and the Old English perfect (Carey 1994, 1995) from resultative constructions.Publication Variable Subject Doubling in Spoken Parisian French(2014-01-01) Zahler, SaraSubject doubling (SD) has long been a topic of interest for researchers. Numerous quantitative studies demonstrate highly variable rates of SD across dialects (e.g. Campion 1984, Auger & Villeneuve 2010, Nadasdi 2000, Sankoff 1982, Conveney 2003, 2005). However, few of the previous studies are variationist in nature, and those that are only examine one or two factors. Consequently, the goal of this study is to undertake a comprehensive variationist analysis of SD in Parisian colloquial French (PCF), a relatively understudied dialect of French in variationist linguistics in general, and particularly with regard to SD. All tokens of preverbal 3rd person subjects that could be doubled (full noun phrases, strong pronouns and other types of pronouns, such as lui, eux, personne, etc.) were extracted from the from the Corpus de Français Parlé Parisien des Années 2000 (CFPP2000), a French corpus consisting of sociolinguistic interviews from various Parisian suburbs. 17 interviews spanning 14 Parisian suburbs and 25 speakers were used, resulting in 1097 occurrences. These tokens were subsequently coded for the following factors claimed to affect SD: specificity and definiteness of the subject; grammatical person; type and complexity of subject; presence and type of intervening elements; sentence type; verb type; polarity and use of ne; information status; age; sex; and suburb. The data were subsequently analyzed using GoldvarbX. Several factors were significant and supported claims made in previous qualitative studies regarding subject doubling, particularly subject complexity, use of ne, intervening elements, sentence type, and specificity and definiteness of the subject. These results are similar to results found for other dialects, suggesting that many of the same constraints condition the use of SD in the different varieties of French. Nevertheless, grammatical person, information status, sex and age differed, indicating that although there are cross-dialectal similarities, there are certain dialect-specific uses of SD, specifically pertaining to social factors. Lastly, the importance of studying the role of frequency in SD is discussed.