Pirárselas: subjectification and analogy

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Published: 09-09-2019

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José Luis Cifuentes Honrubia
Universidad de Alicante
Spain
Biography
Vol 46 (2019), Articles, pages 125-160
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15304/verba.46.4514
Submitted: 25-12-2017 Accepted: 15-04-2018 Published: 09-09-2019
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Abstract

According to the Academic Grammar (RAE 2009), a considerable number of verbal phraseological units contain unstressed personal pronouns (usually lo, la or las), whose referent can sometimes be contextually identified but remains unspecified in most cases: they are typically known as cases of lexicalized direct objects. From the point of view of phraseology, these constructions are usually considered a type of ‘expression with a clitic’, and they have always been found interesting because of the interactions between lexicon, syntax and morphology involved. In addition the need has been felt for historical studies unraveling the hidden reference of the clitics in these fossilized constructions. In this paper, I analyze the case of pirárselas using data from the corpora CORDE and CREA. This case is particularly interesting because it seems to show an unexpected syntactic compatibility of the constituent represented by the clitic; specifically, it is quite strange that an intransitive verbal meaning indicating motion of the subject can be combined with a plural female clitic that represents a direct object, and there does not seem to be any type of possible correferentiality for las. Nevertheless, I demonstrate that such a correferentiality does exist and that, in fact, it allows us to unambiguously clarify the meaning of the construction. The historical analysis that I develop requires to take into account other constructions with simlar meanings as well, such as tomarlas, afufarlas, apeldarlas, liarlas, volarlas, guillárselas and tocárselas. I explain the functioning of the female clitic in these constructions using methodological concepts such as subjectification and analogy.

Keywords:

clitic, phraseological unit, grammaticalization, subjectification, analogy
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