El aspecto en las construcciones recíprocas del español

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to propose an analysis for the reciprocal constructions with the clitic se to explain both how the plural argument receives two theta roles and how the correference between the antecedent and the reciprocal anaphor is obtained without using the Conditon A of he Binding Theory. We will propose that lexical aspect is included in the syntactic structure as one more element of the argument structure (De Miguel 1992, Erteschik-Shir y Rapoport 2005, McDonald 2008). We will also propose that the binding relation between the antecedent and the anaphor is derived from an already existing operation in the computational system, namely Agree between Probe and Goal (Chomsky 2004, Hicks 2005, Gallego 2010). First, lexical-semantic characteristics of the different types of reciprocal constructions will be described to review their argument structure and to understand the necessity to focus on the lexical aspect. Second, some of the most recent proposals regarding the syntax of lexical aspect will be reviewed (Guéron 2005, McDonald 2008). Third, we will analyze the syntax of the reciprocal constructions with dyadic verbs by focusing on both the role of the clitic se in terms of Labelle (2008) and the calculation of the aspect following some the proposals previously shown. Finally, we will show our proposal based on the idea that the clitic se is the head of an aspectual projection which introduce the external argument at the same time that it is identified with the unsaturated internal argument