Experiencers at the syntax-pragmatics interface. The case of the jo 'I' - construction in Catalan

This paper aims to support the thesis that Speech Act related operators have landing sites in syntax, specifically at the syntax-pragmatics interface. In order to attain this goal, it presents the first formal analysis of a construction, dubbed the jo 'I' - construction, that shows an over...

ver descrição completa

Detalhes bibliográficos
Autores: Espinal, M. Teresa|||0000-0002-8079-7253, Cyrino, Sonia|||0000-0003-1333-3851
Formato: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2025
País:España
Recursos:Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Repositorio:Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:ddd.uab.cat:311319
Acesso em linha:https://ddd.uab.cat/record/311319
https://dx.doi.org/urn:doi:10.16995/glossa.17284
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palavra-chave:Jo 'I'-construction
Syntax-pragmatics interface
Declaration speech act
Speech Act related operators
Descrição
Resumo:This paper aims to support the thesis that Speech Act related operators have landing sites in syntax, specifically at the syntax-pragmatics interface. In order to attain this goal, it presents the first formal analysis of a construction, dubbed the jo 'I' - construction, that shows an overt first person strong pronoun sitting in sentence-initial position of declarative sentences both in pro-drop and partial pro-drop languages of the Romance family. Taking Catalan as a case in point, it is shown that, prosodically, this first person strong pronoun has a particular intonation (a rising pitch accent followed by a high boundary tone). Syntactically, it corresponds not to a subject but to a (kind of) hanging topic that requires a resumptive element in the clause, while semantically it introduces a reference to the speaker who at the time of uttering the sentence is performing a subjective declaration speech act.