The semantics and pragmatics of the Spanish construction

Lujan's (1980, 1981) treatment of the (COPULAS ADJECTIVE) construction is unique in that it not only addresses the semantics of the COPs and ADJs in terms of (+ / — Perfectivity) but is set up in such a way that it has certain predictive power regarding compatibility of COPs and ADJs. However, the ADJ categories she proposes are not supported by her syntactic tests. For example, her analysis incorrectly predicts sentences such as *Juan es/esta siempre alto 'John is always taW to be grammatical (1980: 28), and acceptable sentences like Frecuentamente Juan ha sido justo/sincero conmigo 'John has frequently been just jsincere with me' to be ungrammatical (1980: 25). An analysis of the (COP + ADJ) construction is then proposed that takes into consideration the semantics of the COPs as well as the crucial semantic and pragmatic factors regarding (I) the sentence subject ( = RfeferentJ), (2) the view of the S(peaker), and (3) the commonly understood beliefs we have about the nature of states and characteristics denoted by ADJs. The basic semantic distinction between ser and estar is seen in terms of whether a connection to a locus or another situation is presupposed or not. It is argued that estar presupposes such a connection (<+NEXUS)) while ser does not ((-NEXUS)). This distinction is exploited by S who can choose to frame a given situation according to an individual norm, which corresponds to estar, or a class norm, corresponding to ser (Folk 1979: 72-76). S's choice between norms is constrained by whether the R in the construction is (+Animate) or (—Animate) and further by clearly understood beliefs we possess regarding what events or processes underlie the states or characteristics denoted by ADJs. By positing pragmatics features for the ADJs that are sensitive to the semantic nature of R and exploiting the notion of feature matching between R, S, COP, and ADJ, it is possible not only to account for Lujan's examples, but also to predict, to a large extent, the constraints on and interpretation of the (CO P + ADJ) construction. Linguistics 26 (1988), 779-822 0024-3949/88/0026-0779 $2.00 © Mouton de Gruyter, Amsterdam