Emphatic Polarity and C in Spanish - Lear
Emphatic Polarity and C in Spanish - Lear
Emphatic Polarity and C in Spanish - Lear
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EMPHATIC POLARITY AND C IN SPANISH<br />
This paper is organized as follows. In section 2, I present a general<br />
overview of the behavior of bien, <strong>and</strong> I exam<strong>in</strong>e the emphatic positive value<br />
of this adverb, ma<strong>in</strong>ly its connection to both negative markers <strong>and</strong> the<br />
positive polarity marker sí (“yes”). In section 3, I turn to the distribution of<br />
bien, <strong>and</strong> I show that it may surface <strong>in</strong> three structural positions. The status<br />
of bien <strong>in</strong> the CP doma<strong>in</strong> is addressed <strong>in</strong> section 4, where I discuss a number<br />
of data suggest<strong>in</strong>g that the syntax of bien-sentences shares salient properties<br />
with that of wh-sentences, <strong>and</strong> I argue as well that bien targets FocusP <strong>in</strong><br />
order to check its emphatic value. In section 5, I revisit the alternation bien/<br />
bien que, <strong>and</strong> I propose that the presence of the complementizer que (“that”)<br />
may be taken as evidence for postulat<strong>in</strong>g that a further projection, ForceP, <strong>in</strong><br />
the left periphery of the sentence is activated. F<strong>in</strong>ally, section 6 concludes<br />
the paper.<br />
2. Characteriz<strong>in</strong>g bien: from manner value to assertive value<br />
2.1. Prelim<strong>in</strong>ary remarks: the polyvalence of bien<br />
<strong>Spanish</strong>, as well as other Romance languages, makes use of bien <strong>in</strong> a variety<br />
of constructions <strong>in</strong> which the mean<strong>in</strong>g of this adverb has shifted from its<br />
orig<strong>in</strong>al value as an adverb of manner (equivalent to English “well”) to an<br />
assertive value. The two k<strong>in</strong>ds of bien are illustrated <strong>in</strong> (5):<br />
(5) a. Pepito ha comido bien.<br />
‘Pepito has eaten well’<br />
b. Bien ha comido Pepito. 1<br />
Well has eaten Pepito<br />
‘But Pepito has eaten’<br />
As the English glosses show, bien takes a manner read<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> the example<br />
(5a). By contrast, bien is used <strong>in</strong> (5b) to emphasize the positive value of the<br />
sentence, which is <strong>in</strong>terpreted as a confirmation that “Pepito has really/<br />
1 Assertive bien has no exact equivalent <strong>in</strong> English. For the sake of clarity, I will translate it<br />
as “well” <strong>in</strong> the word-for-word glosses. In the mean<strong>in</strong>g-translation, I will use “but” for the<br />
assertive value, <strong>and</strong> generally “<strong>in</strong>deed” (or “really”) with other mean<strong>in</strong>gs (though colloquially<br />
other translations might be equally apt). I thank Michael Kennedy for his help with the<br />
English version of the examples discussed <strong>in</strong> this paper.<br />
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