Indefinite Article + Possessive + Noun in Spanish

A Case of Refunctionalization

Bibliographic Data

ID5900619
AuthorsEnrique Pato (0000-0002-6955-2861)
Year2018
Volume3
Issue4
Pages44
Publication date2018-11-19
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLanguages (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2226-471X • E-ISSN: 2226-471X
PublisherMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/languages3040044
OpenAlexW2900998431
LanguageEN
References cited14

The phenomenon under discussion is an example of a grammatical change that can be explained by refunctionalization, and as such, can be understood as the acquisition of a new meaning by an 'endangered' grammatical construction, which is reassigned to express another value. Refunctionalization involves the development of a new function (in this case a syntactic-semantic one). When an item loses its function, or is marginal within a system, it can be lost (as happens with the construction under study in Standard Spanish), it can be 'saved' as a marginal element (as in some areas of American Spanish varieties) or it can be reused for other purposes (as in the Central American Spanish varieties). The latter case presents new discursive values. Hence, this construction should be understood as an example of reusing grammatical functionally opaque material for new purposes

Element (criminal law · Epistemology · Function (biology · Grammaticalization · Linguistics · Meaning (existential · Noun · Phenomenon · Political science · Possessive · Resultative · Value (mathematics · Verb · Computer Science · Historical Linguistics and Language Studies · Linguistic Studies and Language Acquisition · Spanish Linguistics and Language Studies · History · Philosophy

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