(In)Transitivity, Semantic Change, and Reanalysis: The Diachrony of the Spanish Verb “Volver”

Abstract

Our aim in this paper is to explain the progressive semantic change of the Spanish verb volver from the 13th century until the 21st. We will show that at the beginning, its unique use is a transitive one, from Latin until the 14th. Then it acquired an intransitive use in the 15th. We will claim that the semantic change meaning of this verb from the transitive use to the intransitive, ending by the grammaticalization of the verb with the creation of a periphrasis (volver a + infinitive), is part of a ‘reanalysis’ process of the semantic relation between both cases the agent and the patient in the eventive structure and, consequently, of the subject and the object complement in the syntactic distribution. The semantic core which conveys a metaphorical or a spatial path toward a goal (“to make a rotary motion, to turn”) is unchanged. We claim that the telic character of the verb allowed it to impose itself and to replace tornar.

Keywords

• grammaticalization
• motion verb
• semantic change
• transitivity
• volver