Sintagma (Dec 2003)
Oraciones ergativas e inergativas: desdoblamiento sintáctico-temático
Abstract
Unaccusative and intransitive sentences: syntactic and thematic unfolding. The essential aim of this paper is to characterize the universal and parametric stipulations for the unfolding of the syntactic functions and thematic roles that allow the ergative or unaccusative and intransitive or inergative sentences, in some languages such as Spanish (cfr. Juan cayó a la piscina/ Juan se cayó a la piscina; Juan vino temprano/ Juan se vino temprano). Consequently, our interest is focused particulary on the syntactic-thematic analysis of these constructions, in a paradigmatic set of languages, with special attention to the data of the Spanish language. The conclusions of this analysis attest that only one thematic condition seems to be universal, while certain syntactic and lexical conditions establish a grammatical parameter. This implies that the thematic roles belong to the syntactic level of representation, and that becomes essential to the grammatical process of unfolding studied in the languages that belong to the mentioned parameter. (Spanish text).
