On Resultative Past Participles in Spanish

Abstract

A large part of the theoretical literature on Spanish Past Participles (PPrts) has focused on the Aktionsarten restrictions that these items exhibit in absolute clauses and verbal periphrases. This paper addresses the somehow neglected relationship that holds between grammatical and lexical aspect in the grammar or PPrts. Resultative PPrts (R-PPrts) are opposed to eventive PPrts (E-PPrts), following Kratzer, Embick, Gehrke, McIntyre, and other authors, and their meaning is shown to be a consequence of the interaction of voice and perfect features. Differences in the temporal interpretations of R-PPrts follow from the ways in which the perfect (abstract HAVE) which they incorporate is interpreted. These PPrts —which are shown to be verbal, rather than adjectival categories— are further divided in two aspectual classes. In addition to this, two interpretations of the concept ‘result’ are compared, and argued to make different predictions as regards the grammar of PPrts: one is based on the notion ‘change of state’; the other one stands on the concept of ‘perfectivity’.

Keywords

• past participle
• perfect
• tense
• passive
• lexical aspect
• Spanish