Workshops

Lectures on non-representational grammar II with Andrés Saab (University of Buenos Aires)

Lecture #2: Another expressive factor crucially involves the syntax-semantic connection, but in two different ways: via regular combination of syntactic atoms or via what I call syntactic recycling, i.e., the reusing of syntactic atoms in non-canonical positions, typically, in different positions in the functional spine of the phrase (Saab 2022). The first strategy corresponds to the usual way in which syntax composes phrases that are used by the systems of thought and context (in Reinhart’s 2006 sense). Some forms of honorification in Spanish coming from the particular use of the honorific don/doña fits this way of producing expressive content. In turn, syntactic recycling implies using material that canonically is used in truth-conditional position in new positions, which are not. This gives rise to a particular non-representational syntax. In order to sustain this thesis, I offer an in-depth analysis of qualitative binominals in Spanish (e.g., el idiota de Andrés ‘that idiot Andrés’, una mierda de departamento ‘a shit of an apartment’, esa estupidez de que Andrés está loco ‘that bullshit that Andrés is crazy’).