An exploration of neuter determiner 'lo' and 'lo que' constructions in Spanish

Levinstein Rodriguez, Andrea

An exploration of neuter determiner 'lo' and 'lo que' constructions in Spanish

dc.contributor.author	Levinstein Rodriguez, Andrea
dc.date.accessioned	2022-03-18T16:26:53Z
dc.date.available	2022-03-18T16:26:53Z
dc.date.issued	2022-03
dc.description.abstract	This paper presents an exploratory overview of the syntactic properties of ‘lo’, a polysemic definite determiner that is standardly characterized as having a ‘neuter’ grammatical gender. I argue that ‘lo’ is better characterized as a referential pronoun lacking φ features, which refers to non-individuated entities. In addition to this referential ‘lo’, and following Zulaica Hernandez (2018), I argue that there is a non-referential, expletive ‘lo’, which relates a possible world to a predicate which may contain morphologically expressed φ features. However, the distribution and referentiality of ‘lo’ in ‘lo que’ constructions (prepositional clauses where ‘lo’ can be external or internal to the CP; see Plann, 1980) indicate that whether ‘lo’ is referential or expletive is not a matter of syntactic position, contrary to Zulaica Hernandez (2018). Referential ‘lo’ stands in contrast with most structurally defective pronouns, such as impersonal pronouns and expletives, in that it is a definite pronoun with a specific referent. This goes against the standard assumption that a nominal phrase that has properties associated with ‘higher’ layers of structure, such as definiteness (associated with DP), must therefore also have ‘lower’ layers like NumP and nP. Although this paper does not present a solution, it does point out that standard theory cannot account for it and argues for the need to continue developing our understanding of nominal structure.	en_US
dc.identifier.issn	2371-2643
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/1880/114491
dc.identifier.uri	https://dx.doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/39651
dc.language.iso	eng	en_US
dc.publisher.institution	University of Calgary	en_US
dc.subject	Spanish	en_US
dc.subject	neuter 'lo'	en_US
dc.subject	neuter pronouns	en_US
dc.subject	nominal structure	en_US
dc.subject	syntax	en_US
dc.title	An exploration of neuter determiner 'lo' and 'lo que' constructions in Spanish	en_US
dc.type	working paper	en_US
ucalgary.item.requestcopy	true	en_US
ucalgary.scholar.level	Graduate	en_US

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