Experiencers at the syntax-pragmatics interface. The case of the jo 'I' - construction in Catalan
Espinal, M. Teresa (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Filologia Catalana)
Cyrino, Sonia (University of Campinas)

Date:	2025
Description:	33 p.
Abstract:	This paper aims to support the thesis that Speech Act related operators have landing sites in syntax, specifically at the syntax-pragmatics interface. In order to attain this goal, it presents the first formal analysis of a construction, dubbed the jo 'I' - construction, that shows an overt first person strong pronoun sitting in sentence-initial position of declarative sentences both in pro-drop and partial pro-drop languages of the Romance family. Taking Catalan as a case in point, it is shown that, prosodically, this first person strong pronoun has a particular intonation (a rising pitch accent followed by a high boundary tone). Syntactically, it corresponds not to a subject but to a (kind of) hanging topic that requires a resumptive element in the clause, while semantically it introduces a reference to the speaker who at the time of uttering the sentence is performing a subjective declaration speech act.
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Jo 'I'-construction ; Syntax-pragmatics interface ; Declaration speech act ; Speech Act related operators
Published in:	Glossa: a journal of general linguistics, Vol. 10 (2025), art 17284, ISSN 2397-1835

DOI: 10.16995/glossa.17284

33 p, 931.4 KB

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