publications | Elena Castroviejo

2025

Comparing the Narrative Coherence of Spanish-speaking Autistic and Typically Developing Children: Focus on Causal Rhetorical Relations

Zurine Ábalos, Agustín Vicente, Begona Vicente, and 1 more author

Applied Psycholinguistics, 2025

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Previous research points to potential challenges autistic children face in constructing coherent narratives and establishing causal connections between events, although findings remain inconclusive. Furthermore, most studies focus on English-speaking children, leaving the narrative coherence skills of autistic children from other linguistic/cultural contexts underexplored. This study investigated the differences in narrative coherence between 42 autistic and 56 typically developing (TD) Spanish-speaking children matched on age (M = 8.51 years). Based on theories of rhetorical relations (RRs), which track relations between discourse units, we aimed to offer a new perspective on how coherence is achieved in children’s narratives, with an emphasis on the causal RRs established. Causal RRs were coded for the specific type of RR, presence/absence of connectives, causality domain, and mention/omission of key events. Additional coherence measures included tallying the total number of RRs (causal and non-causal) and assessing narrative macrostructure through a rating scale, in line with more standard practices in the field. Results showed that, despite producing a comparable number of causal RRs, autistic children established significantly fewer causal RRs involving characters’ intentions and key story events compared to TD children. Moreover, autistic children established fewer RRs overall and obtained lower macrostructure scores, suggesting lower narrative coherence levels.
Exclamations as Emotive Assertions: More Questions (than Answers)

Elena Castroviejo

Theoretical Linguistics, 2025

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This commentary offers a personal assessment of Trotzke and Giannakidou’s proposal and explores two key aspects: the status of the descriptive meaning of emotive assertions and the emotions conveyed by exclamations. By revisiting the data points and claims presented in the original paper, it raises questions that may contribute to a deeper understanding of exclamations.
Speech Acts and Interrogative Particles: An Empirical Study on the Grammar of Catalan Eh?

Elena Castroviejo and Laia Mayol

In The Grammar of Interaction: Epistemicity, information management and discourse in language use, 2025

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The purpose of this work is to characterize the Catalan interrogative tag eh?, which has two fundamental pragmatic meanings. In one (eh1?), the speaker asks the addressee to reveal a private commitment p, corresponding to the denotation of the sentence anchor; in the other (eh2?), the speaker reinforces a conversational implicature associated with the uttered speech act. In the case of an assertion, eh2? prompts the addressee to believe that p is true. After the core analysis, we present a corpus study that compares how the discourse continues after a tag-containing utterance, showing that eh1? engages the addressee more than eh2?. Finally, we extend our proposal to include other speech acts, thus accounting for the divide between eh1? and eh2? concerning their possible sentence anchors.
The Prosody of Agreeing and Disagreeing Responses to Negative Statements in Spanish

Elena Castroviejo, Gorka Elordieta, and Uribe-Etxebarria

Catalan Journal of Linguistics, 2025

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Previous work shows that there are prosodic differences between agreeing and disagreeing responses to positive and negative polar questions (Goodhue & Wagner 2018; González-Fuentes et al. 2015, among others). In this study, we focus on the prosodic properties of responses to negative statements in Spanish, a research question that has received little attention and which has not been explored in any detail. That is, we study what characterizes prosodically the following types of responses to negative statements: A: Los profesores no corrigieron los ejercicios. ‘The teachers didn’t correct the exercises.’; B1: Sí, No, los profesores no corrigieron los ejercicios. ‘Yes, No, the teachers didn’t correct the exercises.’ [agreeing response]; B2: Sí, No, los profesores sí corrigieron los ejercicios. ‘Yes, No, the teachers did correct the exercises.’ [disagreeing response]. There are two noteworthy findings. On the one hand, there is a Fall-Rise contour of the response particle (RespP, sí / no), which is observed almost exclusively in disagreeing responses. On the other hand, within the sentence following the response particle, disagreeing responses display four characteristics: (a) a longer duration of the Polarity Particle (PolP); (b) a bigger fall in F0 between the PolP and the verb; (c) a slightly higher F0 of the PolP with respect to the end of the subject; and (d) a longer duration at the end of the subject (with the RespP No). Overall, the PolP in disagreeing responses displays a substantial degree of prosodic prominence, compared to responses in agreement. Also, our results indicate that the RespP does not have an effect on the variables we investigated.
Novel Metaphor Processing in Young Autistic Children

Isabel Martín-González, Kristen Frances Schroeder, Elena Castroviejo, and 2 more authors

Language Development Research, 2025

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The purpose of this study is to explore possible differences between autistic and neurotypical (NT) children in novel metaphor comprehension. Much of the recent literature has related metaphor comprehension difficulties that autistic individuals exhibit to general linguistic abilities. In our design, we carefully pair-matched young autistic children (3.13 to 12.25 years of age) toNT controls (3.69 to 9.04 years of age) on verbal mental age and tested their metaphor interpretation abilities with a picture selection paradigm combined with eye tracking measures. We predicted differences in performance in both types of measures, although we foresaw autistic participants performing above chance in the picture selection task. However, results did not show a difference between groups in the picture selection task, which would favor accounts that relate metaphor interpretation to linguistic abilities in autistic population. Interestingly, the eye tracking observations revealed differences between groups concerning gaze movements in the region corresponding to the processing of the metaphoric vehicle. Such differences replicate those found in previous studies with similar designs, such as Vulchanova et al.’s (2019). On the other hand, the evidence presented and discussed in the paper does not suggest either impairment or delay with respect to metaphor processing. Rather, the evidence only suggests differences. While the source of such processing differences is still unknown, the results of the current study cast some doubts the idea that the main factor in metaphor processing in the autistic population is their structural language level.
Making Beds and Dying of Boredom Literally: A Developmental Study on the Comprehension of Nonliteral Uses of Language in Autism

Marta Ponciano, Agustín Vicente, José Vicente Hernández Conde, and 1 more author

Language Development Research, 2025

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Comprehension of simple nonliteral uses of language was investigated in three- to nine-year-old autistic and linguistically matched typically developing (TD) children, by assessing their understanding of nonliteral uses of language with potential literal senses. Children were tested on conventional metaphors, idioms, hyperboles, and light verb constructions. The aim of the study was to determine whether autistic children showed a genuinely strong tendency to interpret nonliteral uses of language literally across development. A total of 166 children (N = 42 Autistic children; N= 124 TD children) were tested using a paradigm with online (response times) and offline (picture selection) measures. Overall, there were no significant group differences on the picture selection task, but autistic children were slower in spite of increasing verbal age. Both groups showed continuous improvement of their understanding of literal and nonliteral senses with increasing verbal mental age. The results, nevertheless, call for a reflection on the (possible) literalist behavior in autism, indicating that it is important to take into account individual variation, as we observed different kinds of performance within the autistic group.
Children’s Comprehension of Evidentiality Through Intonation in Majorcan Catalan

Maria del Mar Vanrell, Meghan Armstrong, Elena Castroviejo, and 2 more authors

First Language, 2025

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This paper investigates the developmental trajectory for children’s comprehension of evidential marking of directly perceived evidence through intonation in Majorcan Catalan (MC). Additionally, we aimed to explore children’s general source monitoring abilities and their capacity to make inferences based on directly perceived information. Given that evidential comprehension tends to develop relatively late when marked morphosyntactically, we hypothesized that detecting evidential meaning through intonation would also emerge later than other types of intonational comprehension. We thus included a task to assess children’s ability to distinguish between assertions and polar questions based on intonation. Data were collected through 4 tasks with a total of 97 MC-speaking children between first Preschool and second Primary school grades, along with 12 adults as a control group. Our results support the idea that source monitoring abilities develop independently from the linguistic abilities under investigation, whereas the ability to make inferences is still developing during the critical window for acquiring the distinction between assertions and polar questions, as well as for detecting intonational evidentiality. Furthermore, children succeeded in distinguishing between assertions and polar questions based on intonation well before they began performing above chance on the intonational evidentiality task, which started around age 7. This suggests that the developmental trajectory for comprehending intonational meaning depends on the specific meaning encoded by the intonational pattern.

2024

Este Demostrativo Tan Complejo

Elena Castroviejo

In Buceando entre palabras: inmersiones en la gramática de la mano de Manuel Leonetti, 2024
Development of Nonliteral Interpretations in Typically Developing Spanish Speaking Children: Light Verb Constructions and Figurative Expressions

Elena Castroviejo, Marta Ponciano, José V. Hernández-Conde, and 1 more author

Studia Linguistica, 2024

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In this paper we present a study about the typical development of the comprehension of expressions that exhibit an ambiguity between a literal and a nonliteral interpretation in Spanish, and whose most frequent use is nonliteral. Such expressions include light verb constructions (LVC) such as to make the bed and expressions in a metaphor-hyperbole-idiom continuum (MHI) such as to sleep with angels. We ran a forced-choice experiment where children aged 3 to 9 (N = 143) heard an ambiguous expression and had to choose the correct picture on the face of three options: one target item and two distractors. There were two counterbalanced lists, so that each critical item would be present in either the literal or the nonliteral condition. We collected accuracy data as well as reaction times. We encountered different developmental trends for LVC than for MHI, observing a literalist stage in MHI which we did not observe in LVC.
An Empirical Study on the Semantics-Pragmatics of Two Romance Confirmational Tags

Elena Castroviejo and Laia Mayol

Isogloss. Open Journal of Romance Linguistics, 2024

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This paper provides a fine-grained characterization of two confirmational tags in Catalan, oi? and eh?, starting with the novel claim that, despite appearances, they do not have the same distribution or meaning. While oi? is a rather unconstrained confirmational, eh? is proved to be sensitive to whether the main predicate of the sentence anchor p is objective or subjective. We ultimately propose that confirmational questions with oi? make a request for confirmation of the truth of the sentence anchor, whereas a confirmational with eh? is a request for the commitment of the addressee to the truth of the sentence anchor. Two consequences emerge from our analysis: oi? should be preferred when factual truths instead of opinions are conveyed, while eh? should be preferred in contexts where the speaker is not necessarily interested in finding out the truth of p. These predictions are tested in three experimental studies, which provide empirical support for the theoretical proposal regarding the different pragmatic contribution of both tags.
That Kid Is a Grasshopper! Metaphor Development from 3 to 9 Years of Age

Isabel Martín-González, Camilo R. Ronderos, Elena Castroviejo, and 3 more authors

Journal of Child Language, 2024

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Two major trends on children’s skills to comprehend metaphors have governed the literature on the subject: the literal stage hypothesis vs. the early birds hypothesis (Falkum, 2022). We aim to contribute to this debate by testing children’s capability to comprehend novel metaphors (‘X is a Y’) in Spanish with a child-friendly, picture selection task, while also tracking their gaze. Further, given recent findings on the development of metonymy comprehension suggesting a U-shaped developmental curve for this phenomenon (Köder & Falkum, 2020), we aimed to determine the shape of the developmental trajectory of novel metaphor comprehension, and to explore how both types of data (picture selection and gaze behavior) relate to each other. Our results suggest a linear developmental trajectory with 6-year-olds significantly succeeding in picture selection and consistently looking at the metaphorical target even after question onset.
Autism

Agustín Vicente, Zuriñe Abalos, Isabel Martín-González, and 2 more authors

In Handbook of Pragmatics: 27th Annual Installment, 2024

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Autism is a neurodevelopmental condition characterized by difficulties in social communication and social interaction, and the presence of restricted and repetitive behaviors (American Psychiatric Association [APA] 2013). The global prevalence of autism is 1% approximately (Zeidan et al. 2022), although there is vast variability in the capacity to detect and diagnose autism across different cultural and socioeconomic contexts (see, e.g., Maenner et al’s (2023) prevalence study among 8-year-olds in the United States).
Linguistic, Concept and Symbolic Composition in Adults with Minimal Receptive Vocabulary

Agustín Vicente, Natàlia Barbarroja, and Elena Castroviejo

Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, 2024

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In this paper, we examine some basic linguistic abilities in a small sample of adults with minimal receptive vocabulary, whose receptive mental verbal age ranges from 1;2 to 3;10. In particular, we examine whether the participants in our study understand noun phrases consisting of a noun modified by an adjective. We use stimuli that they can recognise by name. Except for one participant, we find that, while all of them understand the noun and adjective in isolation, none seems to understand these noun phrases, which means that they seem to not do linguistic composition. In order to test whether the difficulty is linguistic or conceptual, we ran two other studies, one on concept composition, and the other on iconic symbolic composition (composition of pictograms). Results suggest that linguistic composition is particularly difficult in this population, and that vocabulary breadth may not predict compositional abilities.

2023

Are Generics Defaults? A Study on the Interpretation of Generics and Universals in 3 Age-Groups of Spanish-Speaking Individuals

Elena Castroviejo, José V. Hernández-Conde, Dimitra Lazaridou-Chatzigoga, and 2 more authors

Language Learning and Development, 2023

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This paper reports an experiment that investigates interpretive distinctions between two different expressions of generalization in Spanish. In particular, our aim was to find out when the distinction between generic statements (GS) such as Tigers have stripes and universally quantified statements (UQS) such as All tigers have stripes was acquired in Spanish-speaking children of two different age groups (4/5-year-olds and 8/9-year-olds), and then compare these results with those of adults. The starting point of this research was the semantic distinction between GS and UQS in that the former admit exceptions, unlike the latter. On the other hand, several authors have observed a Generic overgeneralization effect (GOG) consisting in allowing for UQS to be felicitous in the face of exceptions, thus proposing that this “error” stems from GS being defaults (simpler, more easily learned and processed). In the current paper we aimed to test the “Generics as Default” (GaD) hypothesis by comparing GS and UQS in three different age ranges. Our data show that, overall, the accuracy of GS is greater than the accuracy of UQS. Moreover, we also confirm a hypothesized interaction between age and NP type (GS vs UQS). Further, we present several data points that are not predicted by the GaD, including an observed decline in the accuracy of GS in the older group of children as well as in adults, and that children fail at rejecting statements that are not considered to be true generalizations.
Modal Adjectives

Isabel Oltra-Massuet and Elena Castroviejo

In The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Morphology, 2023

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Modal adjectives pose wide-ranging questions for the architecture of grammar, because they involve aspects of morphology, syntax and semantics and thus they are a good testing ground to investigate the ways in which these modules interact or how they are constrained, especially in relation to morphosyntactic decomposition, passive and middle voice, types of modality and the notions of stativity and eventivity. They raise further specific questions for syntactic categorization and category change, the nature of non-verbal semantic modality, the relationship between the syntactic subcategorization properties of the base and those of the modal adjective, or how morphological processes influence the syntactic and semantic properties of adjectives. Some of the main challenges raised by modal adjectives across different languages are reviewed, mainly (i) their modal semantics, in relation to the different root modal interpretations available in the verbal domain, suggesting a neat classification that distinguishes the various dynamic, priority and dispositional/willingness interpretations available; and (ii) their morphosyntactic properties, especially in relation to their (non)-eventive properties and the typology of -ble adjectives they give rise to.
Language in Autism: Domains, Profiles and Co-Occurring Conditions

Jeannette Schaeffer, Muna Abd El-Raziq, Elena Castroviejo, and 17 more authors

Journal of Neural Transmission, 2023

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This article reviews the current knowledge state on pragmatic and structural language abilities in autism and their potential relation to extralinguistic abilities and autistic traits. The focus is on questions regarding autism language profiles with varying degrees of (selective) impairment and with respect to potential comorbidity of autism and language impairment: Is language impairment in autism the co-occurrence of two distinct conditions (comorbidity), a consequence of autism itself (no comorbidity), or one possible combination from a series of neurodevelopmental properties (dimensional approach)? As for language profiles in autism, three main groups are identified, namely, (i) verbal autistic individuals without structural language impairment, (ii) verbal autistic individuals with structural language impairment, and (iii) minimally verbal autistic individuals. However, this tripartite distinction hides enormous linguistic heterogeneity. Regarding the nature of language impairment in autism, there is currently no model of how language difficulties may interact with autism characteristics and with various extralinguistic cognitive abilities. Building such a model requires carefully designed explorations that address specific aspects of language and extralinguistic cognition. This should lead to a fundamental increase in our understanding of language impairment in autism, thereby paving the way for a substantial contribution to the question of how to best characterize neurodevelopmental disorders.

2021

On Wh-Exclamatives and Gradability: An Argument from Romance

Elena Castroviejo

Journal of Linguistics, Feb 2021

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This paper discusses a type of wh-exclamative whose wh-component and degree component do not seem to go hand in hand. These are wh-exclamatives in Catalan whose moved wh-phrase is headed by the determiner quin ‘what, which’, and whose NP contains an optional DegP headed by tan ‘so’ or més ‘more’. By taking a closer look at these wh-exclamatives, we will be able to contribute to the debate on the role of gradability and of the wh-component in the semantics of wh-exclamatives. My claim is that the DegP in these wh-exclamatives leaves behind a degree variable that is ultimately bound by an expressive speech act operator. Following Castroviejo (2006) and building on Rett (2009), I adhere to the claim that wh-exclamatives in Catalan are necessarily scalar as a requirement of the expressive operator. Moreover, as a downward-monotonic operator, I show that it licenses upward-directed inferences, which ensures that wh-exclamatives express unexpectedness toward a high degree.
More on Pejorative Language: Insults That Go beyond Their Extension

Elena Castroviejo, Katherine Fraser, and Agustín Vicente

Synthese, Oct 2021

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Slurs have become a big topic of discussion both in philosophy and in linguistics. Slurs are usually characterised as pejorative terms, co-extensional with other, neutral, terms referring to ethnic or social groups. However, slurs are not the only ethnic/social words with pejorative senses. Our aim in this paper is to introduce a different kind of pejoratives, which we will call “ethnic/social terms used as insults”, as exemplified in (European) Spanish, though present in many other languages and mostly absent in English. These are ethnic terms like gitano, ‘Romani’, which can have an extensional and neutral use, but also a pejorative meaning building on a negative stereotypical representation of the Romani community.
Generics as Default? Comparing the Acquisition of Universals and Generics in Spanish

Elena Castroviejo, Dimitra Lazaridou-Chatzigoga, Marta Ponciano, and 1 more author

Experiments in Linguistic Meaning, Oct 2021

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This paper reports an experiment that investigates interpretive distinctionsbetween two different expressions of generalization in Spanish. In particular, our aimwas to find out when the distinction between generic statements (GS) such as Tigershave stripes and universal quantified statements (UQS) such as All tigers have stripeswas acquired in Spanish-speaking children of two different age groups (4/5-year-oldsand 8/9-year-olds), and then compare these results with adults. The starting point ofthis research was the semantic distinction between GS and UQS in that the formeradmits exceptions, unlike the latter. On the other hand, cognitive psychologists haveobserved a Generic overgeneralization effect (GOG) consisting in allowing for UQSto be felicitous in the face of exceptions, thus proposing that this “error” stems frompeople misinterpreting UQS as GS and from GS being defaults (simpler, more easilylearned and processed) instead of involving quasi-universal quantification, which wasthe learned view from semantics. In the current paper we aimed to test the “Generics asDefault” (GAD) hypothesis by comparing GS and UQS in three different age ranges.Our data show that, overall, participants accept GS more often than they reject UQS.Moreover, we also confirm a hypothesized interaction between age and NP type (GSvs UQS). Further, we present several data points that are not predicted by the GAD,including an observed decline in the accuracy of GS in the older group of children aswell as in adults with respect to younger children, and that children fail at rejectinggenerics that adults reject.
Why Premise Questions?

Elena Castroviejo and Laia Mayol

Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung, Oct 2021

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This paper is concerned with the interpretation of conditional questions introduced by the wh-word why (why-conditional questions, WCQs for short). In particular, we observe that WCQs – unlike the other conditional questions – cannot be uttered out of the blue and hence have a hypothetical reading; instead, the felicitous utterance of a WCQ requires some interlocutor’s commitment to the proposition in its antecedent (p). This makes WCQs necessarily premise conditionals in the sense of Iatridou (1991); Haegeman (2003). Along with Goebel (2017), we assume that premisehood is a speci?c use of a regular indicative conditional sentence. We explain the premise interpretation of conditionals as a combination of their thematic nature and the discourse constraints derived from the fact that p has its own discourse history. Additionally, we derive the necessary premise interpretation of WCQs from the impossibility of entertaining the question “What happens if \textlnotp?”, which is necessary for the hypothetical interpretation of indicative conditionals.

2020

Exclamatives

Elena Castroviejo

In The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Semantics, Oct 2020

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This chapter is concerned with the semantics of exclamative constructions, a clause type which is increasingly receiving attention, but whose characterization is still hard to pin down. Its goal is to present an outlook into the main questions exclamatives raise, both for semantic theory and for an adequate empirical description. The chapter covers the key ingredients of exclamatives, which are illustrated with crosslinguistic data, as well as the analyses that have been proposed in the literature for wh-exclamatives, nominal exclamatives, and embedded exclamatives. Finally, an inventory of exclamatory constructions that do not strictly speaking share the properties of the rest of exclamatives is taken into consideration.
La Dinámica de La Conversación

Elena Castroviejo Castroviejo and Laia Mayol

In Pragmática, Oct 2020

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Estudio comparativo de la modalidad habilitativa en predicados no verbales en lenguas romances, germánicas y euskera

Elena Castroviejo and Isabel Oltra-Massuet

In Las palabras como unidades lingüísticas, Oct 2020
Lenguaje peyorativo en español: términos despreciativos y términos neutros usados como insultos

Agustín Vicente, Katherine Fraser, and Elena Castroviejo

Teorema, Oct 2020

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El estudio del lenguaje peyorativo ha atraído el interés de muchos filósofos y lingüistas desde hace aproximadamente una década. Su discusión, por motivos sociolingüísticos, se ha centrado en los denominados “slurs” o “términos despreciativos”. En este artículo presentamos y discutimos otro tipo de términos peyorativos que abundan en castellano y en otras lenguas, pero que aparentemente han desaparecido en el inglés. El ejemplo paradigmático de estos términos es ‘gitano’, en el que conviven un uso neutro con otro insultante que tiene el efecto de insultar doblemente: a la persona a la que se dirige el insulto y a la comunidad gitana. Mantenemos que el tipo de términos que analizamos contribuye a perpetuar el racismo, el clasismo y el sexismo perpetuando estereotipos negativos, más que expresando actitudes.

2019

Intensification and Secondary Content: A Case Study of Catalan Good

Elena Castroviejo and Berit Gehrke

In Secondary Content, Oct 2019

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Abstract This chapter is concerned with intensification as triggered by subsective evaluative good in Catalan (in examples such as una bona dosi ‘a good dose’). Its main focus is on providing an account of the fact that intensification only comes about in positive polarity environments. We first entertain an analysis based on the idea that positive polarity is the result of a mismatch of meanings contributed at different dimensions, but end up supporting an alternative in which the dimensions of evaluation of the noun play a crucial role in giving rise to intensification. More specifically, intensification arises when an object is only evaluated according to one dimension. Interestingly, uni-dimensionality is not preserved under negation, which prevents intensification from arising, and, in turn, makes positive polarity an illusion.
Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung

M.Teresa Espinal, Elena Castroviejo, Manuel Leonetti, and 2 more authors

Oct 2019

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2018

Gradability, Vagueness, and Scale Structure: From the Armchair to the Lab

Elena Castroviejo, Louise McNally, and Galit W. Sassoon

In The Semantics of Gradability, Vagueness, and Scale Structure: Experimental Perspectives, Oct 2018

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In this chapter we present an overview of three main issues that have surrounded the study of gradable properties—vagueness, measurement, and dimensionality—and how they have been pursued from the perspectives of philosophy, linguistics, and psychology. We then provide a brief summary of each chapter in the volume, together with a guide to how the chapters relate to each other thematically.
The Semantics of Gradability, Vagueness, and Scale Structure: Experimental Perspectives

Oct 2018

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This volume is the first to focus specifically on experimental studies of the semantics of gradability, scale structure and vagueness. It presents support for and challenges to current formal analyses of these phenomena in view of experimentally collected data, highlighting the ways semantic and pragmatic theory can benefit from experimental methodologies. The papers in the volume contribute to an explicit and detailed account of the use, representation, and online processing of gradable and vague expressions using various kinds of controlled speaker judgment tasks, eye tracking, and ERP. The aim is to strengthen the foundations of experimental semantics and promote interaction between linguists, psycholinguists, psychologists, and philosophers who are interested in the semantics of natural language. Using data representing different languages and a variety of nominal and adjectival constructions, including degree modification and comparatives, the contributions address scale-based classifications of gradable predicates, such as the absolute vs. relative distinction; the nature of the standards for applicability of gradable expressions and the ways in which standards are determined; the nature of dimensions and multidimensionality in the meaning of scalar expressions; and the role of embodiment, subjectivity, and sociolinguistic considerations in the use and understanding of gradable expressions.
Generic and Action-Dependent Abilities in Spanish ‘Be Capable’

Elena Castroviejo and Isabel Oltra-Massuet

Glossa: a journal of general linguistics, Oct 2018

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This paper is concerned with the semantics of Spanish ser capaz ‘be capable’ (henceforth SC). Specifically, it aims to account for the distribution SC displays and the range of meanings it expresses in the realm of abilities, viewed as kinds of dispositions. We put forth the following generalization: Whenever imperfective aspect interacts with SC, two possible readings arise, one that is purely abilitative and another one that expresses an accidental or unpredictable state of affairs. Our claim is that both interpretations derive from a circumstantial modal base that includes the subject’s inner circumstances, albeit with a different ordering source that is brought about via the interaction of imperfective aspect and the syntax-semantics of the modal. Thus, we propose that the purely abilitative SC contains an ordering source that ranks as better worlds those in which the subject appeals to her strength of the body, intellect or character; the accidental reading is the result of covert movement of the adjective capaz ‘capable’ over the imperfective-bearing copula ser ‘be’, which triggers a change of ordering source in the modal.

2017

Introduction. Boundaries, Phases and Interfaces

Elena Castroviejo, Olga Fernández-Soriano, and Isabel Pérez-Jiménez

In Boundaries, Phases and Interfaces: Case Studies in Honor of Violeta Demonte, Oct 2017

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Los intensificadores [BIEN] y [BUEN]: efectos de gradación y polaridad

Elena Castroviejo and Berit Gehrke

In Relaciones sintácticas: homenaje a Josep M. Brucart y M. Lluïsa Hernanz, Oct 2017

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Boundaries, Phases and Interfaces: Case Studies in Honor of Violeta Demonte

Fernández-Soriano, Elena Castroviejo, and Isabel Pérez-Jiménez

Oct 2017

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This book approaches the concept of boundary , central in linguistic theory, and the related notion of phase from the perspective of the interaction between syntax and its interfaces. A primary notion is that phases are the appropriate domains to explain most interface linguistic phenomena and that the study of (narrow) interfaces helps to understand conditions on the internal structure of the Language Faculty. The first part of this volume is dedicated to introducing the notion of boundary, cycle and phase, and also the current debates regarding internal interfaces, in particular, the syntax-phonology, syntax-semantics, syntax-discourse, syntax-morphology and syntax-lexicon interfaces, in order to show how the notion of boundary/phase is related to (or even determines) most of their characteristics. The four sections of the second part deal with (morpho)phonology/ syntax and the role or boundaries/phases; the syntax-discourse and syntax-semantics interface; and the lexicon-syntax interface, while the notion of boundary/phase cross-cuts the main topics addressed.

2016

What Does Be Capable Tell Us about Capacities? An Answer from Romance

Elena Castroviejo and Isabel Oltra-Massuet

Morphological, syntactic and semantic aspects of dispositions, SinSpeC - Working Papers of the SFB 732 Incremental Specification in Context, Oct 2016

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This paper investigates the semantics of the Spanish expression ser ca-paz ’be capable’ [SC henceforth]. On the one hand, it reeects on how languages encode capacity ascriptions. In particular, a comparison is drawn between SC and have the capacity. On the other hand, it delves into the meanings denoted by SC as a modal. Building on previous work (Castroviejo and Oltra-Massuet 2015, In press), we show that SC has both an abilitative and an epistemic-like interpretation, which we discuss and qualify, and characterize SC’s additional ’unusual’ inference as a willful component.
On Capacities and Their Epistemic Extensions

Elena Castroviejo and Isabel Oltra-Massuet

In Romance Linguistics 2013: Selected Papers from the 43rd Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), New York, 17-19 April, 2013, Oct 2016

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The purpose of this paper is twofold; first, we aim to provide a series of tests that identify Spanish ser capaz ‘be capable’ (henceforth SC) as an ambiguous modal, just like English must or can. Specifically, we observe that SC has not only an abilitative flavor, but also an epistemic one. Second, we want to propose an analysis for SC that can account for this ambiguity and that is in accordance with current theories of modality such as Cinque (1999), Kratzer (1981, 1991), and Hacquard (2009, 2010). In a nutshell, we argue that SC can occupy two different positions, a low one below AspP, which corresponds to the abilitative interpretation, and a high one, above AspP, which translates as the epistemic reading. Concerning the semantics, we claim that SC denotes a slight possibility; i.e., the propositional argument is true in at least one world, but it is always true in the non-ordinary worlds.
Good Manners: On the Degree Effect of Good Events

Berit Gehrke and Elena Castroviejo

Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung, Oct 2016

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This paper discusses the semantics of so-called ‘degree’ well in English and German, in examples such as well loaded and gut beladen. While in previous literature well is analysed as an ad-adjectival modifier (of closed scale adjectives), we propose to examine well as a manner adverb and to derive the manner vs. degree reading from the type of event well is a predicate of.

2015

The Case of Sin + Bare Nominal Structures in Spanish: Bare PPs and the Syntax-Semantics Interface

Elena Castroviejo, Isabel Oltra-Massuet, and Isabel Pérez-Jiménez

In Romance Linguistics 2012: Selected Papers from the 42nd Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Cedar City, Utah, 20-22 April 2012, Oct 2015

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Spanish prepositional phrases headed by sin “without” with a bare noun complement (una habitación sin luz “a room without light”; un hombre sin corbata “a man without tie”) show interesting gradability properties: Degree modification is allowed if the N complement is a mass noun (una habitación muy sin luz “lit. a room very without light”; *un hombre muy sin corbata “lit. a man very without tie”). We claim that sin-PPs (sin-Preposition Phrases) hare syntactic and semantic properties with constructions involving light verbs that select for bare nouns. We argue that (a) a property-denoting bare NP pseudo-incorporates into a null verb have that is part of the syntactic-semantic structure of sin, and that (b) sin-PPs can be coerced into gradable properties as long as the bare noun is cumulative and homogeneous (divisive). Our proposal explains the differences between sin-(bare)-PPs and PPs headed by sin with a QP/DP complement, since in the latter there is neither coercion nor pseudo-incorporation.
A Good Intensifier

Elena Castroviejo and Berit Gehrke

In New Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence, Oct 2015

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We provide a semantic account of the Catalan ad-adjectival modifier ben ‘well’, which yields intensification by, we argue, positively evaluating a property ascription. Formally, this translates as applying the predicate good to the saying event available to any utterance. We treat the output of this modification as a Conventional Implicature (rather than at-issue content), which is responsible for its positive polarity behavior. Additionally, we exploit the semantic similarity between this intensifier use of well with other readings of well, including manner (well written) and degree (well acquainted), which we analyze as ‘manner-in-disguise’. In our proposal, they all predicate goodness of an event.
Manner and Degree: An Introduction

Berit Gehrke and Elena Castroviejo

Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, Oct 2015

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This chapter provides an overview of semantic issues concerning manner and degree. This includes going over the theoretical questions that arise in the literature on VP modification and event semantics, as well as the research that has been carried out on gradable adjectives, scale structure and vagueness. This introduction further situates the papers and commentaries in this volume within this discussion. We end by outlining commonalities between manner and degree.
Cross-Linguistic Experimental Evidence Distinguishing the Role of Context in Disputes over Taste and Possibility

E. Allyn Smith, Elena Castroviejo, and Laia Mayol

In Context 2015: Modeling and Using Context, Oct 2015

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One might think that Sam’s utterance in (1) is a subjective one, essentially expressing that he personally finds the cake tasty, in which case one would not expect significant meaning differences between (1) and a similar utterance where the subjectivity is made explicit, such as (3).

2014

Modification at the Interfaces: An Introduction

Elena Castroviejo and Berit Gehrke

Lingua, Oct 2014

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While we can name examples of modifiers (e.g. adjectives, adverbs, PPs, relative clauses), it is not uncontroversial to what extent “modifier” is a syntactic term and how we should represent modification as part of a semantic model. This being true, modification is not only interesting because it challenges a simple composition system that proceeds through application of functions to arguments. In this introduction we present four papers that show that research on modification proves to be relevant for current investigations on the syntax–semantics interface as well as the language–cognition interface.
A Syntactic Approach to the Morpho-Semantic Variation of -Ear

Isabel Oltra-Massuet and Elena Castroviejo

Lingua, Oct 2014

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This paper deals with the morpho-syntactic properties of Spanish verbs formed by -ear affixation (EAV henceforth). These include deadjectival (e.g. amarillear ‘to go yellow’), denominal (e.g. fanfarronear ‘to behave like a boaster’), and deverbal verbs (e.g. bailotear ‘to dance in an irregular manner’), which do not form a natural semantic class. The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to develop a unified morpho-syntactic analysis of EAV within Hale and Keyser’s (1993) approach to argument structure – as developed in Mateu (2002) and Acedo-Matellán and Mateu, 2011, Acedo-Matellán and Mateu, 2013 – and Distributed Morphology; second, to take this proposal as a basis to account for cross-dialectal variation in the productivity of EAV. We group EAV into three basic syntactic classes that share a core structure v+P. We argue that a large subset of unergative verbs must be analyzed as events with a specifier that select for a relational/predicative complement, a type of structure that is shown to underlie verbs with an adverbial argument. -Ear is further checked against unmarked -ar, the default verb-forming suffix in Iberian Spanish. We show that an underspecified analysis of EAV is compatible with cross-dialectal variation in that it accommodates the (non-)predictable range of meanings found across American varieties where -ear has become the default verbalizer.

2013

An emphatic abilitative modal. ’Ser capaç’ vs. ’be able’

Elena Castroviejo and Isabel Oltra-Massuet

Proceedings of the 49th Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, Oct 2013

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1 Introduction The main goal of this work is to propose an analysis that accounts for the seman-tic differences between the Catalan modal construction ser capaç ’be able/capable’ [henceforth SC] – and its Spanish counterpart ser capaz – and English be able. Building on previous work on the English modal construction be able (Thalberg 1972; Bhatt 1999; Pinon 2003; Mari & Martin 2007), we address three main puz-zles, summarized in (i)-(iii):
(Non)Integrated Evaluative Adverbs in Questions: A Cross-Romance Study

Laia Mayol and Elena Castroviejo

Language, Oct 2013

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The goal of this article is to analyze the semantic contribution of evaluative adverbs (EAs) such as unfortunately in several languages of the Romance family, namely French, Catalan, and Spanish. Following Bonami and Godard (2008), we propose to analyze EAs as items that convey projective meaning in order to explain their peculiar semantic behavior (they cannot be directly denied, do not change the truth conditions of the proposition they evaluate, and are not factive) and their unacceptability in negative assertions. Unlike what has been claimed for many other languages, French allows EAs in questions, and we show that Catalan and Spanish do too, as long as some conditions are met. We propose an account that derives their interpretation in both assertions and questions: integrated French EAs take the proposition to their right, and if they appear in a WH-question, their interpretation is similar to that of unconditionals. In contrast, nonintegrated EAs in Catalan and Spanish have scope over a set of propositions, and are acceptable in questions only if the speaker is biased toward one of the propositions in the set denoted by the question. The acceptability of EAs in such questions, rejected by previous literature, is confirmed by an experimental study.
How to Cancel an Implicature

Laia Mayol and Elena Castroviejo

Journal of Pragmatics, May 2013

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Cancelability is one of the main tests to identify conversational implicatures in general, and scalar implicatures in particular. Despite this fact, cancelability itself is a phenomenon rarely looked at. This paper presents an account of when the cancellation of a scalar implicature is an acceptable discourse move and provides experimental evidence to support our proposal. Our main claim is that the felicity of a scalar implicature cancellation depends on the discourse structure. More specifically, cancellation is acceptable only if it addresses a Question Under Discussion that differs from the previous one. As will be shown, this proposal has the additional benefit of permitting us to tease apart cancellations from self-repairs.
Approaching Results in Catalan and Spanish Deadjectival Verbs

Isabel Oltra-Massuet and Elena Castroviejo

Catalan Journal of Linguistics, May 2013

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L’objectiu d’aquest article és analitzar la variació morfo-semàntica en la derivació lèxico-sintàctica del verbs deadjectivals en català i castellà formats amb el sufix -ejar/-ear (VDE d’ara en endavant), tals com groguejar/amarillear. Específicament, formulem dos tipus de qüestions; d’una banda, ens ocupem de les diferències interlingüístiques que exhibeixen els VDE en aquestes dues llengües romàniques; de l’altra, abordem les implicacions teòriques que poden tenir aquestes diferències de comportament per a la gramàtica de les formacions verbals deadjectivals. Argumentem que mentre els VDE del castellà són verbs de canvi d’estat que comporten una transició amb una relació de coincidència terminal, és a dir, tenen una configuració morfo-sintáctica que inclou tant un Lloc com una Trajectòria, els VDE catalans són predicacions estatives que només contenen un Lloc, que té com a nucli una preposició de coincidència no terminal abstracta prop de.

2012

Gradation in Modified AdjPs

Elena Castroviejo

Semantics and Linguistic Theory, May 2012

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The goal of this paper is to gain a better understanding of the composition processes underlying DegPs headed by "how" that include an adjective that is in turn modified. These include "how extremely high", "how politically incorrect" and "how damn important". The focus here is on adverbs such as "extremely", which have been used in the literature on exclamatives as a test of exclamativity, but which have not been given to this date a compositional semantics. I argue that, even if this has been challenged in the literature for Remarkably adverbs such as "surprisingly", "extremely" is a degree predicate, where degrees are not construed as positive numbers on a scale but rather as equivalence classes of individuals (Cresswell 1976). This research has interesting ramifications for the analysis of degree expressions "how" and "so" vs. "very" and "enough) and for the distinction between interrogative and exclamative clauses.
Conclusion, Consequence and Solutionhood: The Semantics of Three Catalan Connectives

Elena Castroviejo and Laia Mayol

Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung, May 2012

2011

’So’ as a Weak Degree Expression

Elena Castroviejo

Semantics and Linguistic Theory, May 2011

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This paper aims to answer three questions about the degree expression ’so’ in English: (i) what semantics does it contribute? (I.e., in what ways is ’so’ different from ’enough’?) (ii) how can we explain its restricted distribution? And (iii) how does the that-clause compose with ’so’? I point out that equating ’enough’ and ’so’ (as has been done in the literature) is problematic, and I propose that a new approach that establishes an analogy between"so" and weak pronouns can yield satisfactory answers to questions (i)–(iii). In a nutshell, I argue that there are two ’so’s: a strong (deictic) one and a weak (anaphoric) one. I concentrate on weak ’so’ and show that its limited distribution has to do with the informational properties of weak items more generally. I further claim that its accompanying that-clause is not a complement of ’so’, but rather an adjoined sentence that provides a bona fide focus to the sentence.
The Connective Doncs in Dialogue and the QUD

Elena Castroviejo and Laia Mayol

In Pre-Proceedings of Constraints in Discourse 2011, May 2011

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This paper addresses the use in dialogue of the Catalan dis- course connective doncs (and Spanish pues). We propose that doncs has two different uses (it introduces a reply or it participates in the rhetoric relations of consequence/solutionhood), but we also show that they share a core property, namely the acknowledgment of a previous assertion that does not resolve the current Question Under Discussion.
The Dimensions of VERUM

Daniel Gutzmann and Elena Castroviejo

Empirical Issues in Syntax and Semantics, May 2011

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In this paper we study the semantics of so-called verum focus from the point of view of a multi-dimensional semantic model. As coined by Höhle (1992), verum focus is non-contrastive focus on the verb or a complementizer located in C in German, and it is a way of realizing the corresponding operator VERUM. In the small amount of previous literature, VERUM has been treated as a pure semantic operator. In contrast, we show that those one-dimensional treatments make the wrong predictions about the truth-conditions of an utterance involving verum focus as well as about its discourse contribution. Equipped with a multidimensional semantic framework, we treat VERUM as an expressive function that operates in the use-conditional dimension. It takes as argument a proposition p and expresses the interpretational instruction to downdate the corresponding question ?p from the question under discussion. We show that this approach to VERUM can account for the distribution of verum focus, and its discourse contribution.
Projective Meaning and Implicature Cancellation

Laia Mayol and Elena Castroviejo

In Proceedings of the Workshop on Projective Meaning, ESSLLI 2011, May 2011

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It has been a matter of recent debate what is the relationship between different levels of meaning and what interactions between them are possible (Potts 2005, Roberts et al. 2008). This paper deals with these interactions as far as implicature cancellation is concerned. We aim to show that canceling amounts to addressing a new question under discussion, which predicts that only at-issue meaning, but not projective meaning (Simons et al., 2010) can be a meaning canceler, and which restricts cancellations to contexts where adding a new QUD is the right discourse move.
Evaluative Adverbs in Questions in French: Unfortunate Questions

Laia Mayol and Elena Castroviejo

In Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2009: Selected Papers from ’Going Romance’ Nice 2009, May 2011

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This paper examines the semantic properties of evaluative adverbs, such as unfortunately, in question environments in French. We take Bonami and Godard’s (2008) analysis for malheureusement (‘unfortunately’) in declarative sentences, where such propositional adverbs are analyzed as ancillary commitments, and extend it to a broader array of data, including polar and wh-questions. In a nutshell, we argue that malheureusement can take as input a set of propositions, which triggers an indifference interpretation of the sort that characterizes unconditional sentences. We also show that evaluatives may take a proposition as argument when they occur in polar questions, the only restriction occurring in negative polar questions, where biases are decisive in making the sentence acceptable.

2010

An Expressive Answer: Some Considerations on the Semantics and Pragmatics of Wh-Exclamatives

Elena Castroviejo

Proceedings from the 44th Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, May 2010

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Exclamatives are difficult to deal with exclusively from the viewpoint of truth-conditional semantics; indeed, we do not even have a clear-cut definition of what constitutes an exclamative, so the term refers to a wide range of syntactic constructions. In this paper, I focus on a few puzzles regarding the semantics and pragmatics of wh-exclamatives in Catalan and English, namely: (i) In what way is the semantics of wh-exclamatives different from the semantics of wh-interrogatives? (ii) In what way is the discourse contribution of wh-exclamatives different from the contribution of declaratives? I consider three major approaches, which I call the question approach (Gutiérrez- Rexach 1996, Zanuttini & Portner 2003), the degree approach (Castroviejo 2006) and the non-exclamative approach (D’Avis 2002, Abels 2005). More specifically, I claim that the different pragmatic behavior of wh-interrogatives versus that of wh-exclamatives stems from differences in parameters such as speaker commitment and the contribution of intonation. Moreover, I argue that wh-exclamatives make expressive speech acts insofar as they are meaningful contributions thanks to Evaluative Intonation. Third, I propose that Evaluative Intonation composes at the Conventional Implicature tier with a set of propositions, only if they involve a linear order.
Evaluative Adverbs in Questions: A Comparison between French and Catalan

Laia Mayol and Elena Castroviejo

Proceedings from the Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, May 2010

2009

Asserted and Implicated Meanings in Catalan ’Déu n’hi Do’

Laia Mayol and Elena Castroviejo

Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung, May 2009

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In this paper, we present an analysis of the semantics and pragmatics of the lexicalized Catalan expression D\textasciiacuteeu n’hi do, which embeds wh-clauses, including exclamatives. Interestingly, though, D\textasciiacuteeu n’hi do sentences do not convey extreme degree, they have have different distributional properties than matrix exclamatives, and they usually – but not always – co-occur with an exclamative intonation. We argue that the peculiar properties of D\textasciiacuteeu n’hi do derive from the combination of the assertion and the scalar implicature it conveys, plus the conventional implicature generated by this intonation.

2008

Deconstructing Exclamations

Elena Castroviejo

Catalan Journal of Linguistics, May 2008

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While it is still not widely accepted that exclamatives are a clause type, exclamations are intuitively considered a speech act comparable to assertions and questions. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the notion of exclamation. In particular, I compare the pragmatic properties of whexclamatives with the discourse distribution of other so-called exclamations and argue that they do not have a uniform way to update the Common Ground; by using a series of tests, I show that the sole thing they have in common is an emphatic intonation and a non-neutral attitude on the part of the speaker.
Adverbs in Restricted Configurations

Elena Castroviejo

In Empirical Issues in Formal Syntax and Semantics, May 2008

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Amazing DPs

Elena Castroviejo and Magdalena Schwager

Semantics and Linguistic Theory, May 2008

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2007

La Qüestió de les exclamatives

Elena Castroviejo

Llengua & Literatura, May 2007

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A Degree-Based Account of Wh-Exclamatives in Catalan

Elena Castroviejo

Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung, May 2007

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In this paper I show that should be analyzed as a special type of degree construction. It is special because its contribution to discourse is not that of a declarative clause, but rather that of a degree construction – similar to a comparative clause or a result clause construction – because it includes a degree modifier that establishes an equative relation between two degrees. Additionally, I discuss the previous literature on exclamatives and argue that their proposals, according to which exclamatives should be approached from the semantics of questions, are not satisfactory enough to account for the data from Catalan.

2006

Wh-Exclamatives in Catalan

Elena Castroviejo

Universitat de Barcelona, May 2006

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2004

La sintaxi de les exclamatives-qu en català

Elena Castroviejo

Universitat de Barcelona, May 2004

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