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This paper is a product of the first comprehensive corpus-based
investigation of register differences in Spanish syntax.� This ongoing
investigation has been funded by the US National Science Foundation, and
will be completed in late 2004.� It is based on many different registers
in a 20 million word corpus of Spanish, which is a subset of the 1900s
portion of the Corpus del Espa�ol (www.corpusdelespanol.org).
The study is based on the same basic methodology as
the investigations of register variation that have been carried out by
Biber for other languages (cf. Biber 1993, 1996, 1999).�� We select more
than sixty syntactic features, and examine how their frequency and
distribution vary across register, and which features most tightly
cluster together.�
One of the most interesting syntactic features is the
range and use of the “reflexive” marker [se] in Spanish.� This morpheme
can have an extremely wide range of uses, including the following:
�
|
1 |
true
reflexive |
Mar�a se vio en el espejo |
Mary
saw herself in the mirror |
|
2 |
Reciprocal |
Mar�a y Juan se besaron |
Mary
and John kissed each other |
|
3 |
intransitive (middle) |
Mar�a se ba�o / se sent� |
Mary
took a bath / sat down |
|
4 |
emotional reaction |
Mar�a se sorprendi� / se enoj� |
Mary
was surprised / got mad |
|
5 |
body
movement |
Mar�a se fue/ ha vuelto a M�xico |
Mary
left for / has returned to Mexico |
|
6 |
change / inchoative |
Mar�a se durmi� |
Mary
went to sleep |
|
7 |
“energetic” |
Mar�a se cay� en la nieve
Mar�a se tom� la cerveza |
Mary
fell in the show
Mary gulped down the beer |
|
8 |
inherent/lexical |
Mar�a se queja / se arrepiente |
Mary
complains / feels bad |
|
9 |
decausative |
se
hundi� el barco
se
derriti� el hielo |
The
boat Sank
The ice melted |
|
10 |
passive |
se
vendieron los libros |
The
books were sold |
|
11 |
impersonal |
se
vive bien en Espa�a |
One
lives well in Spain |
|
12 |
causative |
Mar�a se oper� |
Mary
had an operation |
In spite of its frequency and range of uses in Spanish, [se] is
typically treated only in a very cursory and fragmentary manner in many
textbooks for English learners of Spanish.� Often, the only uses that
are discussed are those that are most closely related to English such as
#1-2 above, with brief forays into related uses like #3.� On the other
hand, extremely common uses like #9 are often completely ignored,
because they don’t correspond to anything similar in English (cf. the
boat sank / el barco se hundi�).� As a result, even advanced
learners have great difficulty with the full range of [se] constructions
in Spanish.
As part of our more general survey of register
differences in Spanish syntax, we consider [se] in detail.� This is the
first study to do so from a strongly corpus-based standpoint -- all
previous data-oriented investigations of [se] have used relatively small
corpora.� We examine which of the uses are most frequent in the 20
million word corpus, and what variation exists between registers.� This
data will hopefully provide useful insight for textbook authors and
others who wish to provide a more realistic discussion of [se] for
language learners.
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