Papers by Juan Diego Quesada
LETRAS, 2009
Es una descripción de fenómenos evolutivos en la caracterización morfosintáctica de las lenguas b... more Es una descripción de fenómenos evolutivos en la caracterización morfosintáctica de las lenguas boruca, teribe y guaymí, todas de la familia chibcha. Del boruca se estudia la dimensión témporo-aspectual y su evolución a un sistema aspectual en sustitución de uno temporal. El teribe presenta un caso de morfologización en sus relaciones gramaticales derivado del análisis del orden de las palabras. En el guaimí, se da la reorganización como resultado un nuevo patrón de relaciones fundamentales que sigue un esquema de nominativo marcado, en su variante costarricense. A series of evolutive phenomena are described regarding the morphosyntactic characterization of the Chibchan languages Boruca, Teribe and Guaymí. The Boruca case analyzes the temporo-aspectual dimension and its evolution from a temporal system towards an aspectual one. Teribe is examined from the perspective of the morphologization of its grammatical relations derived from an analysis of word order. The Guaymí study shows a...
LETRAS, 2008
El estudio plantea una caracterización general del buglere, dialecto del bocotá, perteneciente a ... more El estudio plantea una caracterización general del buglere, dialecto del bocotá, perteneciente a la familia chibcha. Se aportan algunos datos de orden social y cultural asociados a la diáspora de la etnia, y posteriormente se centra en la caracterización tipológica de la lengua, que la vincula directamente con la familia mencionada. Señala su autor que el notable riesgo de extinción obliga a llevar a cabo estudios descriptivos sistemáticos y sostenidos, con la esperanza de propiciar su eventual revitalización. This study presents a general characterization of Buglere –a dialect of Bocotá, which belongs to the Chibcha family. It provides information on the social and cultural system related to the scattering of that ethnic group. Attention is then given to the typological characterization of the language, in which it is linked directly to the family mentioned. The author affirms that the significant risk of extinction is what leads to systematic, sustained descriptive studies, with t...
En boruca, una lengua chibcha de Costa Rica, existe un morfema, ari, cuyo comportamiento se hace ... more En boruca, una lengua chibcha de Costa Rica, existe un morfema, ari, cuyo comportamiento se hace dificil de captar desde una perspectiva exclusivamente sincronica. Posee dos formas, una libre y otra ligada con usos aparentemente disimiles. Existen dos puntos de vista respecto de este morfema. El primero (Constenla y Maroto 1979, Rojas 1990) lo describe como un "destematizador de sujeto". Segun este analisis, al que denominare hipotesis de destematizacion, la funcion de an es la de marcar la perdida de tematicidad del sujeto al ser este removido de la posicion inicial de la oracion. El segundo punto de vista es el de Quesada Pacheco (1995), donde se presenta una gama de usos que levemente insinuan que su funcion tiene que ver mas con refuerzo y enfasis que con destematizacion. El presente trabajo ofrece una explicacion del morfema en cuestion, segun la cual este orginal mente cumplia la funcion de marcador de enfoque; an sufrio un proceso de gramaticalizacion donde adquirio...
LETRAS, 2012
Presenta una descripción de la morfología del verbo garífuna, única lengua arahuaca hablada en Ce... more Presenta una descripción de la morfología del verbo garífuna, única lengua arahuaca hablada en Centroamérica, desde una perspectiva funcional-tipológica. Es un avance respecto a estudios previos por tratar la dimensión verbal como una unidad temática. Se ofrece un inventario de las formas verbales del garífuna, haciendo referencia a la formación de verbos, a las clases verbales, a la existencia de formas cortas, a la distinción entre ver-boides y verbos plenos, así como a las formas que cumplen el perfil de auxiliares, y un recuento de las categorías verbales del garífuna. A detailed description is given here of Garifuna, the only Arawakan language spoken in Central America, regarding its verb morphology from a typological-functional perspective. It provides a more encompassing view in comparison to previous studies insofar as it describes the verbal dimension as a thematic unit. It provides an inventory of Garifuna verb forms, with special emphasis on verb-formation, verb classes, ...
Europaische Hochschulschriften Reihe 21 144, 1994
Quesada JD. Periphrastische Aktionsart im Spanischen: das Verhalten einer Kategorie der Übergangs... more Quesada JD. Periphrastische Aktionsart im Spanischen: das Verhalten einer Kategorie der Übergangszone. Europäische Hochschulschriften : Reihe 21; 144. Frankfurt am Main: Lang; 1994
Letras, 1986
Se analiza el uso de la lengua espanola a traves de los siglos xv, xvi y xvii, en las diferentes ... more Se analiza el uso de la lengua espanola a traves de los siglos xv, xvi y xvii, en las diferentes clases sociales (opresores-oprimidos).
Theoretical Linguistics, 2001
Linguistique Revue De La Societe Internationale De Linguistique Fonctionelle, 1997
Romanische Forschungen
This paper is concerned with two phenomena that have attracted the attention of linguists for qui... more This paper is concerned with two phenomena that have attracted the attention of linguists for quite some time (though the approaches were not always the most suitable), the Spanish se-construction, and the verbal category of MIDDLE VOICE. The former has traditionally been regarded as a passive structure characterized by agent demotion; the author rejects this view by showing that in all (four) readings of this construction there is agentivity, which although minimal still precludes certain syntactic processes that »normal« passives allow. As for the MIDDLE VOICE, there is disagreement with S. Kemmer's recent book, which distinguishes between REFLEXIVE and MIDDLE as separate (though related) domains based on what she calls »degree of distinguishability of participants«. Since this distinction is a matter of degree, the author proposes a prototype approach to the category of MIDDLE with self-affectedness as its core meaning; in this approach reflexive constructions constitute the ...
STUF - Language Typology and Universals, 2004
This paper offers a succinct description of the main structural features of Barí, a Chibchan lang... more This paper offers a succinct description of the main structural features of Barí, a Chibchan language of Venezuela. This account is the first of its kind, thus contributing to the morphosyntactic description of one more potentially endangered Amerindian language. In the wider context of Chibchan comparative linguistics, a new member of the family is described, with the particularity that it is the easternmost language, and one surrounded by languages from a different linguistic area, Amazonia. This study corresponds to the first stage in the larger process of description and documentation of Barí 2. 2 This paper is the product of my research activities while as a visiting professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, which enabled me, among other things, to do field work in Venezuela in 2001. I wish to express my sincere thanks to Marília Facó Soares for her support while in Rio. Special thanks are due to Luis Oquendo for introducing me to the Barí community in Maracaibo, to Lucía Rincón for sharing with me her ethnographic field notes, and to Raymundo Medina, who provided me with some of the existing information on the Barí language. Last but certainly not least, special thanks deserve Leonardo Okiano and Fatima Añandou, both native speakers of Barí, for their invaluable help as language consultants. None of these people should be held responsible for any shortcomings of this paper.
Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft, 1996
Theoretical Linguistics, 1997
Page 1. J.DIEGO QUESADA A NOTE ON MAYAN 'CRAZY' ANTIPASSIVIZATION ... Besides showing a... more Page 1. J.DIEGO QUESADA A NOTE ON MAYAN 'CRAZY' ANTIPASSIVIZATION ... Besides showing aspectually conditioned split ergativity, in transitive sentences the verb in these languages is marked with an antipassive suffix. Kaufman (1990) calls this "crazy antipassivization". ...
Journal of Pragmatics, 2010
This article appeared in a journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the a... more This article appeared in a journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the author for internal non-commercial research and education use, including for instruction at the authors institution and sharing with colleagues. Other uses, including reproduction and distribution, or selling or licensing copies, or posting to personal, institutional or third party websites are prohibited. In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of the article (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website or institutional repository. Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier's archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit: http://www.elsevier.com/copyright
International Journal of American Linguistics, 2000
The sun goes' (1c) ie'-φtúrkekadiwö ska 3SG-ABS jumpsun to. 'She jumps to the sun' (2a) ma-rra-ku... more The sun goes' (1c) ie'-φtúrkekadiwö ska 3SG-ABS jumpsun to. 'She jumps to the sun' (2a) ma-rra-kua_-e 2ABS-1ERG-see-NON-FUT 'I see you' (2b) i-rpa-kua_-e 3ABS-2ERG-see-NON-FUT 'You see him' (2c) mi-tó-ye 2ABS-go-NON-FUT 'You go' In the examples in (1), dìwö ('the sun') is the unmarked absolutive, just as the pronoun ie' ('s/he') appears unmarked as intransitive subject and as object, but not when it is the subject of the transitive construction-in (1a)-, in which case it is marked ergative (-r). There is a clear opposition between S and O (φ-marked) against the marked A. As for the Guatuso data, the markers for second person vary depending on the role of the NP they refer to: if S and O, they take the form mV (where the realization of the vowel is subject to rules of vowel harmony); if A, then the corresponding form is rpa (<p> represents /Φ/, a voiceless bilabial fricative). Again, S and O align against A. As for syntactic ergativity, it occurs when a language "has syntactic rules that treat S and O in the same way, but differently from A. These rules concern the distribution among NPs of syntactic priorities such as the ability to be the controller/target of conjunction reduction, relativization, Equi NP-deletion in infinitival clauses, etc." (Kazenin 1994: 78). The well-known difference between ergative and accusative syntax is usually illustrated by contrasting English with Dyirbal; in the former, only S and A can be deleted when coordinated, as illustrated in (3), where the controllers of the operation are S and A; for O ('the child') to be the controller, it must be promoted to subject (S) position via the passive construction: (3a) The man saw the child and left [the man left/*the child left] (3b) The child was seen (by the man) and left [the child left/*the man left] In Dyirbal (cf. Dixon 1994: 155, 161, 164), a different picture emerges when coordinations like the ones in (3) occur: (4a) [yabu O _uma-_gu A bura-n] [φ S banaga-n y u] mother-ABS father-ERGsaw-NON-FUT returned-NON-FUT 'Father saw mother and she returned' [mother returned/*father returned]
International Journal of American Linguistics, 2000
devoted to its distribution in regard to both syntactic relations and word class of the noun phra... more devoted to its distribution in regard to both syntactic relations and word class of the noun phrases it marks as specific. Finally, Section 4 summarizes the results of the study. 2. Reference and SPECIFICITY In his influential article "On Referring" Strawson (1950/1993) defines 'referring' as "a characteristic of a use of an expression, just as 'being about' something, and truth-or-falsity, are characteristics of a use of a sentence" [emphasis in original], and establishes a difference between referring on the one hand and meaning ("function of the use of an expression") on the other. By asserting that "We do not, and we cannot, while referring, attain the point of complete explicitness at which the referring function is no longer performed. [but rather] The actual unique reference made, if any, is a matter of the particular use in the particular context; the significance of the expression used is the set of rules or conventions which permit such references to be made", Strawson (1993: 70) points at an essential characteristic of reference, namely its being contextdependent; in this sense reference comes to border on deixis; hence his contextual requirement for referring, "that the thing should be in a certain relation to the speaker and to the context of utterance" (1993: 72). Lyons maintains the principle of context-dependency of reference, "The term 'reference'... has to do with the relationship which holds between an expression and what that expression stands for on particular occasions of its utterance" (Lyons 1977: 174); and distinguishes between singular and general referring expressions, where the former refer to individuals, while the latter refer to classes thereof. In addition to these two types, Lyons distinguishes between definite expressions, those referring to a specific individual, and indefinite expressions, those which do not refer to a specific individual or class. Of these four types of reference, singular definite is regarded as basic (it comprises three kinds of expressions, definite noun phrases, proper names, and personal pronouns.) Within the realm of definite reference, Lyons includes non-referring definite noun phrases, expressions that despite being definite do not identify particular, specific entities. More directly related to our concern in this paper, is the opposition between specific and non-specific indefinite reference. Lyons' point of departure is the distinction between non-definite (any noun phrase which is not definite) and indefinite (an indefinite pronoun or a noun phrase introduced by an indefinite article) noun phrases. Indefinite phrases can be used specifically or non-specifically; Lyons (1977: 188) remarks in this respect that "very often... we cannot tell whether an indefinite noun-phrase is being used with specific reference or not"; he points as well to the fact that languages that have definite and/or indefinite articles vary in the way that they make use of them. Indefinite pronouns and noun phrases introduced by indefinite adjectives (e.g. English some) are subject to a specific/non-specific interpretation. It follows, then, that specificity is "a reading" the speaker assigns to certain NPs, whereby the entity referred to is particularized, that is, "isolated" from the set of akin elements. Languages can grammaticalize this option in such a way that whenever a speaker is construing an entity (definite or indefinite) as specific s/he has to mark it as such using the means available. As will be shown in 3, the grammaticalization of SPECIFICITY in Boruca confirms Lyons' classification not only in that indefinite NPs can be marked for specificity, but also in that it was the erstwhile definite article that was "recruited" to express that distinction of reference even with noun phrases introduced by the indefinite article. Givón adds a new concept-already latent in Lyons-to the discussion of reference, which can be taken as the necessary step to operationalize Strawson's contextual requirement, namely referential intent; in his words, "The facet of referentiality in language is related to the fact that
International Journal of American Linguistics, 2011
... The former is more conspicuous with other speech-act participants, as in (i), where both firs... more ... The former is more conspicuous with other speech-act participants, as in (i), where both first (as subject) and third (as postpositional object) person are expressed by W: (i) Ogle cha no bled-able, W ngang donand-able W ke with 1sg foc talk-p.rem, W land ask-p.rem W to ...
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Papers by Juan Diego Quesada