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Referentiality in Spanish noun phrases

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2026

Nelson Rojas
Nelson Rojas*
Affiliation:
University of Nevada
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Abstract

This paper questions the basic claim of M.-L. Rivero's ‘Referential properties of Spanish noun phrases’ (Lg. 51.32–48)—i.e., that a correlation exists between the ‘specificity’ of the head NP, as she calls it, and the mood of the dependent relative clause. It is demonstrated here that the indicative mood accepts both ‘specific’ and ‘non-specific’ NP's, and that the sentences in the subjunctive mood are either ungrammatical or are actually in the indicative mood. Moreoever, it is shown that the traditional distinction between referential and attributive NP's should not be interpreted as a distinction between specific and non-specific NP's. The final sections of the paper point out that Rivero's data do not show conclusively that existential import affects definite and indefinite NP's alike, nor that these two types of NP's receive their existential interpretation through the same linguistic means.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 53 , Issue 1 , March 1977 , pp. 61 - 69
Copyright
Copyright © 1977 by Linguistic Society of America

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