LINGUISTIC THEORY, L2
ACQUISITION AND PEDAGOGICAL
GRAMMAR: ON SOME UNIVERSAL
AND IDIOSYNCRATIC PROPERTIES
OF SPANISH SE
Juana M. Liceras
University of Ottawa
Department of Modern Languages
70 Laurier Street East
Ottawa, Ontario K1N 6N5
CANADA
email: [email protected]
I have accepted the invitation to write a commentary on the
three articles that comprise this volume because I would like to
share with the Spanish Applied Linguistics audience what I see as
the potential of this type of work for a subfield of Applied
Linguistics: Pedagogical Grammar.
What I would like to do is to review and further elaborate on my
view of pedagogical grammar (Liceras 1984, 1989, 1993) as a
crossroads for linguistic theory and language acquisition.
Specifically, I would like to propose that a pedagogical grammar
should be a solid description of a subset of the “grammar” of a
particular language. Ideally, a pedagogical grammar should
provide an account of the universal, the parameterized, and the
idiosyncratic aspects of that particular subset of the “grammar” of
a language by sorting out the ‘intuitively transparent’ theoretical
analyses available. Furthermore, a pedagogical grammar should
©SAL, 3, 1999: 00-00
University of Illinois
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Spanish Applied Linguistics
provide information about how primary and non-primary
acquisition of the constructions in question takes place. Finally, a
sound pedagogical grammar should trigger the acquiescence of
native speakers to a grammatical analysis in order to make explicit
their ‘intuitions’ about the specific constructions. These intuitions
should be incorporated in pedagogical grammars because the
ultimate end of this endeavor is to lead non-native speakers to
eventually capture those native intuitions in their second language
learning process.
The linguistic framework at the center of these three articles on
Spanish se constructions—Chomskyan Generative Grammar—
constitutes a suitable candidate to illustrate what a partial
pedagogical grammar of Spanish se could look like. The main goal
of this theoretical approach is to provide a solid description and
explanation of crosslinguistic phenomena. A second related goal is
to explain how a “grammar” comes to be acquired. Therefore,
generative grammar provides the foundations for constructing a
pedagogical grammar for several reasons. First, it provides a
universal inventory of verb types with different types of arguments
and thematic roles (transitive, intransitive, unaccusatve,
unergatives, etc.). Spanish se is the overt morphological realization
of operations on thematic roles with certain verb types. Second, the
psychological or psycholinguistic component of generative
grammar deals with the learnability issue. It takes into account
‘nature’ (the initial state of adult learners’ competence) as well as
‘nurture’ (the actual triggers from the environment: in this case, the
morphosyntax of Spanish se constructions). Finally, the detailed
linguistic program of generative grammar provides the formal
apparatus needed to describe both the universal and specific
syntactic nature of se constructions in different languages. In other
words, this framework provides us with the semantic and
morphosyntactic description of how thematic roles (cause, agent,
theme, etc.) interact with the syntax of Spanish se constructions in
terms of agreement, word order and case markers.
In order to discuss the potential contents of a pedagogical
grammar of Spanish se constructions, I will first comment on the
Linguistic Theory, L2 Acquisition and Pedagogical Grammar
3
specific se constructions chosen by the authors. Subsequently, I
will refer to their findings in terms of how these particular se
constructions are acquired by adult non-native speakers.
ON SE, SE CONSTRUCTIONS, AND OTHER
CONSTRUCTIONS
One of the requirements I have placed (Liceras, 1993) to an
‘ideal’ pedagogical grammar is that apart from a comprehensive
description of the morphological, syntactic, semantic and
pragmatic aspects of any given construction or process, this
pedagogical grammar must also include variations of actual usage
of those constructions by native speakers of different dialects.
However, if as stated above, the foundation of a pedagogical
grammar is a ‘solid descriptive grammar’, it would be redundant to
state the comprehensive issue again. In fact, I would like to
endorse a program for constructing pedagogical grammars
comprising subsets of the overall “grammar” of the language in
question. This seems to be a more realistic goal than aiming at
producing the pedagogical grammar of the entire Spanish
language. Therefore, the specific subset of the grammar of Spanish
that is discussed in this volume can be labeled “a pedagogical
grammar of Spanish se” or “a pedagogical grammar of passive,
inchoative and impersonal se constructions” or “a pedagogical
grammar of se with transitive, unergative and unaccusative verbs”,
depending on whether or not the desired focus is on a given
linguistic construct.
In fact, the articles in this volume deal with a subset of Spanish
se constructions (passive se and impersonal se, and inchoative se)
(Bruhn de Garavito) and constructions in which se is “the
morphological realization of arguments” of different types of verbs
(Montrul and Toth). Thus, the first implication of my proposal is
that native speakers of Spanish rely on the thematic grid of verbs
(argument structure) to produce and interpret se constructions.
Since thematic roles (cause, agent, experiencer, theme, etc.)
belong to a universal inventory available to all languages, once the
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Spanish Applied Linguistics
meaning of a given verb is established in a second language,
presumably a non-native speaker should have intuitions as to the
nature of the arguments subcategorized by this particular verb.
Therefore, learners should be able to differentiate between twoplace (transitive) and one-place (intransitive) predicates as in (1)
and (2).
(1) Olmo cerró la puerta.
‘Olmo closed the door.’
[agent-theme]
(2) Olmo entró por la ventana.
‘Olmo came in through the window.’
[agent]
Learners should also know that the external argument can be
optional with some two place arguments (alternating transitive
verbs), as in (3), (4) and (5):
(3) La puerta se cerró (por el viento).
‘The door closed.’
[theme/se conceals cause]
(4) *La puerta se pintó (porque se cayó el bote de pintura).
‘The door got painted (because the can of painting fell
down).’
[theme / se does not conceal cause]
(5) Jaro salió del cuarto / Jaro se salió del cuarto.
‘Jaro left the room.’
[theme / se adds ‘intentional’ or ‘unexpected’ value]
Finally, learners should know that se has other idiosyncratic
properties, and can be grammatical or not, depending on whether
Linguistic Theory, L2 Acquisition and Pedagogical Grammar
5
the intransitive verb is unaccusative or unergative, as in (6), (7)
and (8)
(6) Jaró llegó muy temprano / *Jaro se llegó muy temprano.
‘Jaro arrived very early.’
[theme / se is not used to add intentional or unexpected
value]1
(7) Samir reía constantemente / Samir se reía constantemente.
‘Samir was laughing constantly.’
[agent / se has ‘unclear’ function]
(8) Liam llora mucho / *Liam se llora mucho.
‘Liam cries a lot.’
[agent]2
In passive constructions, se is also the morphological realization
of a concealed argument The inchoative in (3) can also have a
passive interpretation, as in (9):
(9) La puerta se cerró/Las puertas se cerraron (porque ya era la
hora).
‘The door was closed/The doors were closed (because it was
time to close).’
[theme / se conceals unspecified agent]
What the se examples show is that besides being the
morphological realization of a given argument, se can also add
specific semantic value to some predicates. Unergativity and
unaccusativity have a universal status but do not have obvious
morphological realizations in all languages. Thus, while some of
these uses of se are parameterized, others are language specific.
What is important from the perspective of a pedagogical grammar
is to provide an accurate account of these uses and to convey all
these semantic and syntactic values to non-native speakers.
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Spanish Applied Linguistics
The papers in this volume deal with the parameterization of
English versus Spanish and Turkish mainly in terms of inchoative
se in (3) (La puerta se cerró ‘The door closed’). Both Spanish and
Turkish have a morphological element which conceals the cause
argument, while English does not. However, this overt/non-overt
morphological difference is only a minor aspect of the
parameterized properties of se constructions. For example, an
almost exact equivalent of se as well as the inventory of
constructions where se can be used (passives, impersonals,
middles, reflexives, etc.) present distinct parameterization patterns
in the various Romance, Slavic and Balkan languages (Rivero,
1998). In fact, Rivero has shown that reflexive, reciprocal, inherent
reflexive and middle se in (10) through (13), as well as passive and
inchoative se as illustrated in (3) and (9) above, are found in all
Romance, Slavic and Balkan languages. However, she has also
shown that the various languages are parameterized with respect to
whether impersonal/indefinite se and dative se are possible.
(10) Vera se baña por la noche.
‘Vera takes a bath at night.’
(reflexive)
(11) Ana y Nacho se quieren mucho.
‘Ana and Nacho love each other a lot.’
(reciprocal)
(12) Vera no se acuerda de nada.
‘Vera does not remember anything.’
(inherent se)
(13) Ese artículo se lee facilmente.
(middle)
(está muy bien escrito)
‘That article reads easily (it is very well written).’
For example, French and Modern Greek do not have impersonal se
constructions, such as (14), and neither Polish nor Serbian have
dative se constructions with transitive ‘reflexives’ such as (15):
Linguistic Theory, L2 Acquisition and Pedagogical Grammar
(14) Aquí se trabaja mucho.
‘Here one works a lot.’
[se conceals agent]
(15) Anais se lavó la cara en el río.
possession)
‘Anais washed her face in the river.’
[se marks inalienable possession]
7
(impersonal)
(inalienable
Furthermore, in French, Rumanian and Bulgarian, for instance,
there is no impersonal passive se (the construction illustrated in [9]
where the Noun Phrase agrees with the verb). In these languages,
the NP does not agree with the verb, as with the Spanish nonagreeing se construction in (16) and (17).
(16) Aquí se vende apartamentos.
‘Here apartments are sold.’
[theme, se conceals unspecified agent]
(17) Aquí se premia a los generosos.
‘Here generous people are rewarded.’
[theme, se conceals unspecified agent]
In Liceras (1984), I have classified the Spanish agreeing passive in
(9) and the non-agreeing se construction in (16) as basically the
same type of construction exhibiting variation with agreement on
the NP. I agree with Bruhn de Garavito that the NP in (16) is an
‘anomalous’ object and does not have subject properties. However,
I also agree with Mendikoetxea (1999) that the agreeing passive in
(9) is a dialectal variation of the non-agreeing construction in (16),
which is favored in some Spanish-speaking countries. The
presence or absence of agreement in this basic construction
depends on specific structural properties. These include type of
Noun Phrase or intervening lexical items between the verb and the
noun. Based on these facts, I would like to propose that a
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Spanish Applied Linguistics
pedagogical grammar of Spanish should link the se sentences in
(16) to passive se sentences in (9), thus capturing both native
speakers’ intuitions and dialectal preferences. Needless to say, the
morphological and usage differences will have to be clearly stated
as well.
Further dialectal variation arises in the case of example (17).
The Noun Phrase a los generosos ‘to the generous ones’ does not
agree with the verb.3 The fact that the [+human] [+definite] Noun
Phrase cannot agree with the verb in many varieties of Spanish
(Liceras 1984, Mendikoetxea, 1999), means that these sentences
are a different phenomenon from sentences where the [-definite]
Noun Phrase, as in (18), or the [-human] [-definite] Noun Phrase in
(9), agrees with the verb.
(18) Aquí se necesitan personas generosas.
‘Here generous people are needed/we need generous
people.’
[theme; se conceals unspecified experiencer]
In short, the agreeing and non-agreeing sentences in (17) and (18)
are also dialectal variants of the same basic construction. In this
volume, Bruhn de Garavito’s exploits this dialectal difference to
test near-native speakers’ knowledge (her examples [23] and [24]).
A se construction that has not been investigated in any of the
three papers in this volume is the middle se construction,
illustrated in (13). This is an interesting case because, unlike the
constructions in (16) and (17), the middle requires further
specifications as to the ‘concealing’ role that se and the adverbial
play. In fact, notice that in order to convey the middle meaning to
(13), the phrase ‘it is very well written’ has to be added. This
indicates that article is a theme whose intrinsic properties play a
role in the interpretation of the sentence. What I would like to
suggest is that not only does se here conceal the presence of an
unspecified agent/experiencer, but it also conceals this intrinsic
Linguistic Theory, L2 Acquisition and Pedagogical Grammar
9
property of the theme, which facilitates the reading of the article in
question (see also Mendikoetxea [1999]).
It must also be added that native speakers make use of this se in
other situations, which complicates the facts discussed by Montrul
with respect to non-alternating transitive verbs. The use of se can
be ambiguous with these verbs. Thus, although (4) cannot be read
as inchoative se, it can be read as passive se (‘The door was
painted’). Moreover, if the adverbial sola is added, as in (19), the
interpretation is closer to the one given to the middle se in (13).
(19) Esa casa se pinta sola.
‘That house paints easily (paints itself).’
As the English translation suggests, the meaning of (19) is that the
house is easy to paint because of specific characteristics of the
house. Furthermore, as Mendikoetxea (1999) indicates, middle se
can also occur with human Noun Phrases as in (20):
(20) A esos profesores se les engaña fácilmente.
‘These professors are easily tricked.’
In this case, a esos profesores is the theme, and se in this example
conceals the agent role. However, se also conceals the inherent
property of the Noun Phrase (the professors’ nature). In this case,
the intended meaning is that professors are easy to trick because
‘they are so innocent’ or… ‘they are so silly’.
ADULT NON-NATIVE ACQUISITION OF SPANISH SE
CONSTRUCTIONS
The papers in this volume show that adult non-native speakers
are aware of the universal properties of the se and the non-se
constructions investigated. The data show that there are more
instances of overgeneralization of se to constructions with
unaccusative predicates than to constructions with unergative
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Spanish Applied Linguistics
predicates (Montrul and Toth). The data also show that learners
differentiate se constructions where the cause argument is
concealed from se constructions where the agent is concealed
(Bruhn de Garavito). If these properties are part of Universal
Grammar (UG), it is possible to conclude that adult non-native
speakers have access to them. However, it is possible to conclude
that learners access these properties via their L1, as Montrul
suggests. In any case, the data show that adult non-native speakers
are rather well equipped to learn other languages, provided they
capture the morphosyntactic realizations of the thematic grid of the
different classes of verbs.
The contributions in this volume have shown that the L1 plays a
role in how the parameterized aspects of those morphosyntactic
realizations of se are transferred: English speakers have more
problems with inchoative se in (3) than Turkish speakers, but
Turkish speakers overgeneralize se to transitive, unergative and
unaccusative constructions. In fact, Toth’s results suggest that
acceptance of zero morphology (lack of se) with inchoatives such
as (3) could become a candidate for fossilization. Also in terms of
native-like performance, Toth’s results show that both native and
non-native speakers chose transitive over intransitive
morphosyntax whenever the possibility is there. Montrul also
suggests that the transitive template may be the default one.
However, even though universal default (markedness)
considerations may influence the results, only the L2 learners, but
not the native speakers, avoided intransitive sentences, suggesting
that native speakers’ morphosyntactic competence overrides
universal or parameterized default patterns.
It is interesting to note that Bruhn de Garavito’s results indicate
just the opposite of Montrul and Toth’s findings. Her data suggest
that there are no L1 effects (French versus English) in the case of
her near-native speakers. Bruhn de Garavito interprets her results
as evidence that native-like competence of the three superficially
similar constructions —(3), (9) and (16)—can be attained.
However, I would like to point out two issues that shed some
shadow over the potential generalization of these results. The first
Linguistic Theory, L2 Acquisition and Pedagogical Grammar
11
relates to the fact that her French and English subjects live and
work in Montreal, which makes one wonder what their degree of
bilingualism may be (their competence in English and French
respectively). The second issue relates to the professional profile of
Bruhn de Garavito’s subjects, who were all teachers of Spanish.
Considering that se constructions are a regular item in a teacher
training program, it would be very difficult to determine whether it
is these subjects’ metalinguistic abilities that lead them to judge
these sentences with the same accuracy as native speakers do, or
whether their intuitions are actually native-like. Furthermore, the
fact that these near-native subjects have reached such high level of
competence, does not readily imply that “it is unnecessary to posit
a learning mechanism different from the one used in L1
acquisition” (Bruhn de Garavito, p.X ). In fact, within the
Chomskyan framework, a framework that relies heavily on the
difference between competence and performance, the fact that nonnative speakers produce native-like judgments for the various
sentences with respect to some object- and subject-like properties
may but does not necessarily indicate that these subjects have
attained native-like knowledge (competence). What is more, these
judgments do not say much about how that knowledge was
achieved. For instance, it would be important to have evidence that
L1 children go through the same stages and experience the same
problems as the advanced students reported in this paper.
CONCLUSION
I would like to conclude by emphasizing the importance of the
type of work documented in this special issue of SAL for the
construction of pedagogical grammars. I have proposed that in
order to construct a pedagogical grammar of Spanish se
constructions, it is important to address the universal principles and
constructs of grammar, the parameterization of se constructions in
other languages (both in terms of se-like lexical items and in terms
of other morphological markers), and the idiosyncratic aspects of
Spanish se constructions. These idiosyncratic aspects of Spanish se
refer more to actual uses of verbs and varieties of Spanish than to
the presence or absence of constructions such as (16) or (17), since
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Spanish Applied Linguistics
syntactic equivalents of the latter have been found to show a
parameterized distribution in Romance, Slavic, and Balkan
languages.
Even though a subset of all the Spanish se constructions have
been addressed in this volume, still all these constructions
discussed should become part of this subset of a pedagogical
grammar. Moreover, other syntactic constructions that allow us to
test the subject or object nature of the various Noun Phrases should
be incorporated as well (Liceras 1984; Rivero 1998; Mendikoetxea
1999; Bruhn de Garavito, this volume). This includes impersonal
se constructions appearing with control, passive and be+adjective
clauses as in (21), (22) and (23) respectively, as well as Bruhn de
Garavito’s examples (16) and (17), repeated here as (24) and (25).
(21) Normalmente, se quiere [PRO ser agasajado.]
‘Normally, one wants to be praised.’
(22) Aquí se es agasajado o no se es agasajado, nunca se sabe.
‘Here, one is praised or not, one never knows.’
(23) En esas situaciones, se es feliz o se es desgraciado,
depende.
‘In these situations, one is happy or one is unhappy, it
depends.’
(24) *Se rompieron las tazas ya desportilladas.
‘The cups which were already cracked broke.’
(25) Se compraron las tazas ya desportilladas.
‘The cups which were already cracked were bought.’
These are only some of the possible contexts that would enrich the
construction of a solid pedagogical grammar of Spanish se.
Finally, information about L1 influence, hierarchies of difficulty
and possible candidates for fossilization, could also be
incorporated.
Linguistic Theory, L2 Acquisition and Pedagogical Grammar
13
A final issue worth addressing concerns the debate over the
categorial status of se: whether it is a pronominal or a verbal affix
(Mendikoetxea, 1999; Rivero, 1998). I suggest that, apart from
providing a ‘lexical’ vocabulary, pedagogical grammars should
incorporate ‘morphological’ vocabulary. By this I mean that clitics
and verbal affixes should be described as independent vocabulary
items whose parameterized and language specific features
contribute to the syntactic and semantic properties of the
constructions in which they occur. In short, when constructing a
pedagogical grammar, it would be fruitful to follow Kato’s (1999)
proposal of treating morphological markers of person, such as the
first person plural marker –mos in “Ya terminamos” (‘We are
about to finish’), as weak pronouns. Thus, along the same vein, the
verbal affix se could be introduced both as an independent lexical
item and as an element of a set of related constructions.
NOTES
1. Native speakers sometimes would say things like (i) and (ii), where se adds an
intentional flavor to the verb and makes it a synonym of acercarse ‘drop by’.
(i) Voy a ver si me llego hasta tu casa.
‘I am going to see whether I can drop by your house.’
(ii) Julio dice que si puede se llega hasta tu casa.
‘Julio says that if he can he will drop by your house.’
2. Montul notices that sometimes unergatives such as bailar ‘dance’ can be used
with se, provided they are used as two-place predicates as in (i):
(i) Laura se bailó un tango.
‘Laura se danced a tango.’
In fact, llorar ‘cry’ is also used with se as in (ii):
(ii) Laura se lloró toda la película.
‘Laura se cried all along the movie.’
This ‘reflexive’ use of the pronominal seems to add a kind of involvement
similar to the intentional value of the se used with unaccusatives.
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Spanish Applied Linguistics
3. Some speakers use agreement here too, as Bruhn de Garavito and
Mendikoetxea (1999) notice, in which case a sentence such as (i) would
alternate with (17):
(i) Se premian a los generosos.
‘Genrerous people are rewarded.’
REFERENCES
Kato, M. A. (1999). Strong and weak pronominals in the null subject
parameters. Probus 11, 1-37.
Liceras, J. M. (1984). En torno a las relaciones gramaticales en español. Ottawa
Hispánica, 6, 29-54.
Liceras, J. M. (1985). A pedagogical grammar of Spanish reflexive passive.
Bulletin of the CAAL, 7, 137-145.
Liceras, J. M. (1989). On linguistic theory and Spanish grammars. In G. Leitner
and G. Graustein (Eds.) Linguistic theorizing and grammar writing (pp.
184-204). Tübingen: Newmeyer.
Liceras, J. M. (1993). La adquisición del español y la gramática pedagógica.
Idiomas, 16, 20-26.
Mendikoetxea, A. (1999). Construcciones con se: Medias, pasivas e
impersonales. In Bosque, I. and V. Demonte (Eds.) Gramática
descripiva de la lengua española. Vol. II (pp. 1631-1722). Madrid:
Espasa Calpe.
Rivero, M. L. (December, 1998). On impersonal se in Romance and Slavic.
Paper presented at the Going Romance Conference. Utrecht, Holland.