| This corpus-based thesis analyses the semantic variety of attribution denoting change of state both in English and in Spanish, in order to demonstrate that this particular field of the Spanish attributive system is more restricted than its English counterpart in syntactico-semantic terms. The main reasons supporting this hypothesis are the following: (i) the inexistence in Spanish of an attributive verb of becoming completely equivalent to the English multifunctional become; (ii) and the restricted distribution the attributive-resultative pattern has in Spanish in comparison with its English counterpart. As will be shown, only one of the two types of the English resultative pattern is attested in Spanish (the transitiva one), and with quite different syntactic, semantic, aspectual and distributional properties.;The dissertation consists of six sections. The first part is an introduction where the goals to be achieved and the methodology employed are described, and the final one presents the principal conclusions.;As regards the four central chapters, the organization is as follows. In the first, I review how the linguistic phenomenon of "attribution" has been studied over time (from the times of traditional grammar up to the period known as contemporary linguistics) both in the English and the Spanish linguistic traditions, to show that the conception of attribution defended is a vast one which, apart from the canonical attributive sentences containing a linking verb such as ser/estar, parecer, ponerse , etc. and it English equivalents be, become, seem, etc., also includes complex attributive constructions made up of two different predicative relationships: a primary verbal predication of very different syntactico-semantic nature and a secondary predication always attributive in nature. The second chapter is devoted, in turn, to the contrastive analysis of each of the three different, although closely interrelated, components of the attributive relationship: that is, the theme or logical subject of the attribute, the attributive verb and, finally, the attribute. The third chapter is reserved to justify the intransitivity of the attributive relationship with syntactic, semantic and aspectual reasons. And the fourth and final chapter is concerned with the contrastive analysis of the English and Spanish resultative constructions. |
