The Morphology of Non-canonical Imperfect Subjunctives in Spanish

The project addresses a theoretical issue that arises due to somewhat ‘unexpected’ uses of the imperfect subjunctive verbal form, quisiera, in Spanish. In the descriptive linguistic literature, it is noted that, quisiera, can be used for a conditional (e.g., I would do) or past perfect (e.g., I had done) meaning depending on the variety of Spanish spoken; these meanings would typically be expressed by querría and había querido, respectively. While this fact is well accounted for in the descriptive literature, current morphological theory has paid relatively little attention to how to tie two different forms to the same meaning; this represent a significant gap in the current literature. Therefore, my research fills a gap in the linguistic literature by giving a formal analysis to these previously unaddressed Spanish data.

Faculty Supervisor:

Gabriela Alboiu

Student:

Partner:

Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

Other

University:

York University

Program: