The intent of the thesis, as explained in the Introduction, is to examine the development and use of the verb + preposition + infinitive construction in Castilian. The Introduction serves to present the problem and to suggest an explanation. That is, the postulation of an initial prepositional meaning within the construction, which has since been lost in many cases. Chapter One deals with the three terms employed in the construction, and indicates the possible ambiguity of each term, and the complexity inherent within its use. It examines several accepted definitions of the terms and of their relationship to one another, and seeks to resolve several consequent problems. Chapter Two consists of a study of the development of the construction from Latin to Old Spanish. It attempts to deal briefly with various Latin constructions and their subsequent influence, and tries to show how many of them resulted in the Spanish construction under consideration. Chapter Three examines a number of examples of this construction in Old Spanish. It presents a possible interpretation of these quotations in the context of the verb + preposition + infinitive construction, and attempts to demonstrate how and why they occurred, comparing and contrasting Old and modern usage. Chapter Four is an examination of the situation of Modern Spanish, in terms of the same construction. It looks at a number of verbs in the language, indicates their etymology briefly, and points out various comparisons and contrasts with modern French. A discussion of these forms follows, with the intent of corroborating the original hypothesis. The Conclusion consists of a summation of the information gained in the course of the study. / Arts, Faculty of / French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies, Department of / Graduate

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The primary purpose of the present study was to compare the quality of spontaneous language samples elicited from twelve low socioeconomic, normally developing, migrant Spanish-speaking subjects by their mothers in the home and by this investigator in the clinic. The subjects ranged in age from three years, one month to six years, nine months.

Ce travail se situe dans le cadre de la Théorie Standard Étendue, à laquelle certaines modifications sont apportées, notamment quant à l’association d’une règle sémantique aux opérations transformationnelles. Il est montré que ce type d’approche permet d’assigner à chaque phrase une description sémantique (une forme logique) apte à représenter un phénomène crucial comme la présupposition (sémantique). L’étude empirique porte sur la périphrase verbale « venir de + infinitif » et ses équivalents dans plusieurs langues qui recourent soit à une autre périphrase (par exemple, l’espagnol « acabar de + infinitif »), soit à l’emploi d’un adverbe (latin « modo », anglais « just », etc.) accompagnant une forme de parfait ou de prétérit. On soutient qu’à ces expressions de surface très diverses correspond une forme logique sous-jacente combinant un opérateur d’accompli à un opérateur de restriction portant sur un adverbe de temps (« maintenant » / « alors », etc.). De nombreux phénomènes, tant synchroniques que diachroniques, trouvent leur explication dans un tel cadre, en particulier la concurrence entre « venir de + infinitif » et « ne faire que (de) + infinitif » dans l’histoire du français.<p><p>This research work has been carried out in the framework of a modified version of Extended Standard Theory where semantic rules are associated to transformations. It is shown that this approach allows assigning to each sentence a semantic description (i.e. a logical form) able to represent such a crucial phenomenon as (semantic) presupposition. The empirical study bears on the French verbal periphrasis « venir de + infinitive » and its equivalents in several languages where we find either another periphrasis (like, for instance, Spanish « acabar de + infinitive ») or an adverb (Latin « modo », English « just », etc.) modifying a perfect or preterite form. It is argued that such highly diverse surface forms should receive an underlying logical form that combines an « accomplished/completed » operator to a restriction operator taking a time adverb (« now » / « then », etc.) under its scope. Numerous synchronic or diachronic data can be accounted for in such a framework, in particular the competition between « venir de + infinitive » and « ne faire que (de) + infinitive » in the history of French.<p> / Doctorat en philosophie et lettres, Orientation langue et littérature / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished