Valores aspectuales de meter como verbo auxiliar: transformaciones históricas y contrastes dialectales

Abstract

In the following paper, the historical development of the verb (meter), particularly its auxiliary uses as an inchoative and causative construction is analyzed. The objective is to formulate a contrast between the American and Peninsular varieties; the latter represented by Comer’s research (2018). For the contrast of dialect varieties, four analysis criteria were selected: syntactic fixation, syntactic incorporation, the animacy of the subject, and the dynamicity of the infinitive. In this sense, the study is based on the grammaticalization theory and on construction grammar. The data analyzed have been extracted from historical corpus such as CORDE and CORDIAM. In conclusion, it is described that the American use of the verb (meter) shows a higher degree of grammaticalization in terms of the degree of formal fixation and syntactic incorporation, while the peninsular use is more grammaticalized in relation to the animacy of the subject and the dynamism of the infinitive. Moreover, evidence in favor of a greater syntactic conservatism of American Spanish is provided.