Sobre la perífrasis 'soler' + estativo: una lectura genérica

Abstract. This paper presents a semantic analysis of a periphrastic construction which has not been studied at this time in Spanish: soler + stative ( Un poeta suele ser un hombre normal, “A poet usually is a normal man ”). Whereas the habitual construction has been largely studied ( Juan suele cantar “Juan usually sings” ), it seems that the first one does not carry the same interpretation. We will claim that we need to distinguish between two readings: the habitual reading on the one hand and the generic reading on the other hand. According to Menendez-Benito (2013), Krifka et al. (1995) and Shubert & Pelletier (1989), among others, we will argue that soler contains a frequentative adverb of quantification Q . In the habitual reading, the Q adverb quantifies over an individual participating in an event at a time t ( Juan esta cantando , “Juan is singing” ), whereas in the generic reading, Q adverb quantifies over a characterizing predicate ( un poeta es un hombre normal, “A poet is a normal man” ). In the habitual reading, the NP must refer to an individual and the VP to a dynamic event anchored in space and time. In the generic reading, the NP must refer to a class of objects and the VP to a stative predicate.