On the relation between Spanish postverbal bare plural subjects and unaccusative verbs

Abstract

This paper will investigate the problematic relation between unaccusativity and Spanish bare plurals in postverbal subject position. The appearance of this type of NP is usually regarded as an adequate means to detect unaccusativity. However, in some contexts, most notably that of the locative inversion construction, bare plural subjects can also appear after verbs that are considered to be unergative. Furthermore, there are a number of indications that it is discourse-pragmatic restrictions that regulate the distribution of postverbal bare plurals as a subject. In this paper, both types of proposals will be analysed critically. It will be concluded that a pragmatic account, instead of one based on the unaccusative status of the verb, seems to be preferable when analysing Spanish postverbal bare plural subjects.