To the Right of the Verb

This book provides a new approach to the study of clitic doubling in Spanish, based on spontaneous data considered within their broad discourse context, and focusing on the cognitive and pragmatic factors that underpin the use of these constructions. Considering examples from Argentine, Mexican and Spanish regional variants of the language, the study embraces the graduality and heterogeneity that emerge from the data, and distinguishes different subtypes of 'doubling' depending on the pragmatic constraints that govern their use, as well as the morphophonological and morphosyntactic characteristics of dative and accusative clitics in each variant. Each 'doubling' subtype, in turn, is shown to have different degrees of spreading. The book concludes with an examination of these constructions within the framework of Role and Reference Grammar. The formalizations proposed account for the complex interplay of syntax, semantics and pragmatics evidenced by clitic doubling in a way that, at the same time, is consistent with the diversity uncovered by the analysis of the natural data.