The Role of SE and NE in Romance Verbs of Directed Motion: Evidence from Catalan, Italian, Aragonese and Spanish Varieties

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the use of se with directed motion verbs in several Romance languages and varieties. Building on some observations that have been made for Spanish, we adopt a broader cross-linguistic perspective, bringing into discussion an element that has, until now, gone generally unnoticed (aside from descriptive works): the ablative locative clitic that appears, together with se, in Catalan, Italian and Aragonese varieties, as in tornar-se’n ‘go back se ne’ from Catalan. Our data from different Romance languages and dialects allow us to refine the settings of the connection between pronominal directed motion verbs and the existence of a source component. In particular, we posit the existence of a locative head (here tentatively analysed as an applicative), which can be spelled out by an ablative locative clitic. We also argue that directed motion verbs can be conceived of by Romance speakers as simple, punctual events denoting the achievement of a particular position, but also as denoting a complex event that consists of a causing subevent and a resultant state (which is connected to achieving a new position and remaining there for some time, after having left behind the original location). In the latter case, these verbs can surface in their pronominal form, even if it does not happen always, since there is cross-linguistic and cross-dialectal variation regarding the availability of pronominal forms for these verbs, due to different lexicalization patterns.