Alternations of locative and non-locative meaning in complements of estar

Abstract

This article presents an application of the analysis of the functional projections of the Determiner Phrase (DetP) developed by Borer (2005) to two related phenomena that involve structures in complement position of estar: on the one hand, we find the non-locative reading of prepositional phrases headed by en and complemented by a bare noun (e.g. estar en entrenamiento), and the locative reading of phrases headed by the same preposition and complemented by a DetP with the same nominal lexical head (e.g. estar en el entrenamiento). On the other hand, we find the alternation of a gerund in estarentrenando with the prepositional structure present in estar en entrenamiento. Considering, moreover, that only in the non-locative reading the subject of the clause corresponds to a semantic participant of the event, it is proposed that the presence of a determinant blocks the possibility of establishing a relation of referential identity between the subject of v and the subject of P, thus contributing to the production of a locative reading. The absence of blocking to the aforementioned referential identity relation allows to produce a non-locative reading that permits, at least partially, the alternation between the structures with gerund and those with a bare noun.