Algunas perífrasis incoativas con a + infinitivo

Resumen

In this presentation I intend to study some Spanish verbal compounds which refer to the initial phase of an event or to a change of state, the so-called aspectual periphrases, from the perspective of cognitive linguistics. The analysis presupposes the results of previous formal analysis (cohesion, tests for identifying a specific syntactic formation, etc.) and aims at a more finegrained semantic analysis of the different inchoative aspectualizers operating on a main verb. The analysis is based on the assumption that each aspectualizer (empezar, comenzar, ponerse a, romper a, etc.) has a schematic grounding of its own. An important distinction in the paper is the one drawn between a current gradient scheme and a scheme regulated by force dynamics.