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Apenas Aspectual reduction and subjective evaluation in Spanish Ricardo Maldonado and Rocío Guzmán Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

This paper explores both the polysemy and the development of the adverb apenas ‘barely hardly’ into a discourse marker of temporal proximity ‘just/recently’. In contrast to well-known expected tendencies in grammaticalization, apenas runs against the cannon. The subjective adverb apenas, that designates events carried out “with effort/difficulty”, changed into an objective connector signaling immediacy among events or proximity to the time of speech. The polysemy of apenas is accounted for both synchronically and diachronically, as the interaction between the force-dynamics configuration of the marker (Talmy, 1985, 1988) and the aspectual configuration of the verb. It is proposed that aspect determines the degree of subjectivity of the event where telicity triggers objective representations and these, in turn, led the way for the emergence of a discourse marker of temporal proximity. Keywords: discourse marker, subjectivity, temporal proximity, adverbs, cognitive grammar, force dynamics

1. The problem Current approaches to semantic change agree in finding a strong tendency for lexical forms to go from concrete to abstract. In this vein, meanings related to trajectories in space move to temporal paths and these may also evolve into evaluative and subjective meanings (Heine, 2002; Langacker, 1985, 1990; Traugott, 1988, 1989, 1995; Traugott & Dasher, 2002, and considerable multi alia). This tendency has been documented at length in different realms of grammar: verbs of motion changing to tense markers, modal verbs going from deontic to epistemic meanings and adverbs moving to initial position to have scope over the entire sentence and reflect the speaker’s viewpoint. Such tendencies have been systematized Review of Cognitive Linguistics 12:2 (2014), 443–469. doi 10.1075/rcl.12.2.07mal issn 1877–9751 / e-issn 1877–976x © John Benjamins Publishing Company

444 Ricardo Maldonado and Rocío Guzmán

in terms of recurrent well-known clines (Cornillie, 2007; Traugott, 1988, 1989; Traugott & Dasher, 2002, and considerable multi alia): i. meanings based in the external described situation change into meanings based in the internal (evaluative/perceptual/cognitive) described situation e.g. feel ‘touch’ > ‘experience’, grasp ‘take in one’s hands’ > ‘understand’, weigh (up) ‘determine weight’ > ‘evaluate’, value ‘monetary value’ > ‘worth’; ii. meanings based on the external or internal described situation > meanings based in the textual and metalinguistic situation e.g., observe ‘perceive’ > ‘state’, while ‘at the same time that’ > ‘although’; and iii. meanings being increasingly based in the speaker’s subjective belief state/attitude towards the proposition e.g. go ‘walk’ > ‘intend’, may ‘have permission’ > ‘be possible’, difficult ‘hard to do’ > ‘hard to please’. Although these general tendencies are well known, the unidirectionality of grammaticalization has been questioned based on important exceptions (Campbell, 2001; Giacalone-Ramat, 1998; Newmeyer, 1998, and many others). While the canonical position is that these exceptions are spurious at best, their existence is well motivated (e.g. Haspelmath, 1999, 2004; Lehmann, 1995[1982], p. 19; Traugott & Heine, 1991). The case of exaptation is undoubtedly still under discussion (Croft, 2000; Greenberg, 1991; Heine, 2003; Lass, 1990; Norde, 2002; Traugott, 2004). Less common are cases of backwards grammaticalization going from subjective to more objective representations, i.e., from the evaluative subjective sphere of the speaker, to more concrete meanings. The purpose of this paper is to show that aspect may be a crucial ingredient to motivate a change towards more objective representations. The case in point is Spanish apenas ‘hardly, barely’, an evaluative adverb that can also operate as a discourse marker depicting proximity to the time of speech (PTS) and also extreme immediacy in sequentially arranged events. Traditional Spanish grammars acknowledge, without particular explanation, that apenas portrays an array of seemingly unrelated meanings (Alcina & Blecua, 1975; Bello, 1988; Beristain, 2006; Cuervo, 1981; DRAE, 2001; Moliner, 2007; Real Academia Española, 1973; Seco, 1972). These can be synthetized in four outstanding meanings, as illustrated in examples (1) to (4): Difficulty [hardly] (1) (Pausa.) Mi madre murió tan joven … Apenas tengo de ella un vago recuerdo … [CREA. México. Teatro. 1991. Calvo, Román. Dónde vas, Román Castillo. Gaceta (México D.F.)] ‘(Pause.) My mother died so young … I hardly have a vague image … [of her]’

© 2014. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved

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Reduction, small amount [barely, only] (2) … cambió como embajador a Eudaldo Mirapeix -quien apenas tenía 15 meses en el cargo- por José Coderch. (CORDE. México) ‘He changed Eduardo Mirapeix as ambassador, who has only been in that position for 15 months, for José Codrech’ Proximity to time of speech (PTS) or time of reference [a short time ago] (3) … como le dije antes, esta es una nueva tecnología. Apenas están apareciendo las técnicas básicas … [CREA. 2001. México. Libros. Gánem, Enrique. Caminitos de plata. 100 cápsulas científicas. McGraw-Hill Interamericana Editores.] ‘… as I told you before, this is new technology. The basic techniques are just showing up’ Immediacy (connector of two clauses) (4) “Apenas te veo me brinca el corazón” ‘As soon as I see you, my heart skips a beat’

These meanings evolved from the prepositional phrase a penas, literally ‘to pains’, which was lexicalized as an adverb as the two forms fused into a simple form where the notion of difficulty increasingly bleached out allowing for the emergence of new meanings related to reduction and immediacy. Of interest is the fact that the immediacy meaning is the most recent one, and it only shows up when apenas functions as a sentence connector. While one can envisage some remote connection between these meanings, the precise relationship and the factors motivating each one of them need to be spelled out. We propose that the four meanings are the output of the interaction between the intrinsic force-dynamic configuration of the adverb, and the lexical and morphological aspectual configuration of the verbs with which apenas interacts. In order to show the gradual shift from subjective to more objective meanings in Section 2, we offer an interpretation of apenas as a force dynamics construal (Talmy, 1985, 1988). In Section 3, the determinacy of lexical and morphological aspect over apenas is undertaken. Section 4 examines the behavior of apenas as a sentence connector and the emergence of an immediacy reading. Based on a frequency count of data from two corpora, Section 5 attempts to identify the most representative uses of apenas. Section 6 analyses the historical development of apenas to account for the change from a subjective adverb to a more objective temporal marker. Finally, Section 7 offers, as way of conclusions, some considerations about subjectivity as suggested by our analysis.



2. Apenas and force dynamics As already pointed out, the adverb apenas is the result of blending a preposition a ‘to’ which is commonly used for modal meanings (a lo loco ‘in a crazy way’) with the noun penas ‘pains’. This new adverb depicts actions being developed with effort and difficulty. In a prepositional phrase con pena ‘with pain’ it modifies the verb to portray actions done with difficulty, against one’s desire’, i.e., “painfully”, as in (6): (5) La pena que le causa verlo tan decaído y mal de salud. ‘The pain he suffers as he sees him so down and ill’ (6) Hemos comprobado con pena que esta regulación no se ajusta a lo establecido en los acuerdos entre el Estado español y la Santa Sede. ‘We have attested with pain that this regulation does not comply with the agreement between the Government and the Holy Church’

The development of the adverb apenas is thus expected. Its core meaning corresponds to a Force Dynamic configuration (Talmy, 1985, 1988) where a resisting force demands special strength for the action to be accomplished. In its simplest manifestation, things are done with considerable effort as they face difficulty: (7) Se apagaba suavemente y apenas respiraba. Después exhaló un suspiro y se le detuvo el corazón (CREA. México. Prensa. 1997) ‘He was going down softly and he could hardly breathe. Then he exhaled a sigh and his heart stopped’

The reading where an action is carried out with difficulty as imposed by some resisting force, is outstanding in (8): (8) En la Plaza de la Señoría hay tantos turistas que apenas se puede recorrer en paz el escenario de las solemnes ceremonias y proclamaciones del tiempo de los Médicis (CREA. México. Prensa. 1996) ‘In the Plaza de la Señoría there are so many tourists that one can hardly go over the stage of the solemn ceremonies and proclamations of the Medicis’ times’

The force dynamic representation of apenas is offered in a simplified manner in Figure 1. The upper arrows represent the two opposing forces, i.e., the potential trajectory to be followed (the left-to-right arrow) and the resisting force of the crowd (the right-to-left arrow). The sign (+) represents the stronger energy driving the action as it overcomes the resisting force. The lower arrow stands for the resulting


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event

Figure 1. Apenas. Force dynamic construal

event

goal

Figure 2. Apenas. Barely attained goal

action as the action progresses. Just as breathing is done with difficulty in (7), the narrator’s trajectory through the plaza in (8) faces and overcomes the partial obstruction of having too many people in the way. The force dynamic basic structure of apenas is further elaborated by a construal were some goal is barely attained: (9) … una abertura en el centro cuadrado para el cuello, apenas llega encima de la cintura, dejando una franja del estómago sin cubrir (CREA. México. Libros. 1981). ‘… an open area in the center matching the neck size, almost gets to the waist, leaving a strip of the stomach uncovered’

The goal cintura ‘waist’ in (9) is hardly reached, as schematically represented in Figure 2. The basic force dynamics representation is the same as in Figure 1. Expectations are crucial in the construction. In the upper level two opposing forces meet. The natural expectations for this event would be to simply get all the way to the goal, however some unspecified force blocks the natural flow of events. The tendency for the event to take place is stronger (the sign +) and the result is one in which the action is quite close to meeting the expected goal as represented by the lower arrow almost meeting the vertical line. A further development is one where the action not only attains a goal with notable difficulty but also activates the unfulfilled expectation of reaching a further goal. The reading obtained is one of insufficiency, as in (10)–(12). This meaning is schematically represented in Figure 3, in the next section, where some aspectual determinacies of the construal will be spelled out:



(10) Entre los marginados las opiniones positivas apenas alcanzaron 19.6% (el porcentaje más bajo entre todos los estratos (CREA. México. Libros. 1990). ‘Among the people left behind the positive opinion barely reached 19.6% (the lowest percentage among all strata)’ (11) Los senadores apenas pagan cuotas de 500 pesos, cada uno (CREA. México. Prensa. 1996). ‘The senators barely pay fees of 500 pesos each’ (12) … la totalidad de su trabajo y de sus ingresos apenas alcanza para cubrir sus necesidades. ‘All of his work and his salary is barely enough to cover his expenses’

The speaker/hearer’s expectations are not met and the construal is obviously more subjective. When apenas modifies things organized in scales the amount obtained is always small and insignificant, as in (13): (13) … le ayudaba a mis papás, apenas tenía nueve años cuando bajé la primera vez (CREA. México. Prensa. 2001). ‘I used to help my parents, I was only nine years old when I went down for the first time’

While apenas projects the same force dynamic configuration, where two opposing forces meet, the result is one of reduction. The small output obtained with difficulty does not meet the speaker-hearer expectations. These meanings are quite different from those in which the use of apenas imposes a reading of proximity to some temporal reference point, as in (14): (14) … se habían levantado en armas contra su gobierno que apenas se iniciaba (CREA. México. Prensa. 1997) ‘they had raised in arms against his government that had just started’

We can see important similarities with the meaning where a goal is barely met. The goal is now a reference point in time from which some action is calculated. The reading is one where the event is almost coincidental with that reference point. In (14) the conflict starts as soon as the new government begins. In the following section we explore the conditions that may determine the emergence of the difficulty versus the proximity reading. We will propose that aspect is crucial for the proper understanding of these interpretations.


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3. Apenas and aspect In this section we address the interaction between aspect and the force dynamic nature of apenas. It can be seen that the meanings associated with difficulty are all obtained with non-telic verbs. The case of activities is shown in (15): (15) Apenas camina, tiene que usar muletas. ‘She hardly walks, she needs to use crutches’

The action of walking does not meet the Speaker-Hearer’s (S-H) standards attributed to normal people. The same type of reading obtains with states. It quantifies the verb by reducing its value as compared to some expected result on a scale. Consequently the resultant state is insufficient for the S-H’s criteria, as in (16)–(17): (16) Apenas tuve tiempo de verme en el espejo (CREA. México. Libros. 1993. Fuentes, Carlos. El naranjo.) ‘I hardly had the time to see myself in the mirror’ (17) Estos son apenas cuatro facetas del fenómeno que contribuyen a comprender su complejidad (CREA. México. Oral. 1990.) ‘These are just four facets of the amount of phenomena contributing to understand its [the problem] complexity’

The time involved was not enough for the subject to fix himself in the mirror, nor were four facets enough to understand the problem. Apenas parallels the behavior of gradual adjectives (Athanasiadou, 2006; Paradis, 1997, 2000) and adverbs (Matos, 2007) in that it establishes a comparison between properties along a scalar dimension. To the extent that activities and states are internally homogeneous and unbounded in time (Langacker, 1987, 1991) they lend themselves to be equated with scales. In Figure 3, the basic force dynamic representation of

Apenas

Non-telic process

Figure 3. Apenas. Blend. Unfulfilled expected goals



apenas combines with the non-telic process represented by the horizontal line with dots in the square in the right. As they blend, in the lower square, the force dynamics of apenas reduces the time span of the event as calculated against some ideal expectation. Quite a different image comes with achievements and accomplishments where temporal proximity to some reference point is profiled, as shown in (18)–(20): (18) Mariangélica apenas murió ‘Mariangélica just died’ (19) Apenas en 1996 se inició una campaña para los pobres (CREA. México. Prensa. 1997.) ‘It was just in 1996 that a campaign for the poor started’ (20) Matú Iuit negó haber asesinado al jefe policíaco de Xocchel Julio Muñoz, “ya que apenas llegó de Mérida, donde trabajaba como albañil (CREA. México. Prensa. 1996) ‘M.I. denied having murdered the police chief of Xochel, J.M. “since he had just arrived from Mérida” where he worked as a brick layer’

With this type of verbs, events happen right after either the time of speech or some temporal reference point. It operates as a deictic marker of temporal proximity. The same configuration is active for accomplishments as can be seen from (21)–(22): (21) Algunos organismos, además, podrían quedarse con comodidad toda su vida en lugares como los que apenas describí (CREA. México. Ciencia. 2001) ‘Some organisms, even more, could stay comfortably all their lives in places like the ones I just described’ (22) Los sistemas de drenaje también se echan de menos, como en San Luis Potosí, que apenas en 1936 realiza proyectos para introducirlo (CREA. México. Prensa. 2000) ‘We also miss the drainage systems, like the SLP, that just in 1936 develops projects to introduce it’

Apenas imposes an interpretation where the temporal distance between the time of speech and the actual happening of the event are drastically reduced. In the absence of apenas, the past event can be indefinitely separated from the time of the news report, as can be seen from (21ʹ)–(22ʹ): (21ʹ) Algunos organismos, además, podrían quedarse con comodidad toda su vida en lugares como los que […] describí ‘Some organisms, even more, could stay comfortably all their lives in places like the ones I described’ © 2014. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved

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( 22ʹ) Los sistemas de drenaje también se echan de menos, como en San Luis Potosí, que […] en 1936 realiza proyectos para introducirlo ‘We also miss the drainage systems, like the SLP, that in 1936 develops projects to introduce it’

Without apenas no proximity is obtained. The telic character of accomplishments and achievements does not favor the possibility of linking the event to scales. Instead it selects a punctual reference point – dominantly the time of speech (TS) – from which the event is calculated. In Figure 4, the telic nature of the verb (the squiggly line) depicts a change of state that does not coincide with the time of speech. Instead of reducing the temporal span of the verb, the force dynamics of apenas reduces the temporal distance between the action and its temporal point of reference. There are thus two main basic configurations. With atelic verbs, two meanings related to difficulty and reduction in a scale provide evaluative readings by which the speaker either faces difficulties to fulfill a goal or the state-activity being developed is insufficient to satisfy the speaker-hearer expectations. The second configuration corresponds to achievements and accomplishments. Their telic character profiles a punctual reading such that apenas approximates the action to some temporal reference point. This reference point is dominantly the time of utterance. There is a crucial difference between the two configurations. When apenas occurs with states and activities it involves a speaker and hearer subjective evaluation of the event’s properties against some established scale. In contrast, the more punctual representations are less subjective since they don’t project scalar evaluative judgments. With telic events there is also a subjective calculus of some event with respect to the speaker’s experience of time. Actions are seen as pertaining to the speaker’s discourse in her/his current experience. This is more evident when the time of reference is the time of speech. Yet, the only projection is one of proximity

Apenas

Telic process

Event TS

Figure 4. Apenas proximity to TS/RP


TS


to some temporal reference point. All other evaluative implications are not activated. The meaning of apenas is thus less subjective than in atelic configurations. Given that aktionsart determines different readings we may wonder if morphological aspect imposes the same kind of behavior in apenas. A tentative hypothesis may be that morphological aspect should overrule aktionsart as it would impose its profile on the verb. We would expect atelic verbs to become telic if marked for past perfective tense. Consequently apenas would take the temporal proximity reading. On the other hand, telic verbs marked for imperfective tense-aspect should present the opposite properties, i.e., the non-punctuality of the present tense would impose a generic reading that would set the scene for apenas to exploit the scalar properties of the event and to impose the difficulty-reduction evaluative reading. This prediction is partially burned out. The difficulty-reduction evaluative reading, being the basic meaning of apenas, is much stronger than the temporal proximity one. The more objective proximity reading constitutes an extension that responds to specific constructional properties. It can be seen from (23) that morphological aspect may impose a new aspectual profile on the verb. Some state verbs marked for perfective may become achievements, and consequently, apenas will take a proximity reading. This is the case of saber ‘know’ becoming achievement ‘get to know’ when marked for past tense: (23) Apenas supe de la manifestación en Tlalpan (CREA. México. Libros. 1976. Martín del Campo, David. Las rojas son las carreteras) ‘I just got to know (learned) of the demonstration in Tlalpan’

Since the verb becomes telic, the scalar evaluative reading is no longer available and the less subjective temporal proximity meaning is at hand. Yet most states in past tense preserve their atelic aspectual configuration. Under those circumstances, apenas encodes difficulty and reduction as expected: (24) Apenas percibió de quiénes se trataba (CREA. México. Libros. 1990. Montaño Hurtado, Alfredo. Las cenizas de los sueños). ‘He barely saw who this was all about’

Moreover, the presence of a temporal adverb highlighting the length of some action may underline the durative profile of the verb to place it in the sphere of scalar evaluations. The amount of time in (25)–(26) being small is evaluated as insufficient: (25) Era la hora de la visita a los enfermos… apenas permaneció diez minutos en la clínica para regresar después a su domicilio (CREA. España. Prensa. 1997). ‘In the visiting hours to patients … he barely stayed for ten minutes at the clinic and then he returned to his place’


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(26) El técnico apenas estuvo al frente durante cuatro partidos del torneo brasileño, de los cuales logró un triunfo, dos empates y una derrota (CREA. Argentina. Prensa. 2002) ‘The head coach only led the team for four games of the Brazilian tournament, of which he attained one victory, two draws and one defeat’

The case of activities is even more restricted. In theory, both the evaluative and the proximity readings should be available. Marked for past tense, the completion of an action should be highlighted letting apenas impose a PTS interpretation. Yet cases like (27) hardly ever happen: (27) El juez apenas dictó sentencia. Ahora no sabemos qué hacer (Overheard conversation). ‘The judge just sentenced (him). Now we don’t know what to do’

The scalar evaluative reductive meaning tends to be preserved with activities even when marked for past tense, as (28)–(29) show: (28) Se estrelló contra un vidrio, lo rompió y cayó sangrando a sus pies… Cuando volvió a la sala se dejó caer en un sillón y durante el resto de la noche apenas habló (CREA. México. Novela. 1982. Pitol, Sergio. Juegos Florales) ‘He crashed against the glass, he broke it and fell down to his feet… When he came back to the living room he dropped on the sofa and for the rest of the night he hardly spoke’ (29) Esa semana tu tío Antonio apenas trabajó en el taller. Yo misma tuve que ayudar a José y al abuelo para que sacasen a tiempo los encargos (CREA. España. Novela. 1995) ‘This week his uncle Antonio barely worked at the shop. I myself had to help José and grandpa to meet the deadline’

In (28) the subject almost remained silent in the same way that Antonio in (29) did not work enough time. Things may be obscured by verbs such as hablar whose past form is the same as the present. Crucially, the present interpretation only takes the scalar evaluative reading while in past tense both the proximity and the reduction-evaluative interpretations are available: (30) Apenas nos hablamos (CREA) ‘We hardly talk (present)’ (31) Apenas nos hablamos ayer ‘We just talked yesterday’

In (31) the adverb ayer favors the past tense reading triggering the PTS interpretation and yet the reduction reading is also available. Of course, a new modifier © 2014. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved


will automatically activate the reduction-evaluative reading again, as is the case of con lo tímido ‘as shy as’ in (32): (32) Con lo tímido que es apenas nos hablamos ayer ‘As shy as he is, we hardly talked yesterday’

More striking is the dominance of the reduction evaluative reading in the case of achievements and accomplishments marked for imperfective. As is well known, the default marking for achievements and accomplishments is progressive and past tense (Givón, 2001; Langacker, 1992; Van Valin & LaPolla, 1997). The use of present tense may modify the aspectual configuration of these verbs. In (33)–(35) lograr ‘achieve’, llegar ‘arrive/get to’ and alcanzar ‘reach’ are no longer achievements for they lose their telic properties. Since the goal in both cases is barely reached, the notion of difficulty emerges: (33) Apenas logra tomar las decisiones más elementales (CREA. México. Prensa. 1997) ‘She can hardly/barely make the most basic decisions’ (34) Ya me urge que paguen, apenas llego con lo que tengo (Overheard conversation). ‘I am in urge of the payment, I can hardly manage with what I have’ (35) … mientras que con los datos disponibles hasta el momento, P. Amuzga apenas alcanza elevaciones de 1740 m. (CREA. México. Prensa. 2000) ‘… with the data so for gathered, P. Amuzga barely reaches an altitude of 1740 meters’

In fact, the use of past tense does not need to make apenas pick up the PTS reading, as in (36) where the subject turns with difficulty: (36) Un empujón la arrojó contra la lámina de metal que se metió en su carne como una plancha puesta al fuego. Quiso escapar, pero apenas logró darse vuelta sintiendo cómo la carne se le despegaba del cuerpo con el movimiento (CREA. México. Libros. 1993. Hayen, Jenny E. Por la calle de los anhelos) ‘A push by someone threw her against the metal sheet that got into her flesh like an iron in fire. She tried to escape, but she hardly was able to turn as she felt how her skin would detach from her body as she moved’

More obvious is the case of accomplishments where the use of present tense consistently imposes a difficulty-reduction meaning, as attested by examples (37)–(39):


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(37) Los hogares más pobres del país destinan la décima parte de su ingreso total a la compra de tabaco, en cambio los hogares de mayores ingresos apenas destinan el uno por ciento de su ingreso (CREA. México. Prensa. 2001) ‘The poorest homes of the country advocate a tenth of their total income to buying tobacco, in contrast, the homes with higher income hardly spend one per cent of their income to it’ (38) … deben … sufragar el gasto económico que ello supone, cifrado entre los 3,5 y los cuatro millones de pesetas anuales. Apenas reciben ayudas públicas (CREA. Spain. Press.1997) ‘… they must cover the cost that it implies, calculated between 3.5 and 4 million pesetas a year. They hardly receive any public support’ (39) … lo reinstala como la única opción opositora, dada la anuencia del perredismo, amén del PT, al proyecto en cierne que, desde luego, apenas alumbra un poco el todavía tenebroso túnel que conduce hacia la democracia en México (CREA. México. Prensa. 1996) ‘… he reinstalls it as the only opposing option, given the absence of the PRD party, not to mention the PT, the budding project, that of course hardly sheds some light to the still tenebrous tunnel that will take us towards democracy in Mexico’

So far it has been shown that the dominant reading of apenas is one where difficulty of action implies reduction upon a scalar configuration. This, in turn, leads to evaluative readings of insufficiency. However, accomplishments and achievements marked for perfective may highlight a telic reading that allows for apenas to impose a meaning of temporal proximity to some reference point. The association between telicity and the temporal proximity of apenas is corroborated by the way apenas combines with aspectual verbs: with aspectual verbs of transition (Arellanes, 2005; De Miguel, 1999; Islas, 2004) the default reading of apenas is of temporal proximity. This is attested with both inceptive (empezar ‘start’, comenzar ‘beguin’, iniciar ‘initiate’) and completive verbs (terminar ‘end’, acabar ‘finish, conclude’). Inceptives highlight the initial part of an event to trigger a temporal proximity reading, as exemplified in (40)–(42): (40) … hay señales de recuperación, pero son todavía muy tenues, apenas empezamos a estabilizarnos (CREA. México. Prensa. 1996) ‘… there are signs of recovering, but they are quite tenuous, we have just started to stabilize’ (41) … estas etapas donde “todavía no soy viejo sino que apenas estoy comenzando a dejar de ser joven (CREA. México. Prensa. 1996) ‘… these stages where “I am not old but I am just starting to stop being young’



(42) … el tema de los acuerdos logrados en materia de combate al lavado de recursos del narcotráfico, asunto que apenas inicia y que seguramente dará pie a que nuevas formas de colaboración (CREA. México. Prensa.1996.) ‘… the agreement achieved in the matter of fighting the drug money laundry, an issue that is just starting and that for sure will give way to having new forms of collaboration’

On the other hand, completives focus on the end point of the event to provide a telic configuration. Then the PTS interpretation reigns, as illustrated in (43)–(44): (43) El siglo XX que apenas terminó … fue igualmente pródigo en referencias a la muerte (CREA. El Salvador. Prensa. 2000) ‘The XXth century that just ended was equally prodigal in reference to decease’ (44) … la tarde es larga y apenas acaban de sonar las cuatro, pasado meridiano (CREA. México. Novela. 1986. Chávez Jr., Gilberto. El batallador) ‘The afternoon is long and the four p.m. bell has just been heard’

Verbs or modifiers focusing on the beginning or the end of the event favor a telic profile and this opens the door for apenas to offer a temporal proximity reading. The contrast is confirmed by the fact that the combination of apenas with non-transitional aspectual verbs such as cotinuar ‘continue’ and seguir ‘keep’ does not trigger a temporal proximity interpretation, and the meaning of decrease on a scale is naturally obtained, as in (45): (45) La iglesia se poblaba de rostros que apenas seguían el curso de la misa (CREA. España. Novela. 1978) ‘The church was full of faces that hardly followed the progress of the mass’

We propose that the interpretation of apenas depends on the content of the profile determinant of the construction (Langacker, 1987, 1991). The dominant reading is associated with the lexical base of the adverb: actions are carried out facing some difficulty, as schematized in Figure 1. Adding a target to the basic schema renders a new meaning where a goal is barely reached, as in Figure 2. This new schema activates a crucial inference that the resultant action or state does not fulfill some expectation, as in Figure 3. These reductive evaluative readings take place as long as the ongoing process shows some internal homogeneity, as is particularly the case for atelic verbs and actions modified by adverbs imposing longitudinal representations such that they can be mapped onto scalar arrangements. The output is one where the action does not meet the speaker-hearer’s standards. As for the temporal proximity reading, it is obtained when the profile determinant imposes a punctual telic view. This is the case of perfective verbs,


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especially when marked for past tense or when modified by adverbs highlighting the endpoint of the event. The same behavior is found for verbs of transition selecting either the beginning or the endpoint of the event. Telic verbs are the natural candidates for apenas to assign a reading where events are seen as happening right after the time of speech or some other temporal reference point. The punctual/non-punctual contrast predicts that apenas with quantities and temporal adverbs systematically takes the reduction evaluative reading. Continuity is a nuclear property of time and quantity, and they naturally map onto scales. The force-dynamic profile of apenas reduces the amount of time or quantity expected. The lack of satisfied expectations is an obliged inference, as can be seen from (46)–(49): Time (46) … agradeció a Nafinsa por responder a su exhorto de proporcionar más ayuda federal al estado después de apenas 19 días en el cargo (CREA. México. Prensa. 1996) ‘He thanked Nafinsa for responding to his call of providing more federal help to the state after only 19 days that he was in office’ (47) Fue poco tiempo el que estuve allí, apenas un año y medio, pero fue suficiente para darme cuenta de que era muy … (M. Davies. Entrevista ABC) ‘I was there for a short time, just a year and a half, but it was enough to notice that it was very …’ Quantity (48) Se gastarán 55 mil millones de pesos para la compra de alimentos, mientras que apenas se alcanzaron 8 mil millones de pesos para el programa emergente de granos (CREA. México. Prensa. 1996) ‘55 million pesos will be spent to purchase food, while only 8 million pesos were obtained for the grain emergent program’ (49) Además, 76.4% recibe por su actividad ingresos de apenas dos salarios mínimos (CREA. México. Prensa. 1997) ‘Even more, 76.4% [of the population] get a salary of only two minimum salaries for their activity’

The behavior of apenas with respect to time and quantity is precisely the same as with imperfective non-telic situations. As long as there is a homogenous representation, the reduction meaning takes over with all the pragmatic implications expected. In contrast, the telic view arrangement does not reduce the time span of the event. It only imposes proximity, i.e., it locates the event right after some temporal reference point.



4. Immediacy One meaning we have not attended to with sufficient detail is that of immediacy. This notion appears in two constructions: the proximity to time of speech (PTS) (apenas llegó ‘she just arrived’) and one where apenas links two clauses, as in (51) and (4) repeated here for convenience as (50): (50) Apenas la veo me brinca el corazón ‘As soon as I see her, my heart skips a beat’ (51) Apenas se recuperó echó a Felipe de la casa (CREA. México. Libros. 1994. Solares, Ignacio. Nen, la inútil) ‘As soon as she recovered, Felipe was thrown out’

The reading is again punctual and telic. One action occurs right after the previous one ends. Interestingly enough, the immediacy relationship could be established simply by linking the two clauses with the conjunction y ‘and’, as in (52)–(53): (52) La veo y me brinca el corazón ‘I see her and my heart skips a beat’ (53) Se recuperó y echó a Felipe de la casa ‘She recovered and kicked Felipe out of the house’

The difference between apenas and y however is quite clear. With the conjunction y there is only a sequential relationship between the two events; after one ends the second one begins. With apenas such a relationship is a forceful one. The space between the two events is reduced to the minimum, such that the second action almost overlaps with the first. The reality is that there is not enough time for the first action to fully finish when the second one has already started. This reading is best represented as a blend (Turner & Fauconnier, 2002) where the force dynamics of apenas fuses with a clausal sequence. In Figure 5 the mere juxtaposition of S1+S2 provides the notion of immediacy. As the force dynamic basic value of apenas (the two arrows facing each other) blends with the S1+S2 sequence the space between them is forcefully reduced to impose maximal immediacy, as indicated by the curved arrow in the lower box. We propose that apenas has become an immediacy connector which develops from its interaction with the punctual character of telic verbs. Its main function is to bring an action closer to some reference point. Such point may be the time of utterance, some temporal landmark or two events. In the last situation, two clauses are maximally brought together. Subjectivity is present in different degrees in all three cases. The subjectivity decreasing process is represented in (54): (54) time of speech > temporal reference point > two clauses © 2014. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved

Apenas 459

S1+S2

+

S1+S2 Immediacy connector

Figure 5. Apenas. Immediacy connector

Reference to the time of speech is more subjective as it involves the conceptualizer’s presence in the event. The temporal reference point is an event that the speaker may have attested. In contrast, linking two clauses is at the bottom of the scale since the temporal calculus of the two clauses does not involve the actual speaker’s presence in the scene. Subjectivity is still there incipiently since the effect of proximity is forcefully maximized by the conceptualizer’s view. However, the speaker remains outside the scope of predication and only underlines the extreme immediacy of two events s/he observes. Up to this point, the change is one going from subjective to more objective representations. 5. A text frequency exploration Given the range of meanings found so far and the late appearance of the immediacy marker, it is interesting to do a frequency exploration to identify which of these meanings is dominant. We checked for apenas in two Spanish corpora: the Davies (Corpus del español) and the CREA (Corpus de Referencia del Español Actual. Real Academia Española). Since Davies includes mostly literary texts, we tried to balance out the sample by selecting data from the CREA corpus. The distribution of meanings among genres may be informative. The difficulty meaning in the Davies corpus (34%) is much higher than in CREA (15%). On the other hand, in CREA PRESS the meaning frequency was reversed. The meaning of reduction in time and quantity amounted to 34%. We suggest that the genre difference may correspond to a semantic contrast. The Davies samples are dominantly from literature. A review of the specific contexts for apenas shows that in literary texts hardship through life is a recurrent theme. On the other hand, CREA cases coming from news reports focus on time of events and on quantities associated to financial situations.



Table 1. Apenas. Distribution of meanings Apenas 40.00% 35.00% 30.00% 25.00% 20.00% 15.00% 10.00% 5.00% 0.00%

Davies

Ev

al

ua

tiv

e

Di ff

icu

lty Re du ct Ev io al n ua t i ve Su bj NP ec /A tiv P e Re du Im ct m io ed n ia cy Te m S1 po +S ra 2 lR ed uc tio n Ap en as si

CREAPrensa

Although these genre tendencies are there, the overall reduction construal is dominant. Both the difficulty (few) and the evaluative construals operate by reduction either on verbs or nouns/adjectives. Typical examples of these are (55) and (56): (55) … regiones de pobreza extrema, ya que su población apenas sobrevive con el cultivo del campo (CREA. México. Press. 1996) ‘regions of extreme poverty, since people barely survive with the product of the field’ (56) Ya montada, la maquiladora resulta un paliativo apenas (CREA. México. Pressa. 1996) ‘Once put together, the “maquiladora” comes up to being a mere placebo’

Notice also that the closest competitor to reduction is temporal proximity (‘recently’), while the immediacy sentence connector is notably less frequent. We may wonder how the immediacy discourse marker came into play. In the following section, we pursue a diachronic analysis that may help define the emergence of the notion of immediacy and temporal proximity in a marker that subjectively imposes a view of events developing with difficulty. 6. A diachronic exploration The difficulty reading is present all along the evolution of Spanish from its early stages on. This can be attested from the following randomly selected samples from the XIIIth to the XVIth century:


Apenas 461

XIIIth century (57) … ca si bien los rascávamos, mejor nos rascavan, ca apenas lo podíamos sofrir (CORDE. Cifar. 1300) ‘if we would scratch, it was better if someone would scratch us, for we could hardly suffer it’ XIVth century (58) … dióle en la cara e en los ojos tantos de golpes que apenas los ojos le pareçían (CORDE. Corbaccio. 1438) ‘he hit him in the face and in the eyes, so many bangs that the eyes were hardly visible’ XVth century (59) … los cavalleros con la furia de sus ojos apenas podían contener y refrenar sus gemidos (CORDE. Notary Documents. 1535–1622) ‘the gentlemen with the fury in their eyes could hardly contain and refrain their groaning’ XVIth century (60) Era tan grande el dolor que le afligía, que apenas podía hablar (CREA. México. Notary documents. 1650) ‘The pain he suffered was so big that he could hardly speak’

However, the issue is the emergence of the temporal proximity meaning in the history of Spanish. It is not until the XVIIIth century that the first examples appear: (61) … pero apenas montado sobre el horizonte suspendió su movimiento (CORDE. 1780) ‘… but hardly/just being on top of the horizon it stopped its motion’

In (61) the temporal profile and the notion of difficulty overlap. This fact suggests one possible motivation for the emergence of the temporal proximity construal. The difficulty the man faces to get on the horse coincides with both his sitting on the horse and stopping of his movement. There are however very few examples like (61) with apenas marking by itself temporal proximity. What is common in this century is the use of apenas introducing one clause and a temporal marker introducing the second clause. The most common disjointed markers are apenas… cuando, apenas … y and apenas … luego, as in (62)–(64): (62) Apenas comenzó a usar de su autoridad cuando descubrieron el primer robo (CORDE. 1780) ‘He had just started using his authority when they discovered the first fraud’



(63) … del sepulturero y su familia luego que vieron que apenas llegó la señorita a la cama y reconoció al enfermo (CREA. México. 1818) ‘of the gravedigger and his family after they saw that as soon as the young lady arrived to that bed and identified the sick man …’ (64) … apenas entra una visita luego se pide el braserito (CORDE. México. 1818) ‘as soon as a visitor enters then she requests her range’

Together with cuando ‘when’, y ‘and’ and luego ‘then’, apenas links two actions in sequential order. In this stage, the temporal markers cuando, luego and y introduce the clause happening right after the first action ends. The first clause constitutes the reference point to which apenas maximally approaches and almost overlaps. It will take a couple of centuries for apenas to lexicalize the meaning of immediacy absorbing the meaning encoded by the temporal marker. It is not until the beginning of the XXth century that the first examples of apenas occur without the help of any other temporal marker designating immediacy.1 Example (64) is the first one we were able to find. From then on, immediacy has been established in Mexican Spanish in a very productive way. This can be seen from examples (65)–(66), which took place fifty years later: (65) Apenas estuvieron listas las leyes electorales, se hicieron las elecciones presidenciales (CORDE. México. 1900) ‘Just as the electoral laws were ready, presidential elections took place’ (66) Apenas el grupo se divide, cada uno de los fragmentos se enfrenta a una nueva situación: la soledad (CORDE. México. 1950) ‘Just as the group splits, each fragment faces a new situation: loneliness’

Immediacy is obtained by focusing on a specific moment operating as a reference point for another action to take place. It is of no surprise that the apenas clause occurs first in the sequence attracting focus. It is there setting the stage for the main event to happen. This is corroborated by (67)–(68). While not being in the utterance first position it nonetheless precedes the main sentence:

1. The fact that apenas lexicalizes the temporal meaning does not mean that the combination apenas cuando is out of the language. Literary and cultivated writing can still make use of the construction, as in the following example from 2000: “… hubo gentes en el territorio que hoy llamamos Aragón, por el caprichoso hidrónimo de un río que escapa de nuestras tierras apenas cuando comienza a recorrerlas”. ‘… there are people in the territory that we call today Aragon, because of the capricious hidronym of a river that escapes our land as soon as we go over them’


Apenas 463

(67) Sólo estudié tres años, apenas aprendí a leer un mi [sic] poquito, me sacaron porque tenía que ayudarle a mi mamá en la casa (CREA. México. Prensa. 2001) ‘I only studied for three years, as soon as I learned to read a [my] bit, they took me out of school because I had to help my mother at home’ (68) El espacio no es pensable sino tocable pero, apenas lo tocamos, se desvanece (CREA. México. Libros. 1983. Paz. Octavio. Sombras de obras. Arte y LIteratura) ‘The space is not thinkable but touchable, but as soon as we touch it, it vanishes’

Nothing prevents the clause headed by apenas from occurring in second position, as can be seen from (69): (69) Parejas enlazadas en abrazos que son promesas de amor para cualquier día, apenas se presente la oportunidad (Mark Davies. Casola, Augusto. El laberinto. Cervantes Virtual) ‘Couples linked in arms that are promises of love for any day, as soon as the opportunity shows up’

But then the pragmatic purpose of focusing on the temporal reference point is lost. In (69) the immediacy of the apenas clause is tangentially offered as a possibility that may come up. It is not a fact determining the conditioning factor for the main event. To the extent that in the immediacy construction the clause headed by apenas constitutes a condition for another action to take place, then the order preferred is the one where the apenas clause antecedes the main clause. The question about the emergence of the proximity to the time of speech reading may now be addressed. The first examples in the corpus appeared early in the XIXth century, as attested by examples (70)–(71): (70) Salí apenas de la infancia (CORDE. México. 1818) ‘I have just left childhood’ (71) … pero apenas acababa de recibir los auxilios espirituales (CORDE. México. 1818) ‘but s/he had just received confession (spiritual services)’

We can see from (71) that the link between the notion of difficulty and that of proximity overlap. It is with difficulty that the subject just left childhood and it is also the case that s/he recently entered into a new stage in life. Moreover, this meaning is found after apenas was regularly combined with cuando, luego and y, to designate temporal proximity among events. In other words, apenas first took two events sequentially ordered to impose a closer relationship between them and © 2014. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved


then it moved to a more subjective representation were the temporal reference point was nothing but the time when the speaker was reporting some action. The move is from a somewhat objective calculus of two events to one where the reference point was the time involving the speaker’s actual time of utterance. Given these facts, the historical emergence of apenas as a temporal marker can be summarized as follows: (72) Two event linking, mostly disjointed marking (apenas … cuando, apenas … y, apenas … luego) > Two event linking, simple marking > One event. (Subjective proximity to time of speech)

The meaning shift from an objective to subjective view follows well known tendencies of semantic change from concrete to abstract attested in many languages, as reported in grammaticalization and cognitive semantic analyses (Traugott, 1988, 1999, 1995 and many more; Heine, Claudi, & Hünnemeyer, 1991; Langacker, 1987, 1990, 1991 and multi alia). However the crucial fact is that the more temporal objective meaning developed from a totally subjective conceptualization. As we have shown, what triggers the emergence of the temporal reading is the fact that difficulty of doing an action connects with insufficiency, a notion that can only operate if some limiting goal is included in the scene. This, applied to scalar organizations, always renders amounts seen as insufficient according to normal standards. Only a small step is needed to get to the more objective representation of temporal proximity. Reduced quantities (apenas 5 personas ‘only 5 people’) are mapped on to reduced amounts of time (apenas 5 minutos ‘only 5 minutes’) and this can be extended further to the objective calculus of distance between two events (apenas … cuando) where the calculation between events becomes more objective. This is summarized in (73): (73) Difficulty facing resistance > difficulty to reach a goal (insufficiency) > reduction in scalar organizations quantity and time (insufficiency) > reduction of temporal space between linked events.

The subjective construal of proximity to the time of speech only came after this objectivizing process took place. We may now be in the position to pin down how a new subjective meaning came into play. What we have is a change going in two opposite directions in the course of time: first there is a move towards objectivity (from an evaluative meaning to a more objective calculus of time) and later the change moves back to subjectivity (from the objective sequential calculus of two events to the proximity of an event to the actual moment in which the speaker utters a sentence). This process is represented in (74):


Apenas 465

Non-telic subjective Difficulty Reduction

Telic objective

Evaluative reduction (negative expectation) Subjective reduction Immediacy S1+S2 Temporal reduction (TS/TR)

Figure 6. Mirror image conceptualization of apenas

(74) Subjective (difficulty/reduction) > objective temporal proximity of S1+S2 > subjective temporal proximity to time of speech

There are two forces pulling the meanings being activated. On the one hand, non-telic imperfective events let the difficulty/reduction readings control the scene; on the other, telic perfective conceptualizations license punctual representations triggering more objective views. The result of such interaction can be seen in Figure 6. This representation offers both the diachronic and the synchronic behavior of apenas. Crucial to its proper understanding is the fact that all the new temporal less subjective meanings did not displace the old ones. The meanings first found in the XIIth century are still active in current Spanish. Aspectual determinacies allow for both the evaluative reading and the temporal proximity values to coexist. As already pointed out, the new temporal meanings are to be found mostly in Latin American Spanish, rarely in Spain. New, as they are, temporal telic meanings license the new interpretations without canceling the old ones. This explains why in telic situations in Spain the difficulty/reduction readings are still dominant, while in Mexico temporal proximity is taking over. Having two opposing forces, telic and non-telic, amplify the spectrum of a marker that was originally sentenced to only assign subjective values.



7. Conclusions The idea that grammaticalization is unidirectional is vastly documented. Concrete referential meanings tend to go to more subjective abstract ones. Changes going from subjective evaluative readings to more objective concrete ones are less common. We have shown that these less common changes can take place when the semantic content of the lexical form is subjective in nature. This is the case for apenas. We have been able to identify the conditions determining both the subjective and the objective meanings. The reduction evaluative reading is concomitant with an atelic aspect while the emergence of the more objective reading is associated with telicity. Apenas exploits its root meaning over non-telic events having a homogeneous extended conceptualization where the event can be projected into scalar views. The internal length of an event may be reduced by telic aspect in such a way that apenas locates this event right next to some temporal reference point. Events are brought into a more objective frame as apenas establishes maximal proximity between two events objectively observed. Yet the construal may return to a more subjective representation. The speaker may come back into the picture when the temporal reference point is the time of speech. The historical evolution of apenas is not unidirectional. Aspect encourages a shift from subjective to objective and back to subjective to take place. While objectification did happen, the deeper trends of subjectivity took over once again.

Corpora CREA. Real Academia Española: Corpus de Referencia del Español Actual (CREA) [on line], [Search: 12/08/2011]. CORDE. Real Academia Española: Corpus Diacrónico del Español (CORDE) [on line], [Search: 06/11/2013]. Davies, M. Corpus del español [on line], [Search: 15/09/2013].

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Authors’ addresses Unidad de Posgrado, Posgrado en Lingüística Universidad, Circuito Escolar 3000, Ciudad Universitaria, Coyoacán, 04360 Ciudad de México, D.F. Ricardo Maldonado: [email protected] Rocío Guzmán: [email protected]

About the authors Ricardo Maldonado (Ph.D. UC, San Diego) is a professor of cognitive linguistics, syntax and semantics at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. He is also a guest professor at the Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro. His work focuses on the study of syntax-semantics-pragmatics of Spanish and Mexican indigenous languages (syntactic voice, datives, possessives, causatives and discourse markers). Rocío Guzmán is a Ph.D. ABD candidate in linguistics at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Her areas of interest are Spanish historical linguistics, syntax, semantics, pragmatics and the study of discourse markers. Her doctoral dissertation focuses on the emergence of three adverbs (apenas ‘barely’, así ‘this way’, luego ‘then’) that become discourse markers developing meanings related to immediacy as well as a wide variety of unrelated semantic and pragmatic meanings.
