?NEAR-SYNONYMOUS PERIPHRASES? A LOGISTIC REGRESSION APPLIED TO INCHOATIVES EXPRESSED WITH PONERSE AND METERSE

The present article proposes a corpus-based study of two near-synonymous inchoative constructions in Spanish with ponerse and meterse ('to put'). Starting from the universal principle of linguistic economy, the paper aims to empirically identify potentially influencing variables that determine the native speaker's choice between the two verbs when expressing an inchoative event. It is investigated whether and to what extent the choice is governed by a set of variables related to the subject, the auxiliary, the infinitive and/or the nature of the periphrasis itself The difference between the near-synonyms is shown to be mainly determined by the degree of association between the auxiliary and the infinitive, the (negative vs neutral) connotation underlying the construction, the sentence type (affirmative vs. negative), the grammatical aspect of the auxiliary and the textual genre in which the periphrasis appears.