« La cena será en el restaurante La Rueda, que está en la calle San Miguel » : analyse de l’emploi de ser et estar dans les expressions locatives en espagnol contemporain

Abstract

It is well known that the distribution of the Spanish verbs ser and estar , both equivalent of be in English, depends upon the stage or individual level of the predicates. Ser and estar are used to express respectively inherent or episodic properties. As a consequence, spatial location is denoted by means of estar and not ser . There is an exception to this principle: event-denoting nouns (ENs) combine only with ser in locative expressions. In this article, we further investigate the construction of ser with ENs. By comparing the semantics of ENs with that of object-denoting nouns, we claim that spatial location is treated as an inherent property of events because of the temporal features of ENs. Evidence for this correlation can be found in the nonprototypical use of ENs as adverbials of place, and in the variations of spatial denotation between ENs depending upon their variations of temporal denotation.