publications

2026

1. to appear

   Do topic shifts challenge discourse coherence?

   Zuriñe Ábalos, Elena Castroviejo, and Melania S. Masià

   In Annotation Based Approaches to Questions Under Discussion, 2026
2. Una re-revisión del masculino genérico en español en respuesta a Heap (2024)

   Melania S. Masià and Iban Mañas Navarrete

   Círculo de Lingüística Aplicada a la Comunicación, 2026

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   La presencia de expresiones lingüísticas propias del lenguaje inclusivo ha experimentado un incremento constante en las últimas décadas. Tanto en medios generalistas como especializados, el debate sobre la pertinencia de estas propuestas y su capacidad para producir un cambio social relevante ha dado lugar a una fructífera producción de estudios principalmente descriptivos y normativos. Menos frecuentes han sido las investigaciones de corte empírico. A partir de la revisión sistemática que presenta Heap (2024), este trabajo analiza los diseños experimentales dirigidos a captar las interpretaciones de los hablantes sobre el llamado masculino genérico en español. Se evalúa la validez interna de los estudios, determinando si los estímulos de las pruebas representan ejemplos adecuados de masculinos genéricos, así como su validez externa, a partir del análisis de la composición y el tamaño de las muestras poblacionales seleccionadas. Los resultados identifican una serie de limitaciones metodológicas e indican posibles maneras de superarlas en futuras investigaciones.

3. L1 maintenance in typologically close languages: the role of L2 exposure and L2 performance

   Andrea Calpe Álvarez, Marta Rivera, Francesco Romano, and 2 more authors

   Language Acquisition, 2026

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   The present study contributes to the growing body of research showing absence of first language (L1) attrition when the L1 and second language (L2) are structurally aligned and regularly used. It investigates possible language attrition in the morphosyntactic features of 3rd-person Italian accusative clitics across three clitic structures in sequential L1-Italian–L2-Spanish speakers immersed in a Spanish-predominant environment. A total of 19 Italian–Spanish bilinguals and 18 Italian monolinguals completed a structural priming task to assess knowledge of clitic form and placement in spoken production. In the data analysis, key variables such as L2 exposure or L2 performance were also considered. We hypothesise that bilinguals will not exhibit significant variation in clitic form and placement compared to monolinguals due to the combination of continued L1 use and complete structural overlap between Italian and Spanish. However, syntactic complexity, particularly in modal constructions, was expected to influence placement and form in both groups due to processing demands. The results supported our predictions, revealing no significant differences between bilinguals and monolinguals in clitic accuracy, and lower structural accuracy in modal structures compared to lexical or causative structures in both groups. Although the present design does not allow us to isolate the mechanisms responsible for L1 maintenance, our findings offer empirical evidence that structural overlap and ongoing L1 activation can preserve grammatical stability even under intense L2 exposure.

4. L1 proximity and syntactic complexity in L2 Italian acquisition. Evidence from clitic pronouns

   Andrea Calpe Álvarez, Pedro Guijarro-Fuentes, Marta Rivera, and 2 more authors

   Journal of Second Language Studies, 2026

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   Studies on second language acquisition suggest that clitic pronouns are challenging syntactic elements for L2ers to acquire. This study examines the acquisition of Italian accusative clitics by Spanish and Swedish L2ers. Extending Romano’s (2020) research on Swedish speakers, it employs an oral structural priming task and a speeded grammatical judgment task to examine how L1 proximity and syntactic complexity influence clitic production and processing. Both tasks included clitic left-dislocated sentences in which the host verb (lexical, quasi-functional, or functional) varied according to the hierarchy proposed by Cardinaletti and Shlonsky (2004). Results revealed that Spanish L2ers did not differ from natives but descriptively outperformed Swedish L2ers in production. Speakers’ performance varied across host verb types associated with different structural configurations. In processing, grammaticality was the main factor modulating acceptability across groups. These findings highlight the interplay between typological proximity and processing in the functional and lexical domains of L2 clitic acquisition.

2025

1. Sobre el alcance y la función del uso del lenguaje inclusivo en el aula de Español como Lengua Extranjera

   Iban Mañas Navarrete, Melania S. Masià, and Irene Yúfera

   Culture Crossroads, 2025

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   The proliferation of proposals to introduce inclusive language strategies in the SFL (Spanish as a Foreign Language) classroom over the last decade has made it necessary to engage in a calm and rigorous discussion among teachers, researchers, and specialists in the field. It is worth asking what objectives teachers aim to achieve through the implementation of these proposals, and to what extent these proposals are capable of meeting those goals. This paper presents a series of reasons that, in our opinion, are pertinent to consider in examining the role and scope of the use of inclusive language. The critique is based on the analysis of the generic masculine and the alternatives proposed for its avoidance. The thorough description of grammatical gender in Spanish, as well as the empirical evidence on its interpretation currently available, challenges some of the premises used in the defense of inclusive language, and rarely questioned. We propose a shift in focus from the functioning of language as a system to the use of language as a tool for communication. We consider that, in terms of effectiveness, this is a strategy with greater potential to contribute to the elimination, or at least to the reduction, of social inequality between men and women.

2024

1. Aspects of morphosyntax of Majorcan Catalan-Spanish bilingual variety: The omission of direct objects

   Pedro Guijarro-Fuentes, Iria Bello-Viruega, and Melania S. Masià

   In Language Acquisition in Romance Languages, 2024

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   This paper studies structural convergence between two Romance languages that are in close contact. More specifically, it analyzes the differences in clitic realization and object omission in Spanish and Catalan. While in Spanish it is possible to omit phrases corresponding to direct objects based on their definiteness (Campos, 1986; Clements, 2006) and not to their syntactic position, Catalan does not regularly omit object pronouns but requires the use of the partitive en with indefinite antecedents. A five-point Likert scale grammaticality judgment task adapted from Bruhn de Garavito & Guijarro-Fuentes (2002) was designed to measure the acceptability of different object expressions in 70 different constructions in Spanish by monolingual native speakers (n = 44) and Catalan-Spanish bilingual speakers (n = 34). In the task, participants read a short dialogue containing a question and a short answer and were asked to rate the naturalness of the answer. Linguistic variables included the type of syntactic structure (simple or complex clauses), the semantic properties of the referent (+/- definite), and the grammaticality of the utterance. Stimuli were replicated seven times per condition. Results indicated significant differences between monolinguals and bilinguals, as the latter systematically accept ample optionality concerning null direct objects. Conversely, differences according to language dominance in the bilingual group could not be verified. Our data allow us to discuss views on the realization of interpretable features and on bilingual variability.

2019

1. A typology of evaluative nouns

   Melania S. Masià

   In Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 15. Selected papers from ‘Going Romance’ 30, Frankfurt, 2019

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   Evaluative nouns (‘idiota’ ‘idiot’, ‘matasanos’ ‘quack’) do not only assign a property, but also express a value judgment. A degree analysis (Bolinger 1972; Matushansky 2002; Morzycki 2009) encounters some problems, such as the controversial status of nominal gradability and the relation between gradability and value judgment. By focusing on Spanish data, this study shows that the defining element for evaluative nouns is an expressive component of meaning and that these nouns may vary on their gradability and the target of their expressive meaning. Based on this, a typology of evaluative nouns is established. In doing so, this paper contributes to the understanding of evaluativity and the connection between gradability and subjectivity in the nominal domain.

2018

1. From ‘completely free’ to ‘complete freedom’. Spanish adjectives of completeness as maximizers of property concept nouns

   Melania S. Masià

   In Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 13. Selected papers from ‘Going Romance’ 29, Nijmegen, 2018

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   Maximizers (‘completely’, ‘fully’) are degree modifiers sensitive to the scale structure of the adjective they combine with. Spanish adjectives of completeness (‘completo’ ‘complete’, ‘total’ ‘total’) show a distribution similar to that of their adverbial counterparts when modifying property concept nouns (‘libertad’ ‘freedom’, ‘sabiduría’ ‘wisdom’). This paper argues that adjectives of completeness are degree modifiers in the nominal domain. It adopts a semantics of property concept nouns according to which they denote substances, following Francez & Koontz-Garboden (2015). These substances can be bounded or unbounded, just like their related adjectives (‘libre’ ‘free’, etc.). By establishing a strict parallelism between adverbs and adjectives of completeness, this paper contributes to the understanding of completeness contributes to the understanding of scalarity across categories and the relation between degrees and measurements.

2. Extreme nouns and maximizers

   Melania S. Masià

   In Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 22, 2018

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   Maximizers (‘completamente’ ‘completely’, ‘totalmente’ ‘totally’) are degree modifiers restricted to maximum standard adjectives. Spanish adjectives of completeness (‘completo’ ‘complete’, ‘total’ ‘total’) display a behavior similar to that of their adverbial counterparts when they combine with nouns like ‘idiot’. This paper argues that adjectives of completeness are maximality modifiers of ‘idiot’-like nouns, which are defended to be gradable and denote extreme degrees of properties. Establishing a parallelism between adverbs and adjectives of completeness allows us to explore scalarity across categories and the relevance of scale structure in the nominal domain.

2017

1. PhD dissertation

   Adverbial adjectives and nominal scalarity

   Melania S. Masià

   Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 2017

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   This dissertation investigates scalarity in the nominal domain through the study of a subset of prenominal adverbial adjectives in Spanish, adjectives of veracity (AVs; verdadero ‘true’, auténtico ‘authentic’) and adjectives of completeness (ACs; completo ‘complete’, total ‘total’, absoluto ‘absolute’). Its aim is to contribute to the understanding of the values associated with prenominal position in Romance, the parallelism between adverbial and adjectival modification, and the manifestations of scalarity in nouns. The analysis of AVs is used to explore conceptual gradability. It is shown that the relevant factor for AVs to combine with a noun is vagueness. I propose that AVs operate over the contextual parameters involved in the determination of the interpretation of the predicate. In particular, AVs state that the individual belongs in the denotation of the noun in all the relevant contexts. This has the effect of picking up a representative individual of the category, and accounts for the intensifier and metalinguistic readings of AVs. The factors that affect the ordering in the extension of the noun, especially typicality and subjectivity, and the grammatical consequences this has for the distribution of AVs are also addressed. Although the ordering is shown to have linguistic effects, it is argued not to be grammatically represented. That is, this kind of scalarity is conceptual, not lexical. Finally, the analysis is extended to the adverbs of veracity in their modification of adjectives and verbs. The study of ACs serves to discuss grammatical gradability. Starting from the observation that adverbs of completeness are degree modifiers sensitive to scale maximums, it is argued that the correlate adjectives have the same properties and should be analyzed as degree modifiers. The chapter consists of three case studies of nouns that can be modified by ACs. First, property concept nouns (libertad ‘freedom’) are shown to share the scale structure with their cognate adjectives. ACs only occur with those related to total adjectives. These facts are accounted for by adopting a view of property concept nouns as predicates of portions of substances and having the degree argument introduced externally. Second, aspectual inheritance in the nominalizations of incremental theme verbs (destrucción ‘destruction’) and degree achievements (oscurecimiento ‘darkening’) is tackled. I demonstrate that ACs are restricted to telic eventive nominalizations and behave as maximality modifiers. The analysis accounts for these degree uses by combining a constructionist approach to the syntax of nominalizations and a degree approach to aspect for their semantics. Third, ACs display a mixed behavior with respect to their maximality when combined with evaluative nouns (idiota ‘idiot’). This is a consequence of the semantics of evaluative nouns, which are argued to denote extreme gradable properties and include an expressive component. The results provide support for a richer representation of nouns in combination with a two-domain approach to adnominal adjectives. AVs and ACs and their correspondent adverbs are shown to be two morphological variants of the same intensifier and to be restrictive, as opposed to the non-restrictive readings prenominal qualitative adjectives receive in Romance. Regarding scalarity in the nominal domain, it can be concluded that many factors interact to produce scalar effects, but only a few of them constitute real manifestations of lexical gradability. On the one hand, typicality interacts with vagueness and subjectivity, but the ordering is not grammatically represented. On the other, only evaluative nouns are argued to be lexically gradable. In the other cases, degree arguments are introduced by specialized heads, either related to measurement or to aspect. This creates a continuum of nominals, from the most adjective-like to non-gradable, with property concept nouns and eventive nominalizations placed halfway between them.

2. Adjectives of completeness as maximizers of event nominalizations

   Melania S. Masià

   Borealis: An International Journal of Hispanic Linguistics, 2017

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   Aspectual modifiers that have adverbial and adjectival counterparts are an important source of information for researching lexical aspect in the nominal domain. One class of such modifiers are adverbs of completeness (‘completamente’ ’completely’, ‘totalmente’ ‘totally’), which are maximizers when modify adjectives, and their correspondent adjectives (‘completo’ ’complete’, ‘total’ ‘total’). This paper addresses the inheritance of aspectual features and its relation to degree in event nominalizations of incremental theme verbs (‘traducción’ ‘translation’, ‘destrucción’ ‘destruction’) through the analysis of the modification performed by adjectives of completeness in Spanish. The proposal combines a syntactic account of deverbal nominalizations with a scalar approach to aspect. Adjectives of completeness are argued to be aspectual modifiers, with a contribution equivalent to that of their adverbial counterparts both in the verbal and in the adjectival domain, establishing thus a parallelism between degree modification of adjectives, verbs and nominals.

2015

1. Adjectives of veracity as vagueness regulators

   Melania S. Masià

   In Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 19, 2015

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   This paper discusses adjectives of veracity in Spanish (‘verdadero’ ‘true’, ‘auténtico’ ‘authentic’), which are intensifiers in prenominal position. I will argue that adjectives of veracity are sensitive to the vagueness of the predicate and propose an analysis of these adjectives as domain restrictors that builds on Sassoon (2013).

2014

1. True precision required. Adjectives of veracity in Spanish as imprecision regulators

   Melania S. Masià

   In Pristine Perspectives on Logic, Language and Computation. ESSLLI 2012 and ESSLLI 2013 Student Sessions Selected Papers, 2014

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   The aim of this paper is to offer an analysis of adjectives of veracity in Spanish (‘verdadero’ ‘true’, ‘auténtico’ ‘authentic’) that accounts for their modification of nouns in terms of imprecision regulation. Slack regulators are elements that signal the intended degree of precision in the use of an expression to describe a situation. In order to account for this fact, I will adopt Morcycki’s (2011) framework, which allows to directly compare and modify degrees along a scale of imprecision. Under this framework, expressions denote sets of alternatives whose size depends on the degree of precision of the context. Adjectives of veracity are argued to be degree modifiers affecting this scale of imprecision by setting the degree of precision of the context to a high value, forcing the modified noun to be interpreted in a strict sense.

2013

1. What veracity does to imprecision. The case of Spanish ‘verdadero’

   Melania S. Masià

   In Proceedings of the 2013 ESSLLI Student Session, 2013

2010

1. Sintaxis y semántica de los adjetivos intensionales: el caso de ‘mero’, ‘puro’ y ‘completo’

   Melania Sánchez Masià

   Interlingüística, 2010