This paper focuses on the description of the verb soleo, the Latin cognate of the Spanish auxiliary soler, with the aim of contributing to the explanation of the Spanish lexical periphrasis
soler + INF, when considering it from a diachronic perspective. Soleo is an especial verb whose singularity is manifested in its etymology and its grammatical particularities. Concerning its
etymology, two hypotheses have been considered which start from two different Aktionsart stems: one makes it derive from a ProtoIndo-European iterative stem, the other from a stative one. From
this second etymological hypothesis, soleo could be included among Latin denominative stative *ē-presents with the basic meaning of ‘to be of oneself, to have as one’s own, to be normal, to be custom’. Regarding its morphosyntactic features, the semi-deponent soleo has a morphologically passive perfect stem, solitus sum, whose use with aoristic value comes into contradiction with the morphological restriction of the Spanish auxiliary soler and with the aspectual categorization of habitual auxiliary attributed to it. Together with the function as an auxiliary verb constituting a periphrasis with an infinitive, it also presents a use as a full lexical verb in which the
prototypical semantic value of its etymology emerges.
Cabré Lunas, L. (2020). The periphrasis soler + INF in the light of latin (I): Soleo, the latin origin of the spanish auxiliary soler. Boletín De Filología, 54(2), pp. 19–45. Retrieved from https://rmdd.uchile.cl/index.php/BDF/article/view/55943
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