La gradualidad de los procesos de gramaticalización : sobre el uso idiomático del adjetivo "menudo" en español coloquial

Abstract

In this paper I focus on the idiomatic use of the Spanish adjective menudo(s)/menuda(s), which is related to a process of grammaticalization. This adjective literally means "small" (Estas manzanas son menudas, "These apples are small"), but in its grammaticalized use this form is a kind of emphasizing quantifier. For instance, a sentence like ¡Menudo frío hace! may be translated in English as It is really cold!. I will concentrate on the syntactic characteristics of this word, and I will demonstrate that menudo is a hybrid form, which maintains some syntactic properties of the adjectival use (e.g. the inflexion of gender and number) and, at the same time, it exhibits several syntactic peculiarities that reveal its grammaticalized status (e.g. it occupies a very fixed position in the sentence and in the phrase).