On the redundancy of "subir para arriba" (to go upwards), "bajar para abajo" (to go downwards), "salir para afuera" (to go outwards) and "entrar para adentro" (to go inwards)

Abstract

This article establishes a difference between redundancy as mere repetition (R1) and redundancy as a form of lexical agreement (R2) in order to analyse the expressions subir para arriba ‘to go upwards’, bajar para abajo ‘to go downwards’, salir para (a)fuera ‘to go outwards’ and entrar para (a)dentro ‘to go inwards’. First, the occurrences of these expressions are extracted from two corpora and then classified according to the motion component focused on (Goal, Trajectory, Via or Direction) and the type of redundancy (R1 or R2). In the analysis of R2, we specify the semantic nuance provided by the prepositional adjunct, which ceases to be interpreted as redundant (R1). In addition, the theoretical implications of the R1-R2 distinction are examined, including the gradation of redundant expressions, the nature of the meaning conveyed, propositional in R2 and communicative in R1, and the relationship of the propositional meaning to the aspectual properties of verbal predicates.