Spanish Linguistics - Lingüística Hispánica

When DISSUADE becomes PERSUADE

2006-12-19T00:31:00.000-05:00

Thanks to mi friend Gustavo Faverón, I discovered a written text (actually, two) where disuadir (to dissuade) is used as if it were persuadir (to persuade):

"¿Cómo es posible que siglos de escritura no hayan disuadido a algunos de publicar sólo lo realmente necesario o imprescindible?", se pregunta el narrador de “Fértil sequía”, relato del último libro, El sentido de los límites, de Carlos Schwalb Tola. Cuestionamiento válido, sin duda, pero que no parece haber sido del todo asimilado por el autor.
Olga Arellano in Correo Perú

I had heard this neutralization, but this is the first time I have seen it in writing. It is very interesting. Take a look to the relevant part: "How it is possible that centuries of writing have not dissuaded some people from publishing only what is really necessary or indispensable?". The intention is to say that centuries of writing should have dissuaded people from publishing what is not necessary or indispensable. Somehow, the negation raises from the substantivized adjective (which we can translate as a free relative in English) to the matrix verb, with no semantic effects. This is more that unusual in standard Spanish, where the sentence, maintaining the negation in the matrix verb, should have been:

(1) ¿Cómo es posible que siglos de escritura no hayan persuadido a algunos de publicar sólo lo realmente necesario o imprescindible?
How it is possible that centuries of writing have not persuaded some people from publishing only what is really necessary or indispensable?

So, somehow, to dissuade became to persuade. It is important to keep in mind that this is not just a typo. The sentence is a quotation from a literary work (so, the neutralization started there), and the journalist not only cites it, but she even comments on the relevant meaning (so, accepting the neutralization).

It is not really clear why this neutralization happens. Perhaps it is just an instance of negation raising, but with the exceptional characteristic that it happens from a phrase.

It is well known that negation raising has a peculiar behavior in Spanish and other languages. For instance, when we use the modal verb querer (want) with negation and a finite clause as complement:

(2) Yo no quiero que nadie sea arrestado
I NEG want that nobody be arrested

(2) can have different meanings:

i---There is nobody that I want to be arrested
ii---It is not the case that I want that nobody be arrested
iii---I want that nobody be arrested [spurious negation]

(iii) is interesting because it is like NO it is not there. The reading in (iii) becomes salient if we postpone nadie:

(3) Yo no quiero que sea arrestado nadie
I NEG want that be arrested nobody

And, more interesting, if we drop the negation, this is OK with the preverbal nadie but not with the postverbal nadie:

(4) Yo quiero que nadie sea arrestado
I want that nobody be arrested

(5) ?* Yo quiero que sea arrestado nadie
I want that be arrested nobody

But (5) improves with emphatic NADIE (which is, perhaps, right-dislocated):

(6) ? Yo quiero que sea arrestado NADIE
I want that be arrested NOBODY

Coming back to (1), we see that this is indeed a special context: there is negation, a subjunctive verb, and solo (only, a focalizer), and everything is embedded in a question with a modal expression---all of them very well known triggers of interesting effects. Perhaps it is a big conspiracy.

Is the Anacoluthon grammatical?

2006-05-29T23:38:00.000-04:00

This is an old question, and it is not by any mean just restricted to Spanish. In general, an anacoluthon happens when a phrase is "out of the sentence," that is, when somebody starts a sentence in a way that leads us to expect certain grammatical resolution, but it concludes in a way that is not consistent with this expectation. It is far more common in the spoken language. Take for instance, this example from Silva Rhetoricae:

(1) Athletes convicted of drug-related crimes—are they to be forgiven with just a slap on the wrist?

The first phrase Athletes convicted of drug-related crimes is not part of the whole sentence from a strictly grammatical point of view; it does not have a syntactic function, it is not the subject or the object, or anything like that. Now, an anacoluthon like (1) is actually a rethoric figure, and probably the same happens with its corresponding Spanish version (2):

(2) Atletas condenados por crimes relacionados con las drogas—los debemos perdonar con solo una palmada en el trasero?

Although the anacoluthon is heavily condemned by the prescriptive discourse, it is likely that even a hard-to-die prescriptivist had difficulties banning (2). Many other anacolutha are not so lucky. For instance, these expressions are be considered unappropiate:

(3) El ventero, que no conocía a don Quijote, tan admirado le tenían sus locuras como su liberalidad

(4) Las pastoras de quien hemos de ser amantes, como entre peras podremos escoger sus nombres

(5) Dio orden a todos sus criados del modo que habían de tratar a don Quijote, el cual, como llegó con la Duquesa a las puertas del castillo, al instante salieron dél dos lacayos

All of them, however, come from Don Quixote, the most praised literary work in the Spanish language, and a novel that it is usually presented as a model for good writing by the prescritivists.

The interesting question, that I do not solve here, is what exactly licenses the anacoluthon, and what is its relation with the subsequent sentence. Is it part of the sentence? Is it part of its syntactic structure? If it is not, how does it enters into its informational structure?

Unexpected meanings in deverbal nouns

2006-04-23T04:49:00.000-04:00

Deverbal nouns can selectively absorb and destroy the thematic roles of the verb from which they derive. If the verb destroy asks an agent and a theme (the destructor and what is destroyed), the noun destruction can appear without them: the destruction was terrible. This allows the noun to obtain idiosyncratic meanings. For instance, the English deverbal noun building (as the Spanish deverbal noun construcción) can be used to refer to an edifice. Notice this is not just the typical nominal of result (Grimshaw 1990, and others), because it is not the case that building refers to anything that has been built (a clock, for instance), but specifically to an edifice; so no any result of the action of building will be a possible reference; the choice of the particular result is entirely idiosyncratic.

And the way the thematic role is absorbed, destroyed or transmitted can create some ambiguities. For instance, the noun phrase la destrucción de Roma is ambiguous in Spanish: Roma can be the agent (the destroyer) or the theme (what is destroyed)---several English speakers have told me that this is not the case in the corresponding English phrase the destruction of Rome, where Rome can be only the theme.

I have dedicated more than one paper to this particular issue. A brief online version can be seen here (in Spanish). Now, thanks to my friend Gustavo Faverón Patriau, I have discovered a very interesting case, that confirms the picture outlined there.

The Peruvian Department of Health has published an educational handbook to instruct health promoters about the control of tuberculosis. The title of this handbook is Yo Promotor. Manual para promotores de TBC. You can read the handbook in the website of the Department. The subtitle contains the deverbal noun promotores (promoters). Take a look at the phrase:

(1) Manual para promotores de TBC
(lit. Handbook for Promoters of TB)

It is possible to interpret the phrase “de TBC” as the theme of promoter. If so, the meaning is an unintended one: a manual to promote TB. What happened? Does the Department of Health want to promote TB? Certainly not.

In this case, the Spanish deverbal noun promotor underwent the same process that building. The original phrase is promotor de salud (“promoter of health”), which has became promotor without loosing the meaning “de salud”; in other words, in the professional jargon of health promoters, the noun promotor simply means “promoter of health”, in the same way building means edifice.

If that is the case, there is nothing odd with (1). The phrase “de TBC” cannot be the theme because the deverbal noun has absorbed the theme already (it is “de salud”). So (1) can only mean a handbook for promoters of health about TB. Of course, (1) is odd for speakers that do not share this jargon.

Ad Sensum Agreement and Distributive Readings

2006-03-25T18:28:00.000-05:00

Spanish, as well as other Romances languages (like Rumanian), exhibits an apparently optional agreement in number between subject and verb when the subject is headed by a collective noun:

(1) Un grupo de niños cantó en el concierto
(2) Un grupo de niños cantaron en el concierto

This situation is restricted to this type of nouns, and only happens if the collective noun is in singular. If the noun is in plural, the agreement is mandatory:

(3) Dos grupos de niños cantaron en el concierto

It is interesting that, as has been observed, when the singular collective noun triggers plural in the verb, a distributive reading is forced:

(4) Un equipo de nadadores recibieron una medalla
(5) Un equipo de nadadores recibió una medalla

So, (4) means that each of the members of a swimming team received a medal, whereas (5) means that there was only one medal for the whole team. Notice further that if the prepositional phrase (with a plural noun) is not present, the disagreement is not possible:

(6) * Un equipo ganaron una medalla

This means that this prepositional phrase (and the plural noun) is the trigger for the distributive reading. It is tempting to conclude that it is responsible for the agreement too. However, and this is an even more interesting data (although less known), some time others phrases can trigger the distributive reading too:

(7) Pasan uno a uno el convoy de la guerra

In (7), the phrase uno a uno (‘one by one’) triggers a distributive reading over el convoy de la guerra (‘war convoy’), as expected, the verb is in plural; however, convoy is singular, and there is no prepositional phrase with plural noun.

Free relatives with null head

2006-03-05T22:18:00.000-05:00

Spanish has a type of free relatives (that is, relative clauses without antecedent) that clearly shows that these structures should be analyzed as containing a null head:

(1) Compró el _ que le recomendaste
(2) Trajo la _ que le pediste

In these cases, the relative particle (que ‘that’) has a determiner. Notice that the head can be reconstructed:

(3) Compró el auto que le recomendaste
(4) Trajo la carta que le pediste

In addition, it is possible to have other nominal constructions with a null head. In these cases, the determiner also must be present:

(5) El _ invisible

Even the ‘neutral’ determiner lo can be used in free relatives:

(6) Dile lo _ que quieras

This is the same determiner that we use in the so called “nominal adjectives” (which are used to express an abstract concept):

(7) Lo _ invisible

This suggests that, contrary to some proposals that conceive free relatives as bare CPs, in these constructions we have a structure like (8), that is, with a null head:

(8) [DP DET [NP __ [CP que…. ] ] ]

Left Conjunct Agreement

2006-02-20T01:50:00.000-05:00

It is well known that Spanish, as many other languages (including English), displays Left Conjunct Agreement (LCA), that is, under certain circumstances, the verb agrees with the left member of a coordinated subject:

(1) Estaba César y su ejército en la orilla opuesta del río

LCA is more common in postverbal subjects, and when at least one of the conjuncts has low referentiality (in (1) for instance, César is a unique individual, but not su ejército “his army”). It cannot happen when both conjuncts have high referentiality:

(2) * Estaba César y Pompeyo en la orilla opuesta del río

It is less known, however, that this phenomenon is not limited to verb-subject agreement. Participles are also subject to LCA:

(3) Sabe varios idiomas, incluido el inglés y el francés

It is worth noticing that the Spanish prescriptive discourse usually condemns the LCA (in both cases).

An evidentiality suffix in Spanish

2005-12-19T03:18:00.000-05:00

It is well known that many languages convey evidentiality (the modality that expresses the speaker's attitude toward the evidence for his/her statement) by using a set of suffixes or particles. Let me put an example that does not belong to Spanish. Hidatsa (a native-american language from Missouri) has a “reportative” particle to express that the speaker was given the information by someone else, but s/he does not have sufficient evidence (it is a rumor, let’s say):

(1)
wacéo wíira rackí-heó rahe
man piepe carried REPORTATIVE
“The man carried the pipe, they say”
[from Palmer 2001 Mood and Modality: 42]

Interestingly, in Spanish, the conditional suffix -ría can play this role. It is the so called Conditional de Rumor:

(2) Brittney Spears ya estaría embarazada
[literally: Brittney Spears would be pregnant already]

Notice that the suffix -ría can be a normal conditional suffix too:

(3) Brittney Spears ya estaría embarazada si se hubiera casado con su amigo

Of course, like English, Spanish has several other means to mark the evidentiality (mainly, adverbs). What is interesting in this case is that also a suffix can do this job. Sentences like (2), however, are banned by the prescriptive discourse, although they are very common, even in standard speech (especially in the press).

“Haber” agrees with its object

2005-12-06T00:33:00.000-05:00

There are two dialects with respect to agreement in Spanish Existential Constructions (SEC) with haber (have, be): SI and SII. In SI the verb has default agreement (3er person, singular):

(1) Había dos hombres en la fiesta SI

but in SII, the verb agrees with the internal nominal:

(2) Habían dos hombres en la fiesta SII

despite the fact that the nominal is Accusative (acc), that is, that is not the subject but the object, as shown by the cliticization ((4) from (2)). The nominal is also acc in SI, but it does not agree with the verb ((3) from (1)):

(3) Los había SI
(4) Los habían SII

This difference has been attested by several researchers, and it seems to be present in Spanish at least from the XIV century. In the present times, SI is predominant in Peninsular Spanish, whereas SII is predominant in Latin American Spanish—see for instance, Bello (1847:§781) who denounces this agreement as an “almost universal vice”. But SII is also present in Peninsular Spanish as a non standard variety, and SI is usually imposed as a prescriptive rule in Latin American Spanish—so, in Latin American Spanish, it is not hard to find educated speakers with both SI and SII.

In SI and SII, the form for present tense is normally invariable: hay [áj] , which is exceptional because the element -y (a morphological fossil from an old locative clitic) blocks the agreement. In some dialects of SII, however, the exceptional form hay [áj] becomes haen [áen] or hayn [ájan], that is, it allows the plural -n to be suffixed to the verb, unblocking the effect of -y, as reported by Kany (1951: 257) for rural Argentinean, Lapesa (1980: § 133) for Substandard Venezuelan, and Montes (1982: 384) for Colombian Antioqueño.

I have written a paper on this issue. You can read it here. Comments welcome.

Nominative Objects, Quirky Subjects and “gustar”

2005-12-05T04:28:00.000-05:00

Following similar analyses originally proposed for Icelandic, it is standard to assume that Spanish also has nominative objects and quirky subjects. For instance, in (1), [el chocolate] is a nominative object in agreement with the verb, and [A los niños] is the quirky subject (marked in Spanish, as in Icelandic and other languages, with dative expressions):

(1) A los niños les gusta el chocolate

However, sometimes a sentence with gustar (to like) can be constructed without dative clitic, and in the canonical order SVO:

(2) La idea gusta a sus habitantes
[From La República, a Peruvian newspaper, 12/05/05]

Is (2) an inversion of the canonical order or gustar can be use in other ways?

Where is "allí"?

2005-11-24T02:26:00.000-05:00

According to traditional grammarians “allí” (here) is an adverb (some times is called a “pronominal adverb”). That is not so clear. It is true that it has a locative meaning, but this is not evidence that it is an adverb. It cannot be an adverb because it can modify a noun:

(1) Las andanzas de Juan Pérez allí
(2) Su discurso allí

It is important to confirm that in these noun phrases “allí” is inside the NP. We can check this if we include them in a sentence:

(3) Me importan un bledo las andanzas de Juan Pérez allí
(4) Me importa un bledo su discurso allí

Notice that in these sentences “allí” does not modify the verb. We cannot extract “allí” out of the NP:

(5) * [Allí] me importan un bledo [las andanzas de Juan Pérez __ ]
(6) * [Allí] me importa un bledo [su discurso __ ]

Correspondingly, we cannot extract the locative PP that “allí” is replacing:

(7) * [En Salamanca] me importan un bledo [las andanzas de Juan Pérez __ ]
(8) * [En Salamanca] me importa un bledo [su discurso __ ]

Notice, also, that “allí” can modify a verb in other cases:

(9) Vi a Pedro allí
(10) Pintó el cuadro allí

As expected, in these cases, “allí” can be extracted:

(11) Allí vi a Pedro
(12) Allí pintó el cuadro

This lead to some potential ambiguity with some verbs:

(13) Me enteré de las andanzas de Juan Pérez allí
(14) Oí su discurso allí

In these cases, “allí” modifies the verb or the noun, and it can only be extracted in the first possibility (when it modifies the verb).

Does this mean that “allí” is a pronoun in ablative case? What about "acá", "aquí", and other similar to them (which behave similarly)?

DOM in relative clauses

2005-10-23T00:49:00.000-04:00

It is well know that Spanish exhibits Differential Object Marking (DOM), that is, some objects (in general, [+specific] and [+animate] objects) are marked with a preposition:

(1) Juan besó a la mujer

In (1), the preposition is mandatory. However, this effect seems to disappear with objects that are relativized:

(2) La mujer que Juan besó

However, if the relative pronoun is “quien” (that is, “who”, which is marked [+human]) the preposition is mandatory:

(3) La mujer a quien Juan besó

Interesting, the preposition is mandatory too if the relative pronoun gets a determiner:

(4) La mujer a la que Juan besó

This is true even if the nominal is non human:

(5) La gata a la que alimentaste

Notice that in these cases the relative clause is still restrictive. In fact, inanimate nominals (that cannot receive preposition in full clauses) cannot be relativized by using a determiner (at least the relative clause is interpreted non-restrictively):

(6) * La casa la que construiste [restrictive]
(7) La casa, la que construiste [non restrictive]

Can we take advantage if this to explore the structure of relative clauses, in particular, can we test if the relativized object is raised or base-generated using these contrasts?

Chomsky 2005

2005-10-22T17:01:00.000-04:00

If you are interested, this is the last manuscript by Chomsky:
On Phases (2005), from the Minimalist Reading Group at University College London.

Infinitivals in subject position

2005-10-21T20:54:00.000-04:00

Spanish easily accepts infinitival clauses in subject positions:

(1) Bailar es peligroso
(2) Bailar en el jardín es peligroso
(3) Matar un hombre en el jardín es peligroso

But with certain verbs this constructions is banned from the subject position:

(4) *Haber un hombre en el jardín es peligroso
(5) *Estar un hombre en el jardín es peligroso
(6) *Llover es peligroso

Intuitively, it seems that verbs that do not have a subject position cannot be in subject position. But this correlation is rather odd, since there is no reason why it should be the case that a verb that does not have a subject---like "llover," for instance---cannot be itself a subject.

The situation is even more complicated if we take in consideration verbs like "estar." Under standard analyses, this verb takes an small clause (SC), and the nominal inside SC raises to become the subjet of "estar":

(7) Estar [SC [un hombre] [en el jardín] ]
(8) [Un hombre] está [SC [t [en el jardín] ] ]

So we could say that (4) is bad because [un hombre] is not allowed to raise to become subject of "estar" (which is after all a non-inflected verb there). But what about "llover"? Is there any way to explain (4-6) in a uniform matter?

El eterno femenino

2005-08-04T18:15:00.000-04:00

We all know that, in Spanish, when you want to transform and adjective in a noun (to make it an abstract concept, let's say), you can use the so called "neutral" article lo:

(1) Lo femenino

However, if we want to modify this new noun with an adjective, we must turn lo into el (the masculine article):

(2) El eterno femenino

An adjective is ungrammatical with lo in these cases:

(3) * Lo eterno femenino

However, this only works if the adjective is pre-nominal; post-nominal adjectives can stay with lo:

(4) Lo femenino eterno

---which means that (3) is grammatical if femenino is the adjective and eterno is the noun.

What could be the reason?

Multiple wh-fronting in Spanish?

2005-06-06T20:23:00.000-04:00

I discovered, to my surprise, that multiple wh-fronting is sometimes possible in Spanish:

(1) ¿Cómo, por qué, para qué, a quién enseñamos Español?

This literally means: "How, why, to what, to whom do (we) teach Spanish?"

Furthermore, the order of wh-phrases is actually free in these cases. However, multiple fronting is blocked if the subject is questioned:

(2) * Quién cómo compró?

Direct Object questions also seems to have a blocking effect:

(3) *¿Qué cómo compraste?

but they can be ameliorated with a resumptive clitic and coordination (to my judgement, anyway):

(4) ¿(Dime) qué y cómo lo compraste?

And DO-IO questions are not bad (I think):

(5) Qué (y) a quién (le) compraste?

So, when we question non arguments, we can freely front wh-phrases, but with arguments it seems to be some restrictions. I was thinking about that. Do you know if this has been noticed (not only for Spanish, but other languages)?

Suffixes for Proper Nouns

2005-05-12T21:24:00.000-04:00

Proper nouns have nominal classifiers that behave like suffixes (except that they don't have "meaning" in the traditional sense). A very well known case is -os in (1):

(1) Carlos > Carl-os

Evidence for that comes from the fact that the diminutive suffix must be between Carl- and -os, as is (2), considering that the diminutive suffix is always inserted before other less controversial nominal classifiers, as the gender marker -a in (3):

(2) Carlitos

(3) casa > cas-a > cas-it-a

There is additional evidence for these especial nominal classifiers, which is less known. For instance, the adjective for Borges is borgiano ~ borgiana (as used by literary critics). This means that the speaker are breaking Borges into Borg-es, and using the suffixes to produce the corresponding adjectives. In fact, *borgesiano is ungrammatical. Interestingly, some critics recommend this last form, because borgiano could be understood as related to Borgia and not only to Borges (which is true). However, the fact that those critics can understand borgiano as related to Borgia, precisely means that they are breaking Borgia as Borg-ia (otherwise, the adjective will be *borgiaiano, which is as ungrammatical as *borgesiano), which indeed confirms that there are nominal classifiers for proper nouns (their recommendation must be discharged as prescriptive, then)

Notice that this happens only if the stress is in the penultimate syllable. When the stress is in the last syllable, the whole word behaves like the base: Cortés > cortesiano, *cortiano----as predicted by standard theories about Spanish gender markers (Harris 1991).

More examples of the nominal classifiers -es and -as:

(4)
a. Caracas: Carac-as > Caraqu-eño *Caracas-eño
b. Asturias: Asturi-as > Asturi-ano *Asturias-ano
c. Herodes: Herod-es > Herod-iano * Herodes-iano
d. Aquiles: Aquil-es > Aquil-iano * Aquiles-iano

Some times things get tricky, however. For instance, in Cortázar, the form -ar could be a classifier (as in azúc-ar > azuqu-it-ar). This predicts Cortazítar and cortazariano. This last form is attested (it is the regular adjective used by critics), and the first one seems grammatical to me. However, cortaziano is also used, and Cortazarito is not so bad. Interesting, the same happens with azúcar, which allows azucarcita and azucaroso (although this could be subject to dialectal differences).

Clitic-climbing with "haber que"

2005-05-09T01:37:00.000-04:00

The expression "haber que" is, as far I can tell, identical in meaning to "tener que". Both verbs express an obligation and both select an infinitival (they are similar to "have to") . However, "haber que" does not allow clitic climbing:

(1)
a. Tenemos que comprarlo
b. Lo tenemos que comprar

(2)
a. Hay que comprarlo
b. *Lo hay que comprar

It is worth noting, however, that a quick Google search returns some sentences with clitic climbing with "haber que":

(3)
a. Trigo: lo hay que “descubrir” antes de sembrar
b. Todo lo había que intercambiar
c. Además lo había que cargar desde un diskete de arranque
d. Este mes iban bien pero lo había que superar con creces
e. Y al día siguiente se recoge y lo hay que llevar con uno mismo, en un bolsillo, durante un ciclo lunar.

For me the sentences in (3) are bad, very bad, actually. Does everybody share my judgements?

Specificity, clitic-climbing and articles

2005-05-07T04:57:00.000-04:00

There is a curious effect with clitic doubling, at least in my dialect (North Peruvian).

Traditionally (Suñer 1988), clitic doubling is associated with a high degree of specificity.

With pronouns is mandatory (in all dialects):

(1) *(Te) vio a ti

With proper nouns, at least for me, depends on the familiarity that I have with the referent--if I know her/him, if I have a close relation with him/her, etc (and even in this case, I must intend to remark this familiarity):

(2) Lo vi a Carlos
[this is grammatical only if I know Carlos and I intend to stress that I know Carlos]

With definite nouns, it is ungrammatical in my dialect:

(3) *Lo vi al estudiante

So, it does not correlate with the famous Differential Object Marking (DOM, that is, the need to use a preposition "a" with +specific and +animate). Actually, in some dialects (3) is fine, and we even find dialects where clitic doubling is fine with objects that cannot receive this preposition:

(4) La vi una moto
[good in Argentinian Spanish]

This confirms that clitic doubling does not correlate with DOM. This means that clitic doubling is licensed by a kind of specificity that is different from the kind of specificity that licenses DOM (whatever that means). For my dialect, it needs more specificity that DOM. For Argentinian Spanish, it needs less.

Interestingly, there is a similar constraint in other aspect of the grammar. Normally (in all of Spanish), articles are not allowed with proper nouns:

(5) *El Juan

However, at least in my dialect, I can use articles if I am VERY familiar with the referent:

(6) El Toño
(7) La Mariella

In fact, the only persons whose name I can use with an article are my brother and my sister, and a couple of cousins I know since I was a child.

What is the significance of this? Do you people share my judgements? Is there any similar restriction in other languages/dialects?

Definitenes Effect with haber-sentences

2005-05-05T22:20:00.000-04:00

It is well known that existencial sentences with haber are subject to some form of Definiteness Effect DE--as English existentials are (Milsark 1974). But in Spanish this only affects +specific and +animate objects:

(1) *Hay Juan
(2) *Hay el policía de siempre
(3) Hay el problema de siempre

Suñer 1982 noted this, although she tried to use it to deny the DE. I wrote a paper about this and other related issues with haber. Some issues remain, however.

An interesting question is that this restriction is preserved with non-restrictive relative clauses (I know no analysis of this):

(4) * Juan, quien hay en la oficina
(5) * El estudiante, quien hay en la oficina

But restrictive clauses accept this:

(6) El estudiante que hay en la oficina

Some ideas about what is going on?