On the structure and variation of ‘hace’ as a temporal expression

Abstract

The goal of this article is to analyse a case of variation in Spanish. In most varieties, constructions of the form Hace dos días que (“it has been two days sinceâ€) reject nominal expressions like todo el día (“all the dayâ€), hence *Hace todo el día que (lit. “it has been all the day thatâ€). However, a particular variety of Argentinean Spanish allows it. This article proposes that in the non-Argentinean varieties, hace (“makeâ€) is the spell out of a temporal relator placed in the extended projection of the verb; the nominal expression that accompanies it is a measure phrase providing the length of the vector it projects. These varieties build hace dos días que-constructions through movement of the temporal relator to the CP area. However, the Argentinean variety builds hace dos días que-constructions without movement, as a temporal verb that takes a durative argument. This explains the different range of nominal expressions allowed in each variety.