Three types of prepositions in Spanish se sentences. Consequences for cross-dialectal studies

This paper discusses agreement patterns of SE sentences in different Spanish dialects. Special attention is paid to situations where the verb agrees with Case-marked internal arguments (cf. Torrego 1998, López 2012) bypassing the preposition (e.g., Se ayudaron a los banqueros, Eng. 'Bankers were helped'), and to a previously unnoticed case in which agreement occurs across a non-clitic related preposition (e.g., Se saben de diversos factores, Eng. 'Different factors are known'). A micro-parametric approach is put forward whereby two functional elements hold the key to accounting for the facts: on the one hand, the feature specification of v and T (the locus of structural Case) may vary, and, on the other, the precise nature of what we label "P" may range over three possible manifestations: (i) a bona fide preposition, (ii) an applicative element (potentially associated to a clitic), and (iii) the spell-out of a feature within a given functional category.