On Expletive mismo

Abstract

This paper deals with the so-called ‘expletive’ mismo ‘same’, a non-comparative emphatic use of the prenominal adjective in appositions, which is currently attested in many varieties of American Spanish (e.g., Finalmente, Laura se sentó y aceptó el cigarrillo, mismo que nunca encendió ‘lit. Laura finally sat down and accepted the cigarette, same that she never lighted up’). On the basis of corpus data, the geographical distribution of this form is precisely specified, and a novel analysis of its interpretive and combinatorial properties is provided. It is argued, in particular, that expletive mismo functions as an anaphoric reinforcer that is preceded by a null definite determiner and combines with an empty noun that takes a restrictive relative clause as its complement.

1. Introduction

In many American Spanish-speaking countries, a particular appositive construction including the adjective mismo ‘same’ is used in which the article is dropped and mismo is directly followed by a relative clause. In this construction, illustrated in (1),1 mismo refers back to an antecedent in the preceding sentence with which it agrees in gender and number, but it does not involve a comparison between entities expressing that they are identical: in (1a), for instance, it is not pointed out that the cigarette Laura accepted is the same cigarette as the one she never lighted up, but the appositional phrase just adds some information about an entity that has been previously identified.

(1)	a.	Finalmente, Laura se sentó y aceptó el cigarrillo, mismo que nunca encendió. (Ramírez, Caza mayor y otros relatos, 2011, Mexico)
		‘Laura finally sat down and accepted the cigarette, which (lit. same that) she never lighted up.’
	b.	Más adelante se sabría que el Príncipe dejó una relación inconclusa con Camilla Parker Bowles, misma que dañaría su matrimonio de forma irreparable. (El Heraldo, 2016, Honduras)
		‘It would be later known that the Prince left a relationship with Camila Parker Bowles unfinished, which (lit. same that) would damage his marriage irreparably.’
	c.	México es el país con más santuarios religiosos de la fe católica en el continente americano, ya que su volumen supera los 300 recintos, mismos en los que se venera a Jesucristo y la Virgen María, así como a un gran número de santos. (El Punto Crítico, 2015, Mexico)
		‘México is the country with more religious sanctuaries of the catholic faith in the American continent, since there are more than 300 premises, (lit. same) in which Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary and a great number of saints are worshiped.’
	d.	Ella comprendió, no sin dolor, las necesidades de su juventud aventurera, mismas que ya no comparte. (Cortez, Mal de ojo, 2008, Guatemala)
		‘She understood, not without pain, the needs of her adventurous youth, which (lit. same that) she does not share any longer.’

RAE-ASALE (2009, §13.11n) calls this instance of Spanish mismo ‘expletive’ mismo, since it can be omitted without altering the content of the appositional phrase.2 In this paper, we will identify the dialects and registers in which expletive mismo occurs and we will analyze its semantic and syntactic properties. Two main claims will be made: we will first put forward the idea that expletive mismo functions as an anaphoric reinforcer that tightens up the relation between the relative clause and its antecedent, and we will also argue that the appositive construction in (1) is headed by a covert definite article and also contains, in addition to the adjective, an empty noun following it and a restrictive relative clause modifying the empty noun.

The paper is structured as follows. Section 2 compares the properties of expletive mismo with those of identifying (or comparative) mismo.3 In Section 3 the geographical distribution of expletive mismo and the registers in which it is used are described. Section 4 critically reviews previous insights on the construction in (1). Section 5 presents our proposal on the semantic import and the syntactic properties of expletive mismo. Finally, Section 6 contains the conclusions of our work.

2. Identifying and Expletive mismo

In its so-called ‘identifying’ use (RAE-ASALE 2009, §13.11b), the Spanish adjective mismo makes a comparison between entities and expresses that they are identical. In the sentence in (2), to give an example, identifying mismo ‘same’ compares the book that Peter has read and the book that John has read, and indicates that they are the same book:

(2)	Juan ha leído el mismo libro que Pedro.
	‘John has read the same book as Peter.’

As shown in (2), one of the members in the comparison relation established by identifying mismo can be instantiated by means of a comparative complement (que Pedro ‘as Peter’ in this example). Like the corresponding identity adjectives in other languages (e.g., English same or French même), when the comparative complement is missing, identifying mismo can have a sentence-internal reading, as in (3a), and a sentence-external reading, as in (3b) (see Carlson 1987; Laca and Tasmowski 2001; Bosque 2012 and the references therein), which in Bosque (2012) are named I-mismo and E-mismo, respectively:

(3)	a.	Juan y Pedro han leído el mismo libro.
		‘John and Peter have read the same book.’
	b.	Juan leyó un libro en verano. Pedro está leyendo ahora el mismo libro.
		‘John read a book last summer. Peter is reading the same book now.’

As illustrated in (3), in the internal interpretation (I-mismo), mismo requires a plural antecedent in the same sentence, whereas in the external interpretation (E-mismo), the entity the nominal phrase including mismo is compared with has been previously mentioned in discourse. In addition to being a comparative item, E-mismo thus has an anaphoric interpretation.

Expletive mismo is related to E-mismo, since it also has an anaphoric value: as it was mentioned in the introduction and is illustrated again in the new examples in (4), expletive mismo, like E-mismo, finds an antecedent in discourse. These two uses of mismo substantially differ, however, in that expletive mismo lacks the comparative interpretation E-mismo has: in the example with expletive mismo in (4a), for instance, no comparison is made between two skulls which are said to be identical.

(4)	a.	Este ataque lo confirmaba el cráneo desenterrado, mismo que estaba abierto por un golpe. (Garci, Pendejadas célebres en la historia de México, 2012, Mexico)
		‘This attack was confirmed by the unearthed skull, which (lit. same that) was split open by a blow.’
	b.	Este hecho indignó a la gente que denunció lo ocurrido a la Patrulla de Ayuda y Auxilio Ciudadano (PAC), misma que llegó hasta la plazuela para socorrer a la mujer y arrestar a los jóvenes estudiantes. (Los Tiempos, 2001, Bolivia)
		‘This fact outraged the people who denounced what happened to the Citizen Assistance Patrol, which (lit. same that) came up to the small square to help the woman and arrest the young students.’
	c.	Estas diferencias entre género son construidas desde las interpretaciones y construcciones científicas y sociales sobre el ser femenino y sus varios roles, mismos que varían entre culturas, razas, etnias y lugares. (Polo Almeida, Modos de vida, una categoría esencial en Geografía y Salud, 2016, Ecuador)
		‘These differences between genders are made up from the scientific and social interpretations and constructions on the feminine being and its various roles, which (lit. same that) vary between cultures, races, ethnic groups and places.’
	d.	La acrobacia y los espectaculares saltos estarán a la orden del día cuando estos intrépidos gigantes del espectáculo se monten en sus minitrocas, mismas en las que realizarán peligrosas piruetas. (El Siglo del Torreón, 2002, Mexico)
		‘The acrobatics and the spectacular jumps will be the order of the day when these intrepid giants of the show will get into their pickup trucks, (lit. same) in which they will make dangerous pirouettes.’

The examples in (4) (and (1)) thus show that expletive mismo has an anaphoric-only non-comparative use. Before going through previous ideas on its semantic import and syntactic status, we will next specify the patterns of geographical and register variation that expletive mismo conforms to.

3. Expletive mismo: Geographical Distribution and Registers of Use

RAE-ASALE (2009, §13.11n) points out that expletive mismo is documented in Mexico, Central America, and the Andean area. As can be seen in

Table 1. Geographical distribution of expletive mismo (CORPES n.d.).

Areas	Countries	Occurrences	Normalized Frequency (NF)
Mexico and Central America	Mexico	1235	24.65
	Honduras	84	14.68
	Guatemala	53	8.71
	El Salvador	41	7.05
	Nicaragua	39	6.89
	Costa Rica	27	4.68
	Panama	15	4.36
United States	United States	20	4.02
Andean area	Ecuador	47	4.65
	Bolivia	26	3.10
	Peru	4	0.26
Mainland Caribbean region	Colombia	21	0.61
	Venezuela	16	0.85
Chile	Chile	16	0.60
Antillean Islands	Dominican Republic	8	0.97
	Puerto Rico	1	0.19
	Cuba	2	0.14
River Plata area	Argentina	2	0.05
	Paraguay	1	0.11
	Uruguay	0	0
Spain	Spain	0	0

below, the data collected in CORPES from 2001 to 2022 basically confirm this observation, and add new, more detailed information on the current geographical distribution of this form.4

According to the CORPES data, expletive mismo is a distinctive feature of Mexican Spanish, where the greatest number of occurrences is attested and the highest NF is clearly obtained. This use of the adjective mismo seems to have irradiated from Mexico to neighboring countries, both northwards to the United States and southwards to Central America, in a way that the closer a country in the Central American region is to Mexico, the more frequently expletive mismo is documented. The data in CORPES also show that expletive mismo is certainly found in the Andean area, particularly so in Ecuador and Bolivia, and further suggest that it might be extending to other American countries, like Colombia, Venezuela, Chile, and the Dominican Republic, whereas it is not significantly used (or not used at all) in the rest of the Antillean Islands (Cuba and Puerto Rico), the River Plate area, and European Spanish.5

As for the language registers in which it occurs, expletive mismo mainly belongs to written language:6 the information extracted from CORPES indicates, in particular, that this form is mostly used in journalistic texts on different topics (news, sports, culture, economy), but also appears in many other types of written texts, like fiction works (novels, plays, stories), essays, scientific books, legal provisions, or institutional documents.

4. Previous Observations and Accounts: A Critical Review

Together with the observations on the geographical distribution of expletive mismo that have been brought up in the preceding Section, RAE-ASALE (2009, §13.11n) makes the following remarks on this form: “expletive mismo is characteristic of appositive relative clauses. Its origin lies in the omission of the definite article before mismo, so that mismo/misma que (‘lit. same that’) are equivalent to el cual/la cual ‘which’ (lit. the which). If mismo is omitted in these constructions, meaning is not affected, but emphasis is lost”.7

In the only work on expletive mismo we know of, Echevarría Román and Melis (2015), taking as a starting point the view in RAE-ASALE (2009) that this instance of mismo is an emphatic use of the adjective in appositive relatives, provide an account of the origin and properties of the combination of expletive mismo with the relative pronoun que ‘that’ (henceforth mismo que).8

These authors first argue that mismo que has its source in an appositive nominal construction formed by the definite article, the identity adjective mismo, an empty noun, and a restrictive relative clause introduced by que (henceforth el mismo que). As illustrated in (5), in this construction, which was documented for the first time in CORDE in the 17th century, mismo originally had a comparative/identifying interpretation:

(5)	Pusieronse vnos habitos blancos, y vn escapulario pardo, el mismo que tenían los muy recientes monges de la orden de S.Geronimo. (Fray José Sigüenza, Segunda parte de la Historia de la Orden de San Jerónimo, 1600, CORDE n.d.)
	‘They put on white robes and a brown scapular, the same one that the very recent monks of the order of St Jerome wore.’

Building on data from CORDE, Echevarría Román and Melis further show that, from the 19th century onwards, and in certain contexts, the adjective mismo in el mismo que loses its comparative interpretation and takes an exclusively emphatic role. As a result, within this appositive nominal structure, mismo can nowadays have both a comparative meaning, as in (6), and a non-comparative emphatic import, as in (7):9

(6)	a.	Podía imaginar al señor Aguilar sosteniendo el teléfono en el recibidor de su casa, el mismo que yo había utilizado muchas veces para llamar a mi padre. (Ruiz Zafón, La sombra del viento, 2001, Spain)
		‘I could imagine Mr. Aguilar holding the phone in the hall of his house, the same one that I had used to phone my father many times.’
	b.	Cuando quise dejar la fila el japonés se abalanzó sobre mí blandiendo un bastón de madera, el mismo con el que golpeaba a los alumnos que así se lo pedían. (Bolaño, Putas asesinas, 2001, Chile)
		‘When I tried to leave the line, the Japanese man pounced on me brandishing a cane, the same one with which he beat the students who asked him to do so.’
(7)	a.	Hay carencia de control sobre el expendio de alimentos, el mismo que se realiza, en general, en condiciones poco higiénicas. (Gutiérrez Durán, Petróleo y medio ambiente en Bolivia, 2011, Bolivia)
		‘There is a lack of control on the sale of food, which (lit. the same that) is generally made under unhygienic conditions.’
	b.	En días pasados se puso en marcha el Torneo de Fútbol de Salón “Jóvenes Obreros”, el mismo que tiene como sede la colonia Chapala. (El Siglo de Torreón, 2002, Mexico)
		‘In days past the indoor soccer tournament ‘Young Workers’ started, which (lit. the same that) has as headquarters the Chapala colony.’

Echevarría Román and Melis thus maintain that mismo que is derived, in particular, from the appositive nominal construction el mismo que with a non-comparative value in (7), so that mismo in the sequence mismo que, which is first attested in CORDE in the 1950s,10 has specialized in the non-comparative interpretation: in their words, “mismo que never introduces relative clauses in which the adjective plays its identifying role through comparison. In these cases, el mismo que is used” (Echevarría Román and Melis 2015, p. 200).

Echevarría Román and Melis (2015) also try to pin down the ‘emphatic’ import of mismo in mismo que. For these authors, mismo can have two different (emphatic) values in this appositional sequence, which it also has in el mismo que. On the one hand, mismo can have an evaluative or subjective value and, in this case, it “highlights the comment the relative clause adds with respect to the entity that functions as the antecedent” (p. 175), indicating that “something is predicated of the antecedent that the speaker considers to be of special interest” (p. 204). On the other hand, it can have a discursive or continuative function, by which it “facilitates the linkage between two successive elements in discourse” (p. 203), and thus “helps to strengthen discursive cohesion” (p. 175).11

Echevarría Román and Melis (2015, p. 199) finally offer an explicit syntactic analysis of mismo que, arguing that mismo and que make up a new complex relative nexus,12 which heads an appositive relative clause and results from a reanalysis process, whereby “when the article is dropped, in its new emphatic function, mismo has to merge with an element that can bear the emphasis”, so that mismo and que, which were two separate words in el mismo que, now become a single lexical unit (i.e., [mismo] [que] → [mismo que]).

In our view, the analysis of mismo que as a complex relative pronoun in Echevarría Román and Melis (2015) has three main problems. The first shortcoming is that in their proposal, as has just been mentioned, mismo in mismo que is analyzed as an emphatic element that merges with que. The problem with this idea is that the relative pronoun que is an unstressed word, and unstressed words cannot be modified by emphatic stressed elements: intensive mismo, for instance, which is also an emphatic item (see footnote 3), cannot be added to a clitic pronoun (e.g., Lo haré yo mismo ‘lit. It will do I myself’ vs. *Quiere verme mismo ‘lit. Wants to see me myself’).

The second problem for the analysis of mismo que as a single lexical unit comes from coordination data like the ones in (8), which show that the sequence mismo que is formed by two separate words, as it can be split into mismo and que, so that mismo is followed by two coordinated relative clauses both being introduced by the relative pronoun que (i.e., [[mismo] [_O [_O que…] y [_O que…]]]):13

(8)	a.	La relación entre ambas empresas inició en 2002, cuando Citycom decidió desligarse de Telcel de Daniel Haij para firmar un acuerdo con Telefónica, mismo que avanzó favorablemente y que se reflejó en un incremento de más de 500 puntos de venta de Citycom. (El Universal, 2007, Mexico)
		‘The relation between the two companies began in 2002, when Citycom decided to disengage from Daniel Haij’s Telcel in order to sign an agreement with Telefónica, which (lit. same that) progressed favorably and (lit. that) was reflected in a 500 sale points increase for Citycom.’
	b.	Esa acción surgió de un potente disparo que lanzó Christian Giménez desde fuera del área, mismo que desvió el conejo y que pegó en el travesaño. (Milenio. La Afición, 2011, Mexico)
		‘That action followed a strong shot by Christian Giménez from outside de area, which (lit. same that) the rabbit deflected and (lit. that) hit the crossbar.’
	c.	En el caso de Venus, sus problemas estuvieron en el primer set, mismo que perdió 6 7 (6) y que abandonó cojeando. (La República, 2011, Costa Rica)
		‘In the case of Venus, her problems came up in the first set, which (lit. same that) she lost 6 7 (6) and (lit. that) left limping.’

Another problem with the proposal we are discussing is that it cannot apply to occurrences of expletive mismo in which it combines with relative words and phrases other than que, which are also attested in CORPES. This database first includes many examples of expletive mismo in combination with a relative pronoun that functions as the complement of a preposition, like the ones in (9):

(9)	a.	Por referirse esta Ley a la regulación de los contratos cuyo análisis interesa desarrollar el presente capítulo, amerita su tratamiento por separado, mismo del que nos ocupamos en el siguiente apartado. (Fernández Ruiz et al., Teoría y praxis de la contratación administrativa, 2004, Mexico)
		‘Since this law refers to the regulation of the contracts the analysis of which the present chapter develops, it merits a separate treatment, (lit. same) with which we deal in the next section.’
	b.	Se realizó una observación en el teleférico, misma en la que se observó a un grupo de doce personas entre las edades de 25 a 34 años. (El Periplo Sustentable, 2019, Mexico)
		‘A viewing was taken on the cable car, (lit. same) in which a group of twelve people aged between 25 and 34 was sighted.’
	c.	Ay, la fila. Tenemos que hacer hincapié en las muchas personas que necesitaban trabajo. Se cuentan más de veinticinco. Todos hombres, mismos a los que Demetrio les pedía referencias concretas. (Sada, Casi nunca, 2008, Mexico)
		‘Oh, the line! We have to emphasize how many people needed work. There are more than twenty-five in number. All men, (lit. same) whom Demetrio was asking for specific references.’
	d.	El investigador comentó que entre los años 1993 y 1994 se realizaron tareas de investigación, excavación y consolidación del lugar, mismas en las que intervinieron seis arqueólogos y 300 trabajadores. (El Siglo del Torreón, 2003, Mexico)
		‘The researcher said that between 1993 and 1994 investigation, excavation and consolidation tasks were carried out, (lit. same) in which six archaeologists and 300 workers were involved.’

As illustrated in (10), there are also some examples in which expletive mismo is followed by the relative adverb donde ‘where’:

(10)	a.	“Los Jueces” de Arnoldo Gálvez Suárez, novela ganadora del Premio Centroamericano Mario Monteforte Toledo 2008, presenta una metáfora novelada del mundo, usando como referencia el cotidiano transcurrir de una colonia citadina, misma donde confluyen dentro de ella o a partir de ella, todos los elementos característicos de la sociedad actual. (La Hora, 2010, Guatemala).
		‘Arnoldo Gálvez Díaz’s “The Judges”, the novel awarded with the Premio Centroamericano Mario Monteforte Toledo 2008, presents a fictionalized metaphor of the world, using as a reference the daily life of an urban colony, (lit. same) where all the distinctive elements of present-day society merge.’
	b.	Desde temprana hora del pasado jueves, una lujosa casona, misma donde se recreó el colegio de la telenovela, sirvió como escenario principal para que los dos personajes del melodrama producido por Nicandro Díaz, se juraran amor eterno. (El Siglo del Torreón, 2003, Mexico)
		‘Since early last Thursday, a luxurious big house, (lit. same) where the school of the soap opera was recreated, served as main stage for the two characters in the melodrama produced by Nicandro Díaz to swear eternal love.’
	c.	Obtener apoyo financiero de tal magnitud, sin endeudar más a los países que resultarán beneficiados, es un motivo más que suficiente para demostrar nuestra gratitud y aprecio a la vicepresidenta de la poderosa nación estadounidense, misma donde han encontrado residencia y trabajo permanentes más de tres millones de compatriotas. (Diario El Mundo, 2021, El Salvador)
		‘Getting such a big financial support, without indebting the countries that will benefit from it, is reason enough to show our gratitude and appreciation to the vice-president of the powerful American nation, (lit same) where more than three millions of compatriots have found permanent residence and work.’

And two occurrences can even be found of expletive mismo in which it precedes a nominal expression headed by the relative determiner cuyo ‘whose’:

(11)	a.	Como si la lentitud le ayudara a ordenar lo que él mismo se encargó de hacer caótico por el solo hecho de prolongar su ausencia, misma cuyo arreglo ¿hasta cuándo? ¿luego de una hora o dos? (Sada, Casi nunca, 2008, Mexico)
		‘As though slowness would help him repair what he himself made chaotic for the mere fact of prolonging his absence, (lit. same) whose arrangement, when will it take place? After an hour or two?’
	b.	En el largometraje, ambos protagonistas deberán encontrar las razones que, pese a la tradición y el pensamiento moderno, los mantendrán unidos y podrían llevarlos al altar, mediante una ceremonia de la tribu Cheyenne, misma cuyos orígenes se remontan al siglo XVII. (El Siglo del Torreón, 2020, Mexico)
		‘In the film, the two main characters will have to find the reasons that, in spite of tradition and modern thought, will hold them together and could lead them to marriage, through a ceremony of the Cheyenne tribe, (lit. same) whose origins go back to the XVII century.’

The data in CORPES thus show that expletive mismo not only precedes que, but also combines with a relative pronoun with a preposition, the relative adverb donde, and the relative determiner cuyo. None of these sequences can be analyzed as a complex relative word (i.e., a single lexical unit) for various reasons: when it precedes a relative pronoun with a preposition, mismo is not adjacent to the relative pronoun, and simply cannot merge with it to form a single lexical unit; if it were analyzed as a complex relative adverb, mismo donde ‘lit. same where’ would be a case of an inflected adverb, which is not a possible word in Spanish; and the formation of a complex relative determiner mismo cuyo ‘lit. same whose’ just makes no sense at all (note, for instance, that this alleged complex determiner would have two conflicting specifications for gender and number, since mismo agrees with an antecedent in the preceding clause whereas cuyo agrees with the noun that follows it).

In the next Section, we will present our ideas on the emphatic import of expletive mismo and provide a new structural analysis of the appositive construction it is part of that does not have the problems faced by the proposal in Echevarría Román and Melis (2015).

5. A New Analysis

As we know, expletive mismo shows an exclusively anaphoric interpretation: i.e., it does not make a comparison between two entities indicating that they are identical, but just refers back to an antecedent it agrees with in gender and number. This anaphoric-only interpretation is not an exclusive property of this use of the adjective. It also obtains in general Spanish, mostly in journalistic, administrative, or legal written language, when mismo combines with the definite article to form the anaphoric complex pronoun el mismo (lit. the same), illustrated in the examples of (12), which have been taken from RAE-ASALE (2005, p. 439; 2009, p. 1207):14

(12)	a.	Serían citados en la misma delegación a efecto de ampliar declaraciones y ratificar las mismas
		‘lit. They would be cited in the same delegation in order to expand the statements and ratify the same.’
	b.	Criticó al término de la asamblea las irregularidades que se habían producido durante el trascurso de la misma.
		‘lit. At the end of the meeting, he criticized the irregularities that had taken place during the course of the same.’
	c.	Recibió varias heridas, pero aún no se ha determinado la causa de las mismas.
		‘lit. He received several injuries, but the cause of the same has not been determined yet.’

As can be seen in the examples in (12), like expletive mismo, mismo does not have a comparative meaning in the complex pronoun el mismo, and only functions as an anaphoric item that, in combination with the definite article, retrieves an entity that has been previously mentioned in discourse. This is clearly shown by the fact that the complex pronoun in (12) can be replaced by other anaphoric elements, like a personal pronoun, a demonstrative, or a possessive, as in (13):

(13)	a.	Serían citados en la misma delegación a efecto de ampliar declaraciones y ratificarlas.
		‘They would be cited in the same delegation in order to expand the statements and ratify them.’
	b.	Criticó al término de la asamblea las irregularidades que se habían producido durante el trascurso de esta.
		‘At the end of the meeting, he criticized the irregularities that had taken place during the course of it.’
	c.	Recibió varias heridas, pero aún no se ha determinado su causa.
		‘He received several injuries, but their cause has not been determined yet.’

There is, however, an important difference between expletive mismo and the complex anaphoric pronoun el mismo: while the pronoun establishes an anaphoric relation with an antecedent with the same reference, expletive mismo is optionally added to a previously established anaphoric relation. In the light of this fact, and given that it has an anaphoric-only interpretation, we would like to put forward the idea that expletive mismo functions as an anaphoric reinforcer that strengthens the (pre-existent) relation between a relative clause in an appositive construction and its antecedent. This insight fits well with the observation that this form is often used when the relative clause and the antecedent are not adjacent, as in the following examples:

(14)	a.	De acuerdo a los encargados del proyecto, en el área centroamericana este cultivo será el primero en su género, mismo que servirá como alternativa económica y de apoyo para los habitantes de la comunidad de Jiniguare. (El Heraldo, 2004, Honduras)
		‘According to the project managers, in the Central American area this crop will be the first of its kind, which (lit. same that) will serve as an economic and supporting alternative for the people in the community of Jiniguare.’
	b.	El tema propuesto para el 2015 es “Museos para una sociedad sostenible”, mismo que recuerda que los museos son instituciones vivas. (cultura y patrimonio.gob.ec, 2015, Ecuador)
		‘The proposed topic for 2015 is “Museums for a sustainable society, which (lit. same that) reminds that museums are living institutions.’
	c.	El embajador de Ecuador ante la ONU señala que el objetivo es establecer una fuerza de paz, mismo que “no se podrá conseguir si el sur de Líbano sigue ocupado por los israelitas”. (El comercio, 2006, Ecuador)
		‘Ecuador’s ambassador to the UN points out that the goal is to establish a peacekeeping force, which (lit. same that) “will not be reached if the south of Lebanon remains occupied by Israel”.’
	d.	Una camioneta le esperaba frente a la puerta ocho del renovado aeropuerto, misma que abordó junto con Dosamantes y tres guaruras. (El Universal, 2005, Mexico)
		‘A van was waiting for him in front of entrance number 8 in the renovated airport, which (lit. same that) he boarded together with Dosamantes and three bodyguards.’

In our view, the core emphatic meaning of expletive mismo, therefore, lies in its status as an anaphoric reinforcer. The subjective and discursive interpretations attributed to this use of the adjective in Echevarría Román and Melis (2015), if present, are just additional values that stem from this basic import in certain contexts.15

With this idea in mind, our proposal on the internal structure of the appositive construction containing expletive mismo is represented in (15):16

(15)	[DP [D Ø+def ] [NP mismo+anaphoric [N’ [N’ Øi [RC …]]]]]

In the structural configuration in (15), the prenominal adjective mismo, which plays the role of an anaphoric reinforcer, combines with an empty nominal that has an antecedent in the preceding sentence, as indicated by the subscript, and is modified by a restrictive relative clause (RC).17 Therefore, against the view in RAE-ASALE (2009) and Echevarría Román and Melis (2015), under the analysis in (15), expletive mismo does not introduce an appositive relative, but is part of an appositional nominal expression that also includes a null noun and a restrictive relative clause.

As represented in (15), we further propose that the appositive construction with expletive mismo is headed by a null definite determiner. This is not an ad hoc proposal. The same analysis can apply to other constructions in Spanish in which mismo is not preceded by an overt definite article: the mismo+N construction in topic position illustrated in (16) and the article-less nominal appositions including the identity adjective, an overt noun, and either a comparative complement or a restrictive relative clause in (17) and (18), respectively.18

(16)	a.	“Es más fácil firmar una hipoteca y esto hay que aprovecharlo”, aconseja García-Montalvo. Misma percepción tiene Córdoba. (El Mundo, 2014, Spain)
		‘“It is easier to sign a mortgage and this must be taken advantage of”, García-Montalvo advises. Lit. Same perception has Córdoba.’
	b.	Para que los estadounidenses la conocieran y dirigieran, en 2004 debió rehacer su disco, que pasó a llamarse Anything. Mismo trámite mercantil sufrieron en su momento otros británicos, como los Beatles, los Animales, los Rolling Stones o Bob Marley. (La Jornada, 2007, Mexico)
		‘For the Americans to know and conduct her, in 2004 she had to remake her album, which was now called Anything. Lit. Same commercial procedure underwent at the time other British people, like the Beatles, the Animals, the Rolling Stones or Bob Marley.’
	c.	El que tampoco pudo acercarse fue el Villarreal, que solo pudo empatar 0-0 como local ante el Racing de Santander. Mismo resultado consiguió el Getafe -con Abbodanzieri y Daniel Díaz- ante el Valencia. (Página 12. Líbero, 2008, Argentina)
		‘The one that could not get closer either was Villarreal, which could only reach a goalless draw as a local team against Racing of Santander. Lit. Same score got Getafe, with Abbondanzieri and Daniel Diaz, against Valencia.’
(17)	a.	Los 165 kilómetros, entre Sevilla y Huelva, fueron recorridos por Freire en 4 horas, 4 minutos y 42 segundos, mismo tiempo que sus principales “enemigos”. (El Mundo, 2003, Spain)
		‘The 165 km between Seville and Huelva were covered by Freire in 4 h, 4 min and 42 s, the same time as his main “enemies”.’
	b.	Actualmente se encuentran promocionando su quinto álbum, el cual lleva por título Ammore, mismo nombre de su primer sencillo. (El Siglo del Torreón, 2004, Mexico)
		‘They are currently promoting their fifth album, called Ammore, the same name of their first single.’
	c.	El sorteo les deparó enfrentar a Holanda, en primera fase, mismo rival de la final de Sudáfrica 2010. (El Espectador, 2014, Colombia)
		‘The draw took them to face the Netherlands, in the first round, the same rival in the South Africa 2010 final.’
(18)	a.	John Isner prefirió ni aparecer por París, misma decisión que tomó Nick Kirgios. (Jot Down, 2019, Spain)
		‘John Isner preferred not to show up in Paris, the same decision Nick Kirgios made.’
	b.	Observó otra vez una placa con el libro encerrado en un círculo y una raya vertical, mismo letrero que encontraría una y otra vez a lo largo de ese día. (Toledo, Corpus: ficciones sobre ficciones, 2007, Mexico)
		‘He once again saw a plate with a book in a circle and a vertical line, the same signboard he would find once and again all during that day.’
	c.	Tras 59 encuentros, siete goles y una expulsión en Palestino, pasó a Colo Colo en mayo de 2015, mismo año en el que debutó con la selección de Chile. (La Nación, 2019, Argentina)
		‘After 59 matches, 7 goals and a sending off in Palestino, he passed to Colo Colo in May 2015, the same year in which he made his debut with the Chilean national team.’

In contrast to the construction with expletive mismo, in the three constructions in (16)–(18), which are mainly found in written language and do not seem to be subject to dialectal variation, mismo has a comparative interpretation and the noun following it is overtly realized.19 The constructions in (16)–(18) and the construction with expletive mismo do have, however, a relevant property in common: in all cases, an overt definite article can be added to the left of the adjective without any change in meaning, which can be taken as an argument in favor of the analysis with an empty determiner for all four constructions.20

In this view, the construction with expletive mismo has the same internal structure as the nominal appositive construction formed by the definite article, the adjective mismo, a null noun, and a restrictive relative clause that was brought up in our review of the ideas in Echevarría Román and Melis (2015) on the origin of expletive mismo in the preceding Section. In this construction, as mentioned, mismo can currently have either a comparative interpretation or a non-comparative emphatic import, as in the examples in (6a) and (7a), which are repeated in (19):

(19)	a.	Podía imaginar al señor Aguilar sosteniendo el teléfono en el recibidor de su casa, el mismo que yo había utilizado muchas veces para llamar a mi padre. (Ruiz Zafón, La sombra del viento, 2001, Spain)
		‘I could imagine Mr. Aguilar holding the phone in the hall of his house, the same one that I had used to phone my father many times.’
	b.	Hay carencia de control sobre el expendio de alimentos, el mismo que se realiza, en general, en condiciones poco higiénicas. (Gutiérrez Durán, Petróleo y medio ambiente en Bolivia, 2011, Bolivia)
		‘There is a lack of control on the sale of food, which (lit. the same that) is generally made in unhygienic conditions.’

The analysis of the appositive construction in (19) is depicted in the structural representation in (20), which basically matches the analysis of the construction with expletive mismo in (15), the only difference being that, in this case, the definite article has phonetic content:

(20)	[DP [D el ] [NP mismo [N´ [N´ Øi ] [RC …]]]]]

Our proposal on expletive mismo in (15) does not have the shortcomings of the analysis of mismo que as a complex relative nexus by Echevarría Román and Melis (2015) that were outlined in the previous Section. Note first that, in the structure in (15), mismo and que are two different words. Therefore, the problem in the aforementioned work with the idea that mismo que is a single lexical unit formed by adding a stressed emphatic element to an unstressed relative pronoun just dissolves.

The coordination facts in (8), which are illustrated with the examples in (21) again, can also now be easily accommodated: as represented in (22), in these examples, an empty noun is modified by two coordinated restrictive relative clauses both headed by the relative pronoun que.21

(21)	a.	El segundo set se mantuvo parejo hasta el octavo juego. La suiza volvió a perder su servicio, mismo que la española no desaprovechó y que a la postre significaría el partido. (El Universal, 2011, Mexico)
		‘The second set remained even until the eighth game. Once again the Swiss player lost her serve, which (lit. same that) the Spanish one did not waste and (lit. that) eventually would decide the match.’
	b.	El mandato presidencial de Plutarco Elías Calles (1924–28) fue bastante azaroso, ya que tuvo que enfrentar tres problemas primordiales: el petrolero con los Estados Unidos, mismo que se venía arrastrando desde la época de Carranza y que Calles enfrentó conciliando los intereses nacionales con los extranjeros… (Adame Hernández, Teatros y teatralidades en México: siglo XX, 2004, Mexico)
		‘Plutarco Elías Calles’ presidential term (1924–28) was quite hazardous, since he had to face three main problems: the petrol problem with the United States, which (lit. same that) was dragging on since Carranza’s time and (lit. that) Calles faced reconciling national and foreign interests…’
(22)		[DP [D Ø+def ] [NP mismo+anaphoric [N´ [N´ Øi [RC [RC que …] y [RC que …]]]]]]

The proposal in (15) finally provides a uniform analysis for all the combinations of expletive mismo, including those that cannot be analyzed as a complex relative pronoun at all. As shown in Section 4, expletive mismo does not only combine with the relative pronoun que, as in (23a), but can also be followed by a relative pronoun with a preposition (P+RP) (23b), the relative adverb donde (23c), and the relative determiner cuyo (23d):

(23)	a.	Todo era falso y Sánchez Guadrón se quedó con el vehículo, mismo que le fue decomisado cuando fue detenido. (Laprensagráfica.com, 2008, EL Salvador)
		‘All was false and Sánchez Guadrón kept the vehicle, which (lit. same that) was confiscated when he was arrested.’
	b.	Actualmente, Daniel sabe que tiene su futuro asegurado, aun cuando se ha dicho que la saga de Harry Potter llegará a su final en el año 2011. Por el momento, asegura que aún le queda un tiempo con su personaje de Harry, mismo con el que ha crecido. (PanamaAmerica.com.pa, 2009, Panama)
		‘Nowadays, Daniel knows that his future is secure, even though it has been said that Harry Potter’s saga will come to its end in 2011. For the time being, he assures that he still has time with his Harry character, (lit same) with which he has grown.’
	c.	Tras este intento fallido por adquirir al lateral izquierdo y tras su confirmación de haber estado en planes azules, aparece el nombre de Mario Pineida, quien se desempeña por la banda zurda, misma donde Emelec sufrió altibajos durante la reciente temporada. (Expreso, 2018, Ecuador)
		‘After this failed attempt to acquire the left winger and after confirming that he had been under blue schedules, there comes up the name of Mario Pineida, who plays on the left side, (lit same) where Emelec had ups and downs during this season.’
	d.	En el largometraje, ambos protagonistas deberán encontrar las razones que, pese a la tradición y el pensamiento moderno, los mantendrán unidos y podrían llevarlos al altar, mediante una ceremonia de la tribu Cheyenne, misma cuyos orígenes se remontan al siglo XVII. (El Siglo del Torreón, 2020, Mexico)
		‘In the film, the two main characters will have to find the reasons that, in spite of tradition and modern thought, will keep them together and could lead them to marriage, through a ceremony of the Cheyenne tribe, (lit same) whose origins go back to the XVII century.’

As represented in (24), under the analysis in (15), expletive mismo modifies an empty nominal that takes a restrictive relative clause as its complement in all four cases:

(24)	[DP [D Ø ] [NP mismo [N´ Øi [RC que/P+RP/donde/cuyo …]]]]

Among other considerations, the uniform analysis of all the sequences including expletive mismo in (24) is supported by the coordination data in (25): in these CORPES examples, in which two restrictive relative clauses following expletive mismo are coordinated, the first relative clause is introduced by a relative pronoun with a preposition (25a) or by the relative determiner cuyo (25b), and the second one is headed by the relative pronoun que.

(25)	a.	Dirigida por el propio Rafael Perrín, esta enlutada empezó presentándose con Germán Robles en el papel principal, mismo en el que duró varios años y que desempeñaba con su acostumbrada categoría. (La Jornada, 2011, Mexico)
		‘Directed by Rafael Perrín himself, this woman in black began showing up with Germán Robles in the lead role, (lit. same) in which she lasted for several years and which (lit. that) she played with her usual standing.’
	b.	En el largometraje, ambos protagonistas deberán encontrar las razones que, pese a la tradición y el pensamiento moderno, los mantendrán unidos y podrían llevarlos al altar, mediante una ceremonia de la tribu Cheyenne, misma cuyos orígenes se remontan al siglo XVII y que, a pleno siglo XXI, busca mantener vigentes sus tradiciones e interpretación de la vida. (El Siglo del Torreón, 2020, Mexico)
		‘In the film, the two main characters will have to find the reasons that, in spite of tradition and modern thought, will hold them together and could lead them to marriage, through a ceremony of the Cheyenne tribe, (lit. same) whose origins go back to the XVII century and which (lit. that), in the 21st century, seeks to keep alive their traditions and their interpretation of life.’

In addition to solving the problems with Echevarría Román and Melis (2015)’s account of mismo que, the structural analysis in (15) also explains why not all possible combinations of expletive mismo and a relative item are actually attested. As we know, expletive mismo combines with the relative pronoun que ‘that’, a relative pronoun with a preposition, the relative adverb donde ‘where’, and a DP introduced by cuyo ‘whose’. As shown in (26), all these relative words or phrases can take part in both restrictive and appositive relative clauses in Spanish:

(26)	a.	el poema (,) que tanto me gusta
		‘the poem (,) that/which I like so much’
	b.	la casa (,) en la que/donde vivo
		‘the house (,) in which/where I live’
	c.	el escritor (,) cuyo libro he leído
		‘the writer (,) whose book I have read’

Nevertheless, according to the data in CORPES, expletive mismo cannot be directly followed by the relative pronoun quien ‘who’ and the complex relative pronoun el cual ‘which’ (lit. the which): there are no examples of mismo quien or mismo el cual (or its gender and number variants) in this database at all. As illustrated in (27) and (28), these two relative pronouns can head an appositive relative (27), but they only introduce a restrictive relative if they are preceded by a preposition (28):

(27)	a.	el libro, el cual mencionaron/del cual hablaron.
		‘lit. the book, which they mentioned/of which they talked’
	b.	el profesor, quien no paraba de hablar/con quien he discutido
		‘lit. the teacher, who did not stop talking/with whom I have argued’
(28)	a.	el libro *el cual mencionaron/del cual hablaron
		‘lit. the book which they mentioned/of which they talked’
	b.	el profesor *quien no paraba de hablar/con quien he discutido
		‘lit. the teacher who did not stop talking/with whom I have argued’

Under the analysis in (15), the fact that expletive mismo is not followed by quien and el cual receives a straightforward explanation: as shown in (27) and (28), quien and el cual can only head appositive relative clauses, and in our analysis the appositive nominal construction with expletive mismo includes a null noun that is modified by a restrictive relative clause.

As illustrated in the examples in (29), expletive mismo can, however, combine with el cual when this complex relative pronoun is preceded by a preposition.22 This is exactly what is to be expected, since a relative pronoun functioning as the complement of a preposition can head a restrictive relative clause in Spanish.

(29)	a.	Además, el presunto cuenta con antecedentes penales que datan del mes de febrero de 1999, por el delito de robo con violencia, mismo por el cual quedó internado en el Centro de Readaptación Social (Cereso) por cinco años. (El Siglo del Torreón, 2005, Mexico)
		‘Moreover, the alleged offender has a criminal record dating from February 1999, for the crime of robbery with violence, (lit. same) for which he was kept in the Center of Social Retraining for five years.’
	b.	Adriana “primavera” participó como cantante principal en el proyecto del pianista cubano Emanuel Rodríguez, mismo en el cual se desempeñó como compositora de las letras de dicha agrupación, llamada “La Resistencia”. (La Hora, 2015, Guatemala)
		‘Adriana “spring” participated as the main singer in the project by the Cuban pianist Emanuel Rodríguez, (lit same) in which she wrote the lyrics of that group, called “The Resistance”.’

To conclude this Section, we will address an apparent problem for the analysis in (15): the data in CORPES show that, in examples with expletive mismo, like the ones in (30), there cannot be any intervening lexical material between mismo and the relative word or phrase following it, and indicate, in particular, that the nominal head (and its modifiers) cannot be phonetically realized: if the elided constituent is overt (e.g., mismo disco óptico que agitó en la cara de Dante in (30a)), mismo can only have a comparative interpretation (see the discussion on the appositive [mismo+N+RC] construction in this Section), which does not generally make any sense.

(30)	a.	Arturo sacó de la bolsa de su camisa un disco óptico, mismo que agitó en la cara de Dante. (Orosa, Los Extraviados, 2002, Mexico)
		‘Arturo took out of his shirt pocket an optical disc, which (lit. same that) he waved in Dante’s face.’
	b.	Solamente recibió un impacto de bala en el abdomen con entrada y salida, mismo que no fue de gravedad. (El mañana, 2005, Mexico)
		‘He just got a bullet impact in the abdomen with entry and exit, which (lit. same that) was not serious.’

These facts prima facie support the analysis of mismo que as a single lexical unit. Note, however, that the same facts obtain in the case of the appositive el mismo que construction with non-comparative emphatic mismo, illustrated in (31) again, from which mismo que has been argued to be derived (see Section 4): according to the CORPES data, no lexical material can be inserted between mismo and que in this construction either, and if the noun is overt, mismo also obtains a comparative interpretation. This shows that article-less mismo can have a non-comparative anaphoric-only import only when the noun is not pronounced.

(31)	a.	Se utiliza el dinero como patrón de medida, el mismo que permite indicar las pérdidas o ganancias de bienestar o utilidad. (Lascano y Pinto, Valoración económica del huerto…, 2001, Ecuador)
		‘Money is used as a yardstick, which (lit. the same that) allows to indicate profit and loss in welfare or utility.’
	b.	Vicente Fox no emuló del todo, en tiempo y forma, a Hugo Chávez, quien consultó directamente al pueblo venezolano y marginó al Congreso, al mismo que defenestraría con el aval plebiscitario. (Excélsior, 2002, Mexico)
		‘Vicente Fox did not fully emulate in time and form Hugo Chávez, who directly consulted the Venezuelan people and sidelined the Congress, which (lit to the same that) he would defenestrate with plebiscite endorsement.’

The point at issue is that the appositive sequence el mismo que in (31) cannot be analyzed as a single word by any means. To account for the aforementioned facts within the analyses in (15) and (20), we thus propose that both mismo que and non-comparative el mismo que are fixed constructions with an internal syntactic structure.

6. Conclusions

On the basis of data from CORPES, in this paper we have first confirmed the observation in RAE-ASALE (2009) that so-called ‘expletive’ mismo is mainly found in Mexico, Central America, and the Andean area, and we have further shown that this use of mismo might also be currently extending to other American regions and countries. We have also argued in favor of the idea that expletive mismo, which has an anaphoric-only non-comparative import, reinforces the anaphoric relation between a relative clause in an appositive expression and its antecedent in the preceding sentence. And we have finally offered a novel analysis of the internal structure of the appositive construction including expletive mismo, proposing that this construction is headed by a null definite article and contains, besides the adjective, an empty nominal and a restrictive relative clause that modifies the empty noun.