Abstract

The periphrasis pasar a + infinitive presents a multiplicity of possible interpretations, from the simple movement of an entity from one place to another, to manifesting the agent's involuntariness in the execution of an event. In this article, regarding the periphrasis in question, the notion of unintentional agentivity is discussed as a change in the agentive interpretation of the state of affairs, that is, the agent of the event is interpreted as the cause of that event. For this, a sample of the Spanish spoken in Chile is analyzed, from the perspective of Functional Discursive Grammar (FDG). In short, the expression pasar a + infinitive is placed in the range of verbal periphrases of Spanish, specifically of the Chilean variant, from an FDG perspective, as a way to modify the type of verbal predicate and mark the event as involuntary.