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Abstract

In this article we explore two constructions where the preposition a 'at / to' is associated to distributive readings, the structure N a N (gota a gota lit. 'drop at drop', 'drop by drop', uno a uno lit. 'one at one', 'one by one'...) and the structure a D N (al día lit. 'to the day', 'by day', a la semana 'to the week', 'by week'...). This distributive interpretation of a is in principle unexpected, because in contrast to the preposition por 'by', it does not give by itself distributive readings. This article compares both structures with a, to argue that in both cases the preposition has, as expected, a locative meaning related to a sequence of elements disposed in a path: distributivity is obtained in each case by a different procedure, be it sequencing two individuals of the same class or be it through an operator whose restrictor is an element of an inherently ordered sequence. These different ways of obtaining distributivity explain the contrast in the behaviour of each one of the two structures.