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This paper analyzes the instructions embedded in the meaning of the evidential points of view materialized by the encontrar [find] + direct object + objective predicative structure and by different tenses (conditional, imperfect, morphological future and periphrastic future) in Spanish. Besides, to show similarities and divergences between Spanish and French on this topic, translations of those structures into the latter language are proposed. The corpus is composed by actual statements taken from the CREA and Internet news portals. The theoreticalmethodological framework is provided by the Dialogical Approach to Argumentation and Polyphony, which, unlike referentialist and cognitivist perspectives of evidentiality, characterizes the evidential meaning in relation to the dialogical and polyphonic-argumentative representation posed by the enunciation regarding the discursive cause that triggers it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to explain the alternation between the prepositions a and de when used as complements to the adjectives contrario 'contrary', diferente 'different', and distinto 'distinct', as illustrated in Yo no fui distinta __mi madre 'I wasn't different __my mother', where both prepositions can be inserted. Relying on Langacker's3 notion of construal, the hypothesis is that a construes the comparison in the sense of 'direction toward' while de construes it in the sense of 'separation' or 'point of departure', and that these senses should be reflected in the usage contexts of the two prepositions. The quantitative analysis of some 800 cases extracted from Davies'4 two billion word Corpus del español, however, shows no indication of a and de setting up different construals. This lack of correlation between usage and semantics appears to be due to the diachronic generalization of a as complement of the three adjectives, thus relegating the use of de to specific collocations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to explore the properties of preceding pronominal subjects in Caribbean Spanish and to provide an appropriate syntactic analysis for them. On the basis of the Head to Spec movement hypothesis proposed by Matushansky, Vicente and Citko, among others, we propose a novel analysis con cerning the conventional assumption in licensing null subjects. Concretely, it is assumed that the preceding pronominal subject is a spelled out element of the verb that has moved to Spec-IP, and this operation is realized as a clause-level compensation for the weakening of verbal inflection in Caribbean Spanish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that nowadays punctuation depends significantly on syntax. The identification of grammatical categories, syntactic phrases, syntactic functions and peripheral elements constitutes the main foundation to use punctuation marks, which has a clear advantage: applying objective criteria in this orthographic aspect. This paper puts a special emphasis on uses of comma and hyphen, although sometimes a reference is made about other punctuation marks. The Orthography of the Spanish Language and the New Grammar of the Spanish Language, published by the Royal Spanish Academy and the Association of Spanish Language Academies, are the theoretical basis to this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to analyze how the historical depth of a change is a condition to establish a norm or a prescription in grammar. Besides that, the paper shows that positive or negative linguistic valorations are very labil concepts, which are conditioned of a combination of internal and external variables. The paper examines some theoretical assumptions and concepts as a previous theoretical framework to analyze five constructions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decade, morphological studies have started to focus again on compounding, from a crosslinguistic point of view as well as for the particular case of Spanish. In this paper, we will first review a number of classifications of Spanish compounds, with special attention to coordinative compounds. Then we will focus our attention on a particular kind of construction which has been sometimes included among coordinative compounds: the nominal combination (madre-hija) that appears in the relación madre-hija ('mother-daughter relationship') structure. It will be shown that there are formal characteristics which take these structures away from compounds and bring them closer to free syntactic structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The grammatical treatises tell us that adverb + possessive structures are used in the spoken language, in a colloquial register, preferably in some areas of American Spanish. The aim of this paper is to describe the peculiarities of such constructions in news from the digital media. Specifically, we make a quantitative and qualitative analysis of adverbs of location in our materials that support this type of adjacent; we study the profitability of different possessives in this syntactic environment, based on the grammatical person; we seek an explanation for male-female variation in the possessive; we observe how it affects the fact that these constructions are term of preposition; and at last we provide data about their diatopical distribution in the Hispanic world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the percentage of use of VO and OV structures in Spanish oral corpus of Basque Spanish bilingual adults; pragmatic and discourse functions of OV structures are also examined in order to evaluate Basque syntax influence on Basque Spanish variety. Specifically, three aspects of the referent have been explored: given-new information level, the referent function, and its continuity in the discourse. Results suggest VO structure is usedmost frequently in the Basque Spanish bilingual utterances in Spanish, but OV structure is more regular exploited by unbalanced Spanish bilinguals who are dominant in Basque. Results also reveal that new information usually appears in topicalized positions, and the topicalized referent shows low continuity in the discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on certain grammatical constructions whose interpretation depends on the presence or absence of the article. The concept of grammatical construction it's that of form/meaning pairings (as found in construction-based approaches). Grammatical constructions have meanings that are not necessarily the sum of their parts. Thus, the behaviour of a grammatical word such as articles shows that in grammar syntax, semantic and pragmatics are indissociable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we examine the words notoriamente, visiblemente, perceptiblemente, manifiestamente and ostensiblemente as sentence adverbs or disjuncts in current Spanish. The analysis of their syntactic, semantic and discourse properties allows us to consider them as sentence adverbs of epistemic modality, quite close to other adverbs that express evidence or certainty, just like evidentemente or claramente. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the semantic and syntactic properties of the Spanish lexical markers of difference distinto/diferente 'different' and diverso 'diverse'. It analizes, in particular, their behaviour as adjectives and determiners with respect to the selection of an overt item of comparison, the expression of either non-identity or qualitative differences between the entities being compared, and the (anaphoric, NP-internal and sentence-internal) readings they may have depending on how the things to be compared are determined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this paper is to study the syntactic function and the pragmatic relevance in the use of the verb ser in Colombian Spanish as in Salí fue a correr; Les gusta estar es en la calle. We will use the data from El español hablado en Bogotá. Relatos semilibres de informantes pertenecientes a tres estratos sociales, by José Joaquín Montes Giraldo (1997), and a corpus created with the texts of Casa de Nariño, published by the Presidencia de la República de Colombia. Following Mercedes Sedano's precedent works for the phenomenon in Caracas, we will insist in the idea that these constructions are focal structures and they serve to communicate emphasis. We will resume the precedent research about the phenomenon, we will present our new data for the Spanish in Colombia, and we will study the emphatic mechanisms linked to the pragmatic motivation to create these syntactic constructions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper intends to enumerate some of the most relevant, innovative and striking aspects founded in the New Grammar of the Spanish Language (NGRALE, for its acronym in Spanish), and it also can be used like a sort of reading guide. Besides, in some cases, several examples are included in order to facilitate the comprehension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the whole range of devices to express Verum Focus (or polarity focus) in Spanish is analysed. After having introduced the basic concepts needed for the analysis (Verum Focus, its syntactic manifestations and its semantic interpretation), the various constructions expressing Verum Focus, the conditions governing the way they fit into the context and their contribution to the interpretation of the discourse in which they occur are considered in detail. The asymmetries that arise are explained as the result of some structural differences. A principled account of the notion of "emphasis" is offered in terms of Verum Focus. The proposal is illustrated with examples from various corpora of contemporary Spanish. From a more general point of view, it is shown that current theoretical models can successfully account for the distribution and nuances of colloquial discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper it will be pointed out that the infinitive constructions with perception and causative verbs in Spanish are double object sentences in which each object has a different degree of transitive prototypicity. Functionally, they are to some extent unstable structures which have to hold balance between three different forces: subject, object and infinitive, with a different way of interaction depending on the eventive structure of the sentence and the verb type. After studying separately perception and causative verbs, a tentative explanation of both verb types in terms of diathesis will be offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spanish concessive clauses usually are constructed with the indicative when they refer to facts and with the subjunctive when they apply to hypothetical or future objections. However, the prototypical marker of counterarguments, "aunque," often appears with the subjunctive in merely factual contexts, like in the statement "No soy nacionalista, aunque sea vasco", pronounced by a Basque politician. The traditional explanations of this phenomenon are based upon factors like information structure (the subjunctive is supposed to convey more topical and less relevant information) or the speaker's attitude (the subjunctive is thought to reflect a more polemic and less cooperative behaviour). The aim of this paper, inspired by textual linguistics, is to connect the "aunque"-subjunctive in factual contexts with the underlying textual sequence. Numerous examples obtained from the Real Academia corpus show that the "aunque"-subjunctive plays an important part in polite argumentation and can be considered as a case of what I would like to call "argumentative subjunctive". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]