In:Hispanic Linguistics: Current issues and new directions
Edited by Alfonso Morales-Front, Michael J. Ferreira, Ronald P. Leow and Cristina Sanz
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 26] 2020
► pp. 161–182
Mood in future-framed adverbials
Pragmatic alternations in Rioplatense Spanish
Published online: 13 May 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.26.08hof
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.26.08hof
Abstract
In Spanish adverbial clauses containing
cuando ‘when’ and a present-tense verb, it is
assumed that indicative expresses habituality, but subjunctive
futurity. However, in Rioplatense, indicative [I] occurs in
future-framed adverbials, conveying epistemic pragmatic meaning:
Cuando bajás [I] del bondi,
llamame ‘When you get off the bus, call me.’ An online
questionnaire containing 32 contextualized sentences was distributed
to Rioplatense speakers (N = 140), and respondents
assigned acceptability ratings using a Likert scale. Mixed-effects
linear regression modeling shows that indicative is felicitous with
immediate and temporally-delimited actions, and when epistemic
certainty is conveyed; subjunctive is preferred for
distant/unrestricted future actions, or uncertainty. These findings
suggest an alternative criterion for mood choice in Rioplatense,
based on epistemicity rather than differentiation between present
and future events.
Keywords: pragmatics, epistemicity, mood, immediacy, future-framed adverbial
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Background
- 2.1Mood in Spanish
- 2.2Future-framed adverbial clauses
- 2.3Epistemic commitment
- 3.Independent variables
- 4.Research question and hypothesis
- 5.Methods
- 6.Results
- 7.Discussion
- 8.Conclusion
Notes References Appendix
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