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Forces behind the scene

The subjunctive in non-subordinate clauses without overt triggers in Spanish

ORCiD logo with link | Consejería de Educación y Universidades del Gobierno de Canarias
Published online: 28 October 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1075/rcl.00240.gar
Abstract
This paper offers a semantic account of mood choice in non-subordinate subjunctive clauses, excluding those where the subjunctive is licensed by overt markers (e.g., Quizás ‘Perhaps’, Ojalá ‘I hope’/‘If only’). The analysis is based on the model proposed in García Yanes (García Yanes, F. J. (2022). Force dynamics as the path to the Spanish subjunctive. Cognitive Linguistics, 33(4), 767–800. (accessed 11 June 2025).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; (2025b). Debunking myths from a cognitive perspective: mood choice in subordinate clauses to emotive predicates. Review of Cognitive Linguistics. Advance online publication. (accessed 11 June 2025).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), which has emerged as a compelling alternative to epistemic, truth-conditional, and pragmatic accounts of mood. From this perspective, the use of the subjunctive in these clauses is understood as a result of their profiling of a goal process within a force dynamics pattern, described from the antagonist’s perspective, as required by the model. Their different interpretations — as directives, optatives, or emotional-evaluatives — are, in turn, explained by their association with different types of force-dynamic patterns — sociophysical, volitive-epistemic, and emotional-attitudinal, respectively — a distinction that also underlies the categorization of nominal clauses proposed in my earlier work.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Review of previous accounts
  • 3.The model proposed in García Yanes (2022; 2025b)
  • 4.Application of the model developed in García Yanes (2022; 2025b) to the non-subordinate subjunctive
    • 4.1FD and objectivity vs. subjectivity: Reported and performative directives, and imperatives
    • 4.2Non-subordinate optative and emotional-evaluative clauses
  • 5.Factors influencing the interpretation of the non-subordinate subjunctive
  • 6.Discussion and conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
References (69)
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