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In:Exploring Language and Society with Big Data: Parliamentary discourse across time and space
Edited by Minna Korhonen, Haidee Kotze and Jukka Tyrkkö
[Studies in Corpus Linguistics 111] 2023
► pp. 308–335

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Chapter 11
Morphosyntactic and pragmatic variation in conditional constructions in English and Spanish parliamentary discourse

 | University of Seville
Published online: 13 November 2023
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.111.11las
Abstract
This chapter explores conditional constructions introduced by if and si in British English and European Spanish parliamentary discourse, with data drawn from the Hansard Corpus of the British parliament and the Diario de Sesiones del Congreso de los Diputados of the Spanish parliament. I propose a categorisation of conditionals according to the metafunctions set out by Halliday and Matthiessen (2014), in order to encompass prototypical and less prototypical uses of these constructions. Corpus findings indicate that in addition to their prototypical use in expressing cause–consequence relations, conditionals in parliamentary discourse also function, to a lesser extent, as interpersonal and textual devices, especially in Spanish. Results also suggest a correlation between pragmatic and morphosyntactic variation in some of these constructions.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The discourse-pragmatic functions of conditionals
  • 3.Parliamentary discourse and conditionals
  • 4.Corpora and methodology
  • 5.Results and discussion
    • 5.1Frequency
    • 5.2Metafunctions
    • 5.3Degree of likelihood of the condition
    • 5.4Markedness of the apodosis
    • 5.5Position
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
References (82)
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