In:Columbia School Linguistics in the 21st Century
Edited by Nancy Stern, Ricardo Otheguy, Wallis Reid and Jaseleen Sackler
[Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics 77] 2019
► pp. 105–122
The relevance of relevance in linguistic analysis
Spanish simple past tenses
Published online: 2 October 2019
https://doi.org/10.1075/sfsl.77.04jon
https://doi.org/10.1075/sfsl.77.04jon
Abstract
The Spanish simple past tenses (imperfecto and indefinido) are studied
in a literary text, supporting the claim that a discourse-related hypothesis about the meaning of these forms
allows for a correct structural analysis and, moreover, enables a revealing literary analysis. That is, the
meaning hypothesis not only accounts for the overall distribution of these forms in texts but also allows literary
analysts to gather independent evidence for the hypothesis as well as illuminating the interpretations of messages
on a literary level. The meaning hypothesis presented in this paper is based on De Jonge (2000a), which proposes that the indefinido is used for eventualities
under focus and the imperfecto is used for supportive eventualities. The corpus used for the
study was drawn from two short stories by Gabriel García Márquez.
Resumen
La relevancia de la relevancia en el análisis lingüístico: los tiempos del pasado en el españolEl presente trabajo estudia los tiempos simples de pasado del español (pretérito imperfecto e indefinido)
en un texto literario, apoyando la presuposición que una hipótesis basada en un significado discursivo de dichas
formas verbales permite establecer un análisis correcto estructural y, además, permite una interpretación
literaria iluminadora. Es decir, la hipótesis de significado no solo es capaz de justificar la distribución de las
formas estudiadas en una muestra de lengua, sino además le permite al analista aportar evidencia independiente
para la hipótesis, así como presentar interpretaciones esclarecedoras de los mensajes a un nivel literario.
La hipótesis de significado que se presenta en este
trabajo está basada en De Jonge (2000a), en el que se propone que el
pretérito indefinido se usa para indicar eventualidades bajo foco y el pretérito imperfecto para indicar
eventualidades de soporte. El corpus usado para el presente estudio ha sido extraído de dos cuentos cortos de
Gabriel García Márquez.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Short overview of the existing theories about the preterit and the imperfect
- 3.Substance and meaning of the Spanish simple past tenses
- 4.Testing the meanings quantitatively
- 5.Discussion of the quantitative analysis
- 6.Qualitative analysis
- 7.Summary and conclusions
Acknowledgements Notes References
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