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Part of
Constructions in Spanish
Edited by Inga Hennecke and Evelyn Wiesinger
[Constructional Approaches to Language 34] 2023
► pp. 156–192

Chapter 7
On deconstructing mood

A construction grammar approach to the Spanish subjunctive

| University of Bamberg

The Spanish subjunctive has traditionally been described by some linguists as an inflection expressing mood and by others as a marker of subordination. In this contribution I will argue that both functions can be observed, but that Spanish (and Romance) subjunctives increasingly become associated with subordination and lose their modal semantics in the process. I will therefore claim that taking the subjunctive paradigm as a monolithic category with one central semantic value is inadequate for representing all the various constructions in which subjunctive forms appear. As an alternative, I will suggest to model the various Spanish subjunctive constructions within a construction grammar framework informed by Traugott & Trousdale’s work on constructionalisation. An abstract subjunctive schema is posited from which a non-assertion, a modal agreement and a modal trigger subschema are derived. Of these three, two are essentially procedural with little to no semantic content, while only the non-assertion schema partly corresponds semantically to the traditional assertion vs. non-assertion analysis.

Keywords: Romance subjunctive constructions, constructionalisation, demodalisation, modal agreement, subordination, marker
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Two theories and a logical conundrum
  • 3.The theory of a central value: Diachronically conclusive, synchronically inadequate
  • 4.The subjunctive in independent clauses?
  • 5.A grammaticalisation account of the Romance subjunctive
  • 6.A constructionalisation account of the Romance subjunctive
  • 7.The Spanish subjunctive schema
    • 7.1The subjunctive schema [S [que Vsubj]]
    • 7.2The non-assertion subschema ( = ‘nonassertion’) [S [que Vsubj (/Vind)]
    • 7.3Modal agreement subschema [[Vtrigger] [que Vsubj]]
      • 7.3.1Orphaned subordinate subschema S [[(que) Vsubj]]
      • 7.3.2Imperative-subjunctive subschema
    • 7.4Modal trigger subschema [S [Conjtrigger Vsubj]]
    • 7.5Protasis construction
  • 8.Deconstructing the modal analysis for the Spanish subjunctive
  • 9.Conclusion and outlook
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 18 July 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cal.34.07rad
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