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Language Variation and Contact-Induced Change: Spanish across space and timeEdited by Jeremy King and Sandro Sessarego
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 340] 2018
► pp. 153–171
This chapter explores the variation between the Spanish discourse markers por tanto and por lo tanto from a pragmatic perspective. The data, extracted from a corpus built using blog commentary, are categorized according to the type of causality expressed in the construction, as well as whether or not the speaker is involved in a verbal argument. Analysis reveals that por lo tanto is used more frequently than por tanto when epistemic causality is expressed as well as when the speaker is engaged in an argument. This leads to the conclusion that por lo tanto contributes greater argumentative strength to an utterance than does por tanto.