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Studies in Historical Ibero-Romance Morpho-Syntax
Edited by Miriam Bouzouita, Ioanna Sitaridou and Enrique Pato
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 16] 2018
► pp. 249–274

Chapter 11
Si as a Q-particle in Old Spanish

| Universidad de Granada
| Universitat de les Illes Balears/Harvard University
This study examines the origin of Old Spanish direct interrogative si, a structure that has barely been described in the literature. An analysis of historical texts shows that it originates from the Classical Latin conditional conjunction si, which in Late Latin became a complementiser in embedded interrogatives and eventually a polar interrogative particle. This evolution is documented primarily in biblical translations. However, its continuation in Medieval Romance varieties proves that direct interrogative si was used in vernacular Latin. The evolution of direct interrogative si constitutes a case of insubordination (i.e. the conventionalised use in a main clause of a subordinate clause marker), a process that has not been considered in accounts of the historical origin of interrogative particles in grammaticalisation studies.
Keywords: Spanish, interrogative particle, Q-particle, Si , question, grammaticalisation, insubordination, Latin, conditional conjunction
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Interrogative constructions in Romance
  • 3.The evolution of interrogative structures: From Latin to Romance
  • 4.Interrogative si in the history of Spanish
  • 5.Interrogative si in Medieval Romance
  • 6.The grammaticalisation of Q-particles
  • 7.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 17 July 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.16.11rod
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Cited by (3)

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Del Barrio de la Rosa, Florencio
2023. Preguntó (que) si qué quería: si como operador interrogativo en español vernáculo. Cuadernos de Lingüística Hispánica :42 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Enrique-Arias, Andrés
2020. Variación y cambio en la formalización de la interrogación retórica en la historia del español. Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie 136:4 ► pp. 1085 ff. DOI logo
Pérez Saldanya, Manuel & José Ignacio Hualde
2018. Chapter 10. Recurrent processes in the evolution of concessive subordinators in Spanish and Catalan. In Studies in Historical Ibero-Romance Morpho-Syntax [Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics, 16], ► pp. 223 ff. DOI logo

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