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Article published In:
Extending the notion of near-synonymy: Studies in morphological, syntactic and pragmatic equivalence
Edited by Renata Enghels
[Languages in Contrast 18:1] 2018
► pp. 69–98

‘Exclamative’ and ‘quotative’ illocutionary complementisers in Catalan, European Portuguese and Spanish

A study in Ibero-Romance syntactic ‘near-synonymy’

| University of Cambridge

The use of the Ibero-Romance complementiser que in non-embedded contexts with various illocutionary functions is argued to be non-trivially distinct from its canonical function as a marker of subordination. Interpretative and grammatical differences, and variation in the availability and clause-typing of non-embedded ‘exclamative’ and ‘quotative’ illocutionary que across Catalan, European Portuguese and Spanish provide evidence that the subordinating complementiser has been repurposed for the representation of pragmatic information in the complementiser systems of Ibero-Romance, a hypothesis supported by analogies drawn between illocutionary que and illocutionary functions of the interrogative complementiser si/se in Catalan and European Portuguese.

Keywords: Peninsular Ibero-Romance, illocutionary complementisers, syntax-pragmatics interface, main clause phenomena, Catalan/European Portuguese/ Spanish
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The Ibero-Romance (finite) complementiser system
  • 3.Interpretative contribution of illocutionary que
    • 3.1Exclamative que
    • 3.2Quotative que
  • 4.The Ibero-Romance (finite) complementiser system
    • 4.1Clause typing
      • 4.1.1 Exclamative que
      • 4.1.2 Quotative que
    • 4.2Clause typing
      • 4.2.1 Exclamative que
      • 4.2.2Quotative que
    • 4.3Conjunction and disjunction
      • 4.3.1Exclamative que
      • 4.3.2Quotative que
    • 4.4Summary
  • 5.Multifunctionality of que and Ibero-Romance dialectology
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations and glosses
  • References
Published online: 22 February 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lic.00004.cor
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