Procedural Meaning Explicatures in the Development of New Subordination Strategies in Romance

The sociocultural changes that led to the genesis of Romance languages widened the gap between oral and written patterns, which display different discoursive and linguistic devices. In early documents, discoursive implicatures connecting propositions were not generally codified, so that the reader should furnish the correctinterpretation according to his own perception of real facts; which can still be attested in current oral utterances. Once Romance languages had undergone several levelling processes which concluded in the first standardizations, implicatures became explicatures and were syntactically codified by means of univocal new complexconjunctions. As a consequence of the emergence of these new subordination strategies, a freer distribution of the information conveyed by the utterances is allowed. The success of complex structural patterns ran alongside of the genesis of new narrative genres and the generalization of a learned rhetoric. Both facts are a spontaneous effect of new approaches to the act of reading. Ancient texts were written to be read to a wide audience, whereas those printed by the end of the XV th century were conceived to be read quietly, in a low voice, by a private reader. The goal of this paper is twofold, since we will show that: a) The development of new complex conjunctions through the history of Romance languages accommodates to four structural patterns that range from parataxis tohypotaxis. b) This development is a reflex of the well known grammaticalization path from discourse to syntax that implies the codification of discoursive strategies (Givón 2 1979, Sperber and Wilson 1986, Carston 1988, Grice 1989, Bach 1994, Blackemore 2002, among others]

Political autonomy and independence: theory and experimental evidence

We study the process by which subordinated regions of a country can obtain a more favourable political status. In our theoretical model a dominant and a dominated region first interact through a voting process that can lead to different degrees of autonomy. If this process fails then both regions engage in a costly political conflict which can only lead to the maintenance of the initial subordination of the region in question or to its complete independence. In the subgame-perfect equilibrium the voting process always leads to an intermediate arrangement acceptable for both parts. Hence, the costly political struggle never occurs. In contrast, in our experiments we observe a large amount of fighting involving high material losses, even in a case in which the possibilities for an arrangement without conflict are very salient. In our experimental environment intermediate solutions are feasible and stable, but purely emotional elements prevent them from being reached.

Mesoclitic Romance futures and conditionals vs participle preposing

(INFINITIVE + CLITIC + AUX) is an evidential configuration in Old Spanish and Old Catalan, whereas (PARTICIPLE + CLITIC + AUX) is an instance of weak or unmarked focus fronting. The evidentiality of mesoclitic structures can be put forward on the bases of three main arguments: a) mesoclisis is not compulsory (i.e., whenever you have a clitic, you can either have mesoclisis or proclisis/enclisis); b) mesoclitic futures and conditionals areattested in interrogative sentences (with wh- elements); and c) they are not found in derived adverbial clauses (which is what you expect if they have an evidential value, since they bring about intervention effects corresponding to the derivational account of conditional and temporal sentences, for example - see Haegeman 2007 and ff.), and are related to high modal expressions (thus interfering with MoodPIrrealis)

La forma lògica de les oracions d'acció i la tesi d'Anscombe

This paper has three sections. In the first one, I expose and discuss Davidson's semantic account of adverbial sentences: the basic idea is that these sentences involve quantification over events, and I defend that view from opposing perspectives like the theory of adverbs as predicate modifiers. In the second section I defend the claim that in english constructions following the scheme: ¿X did V by T-ings¿, we are referring to the same action of X; what is sometimes called ¿The Anscombe Thesis¿. Again I discuss competing theories only to conclude that the Anscombe Thesis is true. In the third section, however, it is shown that to assume as premisses these two theses -Davidson's account and the Anscombe Thesis- leads to a serious conflict. Alternative solutions are worked out and rejected. It is also argued that the only tenable solution depends on certain metaphysical assumptions. Finally, however, I will cast doubt on this solution.

Postmodifying prepositional phrases in English and Spanish (with special reference to locative postmodifiers)

Prepositional phrases are the commonest kind of postmodification in all registers of English (Biber et al. 1999: 634). The locative ones that can be expanded into a defining relative clause (the books [which are] on the table) are usually expressed by such a construction in Spanish (los libros que están encima de la mesa) or by a phrase introduced by de (los libros de encima de la mesa). Wonder (1979) argues that Spanish allows locative phrases with prepositions other than de in the case of"situaciones"activas"" (el aterrizaje en pleno campo) as against"situaciones estáticas" (*el sofá en la sala), and if the phrase can be given an adverbial rather than, or in addition to, an adjectival interpretation (el ruido en la calle), especially if that phrase implies an alternative location for an object or contrast with another similar object (el sofá en la sala contigua). This paper further investigates this claim and looks at Spanish equivalents of English postmodifying prepositional phrases in general, while proposing an explanation for the choice of these different structures in Spanish based on considerations of lexical density. Resumen: Las frases preposicionales constituyen el tipo más frecuente de posmodificación en todos los registros del inglés (Biber et a. 1999: 634). En el español, las expresiones locativas suelen incorporar un pronombre relativo y un verbo (the books [which are] on the table > los libros que están encima de la mesa), o bien expresarse mediante una frase introducida por la preposición de (los libros de encima de la mesa). Wonder (1979) sostiene que el español permite el uso de preposiciones que no sean de en las frases locativas en el caso de"situaciones"activas"" (el aterrizaje en pleno campo) frente a"situaciones estáticas" (*el sofá en la sala), y también si la frase puede tener una función adverbial antes que, o además de, una interpretación adjetiva (el ruido en la calle), sobre todo si dicha frase encierra la idea de una posición alternativa para un objeto, o bien un contraste con otro objeto similar (el sofá en la sala contigua). El presente estudio pretende examinar este argumento y, además, explorar la posmodificación preposicional en español de un modo más general, a la par que propone una explicación sobre la elección de estructura en español que se basa en el criterio de la densidad léxica.