Contrast and propositional attitude: A relevance theoretic analysis of contrast connectives in Spanish and English

Abstract

We revise previous analyses of but and although formulated within a relevance theoretical framework and offer a new perspective on their functions based on cross-linguistic data. These connectives had been described in terms of effort-saving devices that lead the addressee to suspend or eliminate assumptions. We discuss different uses of these adversative and concessive connectives in both English and Spanish, and propose that their meaning consists in indicating that a contrast should be established between an explicitly expressed proposition, and possible alternative propositional representations. The procedural content that they encode affects the inferential process of identifying the higher-level explicatures of the utterance.