Signaling of Causal Relations in Spanish: Variety, Functionality, and Specificity

Romualdo Ibáñez,Valentina Marín,Fernando Moncada,Benjamín Cárcamo

doi:10.5087/dad.2020.102

Romualdo Ibáñez, Valentina Marín + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.5087/dad.2020.102

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Abstract

While some recent studies on Spanish have shown that some causal discourse markers specialize in expressing certain types of causal relations, others have revealed that causal relations may be signaled by a variety of linguistic devices. Given that we were interested not only in specificity and variety, but also in the (poly) functionality of signals, our objective in the present study was threefold. First, to identify the variety of markers used to signal causal relations in Spanish. Second, to describe the (poly) functionality of those causal markers. Third, to determine whether there exists a relationship of specificity between markers and particular types of causal relations. We analyzed a corpus of 2,514 causal coherence relations previously annotated. 40 different linguistic devices used to signal causal relations were identified. These devices were grouped into two main classes: Discourse Markers and Cue Phrases. Regarding the (poly) functionality of the markers, we found that 8 of the most frequent markers were used to signal different relations. Regarding specificity, it was observed that various conjunctions and conjunctive adverbs specialize in signaling specific relations.

Highlights

Based on the assumption that there is no one-to-one mapping between connective expressions and coherence relations, scholars have devoted considerable attention to the description of coherence relation signaling
Based on the analysis performed to our corpus of academic texts, we first present the variety of connective expressions used to signal causal coherence relations in Spanish
4.1 Variety of connective expressions The first objective of the present study was to identify the variety of connective expressions used to signal causal relations in Spanish

Summary

Introduction

Based on the assumption that there is no one-to-one mapping between connective expressions and coherence relations, scholars have devoted considerable attention to the description of coherence relation signaling. The Dutch connective dus (‘so’) is frequently used in epistemic relations (Stukker et al, 2009) while omdat (‘because’) is predominant in volitional content ones (Sanders et al, 2012); according to this perspective, both can be considered specified, as they specify the degree of subjectivity the relations are involved with. This pattern of use has been observed in other languages. In Spanish, connectives porque (‘because’) and debido a (‘due to’) may be considered polyfunctional, as they may signal either subjective or objective causal coherence relations (Santana et al, 2017; Santana et al, 2018; Cárcamo, 2019)

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