A Tale of Two Subjunctives: A diachronic and comparative analysis of the Future Subjunctive in Spanish and Portuguese
Document Type
Paper Presentation
Presenter Language
English
Research Area
Synchronic and diachronic approaches
Location
MBSC Omaha Room 304
Start Date
17-10-2024 1:30 PM
End Date
17-10-2024 2:00 PM
Abstract
The future subjunctive is productive in Portuguese yet all but obsolete in Spanish, except for specific formulaic phrases (e.g., sea lo que fuere ‘anyway, regardless’). While theoretical and empirical treatments of the future subjunctive exist for each of Spanish ([1];[6]) and Portuguese ([2]; [5]; [7]; [8]) independently, to date there has been a dearth of comparative work that examines the future subjunctive across both languages.
Accordingly, this study investigates the trajectory of future subjunctive relative to its present subjunctive competitor in four clausal contexts (relative, conditional, temporal and other adverbial) proposed by Kania (2021) in both Spanish and Portuguese from the 15th to 18th centuries, to examine the diachronic divergence in this feature across these two Romance languages. All 29,110 attestations of future subjunctive in the aforementioned clausal contexts were collected from the Corpus Del Español and Corpus do Português ([3];[4]) and subsequently subjected to Chi-Squared testing in R.
Statistical findings revealed that the overall proportion of future subjunctive across clausal contexts varies significantly by language, with relative clauses evidencing the most future subjunctive in Spanish, whereas relative and conditional clauses more equally evidence the majority of future subjunctive usage in Portuguese (p
Overall, results suggest that the historical divergence in future subjunctive between Spanish and Portuguese was primarily conditioned by temporal clauses, with usage receding in the former language (being replaced with present subjunctive) and remaining vitalic in the latter. This finding corroborates Kania (2021), who proposed that a decline in future subjunctive in temporal clauses could be the catalyst for its overall demise, given the semantic and syntactic complexities ascribed to time (e.g. present vs. future subjunctive) ([1]). This study ultimately provides grounds for investigating the likely role of temporal clauses in the trajectory of future subjunctive in other Romance languages.
References
[1] Baranowski, E. (2008). Defining the Spanish future subjunctive. Hispania, 495-509
[2] Comrie, B., & Holmback, H. (1984). The future subjunctive in Portuguese: a problem in semantic theory. Lingua, 63(3-4), 213-253.
[3] Davies, M. (2021). Corpus del español. https://www.corpusdelespanol.org/hist-gen/
[4] Davies, M. (2021). Corpus do português. https://www.corpusdelespanol.org/hist-gen/
[5] Gravina, A. P., & Brizola, E. H. (2019). O estudo do futuro perifrástico e do futuro sintético com verbos hipotéticos no português brasileiro. Revista de Estudos da Linguagem, 27(3).
[6]Kania, S. (2021). The Use of the Future Subjunctive in Colonial Spanish Texts: Evidence of Vitality or Demise?. Languages, 6(4), 157.
[7] Vesterinen, R. (2017). The Portuguese future subjunctive: A dominion analysis. Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 15(1), 58-82.
[8] Wherritt, I. M. (1977). THE SUBJUNCTIVE IN BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE. The University of New Mexico.
A Tale of Two Subjunctives: A diachronic and comparative analysis of the Future Subjunctive in Spanish and Portuguese
MBSC Omaha Room 304
The future subjunctive is productive in Portuguese yet all but obsolete in Spanish, except for specific formulaic phrases (e.g., sea lo que fuere ‘anyway, regardless’). While theoretical and empirical treatments of the future subjunctive exist for each of Spanish ([1];[6]) and Portuguese ([2]; [5]; [7]; [8]) independently, to date there has been a dearth of comparative work that examines the future subjunctive across both languages.
Accordingly, this study investigates the trajectory of future subjunctive relative to its present subjunctive competitor in four clausal contexts (relative, conditional, temporal and other adverbial) proposed by Kania (2021) in both Spanish and Portuguese from the 15th to 18th centuries, to examine the diachronic divergence in this feature across these two Romance languages. All 29,110 attestations of future subjunctive in the aforementioned clausal contexts were collected from the Corpus Del Español and Corpus do Português ([3];[4]) and subsequently subjected to Chi-Squared testing in R.
Statistical findings revealed that the overall proportion of future subjunctive across clausal contexts varies significantly by language, with relative clauses evidencing the most future subjunctive in Spanish, whereas relative and conditional clauses more equally evidence the majority of future subjunctive usage in Portuguese (p
Overall, results suggest that the historical divergence in future subjunctive between Spanish and Portuguese was primarily conditioned by temporal clauses, with usage receding in the former language (being replaced with present subjunctive) and remaining vitalic in the latter. This finding corroborates Kania (2021), who proposed that a decline in future subjunctive in temporal clauses could be the catalyst for its overall demise, given the semantic and syntactic complexities ascribed to time (e.g. present vs. future subjunctive) ([1]). This study ultimately provides grounds for investigating the likely role of temporal clauses in the trajectory of future subjunctive in other Romance languages.
References
[1] Baranowski, E. (2008). Defining the Spanish future subjunctive. Hispania, 495-509
[2] Comrie, B., & Holmback, H. (1984). The future subjunctive in Portuguese: a problem in semantic theory. Lingua, 63(3-4), 213-253.
[3] Davies, M. (2021). Corpus del español. https://www.corpusdelespanol.org/hist-gen/
[4] Davies, M. (2021). Corpus do português. https://www.corpusdelespanol.org/hist-gen/
[5] Gravina, A. P., & Brizola, E. H. (2019). O estudo do futuro perifrástico e do futuro sintético com verbos hipotéticos no português brasileiro. Revista de Estudos da Linguagem, 27(3).
[6]Kania, S. (2021). The Use of the Future Subjunctive in Colonial Spanish Texts: Evidence of Vitality or Demise?. Languages, 6(4), 157.
[7] Vesterinen, R. (2017). The Portuguese future subjunctive: A dominion analysis. Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 15(1), 58-82.
[8] Wherritt, I. M. (1977). THE SUBJUNCTIVE IN BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE. The University of New Mexico.