Quantification and argmentative (in)sufficiency: Spanish 'para' counterexpectation constructions

Abstract

Quantification and argmentative (in)sufficiency: Spanish 'para' counterexpectation constructions. As stated by Kovacci (1997), the period with the conditional si constitutes an adequate syntactic construction to highlight the paralelism between protasis and apodosis in both, a comparative correspondence as well as in a contrasting relation, allowing the speaker to justify an assertion of a deductive inferential nature in the conditional clause. According to the author, in the first case, the conditional interpretation prevails; while in the second, a concessive element is added. As far as the expression of purpose with para is concerned, in particular when it states the idea of ‘sufficiency’, the sentence construction becomes adequate enough to either trigger the interpretation connected to the mere correnspondence between what is expressed in each consstituent part, or to relate it to some degree of hypothesis proper of conditional sentences, or a certain level of counter-expectation, typical of concessive clauses. This last group of constructions with para, sometimes used with a simple infinitive but more frequently with a perfect infinitive, becomes a mechanism that allows the speaker to incorporate the voice of another person in his/her discourse, and at the same time redirects the argument he/she uses, maintaining a distance from divergent opinions.