The communicative function of verbal predicates expressing quantity in economic news
Abstract
This contribution explains the communicative function of the lexical and constructional variation in verbal predicates which elaborate the quantification of cifra or volumen de negocio (both expressions are used as synonyms for turnover in Spanish newspapers) in economic news. The tokens are analyzed from the perspective of Cognitive Linguistics and the results show that the informative content is determined by: (i) the semantic category of the verb, (ii) the number of measure expressions that accompany the verb, (iii) the position of the measure expressions in the predicate, (iv) the lexical category of the measure expressions, and (v) the use of adverbial modifiers. The conclusion is that the variation of verbal predicates expressing quantity represents different constructs and that the communicative function of this variation is to represent the choices of the speaker concerning the selection, the prominence and the level of specificity of the information.
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