Causal Connectivity in Discourse: Towards a Global Characterization of Causal Constructions in Spanish

Abstract

In this paper, a classification proposal of causal constructions and causal connectivity between clauses and larger discursive segments is presented. Such classification is susceptible to be used in subsequent corpus-based studies. To do so, we unify two perspectives and classifications in the analysis: a) the distinction, in the Hispanic tradition, between causales del enunciado y causales de la enunciación and b) the distinction, within the relational coherence framework, between semantic and pragmatic causal relations (van Dijk, 1979; Sanders, 1997) and, in particular, between content, speech act and epistemic causal relations (Sweetser, 1990). After addressing its formal characterization, we consider two types of constructions, those with verbs of speaking and verbs of thinking in the non-causal segment, and ambiguous cases that are pragmatically classifiable as speech act causal and epistemic causal relations. We attend, on the one hand, to causal connectives, and conceive them as propositional markers (Cuenca, Marín, Romano & Porto, 2011); on the other hand, we deal with multi-member systems related causal structures. Finally, we highlight the need to identify non-canonical uses of causal structures, as well as to continue exploring the expression of causality beyond two-member constructions.