Contexts of use of [y] and [cuando] in written Spanish

Abstract

This work analyzes the contexts of use (Diewald, 2002, 2006) of the connectors [y] (“[and]”) and [cuando] (“[when]”), in written Spanish, under the theoretical basis of Cognitive-Functional Linguistics (Furtado da Cunha; Bispo; Silva, 2013; Rosário; Oliveira, 2016; Rosário, 2022a), in order to investigate their degree of integration. From a methodological point of view, the investigation is basic (Paiva, 2019), exploratory, descriptive-explanatory (Gil, 2002; Paiva, 2019), bibliographic and documentary (Lakatos; Marconi, 1992), with a quantitative and qualitative bias (Paiva, 2019). The data analyzed comes from one hundred occurrences of use of [y] (“[and]”) and [cuando] (“[when]”) in adjacency collected in the Corpus del Español (Davies, 2012-2019), NOW subcorpus. The results point to high productivity of the uses of [[y] [cuando]] (“[[and] [when]]”) without segmentation between them (90.17%). Furthermore, uses of these adjacent elements in different contexts are noticeable, from the most autonomous to the most integrated. From a pragmatic-discursive point of view, these elements act not only in narrative sequencing, but in more (inter)subjective contexts, such as in argumentative and dialogical textual typologies. It is concluded that, although it is not possible to postulate the full constructionalization of [y cuando]conec (“[and when]conec”), constructional changes that favor more integrated uses can be noted.