Doctoral Dissertation Research: A Systematic Investigation of the Spanish Subjunctive

Georgetown University, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

The Romance language family is known to have a productive contrast between two verbal 'moods', the subjunctive and the indicative. Subjunctive-selecting clauses are those in which a speaker expresses a desire, demand, doubt, emotion, possibility, purpose, or cause. According to traditional grammar, Spanish, being a Romance language, also adheres to these restrictions. However, contrary to what is expected, Spanish-speakers select the indicative in many 'subjunctive-requiring' environments. Many frameworks used to describe the choice of mood focus exclusively on prescriptively correct patterns of selection. As a result, the unexpected use of indicative in subjunctive clauses is left untouched by traditional semantic theory. This dissertation research project, thus, aims to develop a semanto-pragmatic account of mood that can explain mood variation that is non-prescriptive. However, prior to developing such an account, the current project seeks to confirm the extent to which this variability exists, as well as the dialects in which it is present. In this way, a more comprehensive description of the Spanish mood system that accounts for both dialect-specific and non-prescriptive variability will become available. This will lead to a better understanding of Spanish, the second most common language spoken in the U.S. A corpus study will be carried out in order to obtain naturally-occurring examples of mood use in the eight traditionally subjunctive-requiring contexts. The items obtained will be adapted for inclusion in an Acceptability Judgment Task (AJT). The objective is to test how specific contexts affect participant views on the acceptability of either mood. Results from the AJTs and follow-up interviews will provide greater insight into the semanto-pragmatic factors conditioning mood variation in environments in which it is not supposed to occur. The participants forming part of the experiment will come from various Spanish dialects. Since no systematic, widespread study of Spanish has been carried out, data from this project will expand on the body of knowledge that currently exists. Additionally, in terms of a theoretical standpoint, such an investigation will help to fill the research gaps related to non-prescriptive uses of mood. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.