Extending the notion of contrast and the scope of felicity: Spanish null subjects in contrastive contexts

Philip Limerick

doi:10.7557/1.12.1.6877

Authors

Philip Limerick Centre College

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7557/1.12.1.6877

Keywords:

felicity, pragmatics, subject pronouns, contrast, corpus linguistics

Abstract

There is debate among linguists as to whether overt subject pronouns (SPs) are pragmatically obligatory in contrastive contexts. While many authors would argue that overt SPs are necessary to maintain a pragmatically felicitous utterance (e.g. Cameron 1995; Silva-Corvalán 1994; Solomon 1999; Mayol 2010; Posio 2011), numerous researchers have challenged this view (e.g. Enríquez 1984; Schwenter 2002; Amaral & Schwenter 2005; Otheguy & Zentella 2012; Travis & Torres Cacoullos 2012). The current study explores these contexts in further detail using spoken corpus data from Mexican Spanish. Through a qualitative analysis of contrastive environments in the discourse of 20 speakers, numerous cases of contrast are analyzed in terms of SP use, type of contrast conveyed, and pragmatic (in)felicity. The data demonstrate that there are several contrastive contexts that permit the use of null SPs, further corroborating previous studies. Furthermore, the analysis moves beyond existing research by revealing additional contrastive contexts not here-to-fore discussed in the literature (to my knowledge), which engender the establishment of new types of contrast, a broadening of the notion of contrast, and an extension of the scope of pragmatic felicity.

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