Alignment in Functional Discourse-Grammar in sentences introduced by pero in Spanish

Abstract

This study proposes to investigate the alignment between the levels of clauses introduced by pero in peninsular Spanish spoken data, from the perspective of Functional Discourse Grammar (Hengeveld; Mackenzie, 2008). Pero is conceived in the literature of the Spanish language as an adversative coordinative conjunction, equivalent to the Portuguese mas, or the English but. According to Hengeveld and Mackenzie (2009), the so-called alignment refers to the mapping between the Interpersonal, Representational, and Morphosyntactic levels of the grammar. The results show that clausal contexts introduced by pero tend to establish themselves in the upper layers of the Interpersonal Level. At the Morphosyntactic Level, in turn, we observe Clauses that characterize the coordination process. The research universe is based on the PRESEEA (Project for the Sociolinguistic Study of Spanish from Spain and America).