A Corpus-based Analysis of Adverbs Ending in –mente in Projecting Clauses in Benito Pérez Galdós’s Fictional Narratives

Abstract

In this article, we analyse Benito Pérez Galdós’s use of adverbs ending in -mente in his fictional narratives. The study focuses on those examples identified in projecting clauses that introduce stretches of direct speech. In order to search for the examples under analysis, a corpus-stylistic approach was used. First, we carried out a comparison of the examples identified in a corpus of Galdós’s novels against the backdrop of a reference corpus made up of nineteenth-century Spanish fictional narratives. Then, we analysed the examples identified across Galdós’s novels, focusing on three self-contained functional patterns: characters’ voices, their psychological dimension and their body language. As will be shown, Galdós’s extensive use of adverbs ending in -mente results in stylistically significant functions, such as characterisation and the construction of fictional universes.

Keywords

• galdós
• adverbs ending in -mente
• discourse presentation
• corpus approach