Use of the future subjunctive in the content conditional construction of spanish language

Abstract

Based on the theoretical and methodological assumptions of the Usage-Based Construction Grammar, in this article, we investigate the contemporary use of the Content Conditional Construction (CONTCC) with the protasis [Si (X) Fuere Y], in varieties of Spanish from Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay. This complex construction presents a verbal form inflected in the future subjunctive [Fuere], a tense whose frequency of use has been decreasing over time. From data collected in the subcorpora of the Corpus del Español - Web/Dialects and Now, we found records of verbal forms of the future subjunctive in complex constructions like the CONTCC. We delimited the research to the analysis of the CONTCC with the protasis [Si (X) Fuere Y], as [Fuere] presents a higher frequency of occurrences compared to other verbal forms of the future subjunctive. This study showed that the CONTCC with the protasis [Si (X) Fuere Y] constitutes a very marked construction and presents productivity in genres of discourse that circulate, mainly, in the legal, political and journalistic realms.

Keywords

• gramática de construções baseada no uso
• construção condicional de conteúdo
• futuro do subjuntivo
• língua espanhola.