Notes on Extended Uses of pues in Basque Country Spanish

Abstract

This work is intended to present a preliminary approach to some of the facts related to the Basque Country Spanish extended use of the connective pues 'so, therefore, consequently...'. The differences between the Standard Spanish pues and the Basque uses of this same particle will be examined and thoroughly described in order to establish the distinctive syntactic and semantic features of the latter. By so doing, we will introduce the topic of a possible language contact explanation. In this regard it will be necessary to face similar facts about pues in Andean Spanish in contact wtih Quechua. This complete scenario of coinciding developments for pues in Spanish contact dialects will be finally taken into account in order to suggest some of the paths leading to an explanation of the origins of the specific uses of pues in Basque Country Spanish.

Keywords

• Connectives
• Contact Spanish
• Basque Country Spanish
• Andean Spanish
• Language Convergence