Abstract

Encapsulation by means of abstract unspecific nouns (such as conclusion, topic, reality or problem) reifies predicative discourse chunks and conceptualise them. This ability is inherent to encapsulators or shell nouns (Schmid 2000), a functional class privileged to signposting the structure of formal genres such as parliamentary debate (PD) and thus exhibiting their close link to metadiscourse. On the basis of a corpus of PD in Catalan, Spanish and English, our study deals with the metadiscursive function of some structures including an encapsulator. The framework provided by Hyland (2004) and Hyland & Tse (2005) is taking into account with this purpose. The different structures used by the addressor to organise the discourse and to interact with his or her potential addressees are analysed. The analysis of these variously fixed structures leads to establish five homogeneous cross-linguistic classes: textual organisers, sentential adjuncts, lexical connectives (Cuenca 1998), modal locutions, and two copular patterns. These classes are described functionally, formally and from their discourse functioning. Their relations with the two aspects of metadiscourse, textual and interpersonal, are observed, considering the fuzzy boundaries between both aspects.

Abstract

The present study aims to address a complex topic in the grammar of Catalan, namely the use of the preposition de before some infinitival constructions, like in «Juan li va proposar d’anar al cinema» (‘Juan suggested him [de] going to the cinema’). We claim that introducing the preposition de is sensible to modal factors that also determine the degree of optionality of this preposition. With verbs like «proposar» (‘propose’) or «demanar» (‘request’), the insertion of de is (almost) mandatory for all Catalan speakers, while with verbs such as «desitjar» (‘desire’, ‘wish’) or «esperar» (‘expect’), the preposition is optional for some speakers (if not ungrammatical for others). From a modal classification, we propose a continuum that can account for these facts.