Insubordinate hypothetical manner constructions in French and Spanish: A pilot study

This paper presents a pilot study of insubordinate hypothetical manner constructions (‘as if’) in French (comme si) and Spanish (como si). On the basis of the theoretical framework provided by Evans (2007) and Olguín-Martínez (2021), we analyse data from both written and spoken corpora and we propose a four-way constructional typology that establishes the different meanings such constructions can express and the discourse functions they can serve, and links these to patterns of tense-aspect-mood marking. Thus, we move beyond previous findings and add three more construction types to Brinton’s (2014) 'denial of an assumption' type: a 'nuanced agreement' type that serves the discourse function of expressing partial agreement with some preceding discourse; a 'discursive elaboration or reformulation' type in which the speaker fully agrees with the preceding discourse and only reformulates or adds new information to it; and a 'scalar evaluation' type, which belongs to the evaluative-attitudinal domain and shows distinct formal characteristics (only type found to show indicative mood + present tense TAM marking in Spanish).