1. Metafunctional journey through Spanish
Jorge Arús Hita
Universidad Complutense de Madrid
the 4th LinC
Summer School and Workshop, Cardiff (Wales)
August 31 – September 2, 2016

2. About Spanish
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3. About Spanish
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4. About Spanish
Native speakers: 450 million ; Speakers of Spanish as a second language: 100 million
Source:

5. Main features of Spanish
Inflectional language
Number agreement
Las camisas verdes / La camisa verde (‘The green shirt(s)’)
Gender agreement
La camisa (f.) negra / El vestido (m.) negro (‘the black shirt/dress’)
Subject / Verb agreement (examples for everything)
El niño jueg-a / Los niños jueg-an (‘the kid/kids play’)

6. Metafunctional characteristics of Spanish
Traditionally seen as a free-syntax language
[Subject:]Pedro [Ver:]está jugando [Complement:]al fútbol [Circumstance:]con los chicos
(‘Peter is playing soccer with the kids’)
[Complement:]A Pedro le [Verb:] gusta [Subject:] jugar al fútbol con los chicos
(‘Peter likes playing soccer with the kids’ [lit. To Peter likes playing soccer with the kids’)

7. A metafunctional view reveals more things
A Pedro le
gusta
jugar al fútbol con los chicos
Senser
Process
Phenomenon
Adjunct
Predicator
Subject
Theme
Rheme
Peter
likes
playing soccer with the kids
Senser
Process
Phenomenon
Subject
Finite + Pred
Complement
Theme
Rheme

8. The ideational metafunction
Logical
Responsible for (clause) complexing
Experiential
Expresses the resources to construe our external and internal experience by means of processes, participants and circumstances

9. The logical metafunction
Clause-complexing system network (from Halliday and Matthiessen 2004: 373)

10. Logical relations in Spanish
Expansion
Elaborating
Paratactically (1=2)
[1:] Me encanta bailar, [2: ] adoro el baile (‘I really like dancing, I love dance’)
Hypotactically (α=β)
[α:] Hemos intentado emular a nuestro nuevo reportero, Agapito González, [β:] el cual ha tenido un éxito realmente importante (‘We have tried to emulate our new reporter, Agapito González, who has had a really important success’)
Paratactic elaboration typically serves to give an exposition, exemplify or clarify. Here exposition, i.e rephrasing
In hypotactic elaboration, the secondary clause further describes what the primary clause states. this is, therefore, the realm of non-defining relative clauses.

11. Logical relations in Spanish
Expansion
Extending
Paratactically (1+2)
[1:] no tengo ningún conocimiento de estas críticas, [2:] y además carecen de fundamento (‘I don’t know anything about that criticism, and besides they lack foundation’)
Hypotactically (α+β; β+α)
[β:] Si no se encuentra, [α:] hay que inventarlo (‘If one doesn’t find it, then it has to be invented’)
[α:] Hay que inventarlo [β:] si no se encuentra
The combination of parataxis and extension results in co-ordination. Three subgroups, that is, addition (characterized by the use
of the conjunction y [‘and’]), variation (characterized by pero [‘but’]) and alternation (characterized by o [‘either/or’]). Here, addition.
The three kinds of extension, that is, addition, variation and alternation, seen within parataxis are also found in hypotactic relations.
The main difference with paratactic extension is that, whereas in clause complexes related by paratactic extension the primary
clause always precedes the secondary clause, we now find a lot of alternation between α ^ β and β ^ α.
Hypotaxis, alternation, here (o se encuentra, o hay que inventarlo)

12. Logical relations in Spanish
Expansion
Enhancing
Paratactically (1×2)
[1:] El 5 de noviembre se fue al cine con su novia [2:] y después se fueron al Mirador de Carretera Sur (‘On 5 November he went to the cinema with his girlfriend and then they went to the Mirador de Carretera Sur’)
Hypotactically (α×β; β×α)
[β:] cuando llegue a mi casa [α:] me va a echar una bronca mi madre (‘when I get home, my mother will bite my head off’)
[α:] Mi madre me va a echar una bronca [β:] cuando llegue a mi casa
Enhancement involves circumstantial features of place, manner, cause or condition.
Paratactic often with y, and often followed by a reinforcement of the circumstantial meaning, here temporal.
Hypotactically enhancing secondary clauses are those that have traditionally been referred to as adverbial clauses. Many cases of Subjunctive among hypotactically enhancing secondary clauses.

13. Logical relations in Spanish
Projection
Paratactic (1“2)
Locutions
[1:] ‘¿No puedes ?’, [2:] dijo la Reina en tono compasivo (‘“You can’t?”, said the Queen in a compassionate tone’)
Ideas
[1:] “¡Ah – [2:] pensó el General-, [1:] siempre el Maine y el 98! (‘Ah – thought the General – always Maine and 98!’)
Projection is ‘the logical-semantic relationship whereby a clause comes to function not as a direct representation of (non-linguistic) experience but as a representation of a (linguistic) representation.
I’m not bothering to show the different speech functions so as to simplify matters.
Notice Dijo la reina and said the queen. One of the few times when both languages coincide in Process + Subject.

14. Logical relations in Spanish
Projection
Hypotactic (α “β)
Locutions
[α:] dijo [β:] que me llamaría para darme los datos (‘(s)he said (s)he would call me to give me the data’)
Ideas
[α:] Él no recordaba [β:] quién era Eva (‘He didn’t remember who Eva was’)
Always α  β (vs. Expansion)
Contrast in Subject and process order in projected questions.
Always que in Spanish

15. Logical relations in Spanish
Some specificities of Spanish
Expansion
Preposition plus infinitive
La atmósfera hostil se agravó después de partir de las Canarias (‘The hostile atmosphere worsened after leaving [lit. ‘after to leave’] the Canaries’)
Enhancement: manner plus gerund (no preposition)
Elija el dato que desea cambiar apretando el botón MODE (‘Choose the data you wish to change by pressing the MODE button’)

16. Logical relations in Spanish
Some specificities of Spanish
Expansion
Por (reason)/ para (purpose)
Murió de sufrimiento por no saber qué era de su hijo (‘(s)he died of suffering for not knowing what had become of his/her son’)
Paró en la gasolinera para echar gasolina (‘He stopped at the filling station to tank up/for tanking up’)
Indicative (‘realis’) / Subjunctive (‘irrealis’) in concessives
aunque nunca lo olvidas, intentas asimilarlo (‘Although you never forget it, you try to assimilate it’)
Ha llovido poco, aunque parezca lo contrario (‘It hasn’t rained much, even if it may seem the opposite’)

17. Logical relations in Spanish
Some specificities of Spanish
Projection
Pervasiveness of que in reports
[α:] preguntó [β:] que dónde estaba su cama (‘He asked (that) where his bed was’)
Order of Subject and Process in reported questions
[α:] Él no recordaba [β:] quién era Eva (‘He didn’t remember who Eva was’)
Subjunctive in reported commands
[α:] Tu Susi quiere [β:] que le des algo (‘Your Susi wants you to give something to her’)
Even when it’s impossible in English

18. The experiential metafunction
We will focus on NUCLEAR TRANSITIVITY here, simply being exposed to circumstances as we look at examples
Most general NUCLEAR TRANSITIVITY system network

19. The experiential metafunction in Spanish
A note on transitivity and ergativity
La puerta se abrió (‘the door opened’)
Pedro abrió la puerta (‘Peter opened the door’)
Juan está corriendo (‘John is running’)
La bola golpeó el árbol (‘The ball hit the tree’)
I ask them here about the difference

20. The experiential metafunction in Spanish
A note on transitivity and ergativity
Ergative middle
[Medium:] La puerta se abrió (‘the door opened’)
Ergative effective
[Agent:] Pedro abrió [Medium:] la puerta (‘Peter opened the door’)
Transitive middle
[Medium:] Juan está corriendo (‘John is running’)
Transitive effective
[Agent:] La bola golpeó [Medium:] el árbol (‘The ball hit the tree’)
I ask them here about the difference

21. Spanish processes Process types material Mental Verbal Relational
Happening and doing
Mental
Feeling, intending, knowing and perceiving
Verbal
Speaking and saying
Relational
Being, having and being at
Note on ser and estar (being, being at)

22. Spanish processes material & transitive middle pseudo-effective
From the beginning, I ask them to provide the non-literal translation into English.

23. Spanish processes material & ergative middle pseudo-effective

24. Spanish processes Mental & transitive middle pseudo-effective
I ask them what subtype they think they are: intentional, perceptive, emotive

25. Spanish processes The bi-directionality of emotion
I ask them what difference they see. I tell them about the bidirectionality of emotive processes

26. Spanish processes Mental & ergative middle pseudo-effective effective
Mostly emotive, and some cognitive. All these are…? Emotive

27. Spanish processes verbal middle pseudo-effective effective
No ergative. Effective, rare.

28. Spanish processes relational & transitive Middle (existential)
pseudo-effective (attributive)
Intensive, possessive and circumstantial

29. Spanish processes relational & transitive Effective Identifying
Attributive
Again, the three subtypes. I ask them to provide the reverse version. Attributive, rare.

30. Spanish processes relational & ergative middle effective
All, attributive intensive. No pseudo-effective.

31. Spanish processes Some specificities of Spanish Se constructions
Middle
Reflexive
Reciprocal

32. Spanish processes Some specificities of Spanish Se constructions
Impersonal
Passive

33. Spanish processes Some specificities of Spanish
Relatively moderate use of the passive

34. Spanish processes Some specificities of Spanish
Relatively moderate use of the passive
I ask them to provide a literal tyranslation of the English passive

35. Spanish processes Some specificities of Spanish
Default directionality of ‘liking’ processes
Speak of typical mistakes both ways and refer to cookie monster.

36. Spanish processes Some specificities of Spanish
Indicative versus Subjunctive in metaphenomenality
indicative
I ask what metaphenomenality is: when the Phenomenon is a finite clause rather than a nominal group.

37. Spanish processes Some specificities of Spanish
Indicative versus Subjunctive in metaphenomenality
subjunctive
I ask what metaphenomenality is: when the Phenomenon is a finite clause rather than a nominal group.

38. Spanish processes Some specificities of Spanish
Indicative versus Subjunctive in verbal projections
Indicative
Subjunctive
I ask what metaphenomenality is: when the Phenomenon is a finite clause rather than a nominal group.

39. Spanish processes Some specificities of Spanish
Clitic reduplication of participants
Este cuadró lo pinté yo
This picture it painted I
Goal/ /Me Process Ac/Ag

40. Spanish processes Some specificities of Spanish Ser vs. Estar
In relational: intensive

41. Spanish processes Some specificities of Spanish Ser vs. Estar
In relational: circumstantial

42. Spanish processes Some specificities of Spanish
Possession as participant in relational processes
Another source of problems for Foreign language students.

43. Participants and process types

44. Participants and process types

45. The interpersonal metafunction
Responsible for the resources that enable us to establish and maintain communicative interactions by defining crucial aspects of an exchange, such as the purpose of the interaction and the relation between the participants taking part in it.

46. The interpersonal metafunction
The MOOD system: 12 speech functions

47. The interpersonal metafunction
POLARITY system
Positive (yes)  Negative (no)
MODALITY system
Probability
Usuality
Willingness
Obligation
Modality. Nuances between the two poles of POLARITY.

48. Speech acts in Spanish Requesting information Wh-questions
No grammaticalized Subject-Finite order (compare to English), therefore no need to speak of a Mood elemnt with Subject and Finite. We just speak of a Predicator.
Notice the initial question mark, which replaces Mood order in Spanish.

49. Speech acts in Spanish Requesting information Yes/no questions
Subject often dropped in conversation. It’s in the verbal inflection.
No need for Yes, I am. Just Sí or No is enough.
Second example, notice the preverbal position of the Subject.

50. Speech acts in Spanish Giving information
Very often, Subject at the end

51. Speech acts in Spanish Requesting goods&services (commanding)
Using politeness
Straightforward
Comment on the bluntness of Castillian Spanish.

52. Speech acts in Spanish Offering goods&services interrogatives
Imperatives
declaratives
Comment on the bluntness of Castillian Spanish.

53. Polarity in Spanish Positive Negative
No auxiliaries, like English. Simply, “no”.
Possibility of dpouble negation, unless the negative expression comes before the verb.

54. Polarity in Spanish
Tags

55. Modality in Spanish Probability Modal expressions Modal verbs
Verbal tenses
We use here probability to illustrate modality, without going into the other types.

56. Interpersonal meaning in Spanish
Some specificities of Spanish
No distinctive Mood structure (Subject.Finite)
Pedro está leyendo en su cuarto (‘Peter is reading in his bedroom’)
Ha llegado María (‘María has arrived´)
Hace frío aquí, ¿no? (‘it’s cold in here, isn’t it?’)
The last example shows the simplicity of the tag question.

57. Interpersonal meaning in Spanish
Some specificities of Spanish
Non modalization of offers and commands
Such usages of the Present tense are rather unusual, non-standard or restricted to the colloquial style in English, where the modal is required.

58. Interpersonal meaning in Spanish
Double negation
Invariable tag (¿no? ¿cierto?¿verdad?)
Notice that we can use ¿no? As a tag to a negative clause, something which can sound rather odd in English.

59. Interpersonal meaning in Spanish
Pervasive use of some fixed impersonal expressions to express modality

60. Interpersonal meaning in Spanish
Modal verbs are not defective
Anteriority is expressed in the modal verb
It is expressed in the infinitive in English. Look at the translations. The English way is also possible, but less used, in Spanish.

61. The textual metafunction
Concerned with the mechanisms to create textual meanings, i.e. meanings concerned with the presentation of ideational and interpersonal meanings as text in context.
Two main systems: THEME and INFORMATION STRUCTURE
THEME provides the resources to start a sentence in such way that it fits in with the surrounding text while allowing us to add new INFORMATION.
Both systems together have an influence on the VOICE of the clause.
VOICE can therefore be seen as a third textual system determined by THEME and INFORMATION STRUCTURE choices.

62. The textual metafunction
Thematic and information structures

63. Textual organization in Spanish
Textual, interpersonal and ideational Theme
Circumstantial (ideational)
Theme Absolute Theme
As textual meaning is expressd through ideational and interpersonal constituents, which we have already seen, and, as it is when looking at textual meaning that we can see many of the specificities of Spanish, we’re going to focus on these specifities from the beginning now.

64. Textual organization in Spanish
Subject Theme
Verbal Theme
No Subject Process^Subject
Ask them why they think mis padres goes first and más personas goes later. Tell them about animacy, intention and definitnes.

65. Textual organization in Spanish
Complement Theme
Adjunct Theme
Comment that all elements of interpersonal structure can be Theme, unlike in English.

66. Textual organization in Spanish
Theme^Rheme and Given New
Waffle about the reasons why we thematise (it’s typically given and we want to provide the new informnation towards the end)

67. Textual organization in Spanish
Textual organisation and voice
Compare.
Point at the contrast between no Mood Residue in Spanish and Mood and Residue in English.

68. Textual organization in Spanish
The passive voice is possible in Spanish
Yet less frequently used
I ask the, why is this so?

69. Metafunctional interplay in Spanish
Over to you

70. Metafunctional interplay in Spanish
Over to you

71. Metafunctional interplay in Spanish
Over to you
In processes with only one participant, textual prominence is not so clearly defined. It’s distributed sort of evenly across the clause (leave this comment for the next slide)

72. Metafunctional interplay in Spanish
Over to you

73. Metafunctional journey through Spanish
For a detailed study: Lavid, J., Arús, J. and Zamorano, J.R Systemic functional grammar of Spanish: a contrastive study with English. London: Continuum.
Jorge Arús Hita
Universidad Complutense de Madrid
the 4th LinC
Summer School and Workshop, Cardiff (Wales)
August 31 – September 2, 2016