Focus adverbs in spanish: a cognitive-functional account and some neurocognitive hypotheses

MÜLLER, GISELA ELINA

LACUS FORUM XXXVI Mechanisms of Linguistic Behavior

LACUS, the Linguistic Association of Canada and the United States

Lugar: Houston, Texas; Año: 2010 vol. 36 p. 1 - 14

0195-377x

The aim of this article is to explore the communicative uses of focus adverbs, in particular of the adverb from a cognitive-functional approach. The analysis is based on the assumption that the relationships among metadiscoursive devices, and the fields of adverbial attraction, in which a focus adverb appears, are evidence in favor of Langacker?s dynamism of conceptualization hypothesis and the related concept of focus chain. After having described the different sorts of focus adverbs from a cognitive point of view, some cases of focus chain instantiation with the adverb justamente are analyzed in a corpus of semi-spontaneous dialogues and academic lectures. Three main objectives guide this analysis: a) to identify the communicative acts where this adverb is employed; b) to observe whether the elements of the two cognitive domains connected by justamente belong to the same domain; and c) to examine the possibility of overlapping functions between adverbial categories. Finally, it is suggested that some of the hypotheses discussed in the paper have neurocognitive plausibility in Lamb?s sense.