Construcciones consecutivas ponderativas en españolfocalización, correlativos y correlatos adjuntos

Resumen

This paper deals with the complex sentences in Spanish formed by the correlation tanto(s)~tanta(s)... que (i.e. Comí tanto que me sentó mal ‘I ate so much that I felt bad’). In opposition to the majority of the previous analyses, which treat que as an adjacent of the quantified phrase with tanto, we will argue that tanto... que is not a functional group nor a maximal projection lexically generated, but a long-distance correlation that is semantically and pragmatically conditioned. In particular, we will defend that tanto is an evaluative scalar quantifier that behaves like correlatives do: it maximizes the meaning of its clause and is pragmatically significant (it marks contrastive focus by means of intensive accent and intonation and may give rise to an informative structure of topic-comment). In addition, the clause with que behaves like the typical correlates: it is always postposed to the correlative and it rejects recursive operations (like coordination). As occurs in the comparative correlatives from some Germanic languages and the relative correlatives in languages like Hindi, the clause with que is an adjunct of the first clause. Lastly, and following Dayal’s work on relative correlatives in Hindi (1995), we will suggest that tanto is a two-place quantifier linking a propositional variable, instantiated by the clause with que.