In Search of o Unified Account of the Spanish Subjunctive: A Comparison of the Cognitively Based Approaches Formulated by Rainer Vesterinen and by José Plácido Ruiz Campillo
Abstract
This paper focuses on the two most widely used universalist approaches that attempt to present a unified account of the Spanish subjunctive. Both Vesterinen's and Ruiz Campillo's concepts are based on principles of cognitive linguistics and represent two largely contradictory ways to define a unified principle for the use of a particular verbal form: from an abstract principle to usage and from concrete linguistic manifestations to the search for an underlying function.
This paper contrasts the two theories and points out their strengths and weaknesses. We conclude that an uncontroversial universalist theory describing all uses of the Spanish subjunctive has not yet been developed in linguistics; rather both theories are a tool to illustrate how complex and difficult it is to analyse the phenomenon of mood choice.