The causal value of 'cómo': factivity, mirativity and illocutionary forces

Abstract

The interrogative element cómo ‘how’ of Spanish has a double meaning: that of manner and that causal. With the former, it behaves like a typical interrogative element, but, with the latter, its behavior manifests the specificities of por qué ‘why’. Two analyses are proposed, always in cartographic terms: one for sentences with cómo with a causal value and another one for sentences in which cómo with this value appears in front of es que ‘is that’ (cómo es que). Indeed, the conditions for embedding for these two types are different (much more restricted for the first one than for the second one). It is proposed that sentences with cómo without es que have an exclamative illocutionary force with an interrogative component, while the force of sentences with cómo es que would be a variant of the interrogative one (interro-exclamative force). In both cases, their factual and mirative nature is syntactically relevant. The general analysis proposal is finally applied to a poorly studied element, que cosa que (Ripacurtian Catalan and Aragonese).

<i>Kuidas nii, kalapulki?!</i> (’How so, fishfingers?!’): A surprise-question in Estonian

“…Without indication, the translation is mine. 5 See alsoCastro (2019) for an analysis of Spanish reason-how interrogatives. 6 According toTovena (2022: 211), these interrogatives are also syntactically noncanonical (like why-like what-interrogatives) because the wh-word is not related to its typical domain of manner/means and "is not linked to a position inside the IP" Metslang (1981).…”