Concessives sentences and factuality in Spanish

Abstract

When we describe a situation (an event or a state), we express the degree of certainty (factuality) that we associate with it, which may be presented as true, uncertain (probable or possible) or not true. To do this, we use different types of linguistic markers. In this work, we analyse the factual value of concessive Spanish clauses of journalistic register. These subordinate sentences present a situation which is interpreted as an obstacle which is not sufficient to realise the situation described in the main clause. Our hypothesis is that it is possible to determine the different types of factuality in concessive clauses taking into account connectors and verbal tenses. In this article we also propose rules for the annotation of factuality in concessive clauses to be used in the automatic tool created as part of the TAGFACT project.