The Coordinators and Their Role in Discourse Coherence

Abstract

Coordinators — or coordinative conjunctions — have been analyzed in functional grammar studies of Spanish (especially, in the approach developed by Emilio Alarcos Llorach), which identified a number of features that either differentiate them from “transpositors” (Martínez 1994 b), or set them apart from other units such as the so-called “markers” or “discourse connectors” (Cortés Rodríguez 2000; Martínez Zorraquino 1994; Motolío 2001; Portolés 1993, 2015; Fuentes Rodríguez 1987, 1995; Duque 2016, among others).

In general, it is now widely assumed that units such as those included within the class of “discourse markers”, go beyond sentence syntax proper, because, although they perform a particular function in the sentence in which they are embedded (generally, in extra-predicative position), they facilitate cohesive relationships between the different utterances in the text (Rodríguez Sources 2007: 69). However, some authors (Garrrido Medina 2014; Garrido and Ramalle 2015; Fuentes Rodríguez 20189 have also analyzed the role of coordinators in the left periphery of the utterance.

In this contribution we first provide an account of the way traditional/descriptive/functional grammar has defined the role or coordinators. Then, we consider the definition of utterance and its limits. Finally, we examine three types of coordinators (y, o, pero), to verify their semantic contribution to the cohesion of the discourse.