Presupposition of Alternatives and Focal Particles: The Case of hasta ‘even’

doi: https://doi.org/10.31810/rsel.55.2.1

Abstract

This paper deals with some of the problems that focal hasta ‘even’ arises for the presupposition of alternatives associated with the focus. Although there are relevant studies of focal hasta that relate the occurrence of this particle with alternatives of the focused segment, the scholars have not paid attention to those factors that allow the speakers to satisfy (or not) the presupposition of alternatives. In order to study to what extent hasta allows interpreting the existence of alternatives of the focus, this paper is based on the analysis of examples from CORPES XXI (0.99 version). As will be shown, these samples attest cases of hasta that fails in the association of the focus with its possible alternatives. We will posit that these examples share some crucial properties, such as the sentential scope of the particle and the lack of alternatives mentioned in the immediate discourse, which is more frequent in oral texts. The explanation of these patterns is outside the scope of this paper, although we will point to the possibility that the semantics, the pragmatics, and the grammar of the particle play a crucial role. On the one hand, hasta has a complex semantics allowing that, in the case that the presupposition of alternatives is not satisfied, the presupposed information accommodates to the scalar-evaluative implicature, which is also induced by hasta. On the other hand, sentences under the scope of the particle are also complex types that do not easily allow establishing semantic associations with equivalent alternatives, even more if some of these alternatives are not mentioned in the immediate discourse.