Modal periphrases in 18th century spanish economic-political prose

Abstract

This study examines the paradigm of modal verbal periphrases with infinitives in Spanish, specifically deber (de) + INF, haber de + INF, haber que + INF, and tener que + INF. The analysis is based on a corpus of three representative texts from 18th-century formal prose in the field of political economy. The research follows two approaches. First, a quantitative analysis evaluates the frequency of each periphrasis, identifies their main semantic values (obligation/convenience on the one hand, necessity/future time/epistemicity on the other), and examines several morphosyntactic variables, including tense and mood of the auxiliary verb, grammatical person, voice, and the lexical aspect of the infinitive. Second, a qualitative textual analysis explores how these periphrastic structures function semantically within their context, taking into account the influence of discourse traditions on the linguistic configuration of the works in the corpus.