<i>Con</i> / <i>sin</i> (with / without) + infinitive: manners, conditions and markers of clarification. Functions of prepositional infinitives

Abstract

As in the Latin language there are no adverbial phrases formed by preposition + infinitive, in his research on Spanish, Portuguese and Rumanian, Schulte (2007a and b) points out the innovative nature of Romance syntax. Diachronically, the change involves an increase in types and frequency plus a larger variety of prepositions, in parallel with the weakening and disappearance of the Latin case system and the potential for the infinitive to become the ideal choice for nominalizations. According to data, there is a universal hierarchy of occurrence of these structures (Schulte 2007a): final > abessive > temporal > substitutive > concessive; as well as a sequence of prepositions and prepositional phrases: 1st) a (to), with final value, de (of), en (in) and con (with); 2nd por (by), para (for); 3rd sin (without); 4th hasta (until), antes/después de (before/after); 5th en vez/lugar de (instead of); 6th a pesar de, pese a (in spite of / despite). Therefore, we can notice, since the early stages of adverbial infinitives, the use of the prepositions con and sin (with and without), which establish an antonymy opposition (Martínez 2014). Thus, we intend to assess, from a cognitive-functional point of view, the way in which each preposition shapes the structure, as well as whether the “the heads and tails” bond is maintained in the different intrapredicative and extrapredicative functions.