Initial coordination in Spanish? Problems of analysis of the disjunctive and copulative correlatives

Abstract

This paper examines disjunctive and copulative initial coordination in Spanish (o1… o2 ‘either... or’ and ni1... ni2 ‘neither... nor’) with a view to demonstrating that, in contrast to conventional analyses, the former element does not pass the proofs of the coordinating conjunctions. To do so, we will base our proposal on the grammatical patterns observed in a compilation of examples from the “Corpus del Español del Siglo XXI” (in particular, from written texts in European Spanish). These patterns allow us to suggest that o1 and ni1 are not coordinators, but focal particles whose scope or dominion is the first conjunct coordinated by o2 or ni2.