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Rumor Has It: The Press Conditional in French and Spanish

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https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5sm3n421

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Arrigo, Michael

Publication Date

2020

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Rumor Has It: The Press Conditional in French and Spanish

Michael C. Arrigo

A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the

requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

Romance Languages and Literatures

in the

Graduate Division

of the

University of California, Berkeley

Committee in charge:

Professor Mairi-Louise McLaughlin, Chair

Professor Richard Kern

Professor Andrew Garrett

Summer 2020

Abstract

Rumor Has It:

The Press Conditional in French and Spanish

Michael C. Arrigo

Doctor of Philosophy in Romance Languages and Literatures

University of California, Berkeley

Professor Mairi-Louise McLaughlin, Chair

In journalistic texts in both French and Spanish, the conditional may be used to report an

unconfirmed fact, akin to the use of allegedy in English, as in (1) and (2):

(1) La justice pénale américaine enquêterait sur General Motors

‘The Justice Department [would be investigating] General Motors’

(2) Según los datos en poder de este periódico, un informe de Hacienda acreditaría

muchos de los obsequios y confirmaría los datos del ex gerente

‘According to information in possession of this newspaper, a source from the

Treasury [would substantiate] many of the gifts and [would confirm] the former

director’s information’

In French, this use of the conditional has accumulated many names, one of which is the

conditionnel de presse. In Spanish, it is most often referred to as the condicional del rumor. I

refer to both as the press conditional given the construction’s association with journalistic

language in both French and Spanish. While this use of the conditional has been extensively

studied in French, its Spanish counterpart has only recently begun to receive closer attention

from scholars, much of it in the shadow of prior work undertaken on French. This dissertation

addresses this gap by proposing a study that allows for a more thorough treatment of the

construction in each language using an extensive news corpus. Not only does this study provide

new data for Spanish, it provides a comprehensive examination of the press conditional in

newswriting in each language, which, until now, was lacking in both French and Spanish.

In Chapter 1, I present an overview of the uses of the conditional in French and Spanish. I

then focus on the press conditional, its history and its prescriptive status in each language. I also

review previous theoretical models of the press conditional and previous work on the

construction in journalistic texts. In Chapter 2, I present my methodology. I describe my

bilingual corpus consisting of a constructed week’s worth of editions of two French and two

Spanish newspapers: Le Monde, Libération, El Mundo and El Periódico de Catalunya. I then

demonstrate the paraphrases I use to extract tokens of the press conditional from the corpus.

These combine the appropriate indicative tense with adverbial markers paraît-il ‘it seems’ in

French and por lo visto ‘apparently’ in Spanish. I then outline the analytic framework through

which I examine the data. I approach the press conditional from the perspective of register,

examining its use in journalistic texts in the light of their communicative aims. Since the primary

aim of journalistic texts is to represent the truth, I understand the choice to use the press

conditional as one made with consideration for precise writing and accurate reporting, which are

the means by which journalists establish credibility.

In Chapter 3, I first examine the forms and frequency of the press conditional in French. I

find that the data here bears out prior claims in the literature: the present conditional is most

frequent with a present reading, while the past conditional is used for past events. I confirm that

the present conditional with a prospective reading is rare, as it is not present in the corpus. I then

analyze how the press conditional is used within the newspapers. I find that article type is not

explanatory with respect to the use of the press conditional in French. Rather, I draw a distinction

between conditionals serving to report information (reporting conditionals) and those that serve

to reprise discourse (discursive conditionals). This distinction is shown here to correlate with

article type, when a high-level split between news and commentary is made. Reporting and

discursive conditionals are found at relatively similar rates in news articles, while reporting

conditionals are rare in commentary, unlike discursive conditionals. The press conditional also

frequently accompanies quantification in reportative contexts in journalistic texts. Discursive

conditionals prove interesting because of their rarity in commentary in Libération and their

relatively higher frequency in Le Monde. I find that Le Monde’s more extensive use of the

discursive conditional in its commentary articles serves to signal a consistently journalistic style

while also demonstrating that the press conditional appears to be a stereotypical feature of

journalistic writing in French. Finally, I argue that, as used in journalistic texts, the press

conditional can be seen as a marker of non-prise-en-charge.

In Chapter 4, I begin by providing the forms and frequency of the press conditional in

Spanish. I note that the press conditional in fact encompasses the press conditional to mark both

inferences and reported information. I provide a tabulation of the frequency of each use as well

as an overview of their functions within the Spanish corpus. I then examine the temporality of

each. I find that the present conditional may refer to present and past states, as well as future

events and states. Notably, I confirm that present conditionals marking reported information do

not require a future time marker to trigger a prospective reading (as is the case in French) in

Peninsular Spanish. I then account for the use of the press conditional in Spanish as a function of

article type. I find that in the case of polls and scientific articles the presence of the conditional

may actually reflect the presence of scientific discourse within the pages of a newspaper.

Conversely, I argue that in the case of articles on official misconduct and criminal activity, the

press conditional’s efficiency in marking uncertainty in sensitive contexts may override

prescriptive discouragement of the press conditional. I end by arguing that more diachronic and

synchronic studies across journalistic, scientific and legal text types may better clarify the

reported and inferential uses of the conditional in the Spanish press and also more generally.

In Chapter 5, I compare the forms, frequencies and temporalities of the present and past

conditional in French and Spanish. I then examine the use of the press conditional in its

capacities to convey reported information and/or inference. To the extent that it is a marker of

reported information, I argue that it constitutes a special kind of reported speech in journalistic

writing. I find that in its speech reporting function, the French press conditional implies an

element of subjectivity not seen in its Spanish counterpart. On the basis of the common use of

the press conditional to mark inference in Spanish, I examine tokens in French that appeared to

convey inference. I argue that this function, while numerically marginal, requires further study. I

then compare the press conditional at the level of the article, at the level of the newspaper and at

the level of the language itself. I recall that while article type can be used to explain the use of

the press conditional in Spanish, its use is more generalized in French. With respect to

newspapers, I show that the press conditional reflects little of Libération and El Periódico’s

journalistic practices. The press conditional has what one might call a performative function in

Le Monde and is a pragmatic outgrowth of El Mundo’s investigative reporting. This points to the

varying capacity the press conditional has in helping shape a newspaper’s journalistic identity.

Finally, I conclude with a reflection on the fact that the press conditional is not only a

stereotypical feature of French journalistic language, it is also on its way to becoming such a

feature in Spanish. Thought of this way, it is not just a register feature but potentially a stylistic

one as well.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 BACKGROUND AND REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE ..................................... 1

1.1 Rumor and Romance: The Conditional for Unconfirmed Reports in the News .............. 1

1.2 Form and Values of the Conditional in French and Spanish ........................................... 5

1.2.1 The Forms of the Conditional in French and Spanish ..................................................... 6

1.2.1.1 The Present Conditional in French .................................................................................. 6

1.2.1.2 The Past Conditional in French ........................................................................................ 7

1.2.1.3 The Present Conditional in Spanish ................................................................................. 8

1.2.1.4 The Past Conditional in Spanish ...................................................................................... 9

1.2.2 Values of the Conditional in French and Spanish .......................................................... 10

1.2.2.1 The Temporal Conditional in French and Spanish ........................................................ 10

1.2.2.2 The Hypothetical Conditional in French and Spanish ................................................... 11

1.2.2.3 The Attenuating Conditional in French and Spanish ..................................................... 12

1.2.2.4 The Press Conditional in French .................................................................................... 13

1.2.2.5 The Press Conditional in Spanish .................................................................................. 13

1.2.2.6 Inferential Uses of the Conditional in French ................................................................ 15

1.2.2.7 Inferential Uses of the Conditional in Spanish .............................................................. 16

1.2.3 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 18

1.3 The Press Conditional in French and Spanish ............................................................... 19

1.3.1 Previous Literature on the Press Conditional in French ................................................ 20

1.3.2 Previous Literature on the Press Conditional in Spanish ............................................... 27

1.3.3 Studies of the Press Conditional in Journalistic Texts ................................................... 32

1.4 Research Aims ............................................................................................................... 34

2 METHODOLOGY ...................................................................................................... 36

2.1 The Corpus ..................................................................................................................... 36

2.1.1 The French Corpus ......................................................................................................... 36

2.1.1.1 Le Monde ....................................................................................................................... 37

2.1.1.2 Libération ....................................................................................................................... 37

2.1.2 The Spanish Corpus ....................................................................................................... 38

2.1.2.1 El Mundo ....................................................................................................................... 39

2.1.2.2 El Periódico de Catalunya .............................................................................................. 40

2.1.3 The Corpus: Summary and Coding ................................................................................ 41

2.2 Identifying the Press Conditional ................................................................................... 43

2.2.1 Identifying the Press Conditional in French .................................................................. 43

2.2.1.1 The Temporal Conditional ............................................................................................. 43

2.2.1.2 The Attenuating Conditional .......................................................................................... 44

2.2.1.3 The Hypothetical Conditional ........................................................................................ 45

2.2.1.4 The Press Conditional .................................................................................................... 46

2.2.2 Identifying the Press Conditional in Spanish ................................................................. 47

2.2.2.1 The Temporal Conditional ............................................................................................. 47

2.2.2.2 The Hypothetical Conditional ........................................................................................ 48

2.2.2.3 The Attenuating Conditional .......................................................................................... 50

2.2.2.4 The Conjectural Conditional .......................................................................................... 50

2.2.2.5 The Inferential and Press Conditionals .......................................................................... 51

2.2.3 Identifying the Press Conditional Summary .................................................................. 55

2.3 Analytical Framework ................................................................................................... 56

2.3.1 Register and Style .......................................................................................................... 56

2.3.2 Defining the Aims of Journalistic Language ................................................................. 57

2.4 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 59

3 THE PRESS CONDITIONAL IN FRENCH ............................................................ 60

3.1 Form and Frequency of the Press Conditional ............................................................... 60

3.1.1 Frequency of the French Press Conditional ................................................................... 60

3.1.2 Forms of the Press Conditional ...................................................................................... 63

3.1.2.1 The Present Conditional ................................................................................................. 63

3.1.2.2 The Past Conditional ...................................................................................................... 65

3.1.3 Conclusion: Form and Frequency .................................................................................. 65

3.2 The Function of the Press Conditional in French Newspaper Writing .......................... 66

3.2.1 The Press Conditional, Article Type and Genre ............................................................ 66

3.2.2 The Press Conditional: Uncertainty and Confirmability ............................................... 71

3.2.2.1 Two Conditional Types: The Reporting Conditional (RC) and the Discursive

Conditional (DC) .......................................................................................................................... 74

3.2.2.2 Quantifying Conditionals (QC): A Sub-Type ................................................................ 75

3.2.2.3 The Embedding of the Press Conditional Types ............................................................ 76

3.2.2.4 Results of the Classification of Tokens by Type ........................................................... 78

3.2.2.5 Discursive Conditionals in Commentary and Journalistic Style .................................... 82

3.2.3 Conclusion: The Press Conditional as a Distinguishing Feature of Style ..................... 86

3.3 Theoretical Considerations ............................................................................................ 87

3.4 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 92

4 THE PRESS CONDITIONAL IN SPANISH ............................................................ 93

4.1 Forms and Frequency of the Press Conditional in Spanish ........................................... 93

4.1.1 Identifying Reportative and Inferential Conditionals .................................................... 95

4.1.2 Forms of the Reportative and Inferential Conditional ................................................... 98

4.1.2.1 The Past Conditional .................................................................................................... 101

4.1.2.2 The Present Conditional: Present Reference ................................................................ 102

4.1.2.3 The Present Conditional: Past Reference ..................................................................... 104

4.1.2.4 The Present Conditional: Future Reference ................................................................. 106

4.1.3 Uses of the Reportative and Inferential Conditional in Spanish .................................. 110

4.1.3.1 Uses of the Inferential Conditional in the Spanish Corpus .......................................... 111

4.1.3.2 Uses of the Reportative Conditional in the Spanish Corpus ........................................ 114

4.1.3.3 The Conditional and Quantification ............................................................................. 116

4.1.4 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 118

iii

4.2 The Press Conditional in El Mundo and El Periódico de Catalunya ........................... 119

4.2.1 The Press Conditional and Electoral Polls ................................................................... 122

4.2.2 The Press Conditional in Science Articles in El Periódico de Catalunya ................... 125

4.2.3 The Press Conditional and Reports on Crime and Official Misconduct ...................... 127

4.2.3.1 The Press Conditional and Official Misconduct .......................................................... 129

4.2.3.2 The Press Conditional and Crime Reports ................................................................... 132

4.2.4 The Press Conditional: A Pragmatic Alternative ......................................................... 135

4.3 Discussion and Conclusion .......................................................................................... 136

5 THE PRESS CONDITIONAL IN COMPARISON ............................................... 137

5.1 Form and Frequency of the Press Conditional in the Combined Corpus .................... 137

5.1.1 The Present Conditional ............................................................................................... 140

5.1.2 The Past Conditional .................................................................................................... 144

5.2 The Press Conditional as an Evidential Strategy in Journalism .................................. 146

5.2.1 The Press Conditional and Speech Reporting .............................................................. 149

5.2.2 The Conditional as an Inferential Strategy .................................................................. 158

5.3 The Press Conditional and Journalism in French and Spanish .................................... 164

5.3.1 The Press Conditional and the Article ......................................................................... 164

5.3.2 The Press Conditional and Newspapers ....................................................................... 170

5.3.3 The Press Conditional in French and Spanish ............................................................. 172

6 AFTERWORD ........................................................................................................... 174

7 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................................................................... 183

LIST OF TABLES

TABLE 1.1 FORMS OF THE FRENCH PRESENT CONDITIONAL ....................................................... 7

TABLE 1.2 FORMS OF THE FRENCH PRESENT CONDITIONAL ....................................................... 8

TABLE 2.1 CODING OF THE SPANISH CORPUS ................................................................................ 42

TABLE 2.2 CODING OF THE FRENCH CORPUS ................................................................................. 42

TABLE 2.3 CODING OF ARTICLES ....................................................................................................... 42

TABLE 2.4 SUMMARY OF TESTS ......................................................................................................... 55

TABLE 3.1 FREQUENCY OF THE PRESS CONDITIONAL IN THE FRENCH CORPUS ................. 61

TABLE 3.2 FREQUENCY OF THE PRESS CONDITIONAL IN LE MONDE ...................................... 61

TABLE 3.3 FREQUENCY OF THE PRESS CONDITIONAL IN LIBÉRATION .................................... 61

TABLE 3.4 THE PRESS CONDITIONAL AND ARTICLE TYPE IN LE MONDE ............................... 67

TABLE 3.5 CLASSIFICATION OF ARTICLES TYPES AS NEWS AND COMMENTARY ............... 77

TABLE 3.6 DISTRIBUTION OF THE PRESS CONDITIONAL: CORPUS ........................................... 78

TABLE 3.7 DISTRIBUTION OF THE PRESS CONDITIONAL IN LIBÉRATION ................................ 79

TABLE 3.8 DISTRIBUTION OF THE PRESS CONDITIONAL IN LE MONDE .................................. 79

TABLE 4.1 FREQUENCY OF THE PRESS CONDITIONAL IN THE SPANISH CORPUS ................ 93

TABLE 4.2 FREQUENCY OF THE PRESS CONDITIONAL IN EL MUNDO ...................................... 94

TABLE 4.3 FREQUENCY OF THE PRESS CONDITIONAL IN EL PERIÓDICO ............................... 94

TABLE 4.4 FREQUENCY OF THE INFERENTIAL AND REPORTATIVE CONDITIONALS .......... 98

TABLE 4.5 FORM AND TEMPORALITY OF THE PRESS CONDITIONAL IN THE SPANISH

CORPUS ................................................................................................................................ 99

TABLE 4.6 THE CONDITIONAL ACCOMPANYING QUANTIFICATION ...................................... 117

TABLE 4.7 FREQUENCY OF THE PRESS CONDITIONAL ACCORDING TO ARTICLE TYPE ... 122

TABLE 4.8 PRESS CONDITIONALS FOR POLLS IN THE SPANISH CORPUS .............................. 123

TABLE 4.9 INFERENCE AND REPORTATIVE TOKENS WITHIN POLLS ..................................... 124

TABLE 4.10 FREQUENCY OF THE PRESS CONDITIONAL FOR CRIME AND OFFICIAL

MISCONDUCT ................................................................................................................... 128

TABLE 5.1 FREQUENCY OF THE PRESS CONDITIONAL IN THE COMBINED CORPUS .......... 137

TABLE 5.2 FREQUENCY OF THE PAST AND PRESENT CONDITIONAL FORMS IN THE

COMBINED CORPUS ........................................................................................................ 138

TABLE 5.3 FREQUENCIES OF FORM AND TEMPORAL REFERENCE OF THE FRENCH AND

SPANISH PRESS CONDITIONAL .................................................................................... 139

Acknowledgements

This project was anything but a single-handed effort. I offer this project in thanks to all of those

who helped me along the way.

Firstly, I offer my thanks to my advisor, Professor Mairi McLaughlin, whose unflagging faith

and tenacity are the co-authors of this study and the underwriters of my degree. I could not have

done this without her.

Furthermore, I would like to offer thanks here

To Professors Richard Kern and Andrew Garrett for their oversight, feedback and

gentleness.

To Mary Ajideh, who has watched tenderly over me since Day 1.

To Seda Chavdarian and Vesna Rodic for molding me into the teacher that I am today.

To the faculty of the UC Berkeley French Department and the Romance Languages and

Literatures program for the opportunity for all of this. To Carol, for her unparalleled and

tireless advising and administration. To Lydia and Gail for their good governance. To

Professor Susan Maslan for offering me the chance to further my classroom experience.

To Jenelle, my graduate school partner in crime, seminars, mutual dread, and lazy

afternoons. I am forever sitting on your counter as you continue to your life and career.

To Liz Paris, for her transformative kindness, compassion and clarity at the eleventh

hour.

To my students over all my years of teaching. May you seek happy nights to happy days,

treasures. Especially to my Beano students in People’s Square. You made me human.

To David, for his persistence and compassion.

To the staff of the Hotsy Totsy Club, who watched over me and kept the light on: Aurora,

Cynthia, Eva, Karina, Nicole, Suki and Tabitha. To Jessica and Michael. To Richie. To

Jimmy. To all my Totsy family.

To Birthe, in the K-Fêt, abusing my trigramme.

To Matt and Matt, in The Graduate, over popcorn, on the third round. To Jonathan,

standing baffled by the window of a hostel in Lisbon. To Victoria, in the office, stalwart

and supportive.

To Emily, my always first robin of spring. To Brock, along the journey. To Jacob, Lauren

and Rupinder, in my living room, as I presided. To Alan, Amber, Alexis, Rachel Sarah

and Thomas chatting away unsupervised in the Library of French Thought. To Gabriella,

the better of the two testaments to the potential of Sicilian-Genoan blends in our program.

To Oliver, the Occitan.

To Francis and to Jason, for sticking with me.

To Jim, for dinners and Sondheim.

To Dan, for your unending patience with me.

To Greg, of my heart, at Little Prague. To Maria, that summer that we shared one room

between us.

To Jake, with whom I bickered to my betterment.

To Chicle, el contencioso.

To Zane and Nick, on the patio, in the gloaming.

To Flor, my beloved petite sœur. To Léo, my fellow bon-vivant.

To Jess, who discovered me. To Audrey, who cared for me. To David, Ben and Steven

who taught me adventure. To Linda, who got us safely home. To Kiki, with our growing

pains, among the luxury stores.

To Jess, over guilt and Bloody Mary’s, disappointing ourselves but—strangely— never

Ayi. To Leslie, over the dining table, above the laptop screen, taming human nonsense,

rowdy interns and the English language.

To Emma, watching Gavin and Stacey, after massages.

To Iyonna, à Chatelêt la nuit, à Pho 14 l’après-midi.

To Scrap, in the car, approaching Del Mar.

To Irene, Jenna, Jill, Stacie and Kevin. From the patios of North County’s worthy public

schools to those of San Diego’s latest breweries. And now, those of your homes.

To the Dubinas: Hannah and Sarah. By your pool or among the Christmas cookies.

To Lauren, on any street between adventures, your iPhone C to light the way.

To McKenna, in any place I find you.

To Andrew and to James, standing before me, at your respective weddings.

vii

To my Aunts Frankie and Rosemary, and my grandmother Rose, who knew a lot about

love.

To my Aunt Paula and Teresa, who told me first about the world beyond my horizons.

To my mother, Christine, who worked many years and very hard for her children. To Jim,

for his calming presence and that beach in Hawaii.

To my father, Michael, who did not get to see this come to light. I know that you would

be proud. To my stepmother, Cynthia, for all her patience and toil by all our sides.

To my brother, Tim, for his love.

To Madame Girdner and to Madame Wight, who patiently outwaited my desire to test out

the imperfect subjunctive. To Rita and Terry Rowan, for their expansive love. To Dr.

Englund, whose research project proved very useful.

To Professors Julia Simon, Travis Bradley, Charles Oriel, Noah Guynn, Elizabeth

Constable, Robert Irwin and Adrienne Martín at UC Davis for being there for my wobbly

first steps into scholarship.

To Tricia, who loved me: I love you more.

To Corine and Marion. I cannot find the words, so you will have to keep listening to me

trying to find them for all our years to come. We will ever remain the upbeat clams!

To Orson, for showing us the bravery of growing up. To Cécile, who told me I should

need to live a long time. This dissertation has been Minute 1 of the many left to go.

To Eliot Leevit, who was much inconvenienced by all the fuss and ado I made as I wrote

this. But always loving.

To Maxime, concierge par excellence of the Hotel George V. Our brief, telephonic

exchange validated all my waking minutes of French study.

And, finally, to—

Oh! And to Great Grandpappy Arrigo, who [would have murdered] three men in Utah,

[would have bribed] the jury to get off and thereby beat the charges in 1915. In

retrospect, that was pretty key to all of this.

And, now, finally, to Little Michel and Amy, as they traipsed along the way to the East Davis

Dairy Queen. It was a clear day, and you did not think to look far. Certainly not as far as they

would one day find that I had gone. Pas mal, hein?

1 BACKGROUND AND REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

1.1 Rumor and Romance: The Conditional for Unconfirmed Reports in the News

In the Romance speaking world, it is possible on any given day to open a newspaper and

find the conditional tense used as it is in the examples in (1-6):

(1) Spanish:

En cuanto al caso Lava Jato, según el periodista Fernando Rodrigues, habría no

menos de 57 personas vinculadas con el caso a las que se ha detectado alrededor

de 200 offshores previamente desconocidas.

‘With respect to the Lavo Jato case, according to the journalist Fernando

Rodrigues, there [would be] no less than 57 people connected to the case who

have been linked to some 200 previously unknown offshore companies.’

— El País, April 5, 2016

(2) Italian:

Secondo il quotidiano olandese «Trouw», infatti, Seedorf avrebbe concluso un

accordo di sponsorizzazione nel 2005 con un gioielliere italiano per la sua squadra

corse il «Team Seedorf Racing»

‘According to Dutch newspaper «Trouw», Seedorf [would have made] a

sponsorship agreement in 2005 with the Italian jeweler for his racing team «Team

Seedorf Racing»’

— Il Corriere della Sera, April 5, 2016

(3) Brazilian Portuguese:

Segundo os “Panama Papers” — o vazamento de 11,5 milhões de documentos

que implicam 140 personalidades que teriam offshores em paraísos fiscais —,

várias pessoas próximas a Putin teriam desviado quase dois bilhões de dólares

com a ajuda de bancos e empresas de fachada.

‘According to the “Panama Papers” — the leak of 11.5 million documents

implicating 140 people who [would have] offshore companies in tax havens —,

various people close to Putin [would have diverted] almost two billion dollars

with the help of banks and front companies.’

— O Globo, April 4, 2016

(4) Catalan:

Segons el diari, Crivillé hauria cobrat els drets d'imatge després del seu títol

mundial de 1999 a través d'una empresa 'offshore' situada en un paradís fiscal.

‘According to the newspaper, Crivillé [would have collected] the image royalties

from his 1999 world title through an offshore company located in a tax haven.’

— El Periódico de Catalunya, April 5, 2016

(5) Romanian:

Apropiați ai președintelui rus Vladimir Putin ar fi ascuns în paradisuri fiscale

aproximativ 2 miliarde de dolari prin intermediul unor societăți paravan deschise

de Mossack Fonseca.

‘Relatives of Russian President Vladimir Putin [would have hid] about $ 2

billion in tax havens through companies set up by Mossack Fonseca.’

— Adevărul.ro, April 5, 2016

(6) French:

C’est aussi le cas du meilleur ami du président, le violoncelliste Sergueï

Roldouquine, qui aurait servi de prête-nom pour le compte de M. Poutine pour

détourner de l’argent des entreprises publiques.

‘It is also the case for the president’s best friend, cellist Sergueï Roldouquine,

who [would have served] as the nominee for M. Putin’s account in order to

divert the money from state companies.’

—Le Monde, April 3, 2016

(1-6) are taken from around the time of the leak of documents revealing the international elite’s

extensive offshore holdings for purposes of tax evasion that has become known as the Panama

Papers. Although any of the conditionals used in (1-6) could be replaced by an appropriate

present or past indicative tense, the conditional is used to mark the fact that the newspaper is

hesitant to say that the information reported is certain. English journalists might mark such

information by adding the adverb allegedly in such cases, although it is not an exact equivalent.

The conditional has a pragmatic effect of signaling that the speaker (in these cases, journalist)

does not have direct knowledge of the information that they relay. This is reflected by the use of

the cognate prepositions según, secondo, segundo, segons (all meaning ‘according to’) in the

Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Catalan examples in (1-4), thereby making the source of

information clear. However, the conditional may appear without a source. In the French and

Romanian examples in (5) and (6), the information is given without attribution. In French, this

use of the conditional has become so tightly associated with journalistic language that it has been

designated, among other things, the conditionnel de presse or press conditional.

Although the examples cited above suggest that the press conditional is a Pan-Romance

construction, its recognition and acceptance varies from language to language. Such is the

portrait painted by Squartini (2001) who compares the structure across Romance in a study that

includes French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Catalan (but excludes Romanian). While

Squartini (2001: 324-26) only comments on the development of this use of the conditional in

Italian, the lack of comment about its origins in French and Portuguese leave one to assume it is

also native to those languages. Conversely, Squartini (2001: 318) describes the press conditional

in Spanish as an “unstable” French borrowing that is limited to journalistic language and unlikely

to be further integrated into the language. In fact, one of his sources, Romero Gualda (1994: 35-

36), suggests that the use of the press conditional in Spanish is in decline.

Squartini (2001: 320-

21) claims—on the basis of his sources—that Catalan also lacks a press conditional and suggests

that if it can be found, it is a French borrowing.

Dendale (1993: 165) provides a list of names. Several more have been added since.

This assertion is based on examples given by grammarians and an oral corpus from Fontanillo and Riesco (1994).

Subsequent research has painted a slightly different picture than the one depicted by

Squartini (2001). Martines (2015: 80-82) shows that this use of the conditional was present

historically in Catalan. Oliveira (2015a) has studied divergences with respect to the use of the

press conditional in European and Brazilian Portuguese. While one might speak of a “press

conditional” in Brazilian Portuguese (as one does in French), in European Portuguese, one would

need to speak of a “press future” as well as a “press conditional,” since both tenses are used to

convey uncertain information in journalistic texts. With regards to Spanish, the press conditional

has not proven “unstable” and has even received prescriptive sanction from the Real Academia

Española (RAE) in 2009 (RAE 2009: §23.15m). Kronning (2016: 128) finds that it is found

regularly in online news headlines in both Latin-America and Spain, although with greater

frequency in Latin-America. Furthermore, Romanists should not ignore a similar construction

found in Romanian. Popescu (2011: 234) notes that the press conditional is attested as early as

the 17

century and found in literary and scientific discourse as well as the oral code.

There does appear to exist a correlation between belief that the press conditional is a

native construction and its recognition by grammarians (and even linguists). Martines (2015: 81)

finds that although the press conditional appears to be native to Catalan, it has been condemned

in the language’s grammatical tradition as a French borrowing. In Spanish, the RAE’s (2009:

§23.15m) reference grammar does not describe the press conditional as a borrowing in origin,

but other grammars (such as Butt and Benjamin 1994: 220) as well as scholarly works continue

to describe it as a borrowing (Sarrazin 2010: 101). No one has yet carried out more extensive

diachronic work testing the contact hypothesis.

This alleged foreign origin has led to prescriptive discouragement of the press conditional

in Spanish, particularly in newspapers. El País, whose prestigious style guide has set the tone for

others across the Spanish-speaking world (Sarrazin 2010: 103), objects to the press conditional

on two grounds:

La posibilidad en el pasado no es, sin embargo, un hecho dudoso, no garantizado, ni un

rumor. Este uso del condicional de indicativo es francés…El uso del condicional en

ese tipo de frases queda terminantemente prohibido en el periódico. Además de

incorrecto gramaticalmente, resta credibilidad a la información (El País 2014:

§13.28). (bolding mine)

The fact that in Spanish the press conditional is considered an ungrammatical borrowing violates

what Cotter (2010: 136-37) calls the “rhetorical goals” of journalism. Journalists must use good

grammar in their writing to establish credibility (Cotter 2010: 191). The perception that the press

conditional would report unverified rumors further violates what Cotter (2010: 136-37) calls

journalism’s “content goals,” which insist on “accuracy.” However, the notion that the press

conditional might signify bad journalism is not restricted to Spanish. In French, the conditional is

acceptable but only within reason. Le Monde, France’s prestigious newspaper of record,

mentions the conditional specifically when laying out the newspaper’s commitment to accuracy:

Le Monde est précis. Les rédacteurs sourcent leurs informations. Ils utilisent les mots

justes, renoncent aux tournures vides et alambiquées. L’usage du conditionnel est

restreint. (Le Monde 2002: 48) (bolding mine)

In French, the conditional (whose status as a native form has never been in dispute) is acceptable

as long as it does not undermine the newspaper’s content goals. However, the construction itself

is not ungrammatical in French and its use does not violate the newspaper’s requirement for

good grammar.

Portuguese provides a useful point of comparison that helps explain why El País’s double

objection is remarkable. In Portuguese, the press conditional is also a point of concern as it may

undermine journalistic accuracy, as seen in the style guide of Portuguese newspaper Público:

Condicional — É um tempo verbal a usar com parcimónia, pois foge à precisão desejável

num texto jornalístico. Eis um mau exemplo: De acordo com uma informação divulgada

na Rádio Macau, teria sido o Governo de Lisboa que teria montado uma manobra de

informação para divulgar as acusações de que Carlos Melancia teria recebido 50 mil

contos. (...) [Carlos Melancia] negou a autenticidade da carta, cuja assinatura seria

falsa, e também que ela tivesse dado entrada (...).

(bolding mine)

As in French, the style guide of the Portuguese newspaper Público claims that the conditional

evades accuracy. It gives a “bad example” of the use of the conditional, wherein the construction

is used three times in one sentence. It appears that, like in French, the press conditional in

Portuguese may represent a content violation rather than a rhetorical violation. There is no

mention of the fact that the press conditional may be ungrammatical in Portuguese. It is clearly

the belief that the press conditional in Spanish is an ungrammatical foreign borrowing that

increases prescriptive pressure in that language relative to others.

In order to gain more insight into the press conditional, it is therefore necessary to

understand it doubly as a linguistic construction but also as a feature of a particular kind of

discourse whose particular aims condition its use. The Spanish case is especially compelling

because news discourse disfavors borrowing due to the importance it places on prescriptive

usage. In her work on borrowing through translation between English and French, McLaughlin

(2011) describes prescription in the journalistic context as a sufficient obstacle to borrowing:

If the nature and structure of the global news industry means that news translation has the

potential to be a cross-linguistic cause of change, it is also useful to consider what the

linguistic outcomes of such influence would be. The findings presented here indicate very

clearly that news translation is unlikely to lead directly either to global borrowing or to

selective borrowing of the formal type. This restriction can also be attributed to the nature

of the news industry in general because it results from the requirement that non-standard

usage be avoided (110).

McLaughlin (2011) cites Cotter’s (2010: 187) observation that news language tends to conform

to prescriptive guidelines, which may in many instances prevent borrowing from occurring in the

news genre. However, Cotter (2010: 211) also notes that prescription exists in tension with

Although the description used in French is précis, the best translation appears to be accuracy here, rather than

precision. In English, Cotter (2010: 137) distinguishes between both precision and accuracy: language is precise

while facts are accurate. However, she describes accuracy as a professional goal in journalism while precision is a

more general term. Furthermore, per Cotter (2010: 195), “precision safeguards accuracy.” The language in the Le

Monde regarding the word “précis” would appear to encompass both.

Publico, ed. 1998. “Verbos.” Público: Livro Do Estilo. 1998. http://static.publico.pt/nos/livro_estilo/index.html.

communicative need in news language, or what she calls a competition between the “prescriptive

imperative” and the “pragmatic alternative.” Prescriptive rules may sometimes be overridden to

suit the journalist’s needs. This would suggest that the press conditional has been—be it

borrowed or not—useful to Spanish-speaking journalists in practice.

For these reasons, the press conditional should prove ripe for a comparative investigation

between Spanish and French. Not only is French the potential donor of the press conditional in

Spanish, the recognition and acceptance of the press conditional in French is nearly the diametric

opposite of what is seen in Spanish. Furthermore, the study does not have to be limited to

linguistic comparisons (as in Kronning (2016), Vatrican (2010), Fouilloux (2006), Azzopardi

(2011)). Rather, I would argue it is worth investigating the press conditional from the perspective

of its press context in order to develop a deeper understanding of the construction as a linguistic

resource in journalism and how it violates (or does not violate) the journalistic ideal of accuracy.

Such an investigation should allow for an understanding of how the press conditional has proven

itself useful to Spanish journalism and give insight into the ways in which the press conditional’s

use diverges and converges across French and Spanish.

1.2 Form and Values of the Conditional in French and Spanish

The conditional forms of French and Spanish, as well as other Romance languages are

derived from a Latin verbal periphrasis combining an infinitive with the auxiliary verb HABERE

‘to have’ conjugated in the imperfect (Maiden 2011: 264-65). It was by this same process that

the Romance synthetic future forms were generated from HABERE conjugated in the present

tense (Maiden 2011: 264-65), which explains the formal similarity between the two tenses in

their eventual Romance outcomes. Maiden (2011: 265) illustrates this evolution using the verbs

VENIRE ‘to come’ and VALERE ‘to be worth,’ which yielded Fr. venir and valoir and Sp. venir

and valer. His examples are replicated in (7):

(7)

Spanish French

INF ualere ‘be worth’ > *vaˈlere valer valoir

FUT ualere + habet > *valeˈra valdrá vaudra

COND ualere + habebat > *valeˈreβa valdría vaudrait

INF uenire ‘to come’ > *veˈnire venir venir

FUT uenire + habet > *veniˈra vendrá viendra

COND uenire + habebat > *veniˈreβa vendría viendrait

Although it is not clearly illustrated by the verbs chosen by Maiden (2011), the infinitive form

often mirrors the future and conditional stem, and more often than not can be used to predict the

stem of the future and conditional tenses.

Although the tense is called the conditional, it was originally—and still is—a future-in-

the-past form. Its name derives from the fact that this new Romance form would eventually

largely supplant the Latin subjunctive in conditional phrases (Harris 1986).

At one point in time,

“The name ‘conditional’ is apt only insofar as it describes one common use of the form, viz. the expression of the

idea that an event is dependent on some other factor…” (Butt and Benjamin 1994: 219)

the conditional was so associated with its hypothetical uses that it was often classified as a

separate mood alongside the indicative and subjunctive. The classification appears incorrect, and

it is generally considered a tense with modal uses today (Vatrican 2014: 247). Abouda (1997)

provides a syntactic argument for the conditional’s categorization within the indicative paradigm,

on the basis that it is semantics and pragmatics, not syntax, that determine the use of the

conditional over other forms of the indicative. A choice between the conditional and another

indicative tense is, at its core, no different than the choice between a past and present tense.

Conversely, the subjunctive and indicative are not in syntactic free variation. Abouda (1997)

observes:

Or, comme l’on a vu tout au long de cet inventaire, nulle part le conditionnel n’est

syntaxiquement obligatoire ; il est simplement toujours possible. Sachant, d’autre part,

qu’il s’emploie dans les mêmes structures syntaxiques que l’indicatif, l’on dira que le

conditionnel n’est pas un mode : il s’agirait d’un temps de l’indicatif… (194).

Therefore, despite the conditional’s name and immediate associations, it is a tense like the future

or present tenses. The press conditional constitutes one of its modal uses.

1.2.1 The Forms of the Conditional in French and Spanish

In standard French and Spanish, the conditional tense has two forms: the present

conditional and the past conditional.

In each language, the past forms consist of a combination

of an auxiliary and past participle. The names conditionnel présent ‘present conditional’ and

conditionnel passé ‘past conditional’ are usual in French, while in Spanish, the present and past

conditional forms are often called the condicional simple ‘simple conditional’ and the

condicional compuesto ‘compound conditional.’ I will employ the terms present conditional and

past conditional as does Foullioux (2006) to refer to the two forms of the conditional in both

languages. I will introduce the forms of the French conditional in §1.2.1.1 and §1.2.1.2 and those

of Spanish in §1.2.1.3 and §1.2.1.4.

1.2.1.1 The Present Conditional in French

Morphologically, the present conditional in French is composed of three parts: a stem, the

morpheme –r-, and final person markers (Riegel, Pellat and Rioul 1994: 445). The stem of the

conditional is always the same as that of the future. The person markers are syncretic with those

of the imperfect indicative. Forms of the present conditional are shown in Table 1.1, using

regular verb parler ‘to speak’ and irregular verbs être ‘to be’ and avoir ‘to have’:

A third conditional form, constructed with two auxiliaries, is not unknown in French: il aurait eu chanté ‘he

[would have had sung]’. This conditional is called the conditionnel surcomposé and is one of the 7 double-

compound forms attested in the history of French. These forms are sufficiently infrequent that they might not be

recognized by speakers (Riegel, Pellat and Rioul 1994: 252).

TABLE 1.1 FORMS OF THE FRENCH PRESENT CONDITIONAL

parler ‘to speak’

GRAPHIC

MORPHOLOGICAL

PHONOLOGICAL

ENGLISH GLOSS

je parlerais

je parle-r-ais

paʁ.ləˈʁɛ

‘I would speak’

tu parlerais

tu parle-r-ais

paʁ.ləˈʁɛ

‘You would speak’

on parlerait

on parle-r-ait

paʁ.ləˈʁɛ

‘One would speak’

nous parlerions

nous parle-r-ions

paʁ.ləˈʁjɔ

‘We would speak’

vous parleriez

vous parle-r-iez

paʁ.ləˈʁje

‘You would speak’

ils parleraient

ils parle-r-aient

paʁ.ləˈʁɛ

‘They would speak’

avoir ‘to have’

GRAPHIC

MORPHOLOGICAL

PHONOLOGICAL

ENGLISH GLOSS

j’aurais

je au-r-ais

ɔˈʁɛ

‘I would have’

tu aurais

tu au-r-ais

ɔˈʁɛ

‘You would have’

on aurait

on au-r-ait

ɔˈʁɛ

‘One would have’

nous aurions

nous au-r-ions

ɔˈʁjɔ

‘We would have’

vous auriez

vous au-r-iez

ɔˈʁje

‘You would have’

ils auraient

ils au-r-aient

ɔˈʁɛ

‘They would have’

être ‘to be’

GRAPHIC

MORPHOLOGICAL

PHONOLOGICAL

ENGLISH GLOSS

je serais

je se-r-ais

səˈʁɛ

‘I would be’

tu serais

tu se-r-ais

səˈʁɛ

‘You would be’

on serait

on se-r-ait

səˈʁɛ

‘One would be’

nous serions

nous se-r-ions

səˈʁjɔ

‘We would be’

vous seriez

vous se-r-iez

səˈʁje

‘You would be’

ils seraient

ils se-r-aient

səˈʁɛ

‘They would be’

The regular verb parler ‘to speak’ in Table 1.1 illustrates the identical nature of the infinitive and

stem of the conditional. Irregular verbs avoir ‘to have’ and être ‘to be’ show conditional forms

with irregular stems, which in this case for être is ser– and for avoir is aur–. The person markers

are identical for all verbs.

1.2.1.2 The Past Conditional in French

The past conditional is one of the seven compound French tenses, consisting of one of the

auxiliary verbs avoir or être conjugated in the conditional (whose forms are outlined in Table

1.1) and a past participle. Per the rules of French auxiliary selection, avoir is used for most verbs,

while être is used obligatorily with all reflexive verbs and certain number of intransitive verbs. A

few intransitives may take either auxiliary (Riegel, Pellat and Rioul 1994: 252). These

possibilities are shown in (8), (9), (10) and (11):

(8) parler ‘to speak’ (avoir w/ transitives)

Vous auriez parlé

‘You would have spoken’

(9) se préparer ‘to prepare’ (aux. être w/ reflexives)

Vous vous seriez preparé(e)(s)

‘You would have prepared each other’

(10) arriver ‘to arrive’ (aux. être obligatory w/ certain intransitives)

Vous seriez arrivé(e)(s)

‘You would have arrived’

(11) disparaître ‘to disappear’ (avoir or être possible w/ certain intransitives)

Vous auriez disparu // Vous seriez disparu(e)(s)

‘You would have disappeared’

Since the French past participle must agree with a preceding direct object, all possible

combinations of gender and number agreement can be seen in (9), depending on whether vous

‘you’ is used in the singular or plural and to address a male or female addressee. When être is the

auxiliary agreement with the subject is obligatory as in (10) and in the alternate conjugation of

disparaître using être in (11).

1.2.1.3 The Present Conditional in Spanish

The Manual de la nueva gramática (RAE 2010: 50) describes the Spanish verb as

composed of four morphological segments: its root, its thematic vowel (-a-, -i-, -e- or Ø), a

temporal marker, and the appropriate person ending. The present conditional is marked by the

temporal marker –ría- (RAE 2010: 52). The conditional form of the regular verbs amar, partir,

temer and the irregular auxiliary verb haber, which loses its thematic vowel, are shown in Table

1.2:

TABLE 1.2 FORMS OF THE FRENCH PRESENT CONDITIONAL

amar ‘to love’

GRAPHIC

MORPHOLOGICAL

PHONOLOGICAL

ENGLISH GLOSS

amaría

am-a-ría-Ø

a.maˈri.a

‘I would love’

amarías

am-a-ría-s

a.maˈrias

‘You would love’

amaría

am-a-ría-Ø

a.maˈria

‘S•he would love’

amaríamos

am-a-ría-mos

a.maˈriamos

‘We would love’

amaríais

am-a-ría-is

a.maˈri.ajs

‘You would love’

amarían

am-a-ría-n

a.maˈri.an

‘They would love’

salir ‘to leave’

GRAPHIC

MORPHOLOGICAL

PHONOLOGICAL

ENGLISH GLOSS

saldría

sald-Ø-ría-Ø

salˈdri.a

‘I would leave’

saldrías

sald-Ø-ría-s

salˈdri.as

‘You would leave’

saldría

sald-Ø-ría-Ø

salˈdri.a

‘S•he would leave’

saldríamos

sald-Ø-ría-mos

salˈdri.a.mos

‘We would leave’

saldríais

sald-Ø-ría-is

salˈdri.ajs

‘You would leave’

saldrían

sald-Ø-ría-n

salˈdri.an

‘They would leave’

The use of null morphemes has been controversial, but current consensus accepts their use (RAE 2010: 50).

TABLE 1.2: (continued)

hacer ‘to do’

GRAPHIC

MORPHOLOGICAL

PHONOLOGICAL

ENGLISH GLOSS

haría

ha-Ø-ría-Ø

aˈri.a

‘I would do’

harías

ha-Ø-ría-s

aˈri.as

‘You would do’

haría

ha-Ø-ría-Ø

aˈri.a

‘S•he would do’

haríamos

ha-Ø-ría-mos

aˈri.a.mos

‘We would do’

haríais

ha-Ø-ría-is

aˈri.ajs

‘You would do’

harían

ha-Ø-ría-n

aˈri.an

‘They would do’

haber ‘have’ - AUX

GRAPHIC

MORPHOLOGICAL

PHONOLOGICAL

ENGLISH GLOSS

habría

hab-Ø-ría-Ø

aˈbri.a

‘I would have…’

habrías

hab-Ø-ría-s

aˈbri.as

‘You would have…’

habría

hab-Ø-ría-Ø

aˈbri.a

‘S•he would have…’

habríamos

hab-Ø-ría-mos

aˈbri.a.mos

‘We would have…’

habríais

hab-Ø-ría-is

aˈbri.ajs

‘You would have…’

habrían

hab-Ø-ría-n

aˈbri.an

‘They would have…’

As in French, the infinitive is often a reliable guide to the formation of the conditional of regular

verbs in Spanish. Irregular verbs, as in the case of haber, may lose their thematic vowel (querer

‘to want’ > querría ‘I would want’). Some may lose the thematic vowel and undergo the

insertion of an epenthetic ‘d’ (salir > saldría) or have irregular stems (hacer ‘to do’> haría ‘I

would do’) (RAE 2010: 63).

1.2.1.4 The Past Conditional in Spanish

Unlike in French, which has maintained auxiliary selection between avoir ‘HAVE’ and

être ‘BE’ in its compound tenses, the Spanish past conditional is formed invariably by

combining the auxiliary haber ‘HAVE’ (whose forms are outline in Table 1.2) in the present

conditional with a past participle. The verbs amar, salir and hacer from Table 1.2 are illustrated

in (12), (13) and (14):

(12) amar ‘to love’

habrían amado

‘They would have loved’

(13) salir ‘to leave’

habrían salido

‘They would have loved’

(14) hacer ‘to do’

habrían hecho

‘They would have done’

The Spanish past participle remains invariable in Spanish, having lost the feature after the

medieval period (Arias and Quaglia 2002: 518).

1.2.2 Values of the Conditional in French and Spanish

Fouilloux (2006) undertakes a comparative study of the uses of the French and Spanish

conditional. She identifies four uses common to the two languages: the temporal conditional, the

hypothetical conditional, the attenuating conditional and the press conditional. She also notes

that Spanish has a conjectural use of the conditional that is not found in French and requires

translation by the French modal verb devoir ‘must’ (Fouilloux 2006: 65). In the latter case, the

conditional covers what Cornillie (2009: 50) labels as circumstantial inferentials or conjectures,

the latter involving some direct visual evidence and the former pure reasoning on the part of the

speaker. However, scholars have identified an inferential use of the French conditional found in

interrogative forms.

Furthermore, it appears that many descriptions of Spanish omit an

inferential use of the conditional that appears to be a feature of scientific texts and that differs

from the conjectural use routinely inventoried in reference grammars and the academic literature.

1.2.2.1 The Temporal Conditional in French and Spanish

The temporal conditional in French represents the use of the conditional to mark the

future-in-the-past, meaning that the event will take place in the future relative to a moment in the

past. Riegel, Pellat and Rioul (1994: 317) provide the examples seen in (15) and (16):

(15) Virginie pensait que Paul viendrait

‘Virginie thought that Paul would come’

(16) Elle affirmait qu’elle serait rentrée à midi.

‘She affirmed that she would have returned home at noon.’

The difference between the present and past conditional in the context of (15) and (16) is

aspectual. The action in (16) is seen as having been completed after the moment of elle affirmait

but before noon. In (15), Paul’s coming is in the future with respect to Virginie’s thoughts

concerning this event.

As in French, the conditional in Spanish also has a future-in-the-past function. Both the

present and past conditional have this function, as seen in (17) and (18):

(17) Me dijo que vendría

‘S•he told me that s•he would come’

(RAE 2010: 451)

(18) Afirmaron que cuando llegara el invierno habrían recogido la cosecha’

‘They affirmed that when winter came they would have gathered the harvest’

(RAE 2010: 453)

See Dendale (2010) for a thorough description.

As in French, there is an aspectual difference between the two conditional forms. The action in

(18) is viewed as completed by a certain reference point situated in the future, whereas the

example in (17) is simply said to occur at a time after the locutor produced the utterance.

1.2.2.2 The Hypothetical Conditional in French and Spanish

The conditional is used in French to represent the hypothetical result of a condition. This

is the usage from which the tense derives its name. Prototypical hypothetical utterances featuring

the conditional in French are marked by the word si ‘if’ in a subordinate clause and a present or

past conditional in the main clause as seen in (19). Other constructions also exist to mark the

necessary conditionals in such utterances, as in the example seen in (20), whose subordinate

clause begins with quand ‘when,’ which has a meaning akin to ‘even if’ in this context:

(19) Ah! Si vous vouliez devenir mon élève, je vous ferais arriver à tout

‘Ah! If you wanted to become my student, I would put all within your grasp.’

(Riegel, Pellat and Rioul 1994: 318)

(20) Quand tous mes rêves se seraient tournés en réalités, ils ne m’auraient pas suffi

j’aurais imaginé, rêvé, désiré encore

‘Even if all my dreams had come true, they would not have been enough: I would

have imagined, dreamed and desired still’

(Riegel, Pellat and Rioul 1994: 319)

Temporally speaking, the present conditional is used to make present or future hypotheses, while

the past conditional is used for hypotheses about the past. If the condition is set in the present or

future, the imperfect indicative is used after si as in vouliez in (19). If the condition is set in the

past, French uses the pluperfect indicative after si as in (20), which could be recast as si tous mes

rêves s’étaient tournés en réalités ‘if my dreams had come true.’ It is possible to replace the

pluperfect and past conditional forms of French si-phrases with the pluperfect subjunctive,

allowing for (20) to be reformulated as Si mes rêves se fussent tournés…, ils ne m’eussent pas

suffi…This is found, however, only in historical or formal—usually written—language (Riegel,

Pellat and Rioul 1994: 329).

In Spanish, the conditional is used after subordinate clauses introduced by si ‘if’ which

contain the imperfect or pluperfect subjunctive. Examples are shown in (21) and (22):

(21) Esto quiere decir que si usted realizase seis viajes con estas 15.000 ptas ahorraría

mas de 4.000 ptas

‘This means that if you made six journeys with these 15,000 ptas, you would save

more than 4,000 ptas’

(Butt and Benjamin 1994: 337)

(22) Si él hubiera tenido dinero, habría saldado la cuenta

‘If he had had money, he would have settled the bill’

(Butt and Benjamin 1994: 337)

As in French, the present conditional implies a present or future outcome if the condition were to

be met, as in (21), while the past conditional situates the outcome the past as in (22). In Spanish,

as in French, the pluperfect subjunctive in -ra may replace the past conditional in examples like

(22), yielding Si él hubiera/hubiese tenido, hubiera saldado la cuenta.

Unlike in French, such

usage is not confined to formal language (Butt and Benjamin 1994: 294). The two appear to be in

free variation (RAE 2010: 453).

1.2.2.3 The Attenuating Conditional in French and Spanish

The conditional can be used to soften a request in French. Examples can be seen in (23)

and (24):

(23) Je voudrais raconter le president

‘I would like to meet the president’

(Riegel, Pellat and Rioul 1994: 319)

(24) J’aurais voulu rencontrer le president

‘I would like to meet the president’

‘I [would like to have met] the president’

(Riegel, Pellat and Rioul 1994: 319)

Unlike the hypothetical and temporal conditionals, the example in (24) does not have a direct

translation in English and its linguistic gloss is in brackets. The only difference between (23) and

(24), other than their form, is their level of politeness. By rhetorically situating the request in the

‘past,’ the requester is creating further distance between them and the demand made, thereby

increasing politeness (Riegel, Pellat and Rioul 1994: 319).

The conditional is also used for courteous requests in Spanish. Examples are given in

(25) and (26):

(25) Convendría salir pronto.

‘It would be good to leave soon’

(RAE 2010: 452)

(26) Habría querido hablar con usted un momentito

‘I would like to speak with you for a moment’

‘I [would like to have spoken] with you for a moment’

(RAE 2010: 453)

The imperfect subjunctive, and, reflexively, the pluperfect subjunctive, have two forms in Spanish, one set ending

in -se descended from the Latin imperfect subjunctive and one set ending in -ra descended from the Latin pluperfect.

In cases where a proper subjunctive is called for, the two forms are interchangeable. Prescription holds that in “good

Spanish,” only the -ra form can replace indicative forms (i.e., the past conditional and—infrequently—the

pluperfect indicative) (Butt and Benjamin 1994: 294).

The RAE (2010: 453) notes that the example in (26) is more common in Latin-American Spanish

than in Spain and that (as in French) the use of the past conditional does not make for a temporal

difference in instances of request. Again, the effect is one of greater distance and politeness.

1.2.2.4 The Press Conditional in French

Riegel, Pellat and Rioul (1994: 320) call the press conditional le conditionnel de

l’information incertaine ‘the conditional of uncertain information’. It is used to report

information that is not verified or whose content the speaker cannot vouch for (Riegel, Pellat and

Rioul 1994:320). The present conditional can describe the present or future, while the past

conditional situates an event in the past (Riegel, Pellat and Rioul 1994: 320). Examples are given

in (27), (28) and (29):

(27) Une navette spatiale partirait bientôt pour Mars

‘[Allegedly] a space rocket will leave soon for Mars’

‘A space rocket [would leave] soon for Mars’

(Riegel, Pellat and Rioul 1994: 320)

(28) D’après un article qui vient de paraitre dans la revue “Postgraduate Medical

Journal” la nicotine serait le meilleur agent protecteur contre la colite

‘According to an article that recently appeared in the journal “Postgraduate

Medical Journal” nicotine is [allegedly] the best protective agent against colitis’

‘According to an article that recently appeared in the journal “Postgraduate

Medical Journal” nicotine [would be] the best protective agent against colitis’

(Haillet 2002: 81)

(29) Un chercheur français aurait découvert un traitement miracle du cancer

‘[Allegedly] a French researcher has discovered a miracle cure for cancer’

‘A French researcher [would have discovered] a miracle cure for cancer’

(Riegel, Pellat and Rioul 1994: 320)

This use of the conditional cannot be directly translated into English and requires some other

marker such as allegedy to approximate its pragmatic effect. Direct glosses are given in the

second gloss in (28) and (29). It also should be made clear that in French the present conditional

by default yields a present reading (i.e., is simultaneous to the moment of enunciation) and can

only refer to the future if a temporal marker is present (Fouilloux 2006: 73). The adverb bientôt

‘soon’ is, therefore, necessary to achieve the prospective reading of the example in (27).

1.2.2.5 The Press Conditional in Spanish

In Spanish, the press conditional is most frequently referred to as el condicional de rumor

‘the conditional of rumor.’ The RAE (2010: 450) treats it as a variant of the conjectural

conditional. The temporal extension of the present conditional form is greater than that seen in

French. In Spanish, the present conditional can refer to present or past states. The past

conditional refers to events in the past. Examples are given in (30), (31) and (32):

(30) La nota daba a entender que el presidente estaría dispuesto a negociar

‘The note led one to understand that the president [allegedly] was open to

negotiating’

‘The note implied that the president [would be] open to negotiating’

(RAE 2010: 450)

(31) La desaparición de los etarras estaría motivada por cuestiones de seguridad

‘The disappearance of the ETA members is [allegedly] motivated for reasons of

security’

‘The disappearance of the ETA members [would be] motivated for reasons of

security’

(Butt and Benjamin 1994: 220)

(32) Un periódico daba cuenta ayer de una operación en la que habrían muerto

‘A newspaper was reporting on an operation in which they [allegedly] died’

‘A newspaper was reporting on an operation in which they [would have died]’

(RAE 2010: 453)

The use of the present conditional to refer to the past is not possible in French (Gosselin 2001:

62-63). However, in Brazilian Portuguese, the present conditional can be used with a temporality

like that of the imperfect (Oliveira 2015a: 216). This shows that instances where the Spanish

press conditional differs from French are not necessarily exceptional, at least in this instance.

The present conditional in Spanish may refer to future events whether accompanied by a

temporal marker or not, a potential instance of innovation first noted by Sarrazin (2010).

Examples are given in (33) and (34):

(33) Según la agencia EFE, el presidente saldría mañana para Londres

‘According to the EFE news agency, the president [allegedly] will leave

tomorrow for London’

‘According to news agency EFE, the president [would leave] tomorrow

for London’

(Sarrazin 2010: 109)

(34) Villa Parque San Miguel sería parte del ejido municipal de Carlos Paz

‘Villa Parque San Miguel [allegedly] will be part of the municipal lands of

Carlos Paz’

‘Villa Parque San Miguel [would be] part of the municipal lands of

Carlos Paz’

(Sarrazin 2010: 110)

If the Spanish press conditional is indeed a calque from French, then the example in (34)

represents an innovation that has occurred within Spanish, as a future time marker would be

required for the conditional to be used this way in French. While (33) could be translated directly

by sortirait demain ‘would leave tomorrow’ due to the presence of future time marker, (34)

requires a formulation such as pourrait faire partie ‘could be part’ or devrait faire partie ‘should

be part’ (Sarrazin 2010: 110).

1.2.2.6 Inferential Uses of the Conditional in French

The inferential uses of the conditional in French and Spanish merit separate discussions

due to their more extensive differences. French is often thought not to have a conjectural use of

the conditional, but one has been identified by Tasmowski (2001).

However, this use of the

conditional occurs only in the interrogative, while the press conditional is found only in

assertions (Dendale and Bourova 2013: 188; Rossari 2009: 77). Examples of this conjectural use

of the conditional in French are provided in (35) and (36):

(35) Ta femme serait-elle absente?

‘Is your wife gone?’

‘[Would] your wife [be] gone?’

(Dendale 2010: 299)

(36) Aurait-il oublié le rendez-vous?

‘Did he forget the appointment?’

‘[Would] he [have forgotten] the appointment?’

(Dendale 2010: 299)

In both (35) and (36), an answer is not sought by the speaker. Dendale (2010: 299) notes that in

each case, if one did respond to the question, an appropriate response would be something like

c’est possible ‘it’s possible’ rather than oui ‘yes’ or non ‘no.’ Dendale (2010: 296) describes the

hypotheses presented in this conditional as derived through inference.

As was said above, it is not thought that an inference can be marked by the conditional in

an assertion in French. However, Guentchéva (1994: 17-18) raises the possibility. She provides

the example seen in (37):

(37) Les résultats des examens réalisés, notamment à l'hôpital neuro-cardiologique de

Lyon, par le docteur T., neuro-cardiologue, et par le professeur V., toxicologue,

font état de la présence dans le sang, où le taux d'alcoolémie atteignait 1,8

gramme, d'opiacés, de la morphine en particulier. La cause de la mort serait ainsi

une crise cardiaque déclenchée dans un contexte de prise d'opiacés par voie

buccale qui ne semble pas devoir être assimilée à une « surdose ». Ces

constatations des experts donnent heure à l'ouverture d'une instruction pour

infraction à la législation sur les stupéfiants qui va tenter de retrouver le

fournisseur d'éventuels produits prohibés.

‘The results of the examinations carried out, notably at the neuro-cardiological

hospital of Lyons, by Doctor T., neuro-cardiologist, et by Professor V.,

toxicologist, confirms the presence of opiates, [and] of morphine in particular in

the blood, where the rate of blood alcohol reaches 1.8 grams. The cause of death

[would be] therefore a heart attack triggered in the context of oral opioid

Previously, scholars had treated it as equivalent to the press conditional (Dendale and Bourova 2013: 186-88).

consumption which appears not to necessarily reach the level of an “overdose.”

These expert findings provide the justification for the opening of an investigation

for violation of the law regarding narcotics which will attempt to find the ultimate

provider of banned substances.’

If this conditional is indeed inferential in nature, it is the journalist who is drawing a connection

between the toxicology report and earlier reports that the man had died of a heart attack.

1.2.2.7 Inferential Uses of the Conditional in Spanish

The Spanish conditional can mark inferences in two ways. The first is routinely described

in grammars and is known as el condicional de conjetura ‘the conjectural conditional.’ This use

of the conditional marks inferences about the past. In such cases, the present conditional can be

glossed by imperfect indicative and the past conditional by the pluperfect indicative and an

adverb like probablemente ‘probably’ (RAE 2010: 450). Examples are given in (38) and (39):

(38) Serían las diez

‘It was probably 10 o’clock’

‘It [would be] 10 o’clock’

(RAE 2010: 450)

(39) Ojalá Lucrecia no fallara al otro día, pensó, habría tenido algún contratiempo

‘If only Lucrecia had come through the other day, she must have had some

mishap’

‘If only Lucrecia had come through the other day, she [would have had] some

mishap’

(RAE 2010: 453)

As is seen in (38), the present conditional refers to a moment prior to the moment of enunciation,

while in (39) the conditional refers to a past action prior to another moment in the past.

The second inferential use of the conditional in Spanish can be found in scientific articles

wherein the conditional reflects inferences based on evidence and reasoning. Examples of this

use of the conditional can be seen in (40), (41) and (42):

(40) Como los dientes aquí descriptos no presentan diferencias morfológicas

significativas con los dientes del Aucasaurus, esto sugeriría que los restos de

titanosaurios podrían haber sufrido alguna forma de acción atrófica por parte de

un terópodo abelisaurio u otro terópodo con una morfología dental convergente

con estos.

‘As the teeth here described do not present any significant morphological

differences with the teeth of Aucasaurus, this [would suggest] that the remains of

the titanosaurus [could have suffered] some form of atrophic action on the part

of the abelisaur therapod or another therapod with a dental morphology

convergent with those.’

(Ferrari 2009: 13)

(41) Por otro lado, se observa una escasa participación de los trabajadores informáticos

en redes virtuales e institucionales, siendo que este tipo de vinculaciones podría

generar competencias que complementaran las calificaciones obtenidas en el

sistema de educación formal.

‘On the other hand, one observes a low participation of software workers in

virtual and institutional networks, despite the fact that these connections [could

generate] new skills that would supplement the qualifications obtained in the

formal education system.’

(Stagnaro 2015: 77)

(42) En consecuencia, el régimen de movilidad predominante, de exclusión, habría

limitado la difusión de conocimientos derivada de las migraciones de los

trabajadores en el tejido productivo

‘Consequently, the predominating mobility type, by exclusion, [would have

limited] the diffusion of knowledge derived from migrations of the workers in the

productive fabric’

(Stagnaro 2015: 83)

In (40) and (41), the present conditional has both present and prospective readings. The past

conditional in (42) situates the deduction prior to the moment of enunciation.

Furthermore, the moment of the access to the information underlying the inferences in

(38) and (39) differs from that of (40), (41) and (42). The conditional represented in (38) and

(39) is an inference about the past on the basis of evidence that was priorly directly accessible to

the speaker. In (40), (41) and (42), the inference is based in reasoning and indirect evidence

available in the present moment. Although most Spanish grammars discuss only the use of the

conditional for the kinds of inferences seen in (38) and (39), (40), (41) and (42) show that there

is a second type that is readily found in scientific discourse. One can also see that the two are

distinguished by their temporality, as illustrated by their glosses. The indicative equivalent for

serían in (38) is eran (‘was’ - imperfect) and habían tenido (‘had had’ – pluperfect) for habría

tenido in (39). Both forms of the conjectural conditional bear on the past. However, the present

conditional sugeriría in (40) should be glossed with ‘sugiere’ (‘suggests’ – present indicative)

and the past conditional habría limitado in (42) should be glossed by limitó (‘limited’ –

preterite). With respect to their temporality, (40), (41) and (42) are identical to the press

conditional.

On its surface, the inferential conditional is, therefore, indistinguishable from the press

conditional. García Negroni (2016: 10) presents an example of the two conditionals alongside

each other. The conditional in the headline represents an inference while the lede paragraph

shows one press conditional that marks reported information. These are shown in (43):

(43) 1. HEADLINE: Nisman habría pensado en pedir la detención de Cristina

‘Nisman [would have considered] ordering Cristina’s detention.’

2. LEDE PARAGRAPH: La denuncia del fiscal por encubrimiento a favor de los

iraníes. En el tacho de basura de su departamento se habría encontrado una

versión original que contiene esa medida. La final tiene tachaduras.

‘The prosecution’s allegation of a cover-up on behalf of the Iranians. In the trash

bin of his apartment an original version [would have been found] that includes

this measure. The final one contains mark-up.’

3. BODY: En las declaraciones que hizo a los medios para explicar el contenido y

el alcance de su acusación contra el Poder Ejecutivo, Nisman no hizo alusión a un

pedido de desafuero y de detención contra la Presidenta y el canciller. Pero en su

casa se encontraron pruebas que indican que pensó hacerlo, tanto que lo escribió.

‘In the declarations he made to the media to explain the content and reach of the

accusations against the Executive, Nisman made no reference to a request for

impeachment and detention against the President and the minister. But evidence

was found in his house that indicates he considered doing so, insofar as he

drafted it.’

(García Negroni 2016: 10)

García Negroni (2016: 10) demonstrates that the conditional of the headline seen in (43-1) is

inferential in nature, on the indication of evidence found in Nisman’s apartment, while the

conditional in (43-2) reports information the journalist has learned through another source: the

fact that a version of a penal report was found. García Negroni’s (2016) example makes it clear

that co-text and context are necessary to distinguish between a press or inferential conditional in

Spanish.

This would appear to be the case in French as well, if Guentchéva (1994: 17-18) is

correct in suggesting that the press conditional in French might be, in certain instances,

inferential.

1.2.3 Conclusion

As has been outlined in §1.2.2, the French and Spanish conditional are equivalent in their

temporal, hypothetical and attenuating uses. While their conditionals can also both be used to

report uncertain information, the temporal values of the present conditional differ, with the

Spanish present conditional showing a greater temporal scope. The conditional can also be used

in the two languages with an inferential meaning, although this is thought to be limited to

interrogative utterances in French. In Spanish, it is further necessary to distinguish between two

types of inferences that may be marked by the conditional. These two inferential uses of the

conditional are distinguished by the temporality of the present and past conditional forms. In the

case of inferences made on presently available evidence, the inferential conditional is identical in

While it appears difficult to find sources that distinguish the inferential and press conditional seen in (43), the

UN’s Spanish translation website also remarks on the ambiguity of the conditional:

“Un agregado nuestro: conviene releer la traducción y asegurarse de que el contexto (no el original) deje

claro que el condicional es de rumor y no un condicional “propiamente dicho. Si digo: “La limitación de

esta libertad impediría…” en un informe, no se sabe si estoy especulando con esa posibilidad o si me

hago eco de los rumores de que lo que temo ya está ocurriendo.”

—United Nations. n.d. “Condicional de rumor: gramaticalmente aceptable (RAE, Departamento de ‘Español al

día’).” Servicio de traducción al español (blog). https://onutraduccion.wordpress.com/pref/entradas/

form to the press conditional. It is, therefore, necessary to use context and co-text in order to

distinguish between them.

1.3 The Press Conditional in French and Spanish

The conditional as a marker of potentially untrue information is sufficiently engrained in

French such that one way of saying that information is uncertain is to say it is au conditionnel ‘in

the conditional,’ even if the speaker has not actually used the conditional. Riegel, Pellat and

Rioul (1994: 320) even cite this phrase in their description of the press conditional, indicating the

high-level of awareness that French speakers have of the construction. Despite the close

association with the press, they also note that the press conditional is found in the oral code. The

press conditional, while associated with journalistic language, can be found outside it as well.

Conversely, the press conditional is often treated as a marginal feature of Spanish, found only in

journalistic writing. Butt and Benjamin (1994: 220) describe the conditional as restricted to

“some styles, especially journalism” and as being more frequent in Latin-American varieties.

Although those authors do not indicate what those other styles are, (Kronning 2016: 122-24)

observes that the press conditional is also a feature of Spanish scientific and historical discourse,

as it is in French and Italian.

Among linguists, the French press conditional is well studied. The watershed moment in

the academic literature appears to have been Dendale’s (1993) article that argued that the press

conditional was defined by its marking of reported information, meaning it had a fundamentally

evidential nature. At the time, the application of evidentiality to French was novel, and it appears

that Dendale’s (1993) theorizing helped spur in French what has become a long, ongoing debate

over the nature of the press conditional.

As of 2015, the press conditional was the most widely

studied of the French conditional’s uses (Van de Weerd and Dendale 2017: 94). I would argue

that the construction’s uniqueness combined with speaker awareness has helped it achieve this

status, alongside the fact that the press conditional lends itself to study under various theoretical

perspectives (e.g., evidentiality, epistemic modality, enunciation theory, etc.).

In Spanish, the press conditional has received less attention from linguists, likely

reflecting the impression that it is an infrequent feature of journalistic language and of foreign

provenance. Earlier studies, such as Fouilloux (2006) and Vatrican (2010) treat the Spanish press

conditional as entirely equivalent to its French counterpart and build on Haillet’s (2002) work on

the conditional in French. Similarly, in a comparative study of the French, Spanish and Italian

press conditional, Kronning (2016) treats the Spanish conditional as equivalent to its other

Romance counterparts. The conditional in Spanish may, in fact, require more careful attention.

Recently, Bermúdez (2016) has distinguished between two conditionals in Spanish that mark

information attributed to an external source. One is the press conditional, which Bermúdez

(2016: 48-50) calls the condicional períodistico ‘journalistic conditional,’ which marks thirdhand

information in Spanish and is—in his view—possibly borrowed from French. The other, which

he calls the condicional científico ‘scientific conditional,’ marks a kind of inferred elaboration on

secondhand information (Bermúdez 2016: 57). According to Bermúdez (2016: 57-60), this

second conditional developed internally from the hypothetical conditional in Spanish and is

related to the conditional used for inferences (seen in (40 – 42). This distinction has not been

addressed in other Romance languages.

Dendale (1994: 6) described studies of evidentiality in French at the time as “peu nombreuses.”

In short, the story of the press conditional in French and Spanish is asymmetric both in its

range of use, its acceptability, its level of speaker awareness, as well as in the attention it has

received from scholars. In fact, much of the attention that the Spanish press conditional has

received (outside of prescriptive condemnation) has come from French scholars who have used

French as a point of comparison. As I enter into an overview of the earlier literature on the press

conditional in the two languages in §1.3.1 and §1.3.2, it should be remembered that this

asymmetry will unavoidably be reflected here as well. This investigation hopes to help rectify

this issue.

1.3.1 Previous Literature on the Press Conditional in French

To the extent that descriptive grammars may reflect speakers’ awareness of a language’s

grammatical features, Dendale and Coltier (2012) describe the recognition of the press

conditional in French as “slow.”

Prior to the 19

century, Dendale and Coltier (2012: 637) find

only one mention of what we would call the press conditional in a French grammar. This

example comes from Maupas’ 1607 grammar and is replicated in (44):

(44) Le demandeur dit et remostre qu’il auroit plusieurs fois demandé audit

deffendeur payement de ses peines & vacations, dont il n’auroit tenu compte, &

n’ayant sçeu en tirer raison, auroit esté contraint le faire conuenir pardeuant

vous, où auroit esté tant procedé que, &c.

‘The plaintiff says and demonstrates that he [would have asked] several times for

payment from the defendant for his pains and legal fees, which he [would not

have accounted for], and not having been able to seek amends, [would have

been forced] to make him appear before you, where so much [would have been]

adjudicated that, etc.…’

(Dendale and Coltier 2012: 637)

Maupas recognizes that this conditional is equivalent to the passé composé and is associated with

the language of legal proceedings (Dendale and Coltier 2012: 637). After this one example from

the cusp of Middle and Classical French, Dendale and Coltier (2012: 642) find no mention of the

press conditional in any French grammar until the 19

century. They cite an example they

describe as “modern” in a grammar from 1882 (45):

(45) D’après les dernières nouvelles, l’insurrection serait étouffée

‘According to the latest news, the insurrection [would be quashed]’

(Dendale and Coltier 2012: 642)

I would agree that (45) is indistinguishable from any example of the press conditional that might

be found in a newspaper today. It seems, however, that the explicit link between journalism and

the press conditional does not come until the mid-20

century, as observed by Bres (2012):

The title of Dendale and Coltier’s (2012) study is “La lente reconnaissance du ‘conditionnel de reprise’ par les

grammaires du français” or “The slow recognition of the conditional of reprise in French grammars.”

À partir des années soixante, les grammaires mentionneront quasi systématiquement cet

usage, le plus souvent parmi les valeurs modales du cond., en l’illustrant régulièrement

par des exemples journalistiques (16).

In fact, in textbooks destined for foreign learners of French, the press conditional is often

presented as a feature of journalistic discourse, although it is not limited to that domain.

Although grammars were late to recognize the press conditional, the construction has had

a very long history. Its first attested uses occur in legal texts, the earliest of which predates

Maupas’ example by 100 years. Van de Weerd (2018: 80) has identified the earliest known

attestation of the press conditional—barring any further discoveries—in a text dated February

26, 1507. The attestation is replicated in (46):

(46) Et le samedi XVII jour d’octobre derrenier passé, ledit Mathry Chasles auroit

baillez et transportez par eschange lesdits maison et jardin audit Pierre Heulin…

‘On the Saturday 28

day of the last past October, Mathry Chasles [would have

leased] and [transferred] through exchange the house and yard in question to

Pierre Heulin…’

(Van de Weerd 2018: 80)

Van de Weerd (2018: 80) notes that the conditional is used to record the testimony of contractual

parties or, in other instances, to reprise discourse taken from other official texts. This suggests

that the conditional was already linked to the discourse of external sources. Van de Weerd (2018)

observes, however, that these earlier uses of the conditional depart from their modern

counterparts in one very crucial way: they do not communicate uncertainty. Van de Weerd

(2018: 85) notes that in juridical documents the conditional refers to external discourse but does

not raise the question of that discourse’s truth.

The first attested instance of the press conditional in a journalistic context has been

documented by Bourova and Dendale (2013: 191) who find an example in the Gazette, in an

edition dated June 5, 1631 (47):

(47) Au lieu de s'en plaindre chacun l'interprete à son avantage. Les nostres sont tous

resiouïs du succez de Tilly & de son approche vers nous : mesme des dernieres

novuelles, quoy qu'incertaines, qu'il auroit défait des trouppes & pris deux

canons au Duc de Vimar, venu au secours d'vne ville par luy assiegée : mais sur

tout d'avoir évité le peril dont le Prince d'Orange les menaçoit

‘Instead of complaining, each person interprets it to their advantage. Ours are

gladdened by the success of Tilly and by his approach towards us: even by the

latest news, although uncertain, that he [would have defeated] troops and

[taken] two cannons from the Duc of Vimar, come to the aid of a city sieged by

him : but above all by having avoided the danger with which the Prince of

Orange was threatening them’

(Dendale and Bourova 2013: 191)

“Dans le style des journaux et de la radio, le conditionnel marque un fait douteux, annonce une nouvelle dont on

n’est pas encore sûr” – En bonne forme (Dietiker and Van Hoof 2001: 326).

The example in (47) looks familiar enough to modern speakers. Dendale and Bourova (2013:

191) note that the information reported in the newspaper is described as incertaine ‘uncertain.’

This, combined with its appearance in a reportative context, makes it not really different from

examples found in French newspapers today. Its appearance in the Gazette may suggest a longer

history for this use of the conditional in French news language. McLaughlin (2020: chap. 2)

argues that the homogeneity of the language of early French periodicals suggests that their style

had been established by their manuscript and pre-periodical forerunners. It would, therefore, be

likely that the press conditional was already in use in a news reporting context. Although no one

has drawn a clear genealogical line between the use of the conditional in legal documents in (46)

and the one used in the press seen in (47), it is possible that context, rather than the presence or

absence of a given trait, condition how the conditional was understood in each kind of text. It

may be that the nature of legal documents foregrounds what Dendale (1993) would call the

evidential trait of the conditional while journalistic texts exploit both the conditional’s marking

of reported information as well as uncertainty. Whatever the case may be, the conditional’s

double function of uncertainty and sourcing in the press has existed at least since the early 17

century, long before such an association became systematic in the 1960’s. In fact, it is the

relative importance of the traits of uncertainty and source of information—already apparent in

the press conditional in (47)—around which modern scholarly debates will revolve, beginning

with Dendale (1993).

Dendale (1993) argues that the press conditional, which he calls the conditionnel

épistémique ‘epistemic conditional,’ is primarily evidential in nature. Dendale (1993: 165-66)

outlines three traits coded by the conditional when used to relay information: i) uncertainty of the

information (the modal trait), ii) the reported nature of the information (the evidential trait) and

iii) the speaker’s lack of commitment to the veracity of the information (the alethic trait). To

illustrate the simultaneous presence of all three, he cites the example given in (48):

(48) Six appareils argentins auraient été abattus

‘Six Argentinian aircraft [would have been downed]’

(Dendale 1993: 165)

Under Dendale’s (1993) model, the speaker of the utterance in (48) marks that they do not know

for sure if six planes were downed, which represents the modal trait. Furthermore, the speaker

refuses to commit to whether or not the statement is true when they relate this information. This

is the alethic trait, which Dendale (1993: 166) equates with the notion of non-prise-en-charge.

Finally, and most crucially for Dendale (1993), the speaker knows the information in (48)

through an intermediary utterance. It is important to note that Gosselin (2001: 46) would add a

fourth trait to Dendale’s (1993) original three; specifically, he observes that information in the

conditional has the pragmatic effect of calling for the information’s eventual confirmation. This

makes it different from other means of marking uncertainty such as the adverb peut-être

‘maybe,’ which does not necessarily call for or expect future confirmation of the information it

accompanies.

While the alethic trait and modal trait can seem difficult to distinguish, it is possible to commit to the truth of

uncertain information. In the case of Dendale’s (1993: 169) example in (48), in an inferential utterance such as Six

appareils argentins ont dû être abattus ‘six Argentine aircraft must have been downed,’ the speaker is committing

to the truth of that information. However, since this information is only inferred (as marked by the use of devoir

‘must’), the information itself remains uncertain.

What is crucial for Dendale (1993: 174-75) is that the alethic and modal traits derive

from the evidential one, as reported information is naturally subject to doubt. He argues that

while the evidential trait is always present in the press conditional, the other two traits are not, as

(Dendale 1993: 170) describes them, “stable.” An example of the alethic trait’s reduced

importance can be seen when the conditional appears to commit to the falsity of the information,

as in (49):

(49) Je réfute fermement sa suggestion selon laquelle l'action gouvernementale

serait influencée par des considérations électorales

‘I firmly refute his suggestion according to which the government’s action [would

be] influenced by electoral concerns’

(Dendale 1993: 171)

In (49), it is clear that the speaker rejects what has been said about the government’s action, and

therefore, is saying that the information coded in the conditional is false. The modal trait can also

be diminished, as illustrated in (50):

(50) Selon la radio argentine, l’ “Invincible” aurait été touché hier après-midi par un

Exocet, ce qui est fort douteux/fort peu probable si on sait comment le porte-

avions est protégé de ses escorteurs

‘According to Argentine radio, the “Invincible” [would have been hit] yesterday

afternoon by an Exocet, which is highly doubtful/highly unlikely if one knows how

the aircraft carrier is protected by its escorts’

(Dendale 1993: 172)

In (50), Dendale (1993: 172) notes that uncertainty is reduced since the question of whether or

not the event occurred is pushed towards ‘unlikely,’ as shown by the commentary on the

Argentine radio reports. Conversely, Dendale (1993: 170) views the evidential trait of the press

conditional is a constant. For example, although the source of information is indeterminate in

(48), the conditional indicates a previous utterance there as much as it does in (49) and (50),

where the source is clearly indicated. On this basis, Dendale (1993) concludes:

Le conditionnel épistémique est avant tout un marqueur évidentiel parce que sa valeur de

base - c'est-à-dire la valeur qui est toujours présente, qui n'est pas soumise à des

variations et qui en plus détermine ou explique les autres valeurs - est la valeur

évidentielle d'emprunt (175).

Given its evidential nature, Dendale (1993: 175) suggests that names like le conditionnel de la

rumeur ‘the conditional of rumor’ or le conditionnel de l’information empruntée ‘the conditional

of secondhand information’

would be the construction’s most accurate designations. In

delineating three traits proper to the conditional, Dendale (1993) establishes what will become

the main points of contention among French linguists regarding the press conditional: the

importance of the secondhand source of information versus its marking of uncertainty and non-

prise-en-charge.

Literally translated, information empruntée is ‘borrowed information.’ Un emprunt in French is used for

borrowing between languages but also is used to indicate information from another source.

Abouda (2001: 278-79) directly refutes Dendale’s (1993) model and argues that it is non-

prise-en-charge (equivalent to Dendale’s (1993) alethic trait) that is definitional of what he calls

the conditionnel journalistique ‘journalistic conditional.’ Per Abouda’s (2001) account, the press

conditional resembles the attenuating conditional and encompasses the conditionnel polémique, a

use of the press conditional used to reprise information one believes to be patently false,

illustrated in (40). Abouda (2001: 278) works in enunciation theory and his model describes two

levels of locutory activity: the Locuteur and the abstract Énonciateur.

In Abouda (2001: 283),

the Locuteur represents the person producing an utterance and the Énonciateur as the abstract

source of the utterance’s propositional content. In instances where the Locuteur does not identify

themself with the Énonciateur an Autre Énonciateur is generated, resulting in the effect of non-

prise-en-charge. This is most easily illustrated with the attenuating use of the conditional. One

can compare the present indicative in (51) and the attenuating use of the conditional in (52):

(51) Je veux une baguette

‘I want a baguette’

Locuteur: je = Énonciateur: je

(52) Je voudrais une baguette

‘I would like a baguette’

Locuteur: je ≠ Autre Énonciateur: je

At the base of each utterance in (51) and (52) is an Énonciateur, who desires a baguette. In (51),

the Locuteur and the Énonciateur are presented as the same entity because the present indicative

inherently marks the Locuteur’s prise-en-charge of (or identification with) the Enonciateur’s

point of view. In other words, the Locuteur assumes the truth and responsibility for the

Enonciateur’s wish for a baguette. In instances of polite requests like (52), Abouda (2001: 286-

89) argues that the Locuteur and the Enonciateur are rhetorically distanced from each other since

the Locuteur does not take responsibility for the Enonciateur’s desire for a baguette. It is the

conditional’s marking of non-prise-en-charge that constructs this decoupling.

By viewing this use of the conditional as marked by non-prise-en-charge, Abouda (2001)

can give a unitary explanation between the attenuating conditional of (52) and the press

conditional of (53):

(53) Le pape serait malade

‘The pope [would be] sick’

Locuteur ≠ Autre Énonciateur

(Abouda 2001: 282)

In (53), the Locuteur uses the conditional to mark the fact that they find the reports emanating

from the undetermined Énonciateur as neither true nor false. For Abouda (2001: 282), the

conditional’s traits are not unstable, as Dendale (1993) argues. Rather, the conditional is strictly

a marker of non-prise-en-charge while the other two traits are contextually determined. Abouda

(2001: 282) notes that one can add different sources marking the Locuteur’s evaluation of the

Abouda’s (2001) terms derive from Enunciation Theory, which examines the levels of subjectivities present in

utterances. I will leave Abouda’s (2001) terms untranslated since terms like locuteur, énonciateur and their English

equivalents (speaker, locutor, enunciator) show some variation from author to author.

veracity of the information, such as selon un témoignage mensonger/digne de foi/non encore

vérifié ‘according to a false/reliable/unverified account.’ This would mean that context and co-

text are necessary to determine the status of these traits in a given utterance. For Dendale (1993),

traits of uncertainty and non-prise-en-charge are the natural consequence of reporting what one

has learned from an external source, which is by nature more doubtful than what is directly

experienced or inferred. Conversely, Abouda (2001: 283) argues that when a Locuteur refuses

prise-en-charge for an utterance, an Autre Énonciateur is consequently generated. For Abouda

(2001), this leads to the impression that the information comes from others’ discourse.

Kronning (2002: 563) proposes a model that puts the uncertainty of the press conditional

on equal footing with its evidential quality and calls it a “mixed marker.” Kronning (2002)

addresses Dendale (1993) and Abouda (2001) directly:

L’hypothèse principale que nous aimerions défendre ici est la suivante : le conditionnel

épistémique (« journalistique ») est un marqueur grammatical mixte, médiatif et modal.

Cette hypothèse se distingue aussi bien de la position de Dendale (1993), pour qui le

COND épistémique est essentiellement médiatif (« évidentiel »)

que de celle d’Abouda

(2001), pour qui ce type de COND est fondamentalement l’expression de la « non-prise

en charge » (563-64).

Kronning (2002: 566) argues that there are three possible ways of quantifying epistemic

modality: modalisation simple ‘simple modalization’, modalisation complexe ‘complex

modalization’ and modalisation zéro ‘zero modalization’. The conditional codes modalisation

zéro, or the refusal to present information as either true or false. This model is explained with the

propositional content il être malade ‘he be sick’ in (54):

(54) Propositional content: il être malade

modalisation simple Il est malade VRAI

‘He is sick’

modalisation complexe Il est probablement malade PROB VRAI

‘He is probably sick’

modalisation zéro Il serait malade ZÉRO

‘He [would be] sick’

(Kronning 2002: 567)

Kronning (2002: 568-70) argues that the modalization of the conditional combines with a

polyphonic structure, wherein at least three layers of locutionary activity are present. This is

theorized as l

(locuteur en tant que tel, the person who produces the utterance), the LOC

(locuteur metteur en scène), and the LS1 (locuteur source 1). The LOC can be thought of the

The word évidence in French is a false cognate with English evidence, whose real equivalent is preuve ‘proof.’

Une évidence in French is something that is obvious. On this basis, some scholars objected to the term évidentialité

as a translation of the English evidentiality. The word médiativité was proposed. Évidentialité appears to be the

favored term nowadays while médiativé represents a different domain of study. Dendale and Tasmowski (2001: 340-

341) outline the history of the two terms.

subject that borrows the utterance from LS1, and l

as the speaker who reports but does not take

responsibility for the information learned from LS1. Kronning (2002: 568) says that the

conditional can be used even in instances where LS1 has learned information from other sources

(LS2 > LS3, etc.). This is what Kronning (2002: 570) calls un emprunt indirect ‘an indirect

borrowing.’ By this observation, Kronning (2002) argues that the conditional in French relays

secondhand information, while not excluding the possibility that that information may have

come from earlier and more distant sources.

These three theories represent the dominant theories found in the French literature on the

press conditional.

A fourth scholar’s work worth mentioning is Haillet (2002). His model of

what he calls the conditionnnel d’altérité énonciative is essentially identical to Abouda’s (2001)

and involves the generation of a second speaker through the marking of non-prise-en-charge.

What makes Haillet (2002) significant for the purposes of this investigation is his development

of paraphrases for the purpose of distinguishing between different values of the conditional, as

illustrated in (55) and (56), to identify the temporal and press conditionals:

(55) Ils me disaient que la fête aurait lieu dans le parc municipal

‘They told me that the party would take place in the municipal park’

= allait avoir lieu

≠ a lieu, paraît-il

(Haillet 2002: 10)

(56) La Drac aurait antidaté un document administrative

‘The Drac [would have predated] an administrative document’

≠ allait avoir antidaté

≠ eût antidaté

= a antidaté, paraît-il

(Haillet 2002: 15)

In (55), the conditional is equivalent to the periphrastic future-in-the-past allait + infinitive,

demonstrating that this is a temporal use of the conditional. Similarly, the conditional in (56) can

be reformulated with the passé composé by adding the particle paraît-il ‘it seems.’ Although

Haillet (2002) uses a polyphonic model for his analysis of the press conditional, his paraphrases

allow one to identify the press conditional without committing to any one theoretical framework.

In sum, work on French has tended to understand the press conditional as marking a

source, marking non-prise-en-charge, or both. Other models, such as Haillet (2002), can also

generally be thought of in these terms. Work in Spanish has principally relied on work by Haillet

(2002) and Kronning (2002) in order to frame their investigations of the press conditional.

Therefore, one should keep these previous discussions of French theorists in mind during the

overview of the work carried out on the press conditional in Spanish in §1.3.2, as no alternate

theoretical model of the press conditional in that language has been proposed.

It is worth noting that Rossari (2009: 95-96) makes a radical departure from other scholars in French and rejects

notions of prise-en-charge or evidentiality as ways of defining the press conditional. She argues instead that the

press conditional is simply a rhetorically specialized form of the hypothetical conditional, entailing an implicit si

mes informations sont bonnes ‘if my information is good.’ While her outline of the conditional’s emergence in

diachrony is of interest, the analysis does not appear to capture the real complexities of the press conditional as

evidenced in usage.

1.3.2 Previous Literature on the Press Conditional in Spanish

As was shown by the El País style guide, the press conditional in Spanish is thought to

have come into the language through news translation from French.

The hypothesis is

supported by the recurring observation that this conditional, unlike its French counterpart, is not

found in the oral code and is restricted to journalistic language (Squartini 2001: 317-18). If the

contact hypothesis is accurate, exactly when this conditional came into Spanish is unknown.

Sarrazin (2010: 101-02) dates the entry of the conditional into Peninsular Spanish news language

to the first half of the 20

century and provides the news dispatch examples seen in (57) and

(58):

(57) Varsovia, 13-04 (Havas). Se anuncia que el presidente de la república habría

aceptado la dimisión colectiva del gabinete.

– El Diario, April 15, 1929

FRENCH: Varsovie, 13.04. (Havas). On annonce que le Président de la

République aurait accepté la démission collective du cabinet.

‘Warsaw, 13.04 (Havas) It is announced that the President of the Republic

[would have accepted] the collective resignation of the cabinet.’

(Sarrazin 2010: 101-02)

(58) Le Matin dice que el acuerdo entre la Gran Bretaña, Francia y la U.R.S.S. sería la

constitución de un frente único contra cualquier eventual agresión en Europa.

(Nueva Rioja, 19/05/1939)

FRENCH: Le Matin affirme que l’accord entre la France, La France et l’URSS

serait la constitution d’un front unique contre toute agression éventuelle en

Europe.

‘Le Matin affirms that the agreement between Great Britain, France and the

USSR [would be] the constitution of a united front against any potential

aggression in Europe.’

(Sarrazin 2010: 101-02)

However, earlier examples can be found. Kronning (2016: 130) provides an example from a

Spanish text from 1857 (59):

(59) El oso común que, según Zimmermann, estaría difundido por todo el globo, no

existe en América, y parece no haber dejado la Europe y el Norte de Asia.

‘The common bear, which, according to Zimmerman [would be spread]

throughout the globe, does not exist in America and appears not to have left

Europe and the North of Asia.’

It would be interesting to design a study for the comparison of linguistic features of news translations in Spanish

from French and from English.

The example in (59) may constitute what Bermúdez (2016) calls the scientific conditional, which

he argues is a native construction in Spanish, wherein the conditional is used for secondhand

information accessed cognitively. His claims are discussed below.

It is unclear when awareness of the press conditional in Spanish arose, although it

appears to have been proscribed by the publication of the first edition of the EFE news agency

manual in 1976 (Sarrazin 2010: 102). Gili Gaya (1980) comments on the construction in a

footnote of the 13

edition of his book, Curso superior de sintaxis española:

En el siglo actual, aparecen con alguna frecuencia en los periódicos de todos 105 paises

hispánicos noticias redactadas de este modo: Según informes oficiosos, el Ministro

estaría dispuesto a modificar la ley, en vez de está dispuesto; o con la forma compuesta:

Viajeros procedentes de la frontera aseguran que las tropas chinas habrían

desencadenado una ofensilla, por han desencadenado. Evidentemente se trata de

telegramas traducidos del inglés o del francés. En las lenguas de origen, y también en su

calco español, se quiere significar que el redactor del telegrama o de la noticia no asegura

su veracidad; esta reserva establece una condición implícita. A pesar de su origen

exótico, tales construcciones no violentan demasiado, a nuestro juicio, los valores de la

forma en -ría. Si cantaría o habría cantado expresan normalmente la posibilidad o

probabilidad referidas al pasado o al futuro, nada parece oponerse a que éstas puedan

extenderse al presente. Hay que consignar, sin embargo, que se trata de un uso

reciente y muy limitado (Gili Gaya 1980: 168). (bolding mine)

The last line of the footnote captures the sentiment that the construction is not native to Spanish,

and, strangely enough, Gili Gaya (1980) is the only person who has ever suggested that the press

conditional may have come from English. The idea is all the more strange given that English

lacks such a use of the conditional. He finds that it is a feature found across the Spanish speaking

world, suggesting that the borrowing has had multiple points of entry or has been quickly

diffused across varieties of Spanish. What is remarkable is that Gili Gaya (1980) finds this use of

the conditional inoffensive and compatible with native uses of the conditional, although it is,

according to him, limited to journalism.

It was not a foregone conclusion that the press conditional would become normatively

unacceptable in Spanish journalism. Sarrazin (2010: 102) notes that in El País between 1976 and

1977, the first two years following its founding, that the press conditional “abonde dans les

articles” but drastically declines when the newspaper decides to use EFE’s style guide as a model

for its own. The grammatical section of EFE’s style guide had been edited by academician

Lázaro Carreter, who fervently opposed what he perceived to be an invasive borrowing (Sarrazin

2010: 102). Sarrazin (2010: 103) explains that as El País’s style guide came to be the model of

Spanish-language journalistic norms, the proscription spread within and beyond Spain.

Given his indirect influence on the El País style guide, Lázaro Carreter’s role in the

campaign against the Spanish press conditional appears to be key to the success of its

proscription. In an essay appearing in his column “El dardo de la palabra,” Lázaro Carreter rails

against the entry of the press conditional into Spanish (along with other foreign borrowings) in

1986:

Gili Gaya’s Curso superior de syntaxis española was originally published in 1943. While I could not locate every

edition, I did not find it mentioned in the editions published in 1943, 1948, 1951 or 1960. Bermúdez (2016: 41)

cites the 1962 edition as referencing the press conditional.

Y sólo a ella pertenece también, cada vez más arraigado, el que podemos llamar

condicional de la presunción o del rumor, el que aparece, por ejemplo, en frases como

«Israel dispondría de la bomba atómica»; o «El detenido habría sido torturado». Lleva

decenios este obstinado galicismo empujando la puerta del idioma, sin mayores

consecuencias; pero en las últimas semanas ha podido verse en numerosos titulares de

Prensa. Y es puro francés: «X rencontrarait X prochainement.»

Pero el idioma cuenta, para advertir que algo no está comprobado, con propios y

acreditados recursos; «Se dice...», «Parece ser que...»; «Aseguran...»; «Es probable o

posible que...»: ¡tantas fórmulas que se extienden de los Pirineos a los Andes! Pero

muchos de nuestros informadores prefieren, para hacerse llamativos…y ahora, el

condicional del rumor, liberado por fin, al parecer, de las formalidades impuestas por la

ley de extranjería. (bolding mine)

Lázaro Carreter’s language, at the end, invokes that of immigration law and pleads the case for

the numerous native Spanish formulas that would make for more fitting substitutes for the press

conditional. Where Gili Gaya (1980) had seen a natural extension of the conditional’s usual

meanings in Spanish, Lázaro Carreter saw a foreign invasion.

The construction would not receive any kind of official sanction until the publication of

the RAE’s Nueva grámatica de la lengua española in 2009. That grammar states:

Se ha llamado CONDICIONAL DE RUMOR a la variante del condicional de conjetura

que se usa a menudo en el lenguaje periodístico para presentar las informaciones de

forma cautelosa o dar noticias no suficientemente contrastadas. En estos casos se

obtienen también paráfrasis con presentes o con imperfectos…

Algunos diarios hispanohablantes han optado por excluir este uso particular del

condicional de conjetura en sus libros de estilo. No lo hacen, sin embargo, porque

exista incorrección gramatical en dicha construcción, sino porque el rumor no debe

ser presentado como noticia (RAE 2009: 23.15m). (bolding mine)

In line with Gili Gaya’s description of the press conditional, the RAE views this use of the

conditional as an offshoot of the conditional’s native use as a marker of conjecture. It is curious

that the RAE makes no mention of a potential French origin, which had long been a justification

for the construction’s exclusion from normative Spanish. It does, however, acknowledge that the

conditional’s marking of unverified information may be counter to journalistic values, similar to

what is seen in French.

As has been said before, much of the literature on the Spanish press conditional builds on

the French literature (and has often been undertaken by French linguists). For example,

Azzopardi’s (2011: 251-278) comparison of the press conditional relies on French theorists.

Fouilloux (2006) adapts Haillet’s (2002) paraphrases to Spanish, while Vatrican (2010) applies

Kronning’s (2002) model, presenting the Spanish press conditional as a mixed marker of

epistemic modality and evidentiality. Work in Spanish has primarily sought to align the press

Lázaro-Carreter, Fernando. 1986. “El dardo en la palabra: Israel dispondría de la bomba atómica.” ABC,

September 11, 1986.

conditional with its (hypothesized) French source. However, some work, to be discussed here,

has brought some differences to light.

The fact that the Spanish press conditional may have a prospective reading without a

future time marker was addressed in §1.2.2.5. The observation was first made by Sarrazin

(2010), who understands the press conditional in Spanish to be a borrowing resulting from

translation. According to Sarrazin (2010: 112), this is no longer the case in Spanish and an

innovation has occurred since the construction was borrowed. Beyond the descriptive insight she

provides, she proposes that the innovation arose out of the particular nature of news headlines.

She gives the examples seen in (60-1) and (60-2), where the press conditional is used without a

time marker in a headline and with a time marker in the article body:

(60) 1. HEADLINE:

Villa Parque San Miguel sería parte del ejido municipal de Carlos Paz

‘Villa Parque San Miguel [would be part] of the municipal land holdings of

Carlos Paz’

2. BODY:

Los vecinos del paraje Villa Parque San Miguel, que limita con Villa Carlos Paz y

que -próximamente- sería anexado al ejido municipal de esa ciudad, serían

recibidos la próxima semana por los integrantes del Consejo de Planificación

Urbano Ambiental

‘The residents of the Villa Parque San Miguel site, which borders Villa Carlos

Paz and that, shortly, [would be annexed] to the municipal land holdings of that

city, [would be received] next week by members of the Urban Environmental

Planning Council’

(Sarrazin 2010: 110)

In French, it is not possible to translate the sería parte of (60-1) by its literal equivalent ferait

partie since there is not an accompanying future time marker. Ferait partie by itself would

suggest that Villa Parque San Miguel already belongs to Carlos Paz at the time of the article’s

publication. In its place, Sarrazin (2010: 110-11) offers devrait/pourrait faire partie ‘may be a

part’ as possible translations. In (60-2), it is made clear that the annexation of land has not yet

occurred, and two conditionals are used to describe the plans for the process. Sarrazin (2010:

115) argues that in a headline, the conditional serves to “hook” the reader by suggesting a

potentially present reality before the reader learns from reading the article that the event is yet to

happen. It is, therefore, this need to entice the reader’s attention that has given rise to this

innovative use. In fact, Sarrazin (2010: 113-14) observes this phenomenon only in headlines.

Sarrazin (2010: 116) argues that this innovation is an adaptation of the press conditional meant to

doubly fulfill journalistic needs while respecting good language use: since future events are

inherently unconfirmed, the reporter can mark uncertain information with the conditional without

violating journalistic concerns for accuracy.

Bermúdez (2016) presents one of the more Spanish-specific studies of the press

conditional. He distinguishes between two uses of the conditional that attribute information to an

external source. One is used in journalistic discourse marking thirdhand information with no

claim to veracity, which he calls el condicional periódistico ‘the journalistic conditional.’ The

other is linked to scientific discourse marking secondhand information obtained through

“cognitive access,” a use which he calls el condicional científico ‘the scientific conditional’

(Bermúdez 2016: 60). Examples of these two conditionals are given in (61) and (62):

(61) Nols estaría considerando, según el propio Le Pen, la creación en Bélgica de un

Frente Nacional de extrema derecha, similar al francés.

‘Nols [would be considering], according to Le Pen himself, the creation of a far-

right National Front in Belgium, similar to the French one’

(Bermúdez 2016: 48)

(62) Robert Nisbet examina breve y rigurosamente los temas centrales del

conservadurismo–historia, tradición, propiedad, autoridad, libertad y religión– y

dirige sus críticas tanto al colectivismo como al individualismo radical.

Finalmente, aborda la crisis del conservadurismo, que estaría causada en buena

medida por su adopción en la escena política de principios del liberalismo

económico y del Estado del bienestar.

‘Nisbet examines briefly and rigorously the central themes of conservatism

history, tradition, property, authority, liberty and religion—and directs his

criticism as much towards collectivism as towards radical individualism. Finally,

he addresses the crisis of conservatism, which [would be caused] in large

measure by its adoption of economic liberalism and the Welfare State’

(Bermúdez 2016: 57)

The example in (61) is a case of the condicional periodístico, which Bermúdez (2016: 48) argues

marks thirdhand information: the information about Nols comes to the journalist via Le Pen.

However, in (62), Nisbet himself is the source of the writer’s information, and the writer has had

to reconstruct this information from their own understanding of Nisbet’s argument.

Bermúdez

(2016: 58) calls this a cognitive elaboration on secondhand information rather than a simple

citation.

In other words, Spanish has two conditionals that attribute information to an external

source that may have distinct diachronic origins.

Bermúdez (2016: 60) acknowledges that French theorists would view these as the same

use of the conditional but argues that they are not. First, he claims that the journalistic

conditional of (62) marks only the repetition of an utterance while the scientific conditional

presents more “complexity” (Bermúdez 2016: 60). Although the use of the scientific conditional

discharges the speaker’s prise-en-charge of the utterance, at the same time, it asserts what the

speaker has learned from that original source utterance (Bermúdez 2016: 60). That is to say, the

In (61), the information is thirdhand because the speaker’s source of information is Le Pen, whose own source is a

person from whom he has learned of Nols’s plans. In fact, that person could have been Nols himself, who would

know this information directly. Recapitulated in a chain of reported speech, one could imagine a formulation along

these lines: I, the speaker, say that Le Pen has said that Nols said that he is considering the creation of a National

Front. In (62), Nisbet is the source of information reported by the journalist: it is Nisbet’s analysis that Nisbet

undertook himself. Recapitulated in a chain of reported speech, one could imagine glossing (62) along these lines: I,

the speaker, say that Nisbet has said that conservatism is in crisis.

“Si analizamos en detalle el enunciado de (25) veremos que el hablante no solo está diciendo que esta información

proviene de Nisbet, sino también que la información expresada (que la crisis del conservadurismo en gran medida

está ocasionada por la adopción de los principios del liberalismo y el Estado de bienestar) no es meramente una cita,

sino más bien es una interpretación, una elaboración cognitiva de las palabras originales de Nisbet” (Bermúdez

2016: 58).

speaker played an active role in deriving that information. Bermúdez (2016: 59) characterizes

this as a form of deduction: “el autor no solo asigna esas afirmaciones a una fuente externa, sino

que en realidad propone que esas afirmaciones se deducen de los dichos de esa fuente.” In this

sense, the conditional is related to the inferential uses of the conditional seen in scientific

discourse (Bermúdez 2016: 58). Such conditionals were illustrated here in (40), (41) and (42).

Furthermore, Bermúdez (2016) posits two different diachronic origins for the two conditionals.

The journalistic conditional is a prestige borrowing from French, while the scientific conditional

is a native construction that grew out of the hypothetical use of the conditional (Bermúdez 2016:

62). However, it is worth noting that like the inferential conditionals of (40), (41) and (42), the

two conditionals identified by Bermúdez (2016) are identical on the surface. It could be the case

that the deeper distinction (and separate diachronic origin) may not be entirely pertinent in a

context where this conditional co-exists with the journalistic conditional. That is to say, although

the two conditionals have different origins, their primary function in a journalistic text may be to

cite information while relieving the journalist of responsibility for the information relayed.

Bermúdez (2016: 51-52) notes that if one were to replace estaría with está ‘is’ in (62), the

speaker “affirms” Nisbet’s viewpoint.

Finally, Azzopardi (2011: 314) notes that she was unable to find an equivalent in Spanish

to the French conditionnel polémique in the course of her investigation, an example of which was

seen in (49). While it has been occasionally treated as a use separate from the press conditional,

both Abouda (2001) and Dendale (1993) treat this as a press conditional. For Abouda (2001), the

conditional only marks the speaker’s non-prise-en-charge and the ‘polemical’ effect would

derive from context, while for Dendale (1993) the pertinence of the alethic trait would simply be

diminished. Azzopardi (2011: 314) suggests that her lack of success in finding any examples of

this in Spanish may be due to the more limited corpus in Spanish and what she says is the

relative rareness of the construction in French. She notes that examples in French came from

others’ studies, such as Abouda (2001) and Haillet (2007). An extensive study of the press

conditional in journalistic texts may provide greater clarity as to whether the Spanish press

conditional has a use such as that seen in (49).

1.3.3 Studies of the Press Conditional in Journalistic Texts

Most studies of the press conditional do not feature a systematic treatment of the nature

of the texts from which their tokens have been extracted. The nature of journalistic discourse is

usually a secondary consideration. A good example is Sullet-Nylander’s (2006) study of the

press conditional in Le Monde headlines. While the press context is treated as important and

crucial to analyzing her data, the study intends to answer the question of whether the press

conditional marks reported information or non-prise-en-charge. Similarly, Sarrazin (2010)

appeals to journalistic values and the need to ‘hook’ readers with a headline in order to explain

the development of the present conditional with future readings absent a future time marker in

headlines; however, her study is as much a study of a linguistic structure as of one conditioned

by its text type. Similarly, Bermúdez (2016) uses genre to distinguish and think through the

differences between the condicional periódistico and the condicional científico but is more

interested in arriving at a linguistic understanding of the two constructions.

In French, the conditional within the press has received attention from Marnette (2005),

in the context of her wider study of discourse representation in the language. While more

traditional forms of discourse representation (e.g., direct discourse, indirect discourse, etc.) are

her focus, she includes the press conditional as a possible alternative form of discourse

representation (Marnette 2005: 25). Marnette (2005: 301) observes that in the interest of

accuracy, the ideal form of discourse reporting in the press is direct discourse (which replicates

the exact words of others), but that, due to real space and time constraints, other forms (among

them, the press conditional) must be used. In a relatively limited corpus of newspapers, she finds

that prestigious French national newspaper Le Monde and Belgian newspaper Le Soir have

higher rates of the press conditional than French national newspapers Libération and Le Figaro:

Both Le Soir and Le Monde use more ‘press’ conditionals than the two other newspapers,

thus insisting more on the uncertainty of some facts (i.e., indicating that the piece of

information originates from a discourse other than the journalist’s or that the journalist

does not take responsibility for the utterance (Marnette 2005: 305).

Essentially, the press conditional can serve in French as an extra means to highlight a

newspaper’s practice and fulfillment of journalism’s discursive aims. It is worth noting that

Marnette (2005)—for practical purposes given the breadth of her study— does not examine

entire editions of these newspapers. Rather, she focuses on a limited set of articles in each

newspaper, specifically those focusing on a security law proposed in 2002 by future president

Nicolas Sarkozy, who was then France’s ministry of the interior. The variation among

newspapers observed in Marnette’s (2005: 305) data, however, points to the fact that a study

examining whole editions would be of interest.

In contrast to French, where Marnette (2005) situates the use of the journalistic

conditional within the aims of journalistic practice, studies of the press conditional in Spanish

have analyzed its use through the lens of prescriptivism. Kronning (2016: 127-28) examines a

month’s worth of headlines of combinations of ‘to be’ (Fr. serait, Sp. estaría, It. sarebbe) and ‘to

have’ (Fr. aurait, Sp. habría, It. avrebbe) with a past participle in Google online news for

French, Italian, and Latin-American and Peninsular Spanish. Kronning (2016: 128) finds that the

press conditional is more common in Latin-American headlines (87% of conditionals found in

headlines) compared to Peninsular Spanish (37% of conditionals), while French had the second

highest frequency at 66% and Italian at 34%. The study must be considered in the light of its

limitations, given the fact that the survey did not search outside headlines, the fact that headlines

may favor the press conditional over other uses of the conditional in general, and that online

news may include breaking news whose facts are not yet confirmed. That said, Kronning (2016:

128) also observes quite a degree of variation among newspapers in Spain, which he attributes to

their individual compliance with prescriptive norms. He says:

Or, le discours journalistique péninsulaire est régi par des normes diaphasiques

conflictuelles. Ainsi dans un journal comme El País, soumis à une norme prescriptive

puriste (et prétendument déontologique) les ocurrences du CEE sont rares mais non

inexistantes (1 occ.), alors que dans d’autres journaux, comme ABC sont (8 occ.), non

soumis à – ou, ce qui revient au même, non-respectant–cette norme – le taux des CEE est

nettement plus élévé (Kronning 2016: 128).

Kronning (2016: 129-30) also dismisses earlier claims that this conditional is non-existent in

Spanish before the first half of the twentieth century, citing a 19

century scientific text

originally in Spanish. The example was given in (59). That example may reflect, in fact, what

Bermúdez (2016) would call the scientific conditional.

Brunetti (2016) is exceptional because she situates the press conditional in the context of

libel laws (or their equivalents) in the Argentine press. The conditional is sufficient to ward off

charges of injuria and calumnia in Argentina.

However, Brunetti (2016: 111-13) notes that the

conditional appears to be instrumentalized by the media who use the conditional to ward off the

legal consequences of what are truly suggestive and libelous stories. This occurs most notably in

the national newspaper Clarín, whose politics make it hostile to the Argentine leaders, Néstor

and Cristina Kirchner. In one instance, Clarín’s use of the conditional to report the end of certain

government subsidies appears to be an attack on the Kirchner administration, since the end of the

subsidies had yet to be finalized and the reporting displaced more important or positive news

(Brunetti 2016: 113). While some of the concerns put forth by Brunetti (2016) may be perennial

issues in any language regarding partiality in the media, the study does point to the fact that, at

least in one corner of the Spanish-speaking world, the conditional has clearly taken root.

Furthermore, Brunetti’s (2016) study is an excellent illustration of how a marker like the press

conditional can be seen to operate dynamically in a culturally-specific journalistic context.

1.4 Research Aims

In the light of the work undertaken thus far on French and Spanish, the purpose of this

investigation is twofold. My primary aim is to take an approach that inverts the relationship

between the press and the press conditional that has been the hallmark of previous studies of the

construction. Rather than using examples of the press conditional extracted from the press to

arrive at a linguistic definition, I aim to understand the function of the press conditional within

the journalistic context itself. This will mean understanding how linguistic features of the press

conditional serve the communicative aims of journalistic texts in French and Spanish. By

performing individual analyses with the aim of comparing them, I will touch on the difference

not only at the level of languages but at the smaller level of individual newspapers, which

Marnette (2005) and Kronning (2016) have demonstrated to be variable in their use of the press

conditional. It may be the case that the press conditional’s use is as specific as enabling

information warfare (as Brunetti (2016) would have it for Clarín in Argentina) or much broader

in nature, as Marnette (2005) observes in Le Monde and Le Soir. However, it is also my aim to

use a set of data collected from the press (and systematically analyzed through the lens of that

context) that will hope to contribute to longstanding debates surrounding the press conditional in

both French and Spanish. In the way that Bermúdez (2016) has claimed that not all instances of

según X + conditional in Spanish can be seen as derived from an original French calque, I hope

that a contextually-sensitive investigation will provide more detailed insights into the

relationship between the press conditional in French and the one in Spanish.

In the next chapter, I outline the methodology used in this investigation. In Chapters 3

and 4, the data for each individual language is examined. Specifically, I provide data for the

In fact, the conditional is used to relay information that is presented as false, which would align it with the

polemical use of the conditional in French seen in (49). This, as well as the lack of other systematic diachronic work

in Spanish, points to the need for further study.

Injuria and calumnia are forms of defamation. Injuria is an attack on the character, while to commit calumnia is

to implicate someone in a crime.

form—present or past—of the press conditional, its frequency, as well as its function. I also

examine the data for how the press conditional’s use is (or is not) conditioned by the

communicative aims of journalistic texts. In Chapter 5, I provide a comparative analysis of the

data along these same lines, with final consideration of how its use in journalistic texts in each

language might be characterized according to the data collected.

2 METHODOLOGY

2.1 The Corpus

In order to study the press conditional as it is used in newswriting, I designed a corpus

composed of a constructed week of two French and two Spanish newspapers. A constructed

week involves the selection of one newspaper from one day of the week over a period of

consecutive weeks (one week’s Monday, the next week’s Tuesday, and so forth). I have chosen

this particular configuration because it has been demonstrated that the constructed week

approximately reflects newspaper content over the course of at least six months and controls for

news and advertising cycles (Riffe, Aust and Lacy 1993: 139). By studying two newspapers per

language, I will be able to speak to variation in the use of the press conditional across

newspapers within the same language, as has been observed by Marnette (2005) in French and

Kronning (2016) in Peninsular Spanish.

2.1.1 The French Corpus

The French portion of the corpus will include a constructed week of two national French

dailies: Le Monde and Libération. I selected these two newspapers for the French corpus on the

basis of the prior work carried out by Marnette (2005: 300-10) on discourse representation in

French newspapers. Due to the difficulty of accessing past issues of Le Monde from the United

States, I had to use editions as they are available on Proquest International Newsstream. This

service makes newspaper editions available to researchers and students in text format.

Libération’s website, however, provides access to PDF archives of full editions dating back to

2009. Before briefly detailing the history of Liberation and Le Monde, their place in the

landscape of French newspapers should be properly qualified. For the period 2018-2019, among

the national dailies, Le Figaro (323,635 copies) is the most widely read, followed by Le Monde

(320,344 copies). With significantly lower readership, Libération (71,391 copies) stands as the

seventh most-circulated national daily, trailing well behind the other two. It is worth noting that

France has a vibrant regional press, and Le Figaro and Le Monde rank second and third behind

the regional newspaper Ouest-France (640,647 copies), while Libération falls quite below a

number of regional presses.

As Marnette (2005: 310) observes, Le Monde’s style can be described as “traditional”

while Libération has a “familiar” style that is “youth-oriented.”

Furthermore, Le Monde claims

to be a neutral source for news and, given this stance, is likely to be considered to lean to the

All figures come from the website of the Alliance pour les chiffres des la presse et des médias (ACPM):

http://www.acpm.fr/Chiffres/Diffusion/La-Presse-Payante/Presse-Quotidienne-Nationale and

http://www.acpm.fr/Chiffres/Diffusion/La-Presse-Payante/Presse-Quotidienne-Regionale, accessed February 11,

2020

Marnette (2005) comments: “Indeed, this trend towards ‘familiarity’ can be explained by the left-wing stance of

that newspaper. The language used within quotation marks and in the rest of the article purports to be that of

everyday people and not that of a conservative elite. This language can be seen as trendy (inspired by the youth

culture) and even often humorous, thus progressive and evolving with the Society, as opposed to the stuffiness of

more conventional newspapers, such as Le Figaro and Le Monde” (310).

right or to the left depending on the political orientation of the reader (Marnette 2005: 316).

Despite its more casual tone, Libération is a respected national newspaper. Charon (2007: 101)

classifies it, along with other national newspapers Le Monde and Le Figaro, as “journaux ‘haut-

de-gamme’.”

This contrast in style—but similarity in prestige and scope of coverage—appears

favorable to an investigation of this type since their content should overlap while their language

may differ. Marnette (2005: 305) has already noted that the two vary with respect to how often

they use the press conditional and with respect to their use of reported discourse. By comparing a

larger set of data taken from each newspaper, I will be able to build on Marnette’s (2005) earlier

work.

2.1.1.1 Le Monde

Le Monde was founded at the end of 1944, replacing the earlier Le Soir, which had closed

during World War II (Le Monde 2002: 21). It was envisioned by General de Gaulle to be the new

French national newspaper of reference (Le Monde 2002: 21). The newspaper set out to (in its

own words): “Devenir un quotidien de référence. Se tenir le plus possible à distance des

querelles partisanes et idéologiques…Tenter de se hisser au-dessus de la mêlée pour dégager les

grandes lignes de compréhension du monde contemporain.”

Le Monde remains a newspaper of

reference to this day.

Le Monde’s publication and distribution schedule is a remnant of an era of morning and

evening newspapers. It is published in the afternoon and is distributed to news kiosks in the Paris

region by 1:00 PM. It appears in kiosks outside of Paris the following day.

The date on the

masthead of each edition reflects the date of its appearance in kiosks outside of Paris, meaning it

is dated for the day following the date of its actual availability in the capital region. Le Monde

publishes six issues a week beginning on Tuesday, and Sunday’s edition is dated for Sunday and

Monday. However, the dating of the Proquest editions coincides with the date of the newspaper’s

publication and appearance in Paris and not with that of Le Monde’s masthead. Since Le

Monde’s publication week begins on at Tuesday, that is the starting date for all the newspapers in

the corpus, in the interest of maximizing possibilities for comparison.

2.1.1.2 Libération

In its founding manifesto published in 1973, Libération declared itself a leftist

(specifically, Maoist) newspaper, which sought to return to the people the control and

Charon (2007) defines such newspapers as marked by “…un traitement de l'information particulièrement

développé, qu'il s'agisse de la diversité des domaines traités ou de l'approfondissement de chaque sujet.

L'international occupe une place traditionnellement plus forte qu'ailleurs. La politique, l'économie et la culture font

partie des autres points forts, même si, au fil des décennies, les sciences, la santé, les loisirs, les sports, la

consommation sont venus s'ajouter et ont connu des développements particuliers pouvant donner lieu à des

suppléments ou des cahiers spécialisés. À l'inverse, les faits divers sont moins présents” (35).

Le Monde. 2009. “Le Portrait d’un quotidien.” http://www.lemonde.fr/qui-sommes-nous/article/2002/02/05/le-

monde_261404_3386.html accessed February 8, 2016.

ibid.

transmission of information.

It declared itself “une embuscade dans la jungle de

l’information.”

Among its founders figured leading Existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre.

The newspaper still lays claim to these values. In 2014, in reaction to a change in financial

backers, the staff of Libération asserted their commitment to the newspaper’s founding ideals of

leftist politics and to its role as an alternative voice in the journalistic landscape, the basis for

Libération’s unique style:

Quarante ans plus tard, au temps de l’infobésité, de l’info instantanée qui émiette et

dissout, de l’infotainment, de la communication, du marketing partout et tout le temps,

nous devons plus que jamais être une embuscade : l’étonnant, le détonnant, l’aiguillon, le

piquant, l’ironique, le moqueur, l’empêcheur de tourner en rond, le grain de sable qui

grippe la machine médiatique.

It can be said that not only does Libération represent a unique voice among French newspapers,

that voice, in fact, defines itself against the voice of the traditional newspapers who represent, in

its eyes, the “Establishment.”

Libération is published Monday through Saturday with its last edition of the week dated

for both Saturday and Sunday. The newspaper also maintains a look distinct from its other

national counterparts. Marnette (2005: 311) links the newspaper’s tabloid format, use of color,

and focus on pictures to its nontraditional approach to news telling. This style differs from Le

Monde, which uses a more traditional Berliner format (as does Le Figaro). It is worth noting,

however, that this marks a general trend seen in modern newspapers, many of which have

transitioned from the broadsheet format to the more compact tabloid format, with a greater

emphasis on pictures over text (Franklin 2008: 313-314). To the extent that Le Monde has

retained its Berliner format and a greater text to image ratio (at least in comparison with

Libération), its formatting and news presentation can be read as more traditional, while

Libération’s has clearly departed from that older model.

2.1.2 The Spanish Corpus

In forming the Spanish corpus, I was faced with a more limited press landscape. Spain

has four national newspapers: El País, El Mundo, La Razón and ABC. While these newspapers

have ideological differences, there was no iconoclast member of the group equivalent to

Libération in France. The four national newspapers circulate alongside six regional newspapers:

La Vanguardia, El Periódico de Catalunya, El Correo Espanol, La Voz de Galicia and El Diario

Vasco. Together, they form the top ten circulated newspapers in Spain (Cabello 2007: 136). As

of 2018, El País was Spain’s most read newspaper (137,552 copies), followed by Catalonian

regional newspaper La Vanguardia (96,345), then by El Mundo (89,580), ABC (74,271), La

“Manifeste de Libération.” 1973. Reproduced at http://www.discordance.fr/le-manifeste-de-liberation-23707,

accessed October 3, 2016.

ibid.

“Nous sommes un manifeste.” 2014. http://www.liberation.fr/ecrans/2014/05/06/nous-sommes-un-

manifeste_1011945, accessed October 3, 2016

Razón (65,135) an El Periódico de Catalunya (60,870), another Catalonian regional

newspaper.

Outside of Kronning’s (2016) survey of press conditionals found in headlines, I am

unaware of a study that extensively examines newspaper “style” the way Marnette (2005) has in

French.

Rather than differentiating two newspapers on the basis of what Marnette (2005: 310)

calls “style,” I have chosen to select one national newspaper and one regional newspaper as the

distinguishing variable for the Spanish segment of the corpus.

Furthermore, for the purpose of

using full editions of newspapers, it was necessary that editions of newspapers be accessible

from the United States. While there would be advantages to studying El País, I selected El

Mundo as the national newspaper, since El País’s stance towards the press conditional, as well as

its scarce use of it, has already been remarked upon (Sarrazin 2010; Kronning 2016). It seemed

desirable to use a respected newspaper whose style guide had not set the standard for the

Spanish-speaking world, given that greater variation in the frequency of the press conditional is

observed outside of El País (Kronning 2016: 128), suggesting that the press conditional as used

in other newspapers might make for more tokens and more insightful study. Full editions of El

Mundo’s Madrid edition were constructed from its newspaper’s digital format, available through

Orbyt.com. For the regional newspaper, I selected El Periódico de Catalunya, whose website

makes the entirety of its archive available in PDF format.

2.1.2.1 El Mundo

El Mundo is a national Spanish newspaper headquartered in Madrid. It was founded on

October 23, 1989. It filled the ideological vacuum left by El País’s leftward shift towards

support of the Socialist party (Cabello 2007: 140). El Mundo’s politics are liberal in the sense of

liberalism: a pro-democracy newspaper with open views towards social issues and support of a

free market economy (Cabello 2007: 140). Although it is a national newspaper, it has various

‘local’ editions, which are the national edition combined with a local insert. It is published seven

days a week.

While El País has been Spain’s leading newspaper, El Mundo has developed a reputation

for itself as Spain’s investigative newspaper (Cabello 2007: 140). In 2003, Diaz-Guell (2003: 58)

notes that of all the major Spanish newspapers, only El Mundo had a dedicated investigative

journalism department. The newspaper itself celebrates its dedication to investigative journalism

in an editorial published on October 23, 2009:

Cano, Fernando. 2019. “OJD: los diarios impresos pierden 77.000 ejemplares de difusión en 2018.” El Español.

January 28, 2019. https://www.elespanol.com/invertia/medios/20190128/ojd-grandes-diarios-impresos-pierden-

ejemplares-difusion/371963257_0.html, last accessed February 11, 2020.

In fact, Casado Velarde and Lucas (2013) examine the verbs used to report speech in El País and ABC in a study

that is, in spirit, not dissimilar to Marnette’s (2005: 300-10) study. The study is much more limited in scope, and the

differences they do identify do not indicate a difference between ABC and El País that replicates the difference

Marnette (2005: 305) observes between Le Monde and Libération.

Both El Mundo and El Periódico de Catalunya were founded after Spain’s transition to democracy in 1976. Much

of the current configuration of the press in Spain is tied to the country’s transition to democracy. Of the four national

newspapers in Spain, only ABC existed prior to the transition. El País was founded in 1976. El Mundo was founded

relatively late, in 1989, and La Razón in 1998. ABC, founded in 1903, is a conservative, pro-monarchist newspaper

that had been hostile to political change (Gunther, Montero and Wert 2000: 44), and La Razón was founded by one

of its former directors and competes with that newspaper (Cabello 2007: 140-41).

A lo largo de estos 20 años, nuestro periódico ha pasado a ser referencia en las escuelas

de negocios, en los manuales de comunicación y en las facultades de Periodismo. ¿Cuál

es la clave de este éxito? La respuesta es simple: hemos cumplido el compromiso de

anteponer la información a cualquier otra consideración, fueran cuales fueran las

consecuencias que ello nos acarrease. EL MUNDO siempre ha estado al servicio de la

verdad con una clara vocación de aportar a los ciudadanos elementos de juicio frente a

los abusos del poder, viajando incluso a las zonas más sombrías del Estado para

denunciar la guerra sucia contra ETA.

Given the anti-separatist ideology of El Mundo, the last line of the editorial is particularly telling:

while El Mundo has no sympathy for the Basque nationalist group, it is willing to investigate

what it calls the Spanish government’s ‘dirty war’ against the group in spite of their stance due to

its commitment to uncovering any and all governmental “abuses of power.” El Mundo can be

said to take very seriously its role as a member of the Fourth Estate.

2.1.2.2 El Periódico de Catalunya

El Periódico de Catalunya is a regional Catalan morning newspaper published seven

days a week. It was founded on October 26, 1978, shortly following Spain’s transition to

democracy. Its headquarters are in Barcelona. It has produced a Catalan clone edition since 1997.

The Catalan version is achieved through machine translation.

At the time of its 35

anniversary

in 2013, El Periódico celebrated itself as a progressive newspaper with a specifically Catalonian

perspective:

…en 1978, nacía en Barcelona EL PERIÓDICO con una clara vocación de ser un diario

global, de aportar una mirada distinta sobre la realidad no solo cercana, sino española e

internacional, desde una perspectiva catalana y desde un punto de vista progresista.

While this editorial commemorates El Periódico’s journalism, it is different from more

traditional newspapers like El País or El Mundo. El Periódico can be thought of as the

equivalent to USA Today with its emphasis on color and graphics (Alberdi Ezpeleta et al. 2003:

278-79). Alberdi Ezpeleta et al. (2003) describe El Periódico’s journalism as “service

journalism” which is oriented to the consumer’s well-being:

El Mundo. 2009. “España habría sido distinta sin El Mundo.” El Mundo, October 23, 2009.

https://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2009/10/23/opinion/19874281.html.

The idea of the press as a kind of estate of the realm dates back to Edmund Burke, who used the term to allude to

the press gallery in Parliament (Hampton 2010: 3). Hampton (2010: 4) observes that one role of journalism in its

capacity as a member of the Fourth Estate is to be representative of the interests of its readers, who are also

constituents under a representative form of government: “More specifically, by publicizing corruption, scandal in

high places, or the government’s simple inattention to the needs of the people, the press could ensure that a

nominally democratic government met its obligations to its constituents.”

Cano, Fernando. 2018. “El catalán ya es residual en la prensa: El Periódico despide a 22 traductores.” El Español.

March 12, 2018. https://www.elespanol.com/invertia/medios/20180312/catalan-residual-prensa-periodico-despide-

traductores/291471213_0.html, last accessed February 11, 2020.

El diario de servicio viene a llenar ese hueco donde el periódico, aún manteniendo su

función originaria, seduce al lector a través de su diseño, de la pedagogía de sus

imágenes, de las informaciones que buscan la “verdad” y su bienestar (277).

In this way, while El Periódico is meant for a regional audience, it also represents a journalism

that has a direct focus on reader’s not only as constituents of a democracy, but also as people

living in the day to day world. Beyond reporting on political and economic issues, service

journalism concerns itself with reports on how readers might fill their free time, how readers

might get to the nearest pharmacy, how medical advances might directly affect their health, and

how infrastructure problems might affect their commute to work (Alberdi Ezpeleta et al.: 277).

As Alberdi Ezpeleta et al. (2003: 281) cleverly put it: a newspaper like El Periódico does report

on issues of public interest but it is also concerned with the interests of the public.

2.1.3 The Corpus: Summary and Coding

In total the corpus under investigation here consists of four newspapers: two French

national newspapers, one Spanish regional newspaper, and one Spanish national newspaper. It is

necessary to acknowledge the asymmetry across the French and Spanish segments of the corpus

and some of the limitations that arise from it. El Periódico’s scope would appear to differ the

most from the three other newspapers, although, in a similar vein, Libération appears to be an

outlier in terms of journalistic style. Ideally, two of the newspapers would be ‘deviant’ in the

same fashion. However, the corpus does reflect some crucial factors bearing on each country’s

journalistic reality. Le Monde’s aim for neutrality does not necessarily reflect French journalistic

tradition. Albert (2004: 50) claims that “le journalisme français a toujours été plus un

journalisme d’expression que d’observation,” a tradition which would align more with

Libération’s insistence on expressing its ideals in its reporting. Spain’s regional newspapers

circulate in numbers that compete with national newspapers. Cabello (2007: 135) remarks that

the regionalization of daily newspapers has been one of the hallmarks of the evolution in the

genre in Spain since the late 19

century. The selection of El Mundo and El Periódico reflect this

reality.

Once all newspapers had been selected, it was necessary to find a time of year from

which construct the corpus. It appeared desirable to avoid summer and winter when governments

are closed. I selected mid-April as the starting point for the corpus. As was stated above, the

constructed week starts on a Tuesday due to Le Monde’s publication schedule. Choosing dates

that coincide as closely as possible will maximize potential overlap in news coverage, which

could prove useful for comparison. Therefore, the corpus begins on Tuesday, April 14, 2015 and

extends to Monday, May 25 for French and to Monday, June 1

for Spanish, since the Spanish

newspapers are published seven times a week instead of six. Editions are coded by Roman

numerals. The coding of individual editions is illustrated in Tables 2.1 and 2.2:

TABLE 2.1 CODING OF THE SPANISH CORPUS

Date (2015)

El Mundo

El Periódico de

Catalunya

April 14

MUNDOI

PERIODI

April 22

MUNDOII

PERIODII

April 30

MUNDOIII

PERIODIII

May 8

MUNDOIV

PERIODIV

May 16

MUNDOV

PERIODV

May 24

MUNDOVI

PERIODVI

June 1

MUNDOVII

PERIODVII

TABLE 2.2 CODING OF THE FRENCH CORPUS

Date (2015)

Le Monde

Date (2015)

Libération

April 14

MONDEI

April 14

LIBEI

April 22

MONDEII

April 22

LIBEII

April 30

MONDEIII

April 30

LIBEIII

May 8

MONDEIV

May 8

LIBEIV

May 16

MONDEV

May 16/17

LIBEV

May 24/25

MONDEVI

May 25

LIBEVI

Articles are coded by the page number on which the article starts (or, in the case of Le Monde, by

the number of the document in the compiled edition from Proquest) along with a readily

identifiable keyword from the headline. Examples are given in Table 2.3 with articles taken from

each newspapers’ edition from the 30

of April:

TABLE 2.3 CODING OF ARTICLES

Newspaper

Headline

Page/Document

Number

Code

Le Monde

“L’horloger de l’histoire”

HORLOGER8, MONDEIII

Libération

“Un Français sur deux regrette la

guillotine”

GUILLOTINE5, LIBEIII

El Mundo

“Catalá abre la puerta a multar a

los medios”

CATALA7, MUNDOIII

El Periódico de

Catalunya

“Los huidizos candidatos

británicos”

HUIDIZOS12, PERIODIII

When tokens are presented as examples within this study, I will reference their edition and article

in the format seen in Table 2.3. In theory, a press conditional could come from any part of the

newspaper, and I did not restrict my search to any sub-genre (such as news or commentary) or,

for example, purposely exclude advertisements or obituaries. While one expects the press

conditional to be restricted to news articles, its use in unexpected places would be, theoretically

speaking, insightful.

2.2 Identifying the Press Conditional

As was discussed previously in §1.3.1, Haillet (1995, 2002) proposes a series of

paraphrases that allow one to identify each of the individual uses of the conditional. These

paraphrases allow one to identify uses of the conditional without making a theoretical

commitment. Fouilloux (2006) applies these same series of tests to Spanish. I will be using these

tests in order to extract tokens from the corpus. I will also be expanding on these tests to in

certain gaps found in these earlier works. These gaps include the lack of an explicit test for the

attenuating conditional in Haillet (2002) and a discussion of how to test for the two different

inferential uses of the conditional in Spanish (described in §1.2.2.7). By not taking a theoretical

stance prior to my investigation, I will be able to make a data-driven contribution to our

understanding of the press conditional in each language.

2.2.1 Identifying the Press Conditional in French

In his study of the French conditional, Haillet (2002) uses paraphrases and glosses to

identify three different types of conditional in French: the temporal conditional, the hypothetical

conditional, and the conditional he terms le conditionnel d’altérité énonciative (here, the press

conditional). The appropriate paraphrase is established by the co-text and context surrounding

the conditional. I illustrate his tests with the example in (1), which is taken from Dendale (1993:

171):

(1) Ce matin la flotte britannique aurait quitté le port de Portsmouth. Le

gouvernement britannique a déclenché ainsi le compte à rebours pour la guerre

des Malouines.

‘This morning, the British fleet [would have left] the port of Portsmouth. Thus,

the British government has started the countdown for the Falklands war.’

≠ elle allait avoir quitté

≠ eût quitté

≠ je dirais qu’il quitte

= elle a quitté, paraît-il

In (1), the co-text describing the government as having begun the countdown to war in the

Falklands indicates that the conditional is reporting past information, which excludes the future-

in-the-past, hypothetical and attenuating uses of the conditional. This same information can be

restated with the passé compose combined with the particle paraît-il without a change in

meaning. The example in (1), therefore, is a press conditional. Each of the tests for the individual

uses of the conditional in French are outlined in §2.2.1.1 — §2.2.1.4.

2.2.1.1 The Temporal Conditional

The temporal conditional serves to mark a future action in the past. From the perspective

of the surrounding co-text, the event described has yet to occur. In order to eliminate tokens of

the temporal conditional, the token extracted should not permit paraphrases with allait +

infinitive, in the case of the present conditional, or allait + past infinitive, in the case of the past

conditional. These tests are demonstrated in (2) and (3):

(2) Ils me disaient que la fête aurait lieu dans le parc municipal

‘They told me that the party would take place in the municipal park’

(Haillet (2002: 10)

= elle allait avoir lieu

≠ je dirais qu’elle a lieu

≠ elle a lieu, paraît-il

(3) Je me disais que j’aurais fini ce travail avant la fin de la semaine

‘I told myself that I would have finished this work before the end of the week’

(Haillet (2002: 11)

= j’allais avoir fini

≠ j’eûs fini

≠ je dirais qu’il finit

≠ j’ai fini, paraît-il

Both conditionals describe an event to take place later with respect to a moment in the past,

indicated in both (2) and (3) by the verba dicendi in the imperfect indicative. The difference

between the past and present conditional is that the past conditional sees this future-in-the-past

action as complete in (3).

By modifying the example in (1) with temporal markers that anchor the phrase as future-

in-the-past, it is possible to yield the sentence (4), compatible with allait + past infinitive:

(4) [Le commandant affirmait] que la flotte britannique aurait quitté le port de

Portsmouth [dès la semaine prochaine]

‘[The commander was confirming] that the British fleet would have left the port

of Portsmouth [by next week]’

= elle allait avoir quitté le port

≠ elle eût quitté le port

≠ elle a quitté le port, paraît-il

≠ je dirais qu’elle quitte

By framing the utterance as indirect discourse (whose time of enunciation is in the past), the

press conditional of (1) becomes the temporal conditional of (4). It points to a complete,

projected future action with respect to the time of enunciation.

2.2.1.2 The Attenuating Conditional

Haillet (2002) does not provide an explicit means to test for the attenuating use of the

conditional. However, Abouda (2001: 289) offers the following means of paraphrasing the

attenuating conditional: “je dirais p.,” where p represents the propositional content of the

original phrase restated in the present indicative. Examples of this test are seen in (5) and (6):

(5) Je voudrais une baguette

‘I would like a baguette’

(Abouda 2001: 289)

≠ j’allais vouloir une baguette

= je dirais que je veux une baguette

≠ je veux une baguette, paraît-il

(6) J’aurais voulu une baguette

‘I would like a baguette’

‘I [would have liked] a baguette’

(Abouda 2001: 289)

≠ j’allais avoir voulu une baguette

≠ j’eusse voulu une baguette

= je dirais que je veux une baguette

≠ je veux une baguette, paraît-il

When the conditional is used to attenuate a request, the difference between the present and past

conditional forms is not one of aspect but rather of distance and politeness. By using the past

conditional in (6), the speaker creates more distance and further softens their request. Abouda

(2001: 286) notes that the attenuating use of the conditional is limited to the first person of a

certain set of verbs like aimer ‘to like’ or dire ‘to say’ in the first person, although a conditional

with an impersonal verb like convenir ‘to be fitting’ in il conviendrait ‘it would be fitting’ can

also be considered to be of the attenuating type, despite the verb being in the third-person. A

verb like quitter ‘to leave’ as used in (1) is, therefore, impossible to ‘transform’ into an

attenuating conditional, and no reformulation will be provided here.

2.2.1.3 The Hypothetical Conditional

For the present conditional, there is no equivalent paraphrase possible in French; the

conditional is the only means for communicating a hypothesis in these cases. Therefore, present

conditionals will lack a specific test for the hypothetical form, as seen in (7):

(7) Bill Clinton a de la chance…Mais son bonheur serait complet si l’héritage laisse

par les républicains n’était pas si lourd à porter

‘Bill Clinton is lucky…But his happiness would be complete if the legacy left by

Republicans did not weigh so heavily on him’

(Haillet 2002: 12)

≠ allait être

≠ je dirais que son bonheur est complet

≠ son bonheur est complet, paraît-il

However, the past perfect subjunctive is still used in written French, and Haillet (2002) uses this

to gloss the hypothetical use of the past conditional, as seen in (8):

(8) S’il n’était pas intervenu, nous n’aurions pas obtenu satisfaction

‘If he hadn’t intervened, we wouldn’t have gotten any satisfaction’

(Haillet 2002: 12)

≠ nous n’allions pas avoir obtenu satisfaction

= nous n’eussions pas obtenu

≠ je dirais que nous obtenons

≠ n’avons pas obtenu, paraît-il

The underlined si-clauses in (7) and (8) represent the conditions that would need to be met for

the clauses in the conditional to be true. To the extent that the pluperfect subjunctive is a rare and

learned form, it is not as robust a test as the others.

By adding a si-clause to (1), the phrase becomes a hypothetical conditional as in (9):

(9) [Si le typhon n’avait pas atteint la côte,] la flotte britannique aurait quitté le port

de Portsmouth

‘[If the typhon hadn’t reached the coast,] the British fleet would have left the port

of Portsmoth’

≠ allait avoir quitté le port

= eût quitté le port

≠ je dirais qu’il quitte le port

≠ a quitté le port, paraît-il

In Standard French, the si-clause can be in the imperfect, as in (7), or in the pluperfect indicative

as in (8) and (9). The imperfect indicative speculates on present and future conditions that would

need to be met for the hypothesis to hold true, while the pluperfect indicative speculates on the

necessary past conditions that would need to have been satisfied.

2.2.1.4 The Press Conditional

Tokens representative of the press conditional should permit a paraphrase including the

particle paraît-il ‘it seems’ with the conditional’s verb in the present, past or future tense. This

has been illustrated in our primary example of the press conditional in (1), where the past

conditional is reformulated by the passé composé in combination with paraît-il. The present

conditional may be glossed by either the present indicative or the future tense, as in (10) and

(11):

(10) La mafia des hormones serait florissante en Espagne

‘The hormone mafia [would be] flourishing in Spain’

(Haillet 2002: 15)

≠ elle allait être florissante

≠ je dirais que elle est florissante

= est florissante, paraît-il

(11) Les impôts seraient simplifiés plutôt que réformés en 1998

‘Taxes [would be] simplified rather than reformed in 1998’

(Haillet 2002: 15)

≠ allaient être simplifies

≠ je dirais que les impôts sont simplifiés

= seront réformés, paraît-il

Gosselin (2001: 62) remarks that in French a future temporal marker is necessary to achieve a

future reading. In (11), which comes from a newspaper printed in 1997, en 1998 forces the

prospective reading.

2.2.2 Identifying the Press Conditional in Spanish

Fouilloux’s (2006) Spanish adaptations of Haillet’s (2002) tests were used in order to

identify and extract tokens of the press conditional in Spanish. One additional use of the

conditional needs to be considered that was not considered by Fouilloux (2006): that of the

conditional marking a generic inference, which tends to be overlooked, as far as I know, outside

articles on scientific discourse. As with French, each test will be outlined and an example of the

press conditional, shown in (12), will be transformed to further illustrate each possible reading:

(12) Según la prensa, el atentado no habría causado víctimas

‘According to the press, the attack [would not have caused] any casualties’

(Fouilloux 2006: 65)

≠ no iba a haber causado victimas

≠ no hubiera causado victimas

≠ diría que no causa victimas

≠ todo me indica que no había causado victimas

= no ha causado/causó, por lo visto

The prepositional phrase según la prensa ‘according to the press’ corroborates the test showing

(12) is a press conditional. As before, the past conditional form is used for illustration since it

shows the maximal number of tests that will be used.

2.2.2.1 The Temporal Conditional

The temporal conditional is used to mark a past action that is envisioned as occurring

subsequent to another past action. Foullioux (2006: 66) establishes that this use of the

conditional is equivalent to the periphrastic future-in-the-past iba a + infinitive, with the verb ir

‘to go’ in the imperfect. An example is shown in (13):

(13) En 1950, tras el desastre, Julio volvería a su pueblo

‘In 1950, after the disaster, Julio would return to his village’

(Foullioux 2006: 65)

= Julio iba a volver a su pueblo

≠ diría que Julio vuelvo

≠ todo me indica que volvió/volvía

≠ Julio volvía / vuelve / volverá, por lo visto,

In (13) the action is anchored in a time prior to Julio returning to his village in a moment

subsequent to the disaster that befell it. When a prospective action is viewed as completed, the

past conditional is used. Foullioux (2006: 67) equates this to the paraphrase iba a + past

infinitive, shown in (14):

(14) Afirmaron que cuando llegara el invierno habrían recogido la cosecha

‘They affirmed that by the time winter came they would have gathered the

harvest’

(RAE 2010: 453)

= iban a haber recogido la cosecha

≠ diría que recogen la cosecha

≠ hubieran recogido la cosecha

≠ todo me indica que había recogido la cosecha

≠ han recogido/recogió la cosecha, por lo visto

In (14), the action of harvesting is seen as completed from the perspective of the affirmation

because it occurs prior to the arrival of winter.

By adding the appropriate temporal frame to the utterance in (12), a temporal past

conditional can be achieved, as in (15):

(15) [Prometieron] que el atentado no habría causado víctimas [antes de que llegaran

los medios]

‘[They promised that the attack] would not have caused any casualties [before

the media arrived]’

(Fouilloux 2006: 65)

= no iba a haber causado victimas

≠ no hubiera causado victimas

≠ diría que no causa victimas

≠ todo me indica que no había causado victimas

≠ no ha causado/causó victimias, por lo visto

There are two temporal reference points in (15): prometieron ‘they promised’ (the moment of

not knowing) and antes de que llegaran los medios ‘before the media arrived.’ The conditional

marks that the action is seen as yet to occur from the perspective of prometieron, while the past

conditional marks that the action is complete before the arrival of the media.

2.2.2.2 The Hypothetical Conditional

As in French, there is no direct way to rephrase the present conditional in its hypothetical

use.

However, as in French, the past perfect subjunctive may be used to gloss the past

conditional when its meaning is hypothetical. Examples are given in (16) and (17):

Historically, the hypothetical present conditional could be replaced by the -ra verb forms (much as auxiliary

hubiera productively replaces habría to this day). Such usage is now considered regional or excessively literary.

(16) Si no hubiese coches, Madrid sería un paraíso

‘If there were no cars, Madrid would be a paradise’

(Fouilloux 2006: 68)

≠ iba a ser un paraíso

≠ diría que es un paraíso

≠ todo me indica que era un paraíso

≠ es/era/será un paraíso, por lo visto

(17) Si hubiese venido, no te habrías echado a llorar

‘If he had come, you wouldn’t have started crying’

(Fouilloux 2006: 68)

≠ ibas a haberte echado a llorar

= te hubieras echado a llorar

≠ diría que te echas a llorar

≠ todo me indica que te había echado a llorar

≠ te has echado/te echaste a llorar, por lo visto

The si-clauses mark the conditions necessary for each hypothesis to be true. In the standard

language, Spanish si-clauses require the imperfect subjunctive as in (16) and the pluperfect

subjunctive as in (17). Unlike in French, the pluperfect subjunctive for the past conditional in

Spanish is usual in everyday language.

By adding a condition marked by a pluperfect subjunctive in a si-clause to the example in

(12), one arrives at the hypothetical conditional seen in (18):

(18) [Si el hombre hubiera/hubiese seguido el plan de evacuación], el atentado no

habría causado víctimas

‘[If the man had followed the evacuation plan,] the attack would not have caused

any casualties’

(Fouilloux 2006: 65)

≠ no iba a haber causado victimas

= no hubiera causado victimas

≠ diría que no causa victimas

≠ todo me indica que no había causado victimas

≠ no ha causado/causó victimas, por lo visto

Since the pluperfect subjunctive can replace in the past conditional, it is possible to restate (17)

and (18) with the pluperfect subjunctive used in both clauses. However, the El País style guide

recommends not using the pluperfect subjunctive as a substitute for the past conditional with a

hypothetical meaning (El País 2014: Diccionario, Palabras A-Z, H). The reasons for this are

unclear, but one supposes that employing a different verb form in each clause contributes to

clarity.

However, it does still occur with the verbs poder ‘can,’ querer ‘to want,’ deber ‘must’ and parecer ‘to seem’ (RAE

2010: §24.1.2b).

2.2.2.3 The Attenuating Conditional

Fouilloux (2006: 73-75) describes the attenuating conditional in Spanish as expressing an

underlying point of view that is in the present indicative in order to make a request. This is

essentially the same formulation used by Abouda (2001), who proposes je dirais que p in French.

I will adopt this same formula into Spanish. Examples of this test are given in (19) and (20):

(19) Buenos días, querría una barra de pan

‘Hello, I would like a baguette’

(Fouilloux 2006: 73)

≠ iba a querer una barra de pan

= diría que quiero una barra de pan

≠ toda me indica que quería una barra de pan

≠ quiero/quería/querré una barra de pan, por lo visto

(20) Habría querido hablar con usted un momentito

‘I [would have liked] to speak with you a moment’

(RAE 2010: 453)

≠ iba a haber querido hablar

= diría que quiero hablar

≠ toda me indica que había querido hablar

≠ he querido/quise hablar, por lo visto

I will not be providing a reformulation of (12) for illustration in this case since the same

limitations on the attenuating conditional with respect to verbs and grammatical person apply in

Spanish as do in French (see §2.2.1.2).

2.2.2.4 The Conjectural Conditional

The conjectural conditional refers to the use of the conditional to mark inferences about

the past. In these cases, the basis is a state of affairs set in the past (see §1.2.2.7). Foullioux

(2006: 76) uses the phrase todo me indica… ‘everything indicates to me…’, which can combine

with the imperfect, preterite or pluperfect of the verb in the conditional. Examples are given in

(21), (22) and (23):

(21) Juan tendría entonces 40 años

‘Juan [would be] 40 years old’

(Vatrican 2014: 259)

≠ iba a tener 40 años

≠ diría que tiene

= todo me indica que tenía entonces 40 años

≠ tenía 40 años, por lo visto

(22) Pedro llegaría entonces tarde

‘Pedro [would arrive] late’

(Vatrican 2014: 259)

≠ iba a llegar entonces tarder

≠ diría que llega

= todo me indica que llegó tarde.

≠ llegó entonces tarde, por lo visto

(23) Habría estado de viaje

‘S•he [would have been] on vacation’

(Vatrican 2014: 259)

≠ iba a haber estado de viaje

≠ diría que ha estado

= todo me indica que había estado de viaje.

≠ había estado de viaje, por lo visto

In (21) and (22), the present conditional describes complete or incomplete actions, yielding

equivalent paraphrases in either the imperfect or preterit indicative. In (23), the past conditional

indicates an action prior to the moment of access to the circumstances that give rise to the

conjecture.

By adding co-text that suggests the basis for an inference on the part of the speaker, the

conditional of (12) can take on a conjectural meaning, based on the speaker’s access to

circumstances, shown in (24):

(24) [Era calma en el hospital]; el atentado no habría causado víctimas

‘[It was calm in the hospital]. The attack [would not have caused] any

casualties’

≠ no iba a haber causado victimas

≠ no hubiera causado victimas

≠ diría que no causa victimas

= todo me indica que no había causado victimas

≠ no ha causado/causó victimias, por lo visto

In (24), the speaker has direct access to the circumstances on which the conjecture is based. The

past conditional indicates that the occurrence of the attack would have been prior to the moment

at which the speaker notices the sense of calm in the hospital. It should be remembered that the

French conditional cannot be used in this way (Rossari 2009: 77-78).

2.2.2.5 The Inferential and Press Conditionals

It is necessary to treat the inferential and press conditional in Spanish together. García

Negroni (2016: 10) demonstrates that they are distinguishable only through context and co-text,

and Fouilloux (2006) does not distinguish between them. With respect to the press conditional,

Fouilloux (2006: 71) demonstrates that the phrase por lo visto ‘it seems’ combined with the

future indicative, present indicative can paraphrase the present press conditional while the past

perfect indicative and/or preterit, combined with por lo visto, can paraphrase the past press

conditional in Spanish. The RAE (2010: 1782) also notes that the present conditional can be

glossed by the imperfect. Examples with the present conditional glossed by the present,

imperfect and future are shown in (25) and (26):

(25) Se trata, en suma, de evitar que haya partidos que vean en la aprobación de las

propuestas autonómicas de CiU el precio que el Gobierno estaría pagando a

cambio del apoyo de los nacionalistas

‘It is a matter of avoiding that there be parties who see in the approval of the

regional budgets of CiU the price that the government [would be paying] in

exchange for nationalist support’

(RAE 2009: 1782)

≠ iba a estar pagando

≠ diría que está pagando

≠ todo me indica que estaba pagando

= estaba/está pagando, por lo visto

(26) Según la agencia EFE, el presidente saldría mañana para Londres

‘According to the EFE news agency, the president [would leave] tomorrow for

London’

(Fouilloux 2006: 73)

≠ iba a salir para Londres

≠ diría que sale

≠ todo me indica que salía/salió

= saldrá, por lo visto

The RAE (2009) glosses the example in (25) with both the present and imperfect.

In (26), the

adverb mañana ‘tomorrow’ makes it clear that the conditional has a future reading. It should be

recalled that Sarrazin (2010) has found prospective readings of the press conditional in

utterances without markers of future time as well, suggesting co-text and context must be used to

properly identify the temporal reference of the present press conditional.

It would appear that the same test can be extended to inferential instances of the

conditional. Ramos (2005: 544) observes that por lo visto also serves to mark inference, and

Negroni (2016) demonstrates that the inferential and press conditionals can only be distinguished

through context. I give her example in (27):

(27) 1. HEADLINE: Nisman habría pensado en pedir la detención de Cristina

‘Nisman [would have considered] ordering Cristina’s detention.’

2. LEDE PARAGRAPH: La denuncia del fiscal por encubrimiento a favor de los

iraníes. En el tacho de basura de su departamento se habría encontrado una

versión original que contiene esa medida. La final tiene tachaduras.

‘The prosecution alleging a cover-up on behalf of the Iranians. In the trash bin of

his apartment an original version [would be found] that includes this measure.

The final one contains mark-up.’

I have not been able to locate a reference example that is unambiguous.

3. BODY: En las declaraciones que hizo a los medios para explicar el contenido y

el alcance de su acusación contra el Poder Ejecutivo, Nisman no hizo alusión a un

pedido de desafuero y de detención contra la Presidenta y el canciller. Pero en su

casa se encontraron pruebas que indican que pensó hacerlo, tanto que lo escribió.

‘In the declarations he made to the media to explain the content and reach of the

accusation against the Executive, Nisman made no reference to a request for

impeachment and detention against the President and the minister. But evidence

was found in his house that indicates he considered doing so, insofar as he

drafted it.’

(Negroni 2016: 10)

On the basis of the co-text in (27-3), Negroni (2016: 10) demonstrates that the conditional of the

headline in (27-1) is inferential. No one has direct knowledge of the prosecutor’s intent, but one

can draw conclusions about his intent from the earlier drafts of his legal filings. The conditional

in (27-2) cites an earlier utterance: the draft is said to be found in the trash bin of his residence.

On the surface, the two are identical. This also suggests that por lo visto is an appropriate test to

identify either of these conditionals and that a subsequent determination must be made case-by-

case.

Therefore, when it comes to the paraphrase test, (27-1) and (27-2) will be identical, as

shown below in (28) and (29):

(28) Nisman habría pensado en pedir la detención de Cristina

≠ iba a haber pensado en pedir

≠ hubiera pensado en pedir

≠ diría que piensa

≠ todo me indica que pensaba/pensó

= ha pensado/pensó, por lo visto

(29) En el tacho de basura de su departamento se habría encontrado una versión

original que contiene esa medida

≠ iba a haberse encontrado

≠ se hubiera encontrado

≠ diría que encuentra

≠ todo me indica que se había encontrado

= se ha encontrado/se encontró, por lo visto

For these reasons, the test with por lo visto is used to extract instances of both the press

conditional and the inferential conditional. In order to distinguish between the two, co-text and

context is necessary. More detail on how these uses are distinguished in the Spanish segment of

the corpus are given in 4.1.1.

The benefits of the use of paraphrases is well illustrated in this instance. First, it may

allow for a better understanding of the use of the conditional in the press since mention of the

conditional as a marker of inference appears to be rare in discussions of the press conditional in

Spanish. It could be that inference is crucial to understanding the use of the conditional in

journalistic texts. Furthermore, Bermúdez (2016) has argued that instances of the conditional

marking a secondhand source in Spanish, at least in scientific discourse, have a separate origin

from the press conditional, which marks thirdhand information (and, per the contact hypothesis,

came to Spanish from French).

We can compare his two examples below in (30) and (31) and

apply our tests:

(30) Robert Nisbet examina breve y rigurosamente los temas centrales del

conservadurismo –historia, tradición, propiedad, autoridad, libertad y religión– y

dirige sus críticas tanto al colectivismo como al individualismo radical.

Finalmente, aborda la crisis del conservadurismo, que estaría causada en buena

medida por su adopción en la escena política de principios del liberalismo

económico y del Estado del bienestar

‘Robert Nisbet examines briefly and rigorously the central themes of

conservatism—history, traditional, property, authority, liberty and religion—and

directs his criticism as much to collectivism as to radical individualism. Finally,

he addresses the crisis of conservatism, which [would be caused] in large

measure by its adoption of economic liberalism and the Welfare State’

≠ iba a estar causada

≠ diría que está causada

≠ todo me indica que estaba causado

= está causada, por lo visto

(31) Nols estaría considerando, según el propio Le Pen, la creación en Bélgica de un

Frente Nacional de extrema derecha, similar al francés

‘Nols [would be considering], according to Le Pen himself, the creation of a far-

right National Front in Belgium, similar to the French one’

≠ iba a estar considerando

≠ diría que está considerando

≠ todo me indica que estaba considerando

= está considerando, por lo visto

Bermúdez (2016: 57) argues that the scientific conditional, seen in (30) serves to assign

information to a source and mark the speaker’s non-prise-en-charge of its content. However,

conditionals such as those in (30) have a certain element of inference since the speaker has

accessed that information cognitively (Bermúdez 2016: 59). It would appear that the scientific

conditional straddles the line between inference and reported information. Since the test does not

require that we assign one value or the other to a token, tokens such as those in (30) do not

require a prior commitment to whether they primarily serve to mark an inference as in (27-1) or

to mark uncertain, reported information as in (31).

To rephrase the example in (12) such that it appears to be an inference, one might add co-

text indicating the evidence on which the inference is based, as in (32):

In secondhand information, Speaker learns information through what Z has said. Thirdhand information refers to

information that has come to the speaker via a source who knows that information secondhand: Speaker learns

information through Y who learned that same information through Z. Z in this case is thirdhand information.

Examples (30) and (31) are explained directly in footnote 23 in §1.3.1.

(32) [El grupo terrorista ha revindicado un atentado en un puesto militar. Sin embargo,

éste había sido evacuado una hora antes.] El atentado no habría causado

victimas.

‘[The terrorist group has claimed credit for an attack on a military post.

However, it had been evacuated an hour earlier.] The attack [would not have

caused] any casualties.’

≠ no iban a haber causado victimas

≠ no hubiera causado victimas

≠ diría que no causa victimas

≠ todo me indica que no había causado

= no ha causado/causó victimas, por lo visto

By adding co-text that suggests it is a deduction from evidence that has led to the conclusion that

there were no casualties in the attack, the example in (12) becomes inferential as in (32).

2.2.3 Identifying the Press Conditional Summary

Table 2.4 below provides a summary of the tests used to identify the various uses of the

conditional:

TABLE 2.4 SUMMARY OF TESTS

Conditional Use

French

Spanish

Temporal

COND – Pres

COND – Past

allait + infinitive

allait + past infitive

iba a + inf.

Iba a + past infinitive

Hypothetical

COND – Pres

COND – Past

n/a

SUBJ – pluperfect

n/a

SUBJ – pluperfect

Attenuating

COND – Pres

COND – Past

je dirais que. + pres.

diría que p. + IND – pres.

Conjectural

COND – Pres

COND – Past

n/a

Todo me indica que + imp., pret.

Todo me indica que + pluperfect

Press

COND – Pres

COND – Past

pres./fut. + paraît-il

passé composé + paraît-il

imp./pres./fut. + por lo visto

pres. perf. / preterit + por lo visto

TABLE 2.4 (continued)

Inferential

COND – Pres

COND – Past

n/a

imp./pres./fut. + por lo visto

pres. perf. / preterit + por lo visto

As Table 2.4 shows, the tests proposed are largely identical across the two languages. It should

be recalled that Guentchéva (1994) has suggested the possibility that the press conditional in

French could, in some instances, mark inference. However, since this is usually considered

impossible, I will not be specifying a separate test for any possible cases of the conditional being

used in an inferential manner. However, in the light of Guentchéva’s (1994: 30) analysis of a

press conditional token appearing to mark inference, I will be attentive to tokens whose context

and co-texts suggest an inferential nature, along the same lines as García Negroni (2016: 10) has

done for the examples seen in (27). In (27), the indication that the prosecutor thought to seek

Kirchner’s arrest is known not directly but rather from a deduction made from drafts of his legal

suit, which included that measure. In the case of French, if any press conditional appears in

contexts which suggest that an inference has been made (as the text in (27-3) does), these tokens

will be noted and analyzed for that possibility.

2.3 Analytical Framework

Different varieties of texts are associated with different linguistic features (Biber and

Conrad: 2019: 1-2). The words and grammatical constructions common in one text type may

very well be rare or not found in another. As is evidenced by its name, the press conditional is

associated tightly with the press in both French and Spanish, and it can be thought of as a register

or stylistic feature of journalistic language. These concepts will be defined in section §2.3.1. To

the extent that the press conditional can be defined as a register feature, and therefore useful to

journalists, it is necessary to establish a working understanding of the aims of journalistic

discourse and how the press conditional’s meaning and form might be useful to journalists. I will

lay out these concepts in §2.3.2.

2.3.1 Register and Style

It is not controversial to say that the press conditional is a linguistic feature of journalism.

One merely need to open a newspaper to see that newspapers in French and Spanish make use of

it. However, it is necessary to understand what its status is as a linguistic feature in the

journalistic text type. Biber and Conrad (2019: 1-2) define three ways to understand the

linguistic features of texts. If a feature represents a conventional element of a text, it is reflective

of the text’s genre. These include features such as the headlines of newspapers and the opening

and closing of letters; they are needed to establish the text type itself. To the extent that the

presence of a linguistic element serves the text’s achieving of its communicative aims, its

presence can be understood as a function of register. Biber and Conrad (2019: 18) give the

example of reported speech and passive forms in newspaper stories. News articles do not use

passive voice because it identifies them as news stories, it is rather the case that the passive voice

is useful in newswriting. From the register perspective, a linguistic feature in a text may be more

frequent if its meaning or form is especially adept at serving the needs of a text. If a feature is

used for its perceived aesthetic value, it is a stylistic feature.

Despite its close link to the press, the press conditional cannot be said to be a genre

feature since the press conditional, despite its name and frequency in newspapers, is not a

conventionalized or necessary feature of journalistic texts, as would be bylines, headlines, or

mastheads. Even if newspapers must generally mark when a fact is unconfirmed, there are other

means to mark uncertainty in both French and Spanish. If we theorize that the press conditional

is an especially efficient way of marking uncertainty through verbal syntax, without the need for

extra wording, we have described the press conditional through the perspective of register.

Insofar as the press conditional competes with alternate markers of uncertainty in the

press (such as Sp. al parecer ‘it seems’), the use of the press conditional could have stylistic

implications under Biber and Conrad’s (2019: 2) definition of the term. However, when using

that term, I would rather not make an appeal to aesthetic preferences without a more rigorous

framework in which to understand the concept of aesthetics. There is no evidence that its use is

an aesthetic choice. Rather, I will use a broader understanding of style as proposed by Enkvist

(1978). He defines style as an “impression arrived at through comparison” (Enkvist 1978: 174).

He explains that, in order to arrive at an idea of a text’s style, “a text is compared with a network

of other texts or text types which are regarded as significantly related to the original text, and

therefore worth the comparison” (Enkvist 1978: 174-75). This is akin to Marnette’s (2005: 305)

description of the press conditional’s use when she observes that the construction is more

frequent in Le Monde than in other newspapers. Rather than understanding style as an aesthetic

preference, she argues that it serves Le Monde’s use of more extensive measures to mark

uncertainty, leading to its greater frequency. If we adopt Enkvist’s (1978) definition of style, the

press conditional can be seen as either a stylistic feature, a register feature (under Biber and

Conrad’s (2019) definition), or both.

Since the data collected in this investigation will bear on the frequency of the conditional

in various contexts, a stylistic preference, in the context of this investigation, should be

understood as a greater or lesser relative frequency of the press conditional in the comparison of

two similar contexts (i.e., across news articles, across newspapers, etc.). Although it would be

interesting to evaluate the aesthetic value of the press conditional, that is an altogether different

study.

2.3.2 Defining the Aims of Journalistic Language

Broadly speaking, the press aims to inform people about the world around them, explain

and comment on the information it provides, as well as to entertain and to promote social

cohesion (Albert 2007: 34-35). In a democratic and pluralistic society, it is a channel for political

expression and shapes political life (Albert 2007: 36). In a market economy, the press is also an

object of consumption and is shaped to promote and further economic interests (Albert 2007:

37). In short, the press does not just transmit information but intersects with multiple aspects of

life in the day-to-day world. While the news the press reports is meant to represent the “real

world,” as the constructivist model of news points out, news is simply whatever is reported as

news (Derville 1999: 152). The choice of what is news lies with professional newsmakers and

what they view as newsworthy and relevant to their audience (Cotter 2010: 112).

In essence,

news is a construct and one with a certain intentionality behind it.

This study, however, is not designed to reveal the construct but to understand how the

press conditional participates in this construct and how the needs of this discourse condition its

use. Primarily, journalists and readers alike understand news discourse to be true. It is this claim

to truth that separates journalism from other kinds of discourse. Broersma (2010: 25) states:

Journalism’s claim to truth is the main feature of the journalism discourse. It is its raison

d’être, distinguishing journalism from entertainment as well as from political opinion.

This claim to truth legitimizes journalism’s special position as Fourth Estate. As a trustee

of the public, it professionally reports and critically investigates social reality. For the

common good, it distinguishes facts from fiction, lies and biased comments. As such, this

promise of truthfulness is the basis for the social code by journalists and their reading

audience (25).

This claim to truth is ensured by what Charaudeau (2006: para. 5) calls the contrat de

communication (communicative contract). He observes that the journalist acts as an objective

and external narrator who responsibly consults sources and demonstrates evidence for the facts

they are reporting (Charaudeau 2006: para.16).

This also includes acknowledging instances

where the journalist may not have evidence for their report, which recalls precisely what appears

to be the prima facie function (and lay understanding) of the press conditional: the journalist is

marking, as is their duty, that the information that they report may not be true.

The contrat de communication is not ensured, however, simply by a journalist’s

assurances that they are objectively relaying the truth. Journalists must also demonstrate and

maintain credibility (Cotter 2010: 42). Credibility derives from the accuracy of journalists’

reporting and writing (Cotter 2010: 36) Cotter (2010: 38) defines reporting specifically as “the

gathering of facts” and writing as the skillful communication of those facts through the written

word.

Errors of fact suggest inadequate and inaccurate reporting (Cotter 2010: 42). This, in

turn, undermines credibility. However, it is not enough to gather the correct facts; one must also

correctly convey them. In this sense, writing is also implicated in a journalist’s credibility. As

writers, journalists must heed journalism’s prescriptive imperative or rules of language usage

(Cotter 2010: 40-41). Failure to heed the prescriptive imperative also undermines accuracy of

writing and, consequently, credibility (Cotter 2010: 42). One can link this value of credibility to

the claim to truth identified by Broersma (2010). A journalist’s claim to truth is as good as their

“Irrespective of journalistic communicative goals, the news media select information and topics to present based

on the same principles used by interlocutors in conversation: communication, persuasion, connection, and

articulation of identity. As with a conversation, the ‘news interlocutors’ make assessments about shared or prior

knowledge, what might be of interest, what would be offensive or proper, what information is wanted or needed”

Cotter (2010: 112).

“Ensuite, l’événement ayant été sélectionné (selon des critères de saillance), il s’agit pour le journaliste de

rapporter les faits de la façon la plus précise possible, avec, comme on le dit en narratologie, un point de vue de

narrateur externe qui tenterait de décrire fidèlement la succession des faits, et de mettre en évidence (ou à suggérer

quand il n’en a pas la preuve) la logique d’enchaînements entre ceux-ci. Il en est de même pour l’activité qui

consiste à rapporter des paroles, des déclarations, des discours et les réactions qui s’ensuivent” (Charaudeau 2006:

para. 16).

Cotter’s (2010: 36-43) terms writing and reporting have more specific meanings here than they do in everyday

usage. In her explanation, Cotter (2010: 41) emphasizes that these are separate skills, explaining that it is possible to

be a “good reporter” which does not imply necessarily that one is a good writer.

credibility, which is as good as their accuracy in the domains of reporting and writing. If the

press conditional marks that a reporter is uncertain about a fact, it may imply that their reporting

is not accurate. If a journalist violates the prescriptive injunction against the press conditional,

the journalist has not heeded the prescriptive imperative, thus making for inaccurate writing. In

both cases, the undermining of accuracy should result in the undermining of credibility.

In the light of journalism’s reliance on language use to sustain its claim to truth, the fact

that the conditional is addressed in style guides in French and Spanish is, therefore, significant.

Cotter (2010: 192) claims that “reporters, no matter their nationality, have easy access to style

guides and in-house style manuals and are expected to consult them daily.” This should suggest

that mentions of the press conditional in French and Spanish style guides implies that the use of

the conditional is a part of journalistic consciousness in both languages and that journalists and

editors alike are aware of the consequences of its misuse as regards accuracy and credibility. El

País’s injunction against the press conditional as both bad grammar and bad journalism is a

perfect illustration of concern for these discursive aims playing out in the pages of a newspaper

style guide.

This said, news language does change in response to other journalistic needs that may

conflict with the prescriptive imperative. Cotter (2003) outlines the emergence of conjunctions

and and but in English in sentence-initial position. Such connectors had long been proscribed

from use (Cotter 2003: 52-53). However, in the latter decades of the 20

century, sentence-initial

and and but had become accepted practice (Cotter 2003: 66). Cotter (2003: 66, 69) frames this as

a shift from a “text-oriented to an audience-oriented mode of discourse” and as a “response to

changing requirements of journalistic practice such as providing quotes, and to clarify narrative

relations within the journalistic text.” Essentially, journalists were seeking a more spoken style at

the same time as they were placing more emphasis on the number of sources and quotes included

in their reports. Communicative needs were seen to outweigh prescriptive concerns. In her book,

Cotter (2010: 211) calls this the choice between the prescriptive imperative and the pragmatic

alternative. Since both French and Spanish style guides make it clear that improper use of the

press conditional risks transgressing the prescriptive imperative, its use could be tied to the

efficiency with which it codes uncertainty.

2.4 Conclusion

In this chapter, I have outlined an in-depth study of the press conditional in the

journalistic context in French and Spanish. I have described a corpus consisting of two French

newspapers and two Spanish newspapers that will allow me to investigate variation between

newspapers as well as to better quantify the actual frequency of the press conditional. I have

outlined the paraphrases in French and Spanish that will be used to extract tokens of the press

conditional from the corpus. I have established an analytical framework in order to understand

the press conditional as register and stylistic feature of journalistic texts that considers the greater

aims of journalistic discourse and its claim to truth. In Chapter 3, I will present my findings for

French. In Chapter 4, I will present my findings for Spanish. In Chapter 5, I will present

comparative findings between the two languages.

3 THE PRESS CONDITIONAL IN FRENCH

3.1 Form and Frequency of the Press Conditional

In this chapter, I first examine the forms and frequency of the press conditional in French. I find

that the data here bears out prior claims in the literature: the present conditional is most frequent

with a present reading, while the past conditional is used for past events. I confirm that the

present conditional with a prospective reading is rare, as it is not present in the corpus. I then