Les estructures condicionals [si p, q] i la seva rellevància en les formulacions legislatives, administratives i jurídiques

Resum

The aim of the first part of this paper is to answer the question of why conditional constructions are so common in legal and administrative texts, and in parallel fashion, what discourse and textual functions these types of constructions fulfill in texts belonging to the legal and governmental sphere. Once the different Spanish and Catalan legal-administrative corpora used have been analyzed, the following seems to be clear:

a) despite the fact that canonical order of the conditional structures ([if P, then Q]) is, by far, the most frequent in colloquial language, in legal and administrative language, on the other hand, the reverse conditional structure ([Q, if P]) has a very considerable presence.

b) the discourse functions performed by these constructions vary substantially depending on the internal clause order, as we see below:

b1) the fundamental role of the "If P, then Q" type conditionals is to foresee possible situations and circumstances for determining the possible resultant consequences (or legal actions)

b2) when the framework is "Q, then P," the value of the conditional structure is to pinpoint and restrict the preceding affirmation in order to prevent an excessively broad -- and consequently, erroneous -- interpretation on the part of the receiver. The role of such conditional clauses is, then, to express reservations.