Factual Shell Noun Constructions in Discourse

Shell nouns tend to occur in schematic constructions or recurrent patterns, which can operate at the sentence level or across sentences. Although these constructions are not randomly realized with specific shell nouns, a debate exists regarding whether shell nouns with similar semantic features attract similar constructions. Considering that, we intended to study the Spanish factual shell nouns hecho (fact) and caso (case), in relation to the across-sentences constructions in which they are included and the discursive behavior these constructions exhibit. The analysis is based on the construction of discourse through coherence relations and is conducted by means of a corpus study. The results show that caso shows a greater attraction than hecho for constructions that operate across sentences. It is primarily realized through the prepositional construction en este caso (in this case) and the identificational construction este es el caso de (this is the case of), which establish Condition and Background coherence relations. Hecho, on the other hand, shows a greater attraction for the characterizational construction este es un hecho (this is a fact) and for verbal constructions, such as este hecho ha de entenderse (this fact is to be understood), which organize discourse through Evaluation and Interpretation relations. The findings indicate that although they belong to the same semantic class, shell nouns tend to display distinctive constructional profiles and discourse behavior, which depends on the specific constructions in which they are included rather than on the shell noun.