Argumentative Texts: Statements, Phrases, and Spelling
Argumentative Texts
The purpose of argumentative texts is to convince or persuade others that a particular opinion or theory is correct. There are two different basic types:
- Opinion or Thesis: A statement from a personal perspective of the issuer of the text on a particular subject.
- Arguments: Various reasons or evidence that the author of the text presents to support their thesis.
Examples of argumentative texts include editorials, letters to the editor, articles, opinion columns, essays, and oral texts and discussions in gatherings.
The Statement
We communicate through statements. Statements can be sentences or non-sentences.
The statement is the smallest unit of communication, delimited by pauses, which transmits a complete and concrete message within a situation. Any verbal issuing transmitting an entire message must be considered a statement.
Types of Statements
- Sentence Statements: Simple sentences.
- Non-Sentence Statements: Words, phrases, and non-verbal noun phrases.
Nominal Phrases
A nominal phrase is a separate statement that has no predicate verb phrase. Noun phrases are characteristic of proverbs and aphorisms.
Prayers (Sentences)
Sentences offer a verb phrase as a predicate. The sentences convey a complete message and are bounded by pauses, represented by silence in speech and a point in writing.
By their form, sentences can be declarative, interrogative, exclamatory, hortatory, wishful, and hesitant. By their structure, sentences can be simple (having a single subject-predicate structure) or composite (offering more than one subject-predicate structure, issued as a single statement).
Text
The maximum communication unit that transmits a coherent and consistent message.
Key Text Properties
- Coherence: The statements which constitute a text must be linked together to give a full sense.
- Cohesion: The statements of a text must be properly interrelated from a grammatical view.
- Suitability: For a set of sentences to be considered a text, it must conform to the communicative situation in which it is issued.
Creating Words: Neologisms
Languages need to increase their vocabulary to name new realities or ideas. Incorporating new words into the language are called neologisms.
The incorporation of neologisms can be carried out by creating new words from different procedures that the language provides: derivation, composition, and acronymy.
Methods of Creating Neologisms
- Derivation: Prefixes or suffixes are added to a lexical base or root word in order to create a new word (e.g., insane).
- Composition: The new term comes from the union of two or more words that already exist (e.g., video game). Can be written together.
- Acronymy: The new word is formed from letters or syllables of other words (e.g., UN).
Apart from the above procedures, you can create new words by grammaticalization of interjections and onomatopoeia.
Standard Spelling
Standard spelling facilitates communication. The spelling rule governs the use of letters, the accent, and punctuation.
Accentuación (Accentuation)
- Words are emphasized: the acute words ending in a vowel, -n, or -s.
- Words that are flat or do not result in serious vocal -n or -s.
- All proparoxytones or sobresdrújulas.
- Monosyllables are not emphasized.