El Curso Superior de Sintaxis Espa ola de Samuel Gili Gaya: un enfoque transversal

Curso superior de sintaxis espa ola (Advanced Course in Spanish Syntax) (1961), by Samuel Gili Gaya, is a diaphanous example of the cultural richness that was generated at the time of the scientific renovation, which launched the Centro de Estudios Históricos (The Centre for Historical Studies) (1909). The work of Gili Gaya is indebted to this renovation, as is demonstrated by the perspective from which the author studies some aspects of language, such as sentence definition, concordance and connectors etc. His transversal focus, not being subject to the limitations of any scientific doctrines, allowed him to produce a realistic description of language. From the outset this objective presented something innovative. Moreover, the same author affirmed that his work pursued educational objectives. Altogether this explains that, sometimes, he takes into account factors that were rarely considered at that time, in Spain, such as communicative context, the role of the author and the reader, the communicative intention, diastratic and diatopic varieties etc. This article wishes to demonstrate, through the use of implicit and explicit sources, and from the epistemological base of this work, that this is one of the most innovative contributions to Spanish grammar of the 20th century, considering the historical and cultural context in which it was published.