Insubordinate hypothetical comparison clauses from Latin to Spanish : quasi to como si

This paper examines the diachronic development of insubordinate hypothetical comparison clauses from Latin to Spanish, with a focus on the syntactic and semantic-pragmatic trajectories of quasi in Latin and como si in Spanish. Drawing on corpus data spanning 24 centuries, we argue that insubordinate quasi-clauses in Latin served as a precursor to insubordinate como si-clauses in Spanish. Specifically, we propose that the decline of quasi in insubordinate contexts—due to its increasing restriction to non-finite environments in Post-Classical Latin—led to the rise of quomodo si introducing finite clauses, which gradually assumed both subordinate and insubordinate functions through semantic and paradigmatic analogy. Furthermore, we highlight underexplored functional extensions of hypothetical comparison clauses, including the ‘real’ and ‘mistaken belief’ uses of quasi, and the ‘scalar evaluation’ and ‘nuanced agreement’ uses of como si, which have received little attention in cross-linguistic research to date.