The truth is always simple

(on the occasion of the ‘The verb as space: six new issues of Spanish grammar’ by José Plácido Ruiz Campillo)

Abstract

El verbo como espacio: seis nuevos temas de gramática del Español” (The verb as space: six new issues of Spanish grammar), written by J. P. Ruiz Campillo, covers indeed six grammatical issues. However, it is much more. Behind these issues, innovative in various ways, there is a personal arrangement of the verbal system, grounded on its own spatial nature and the fixed meaning that is to be found in each form. In order to reconstruct the process from which these six issues emerge, we had to likewise draw on grammar theory. This field of study, to which the author refers as operational grammar, is here also presented in connection to its teaching and learning in the area of Spanish as a foreign language. Classified into three levels of abstraction -theoretical, descriptive, and applied-, this journey has allowed us to come closer to a grammatical insight and description, characterised by its cohesion and its pedagogical value