Alcoba Rueda, Santiago2012-09-052012-09-052008ALCOBA RUEDA, Santiago: «Usos de “cual”, Grupo Acentual y Unidad Melódica», Moenia. Revista lucense de lingüística e literatura. ISSN 1137-2346, vol. 13 (2007), pp. 39-681137-2346http://hdl.handle.net/10347/6066Santiago ALCOBA RUEDA: Uses of el cual, Clitic Group and Intonational Phrase. First, this study focuses briefly on the choice in Spanish to use the relative pronoun el cual due to its flexible properties of being able to serve the condition of perspicuity, of univocal identification of the antecedent noun correferential with the relative pronoun. I will then be referring to the other not as clear aspect of choosing el cual: its condition of being a stressed word. Indeed, it is unlike all other Spanish relative pronouns, which are unstressed. This latter aspect deals with the distinction between certain preferential usages and others that are exclusive to el cual; and then attempts to justify and argue the phonological fundaments of some of the exclusive uses of el cual. Therefore, this will establish how the choice of a certain lexical form, of a certain relative pronoun, el cual, is conditioned by its phonetic nature, by being a stressed word, and by the distribution in the sequence of the Clitic Group and the Intonational Phrases of the sentence. In some cases, it is the syllabic extension of the Spanish Clitic Group or the number of syllables, that demands the exclusive use of the relative el cual. And, since it is a stressed word, it is able to form a Clitic Group around it. In other cases, this use is determined by the presence of a necessary boundary of an Intonational Phrase, which requires the presencespajournal articleopen access