American Spanish dizque from a Functional Discourse Grammar perspective

Abstract

This article discusses the diachronic development and the different uses of the reportative word dizque (diachronically based on diz que ‘she/he/it says that’) using data from Colombian and Mexican Spanish. The study presents a predominantly qualitative analysis of diachronic, twentieth- and twenty-first-century written data. The theoretical framework applied in this article is Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG), which is particularly useful in this context as it distinguishes between the interpersonal and representational functions of language. The main points made are: (i) dizque is an adverb that arose from a process of lexicalization rather than grammaticalization; (ii) in most of its uses, dizque has an interpersonal function in the sense that the Speaker instructs the Addressee that she/he is not the source of the information provided; (iii) by means of diachronic, dialectal, and typological data, it is shown that the scope of dizque is gradually decreasing; (iv) the only scope decrease that leads to a functional change of dizque is its application outside the context of speech-reports. FDG serves to account for each step in the scope decrease of dizque by means of its hierarchical approach to the actional and descriptive functions of verbal interaction.

Aspectos cognitivo-culturais subxacentes ao emprego dos marcadores evidenciais en galego

“…A evidencialidade, polo tipo de contido que transmite, relaciónase con outras categorías: a modalidade epistémica, a intersubxectividade (Nuyts 2017, Hintz & Hintz 2017) ou invocación ás fontes compartidas, a miratividade (sorpresa do falante ante a recepción de información non agardada; vid. Lazard 1999, De Lancey 2001, Olbertz 2007) e, por último, a postura epistémica. A esta interacción en catro ámbitos dedicaremos este apartado.…”

On evidentiality in American Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese

“…I adopt a comparative approach in which I discuss the syntax, semantics and pragmatics of these elements by thoroughly documenting their properties. To do so, I prepared a comprehensive theoretically informed questionnaire of sentences with these evidentials building on the previous studies on them, which have mainly focused on AS and, to a lesser extent, on BP (see Kany 1994;Casseb Galvão 2001;Magaña 2005;Olbertz 2005Olbertz , 2007López Izquierdo 2006;Travis 2006;Cruschina & Remberger 2008;Babel 2009;Demonte & Fernández-Soriano 2013, 2022Alcázar 2014Alcázar , 2018De la Mora and Maldonado 2015;Grajales 2017;Saito 2019Saito , 2021Martínez Vera 2020;Sanromán Vilas 2020). Such a questionnaire was solved by and discussed with five consultants per variety (totaling fifteen consultants).…”