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Part of
Constructions in Spanish
Edited by Inga Hennecke and Evelyn Wiesinger
[Constructional Approaches to Language 34] 2023
► pp. 255–278

Chapter 10
A constructional analysis of digo yo in peninsular Spanish

| University Pablo de Olavide

This paper examines the variable functions of the clausal construction digo yo (DY) ‘I say’ in contemporary Peninsular Spanish. A corpus-based analysis shows pendulation between a communicative DY, which introduces past quotes, and a metacommunicative DY, which functions as a comment clause. In initial position, DY resembles a matrix clause, however, its subject-verb inversion produces a backgrounding effect which renders the conjunction que (‘that’) unnecessary and favours a parenthetical analysis of DY. In medial and final positions DY is an evidential/epistemic comment clause which overlaps with other epistemic comment clauses (e.g. creo yo ‘I believe’, pienso yo ‘I think’). In order to provide a unified account of the different uses of DY, a constructional approach is taken. In line with Van Bogaert (2010) and Kaltenböck (2010, 2013), the formal and functional features of DY are explained through a constructional network. A hierarchical network captures its links to the communicative construction, while its analogical connections to other epistemic constructions are captured in a horizontal network (Traugott, 2018).

Keywords: (meta)communicative construction, comment clause, epistemic parentheticals, constructional network
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1Previous work
    • 2.2Digo yo: Quoting or Commenting?
  • 3.Data and methodology
  • 4.Analysis and discussion
    • 4.1Initial DY
    • 4.2Medial and final DY
    • 4.3Epistemic comment clauses
  • 5.Constructional network
  • 6.Conclusions and suggestions for future research
  • Notes
  • Corpora
  • References
Published online: 18 July 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cal.34.10mar
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