Cover not available
Part of
Discourse Particles: Syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and historical aspects
Edited by Xabier Artiagoitia, Arantzazu Elordieta and Sergio Monforte
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 276] 2022
► pp. 65–98

Chapter 3
The discourse particle es que in Spanish and in other Iberian languages

| Universitat de València
| University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
We examine the historical reanalysis of the Spanish sequence es que (lit. ‘is that’) as a discourse particle with justificatory and even purely emphatic functions. We argue that the diachronic process involved first the appearance of non-coindexed pro as subject of the copula es ‘is’ and, at a later stage, deletion of the empty pronoun and syntactic restructuring. The restructuring was triggered by the use of the construction in counter-argumentative and other contexts where the semantic content of the null category was not easily recoverable. We also consider parallel developments in Catalan and Portuguese, as well as the borrowing of the particle es que in colloquial Basque.
Keywords: particle, counter-argumentative, justificatory, reduced clefts, grammaticalization
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Constructions with the sequence es que
  • 3.v+comp vs. discourse particle
  • 4.The status of es que in justificatory constructions
  • 5.The historical process of the formation of the particle es que in Spanish
    • 5.1First Change: From a pseudo-cleft to a reduced cleft
    • 5.2Second change: From a reduced cleft to an inferential reduced cleft
    • 5.3Third change: From compound sentences to main clauses with the particle es-que
  • 6.Catalan and Portuguese
  • 7.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
  • Corpus
Published online: 17 May 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.276.03per
References (45)
References
Bravo Cladera, Nadezhda. 2005. Y, pero, así que y es que. Un estudio de su uso en las interacciones del español de jóvenes bilingües y unilingües. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Studia Romanica Upsaliensia 70.Google Scholar
Brinton, Laurel. 2014. The Extremes of Insubordination: Exclamatory as if!’. Journal of English Linguistics 42(1), 93–113. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Company, Concepción. 2018. Four directionalities for grammaticalization: Evidence for new diachronic paths. Journal of Historical Linguistics 8 (3): 356–387. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cuenca, Maria Josep. 2013. The fuzzy boundaries between discourse marking and modal marking. In Discourse Markers and Modal Particles, Liesbeth Degand, Bert Cornillie & Paola Pietrandrea (eds), 191–216. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Declerck, Renaat. 1988. Studies in Copular Sentences. Cleft and Pseudo-Clefts. Leuven: Leuven University Press / Foris Publication. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1992. The inferential it is that construction and its congeners. Lingua 87: 203–230. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Delahunty, Gerald P. 1990. Inferentials: The story of a forgotten evidential. Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics 15: 1–28. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2001. Discourse functions of inferential sentences. Linguistics 39: 517–545. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dufter, Andreas. 2008. Evolución pragmática de las oraciones hendidas en español: el papel de los usos no focalizadores. In Actas del VII Congreso Internacional de Historia de la Lengua Española 2, Concepción Company & José G. Moreno de Alba (eds), 1763–1780. Madrid: Arco Libros.Google Scholar
España, Margarita. 1996. Aspectos semántico-pragmáticos de la construcción “es que” en español. Dicenda 14: 129–147.Google Scholar
Evans, Nicholas. 2007. Insubordination and its uses. In Finiteness: Theoretical and empirical foundations, Irina Nikolaeva (ed), 366–431. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fernández Leborans, María Jesús. 1992. La oración del tipo es que. Verba 19: 223–239.Google Scholar
Fernández Leborans, María Jesús. 1999. La predicación: las oraciones copulativas. In Gramática Descriptiva de la Lengua Española, 2, Ignacio Bosque & Violeta Demonte (eds), 2357–2460. Madrid: Espasa.Google Scholar
Fuentes, Catalina. 1997. Los conectores en la lengua oral: “es que” como inductor de enunciado. Verba 24: 237–263.Google Scholar
Gras, Pedro. 2020. Construcciones gramaticales y ubicación discursiva: sobre la construcción independiente <si + indicativo>. In Pragmática del español hablado: nuevos horizontes, Adrián Cabedo & Antonio Hidalgo (eds), 211–226. València: Servei de Publicacions de la Universitat de València.Google Scholar
Gras, Pedro & Elvira-García, Wendy. 2021. The role of intonation in Construction Grammar: On prosodic constructions. Journal of Pragmatics 180: 232–247. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Harris, Alice & Campbell, Lyle. 1997. Historical syntax in cross-linguistic perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Heine, Bernd. 2002. On the role of context in grammaticalization. In New Reflections on Grammaticalization, Ilse Wischer & Gabriele Diewald (eds), 83–10. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ibarra, Orreaga. 2008. Sobre estrategias discursivas del lenguaje de los jóvenes vascohablantes: aspectos pragmáticos y discursivos (conectores, marcadores). In Gramatika jaietan: Patxi Goenagaren omenez, Xabier Artiagoitia & Joseba Andoni Lakarra (eds), 395–412. Vitoria-Gasteiz: Universidad del País Vasco / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea.Google Scholar
. 2020. Gipuzkoako euskaldun gazteen elkarrizketak eta whatsappak. In Eibartik Zuberoara euskalkietan barrena: Koldo Zuazori gorazarre, Iñaki Camino, Xabier Artiagoitia, Irantzu Epelde & Koldo Ulibarri (eds), 319–334. Bilbao: Universidad del País Vasco / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea.Google Scholar
Marín, Maria Josep & Cuenca, Maria Josep. 2012. De l’atribució a la modalitat: construccions amb és que en català oral. Caplletra 52: 65–94.Google Scholar
Mikkelsen, Line. 2019. Copular clauses. In Semantics – Sentence and Information Structure, Paul Portner, Claudia Maienborn & Klaus von Heusinger (eds), 250–280. Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pérez Saldanya, Manuel & Hualde, José Ignacio. (2021). De las copulativas identificativas a las justificativas con es que. Revista de Filología Española. 101(2): 421-448. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. (In press). Estrategias de focalización II. Relativas libres o hendidas. In Sintaxis histórica de la lengua española. Cuarta parte: Estructura argumental, estructura informativa y discurso. Tradiciones y soportes textuales, Concepción Company (dir). México: Universidad Autónoma de México / Fondo de Cultura Económica.
Porroche, Margarita. 1998. Sobre algunos usos de que, si y es que como marcadores discursivos. In Los marcadores del discurso. Teoría y análisis, María A. Martín Zorraquino & Estrella Montolío (eds), 229–242. Madrid: Arco Libros.Google Scholar
Reig, Asela. 2011. The pragmatic meaning of the Spanish construction ‘lo que pasa es que’. Journal of Pragmatics 43(5): 1435–1450. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rico, Francisco. 1997. «Metafísico estáis» (y el sentido de los clásicos). Boletín de la Real Academia Española 77: 141–164.Google Scholar
Rizzi, Luiggi. 1997. The Fine Structure of the Left Periphery. In Elements of Grammar, Liliane Haegeman (ed), 281–337. Dordrecht: Kluwer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rizzi, Luiggi & Bocci, Giuliano. 2017. Left Periphery of the Clause. In The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Syntax, Martin Everaert & Henk C. van Riemsdijk (eds), 1–30. New York: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Romera, Magdalena. 2009. The Multiple Origin of es que in Modern Spanish: Diachronic evidence. In Current Trends in Diachronic Semantics and Pragmatics, Maj-Britt Mosegaard Hansen & Jacqueline Visconti (eds), 151–168. Bingley: Emerald Group.Google Scholar
Roulet, Eddy. 2006. The description of text relation markers in the Geneva model of discourse organization. In Approaches to Discourse Particles, Kerstin Fischer (ed), 115–131. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Siemund, Peter. 2018. Speech Acts and Clause Types: English in a Cross-linguistic Context, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Traugott, Elisabeth C. & Dasher, Richard B. 2002. Regularity in Semantic Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Waltereit, Richard. 2018. Inferencing, reanalysis, and the history of the French est-ce que question. Open Linguistics 4: 56–69. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Corpus
CHPTB: Corpus Histórico do Português Tycho Brahe. <[URL]>.
CIGCMod: Josep Martines and Vicent Martines (ed), Corpus Informatitzat de la Gramàtica del Català Modern, ISIC-IVITRA, Universitat d’Alacant.
CORDE: Real Academia Española, Corpus Diacrónico del Español <[URL]>.
Corpus do português: Davis, Mark. 2006. Corpus do português: Gênero/Histórico <[URL]>.
CREA: Real Academia Española, Corpus de Referencia del Español Actual <[URL]>.
CTILC: Institut d’Estudis Catalans, Corpus Textual Informatitzat de la llengua catalana <[URL]>.
Guimerà, Angel. 1914. Terra Baixa, 5th ed. Barcelona: La Renaixensa.Google Scholar
Puig, Manuel. 1976. El beso de la mujer araña. Barcelona: Seix Barral.Google Scholar
. 1979. Kiss of the Spider Woman, translated from Spanish by Thomas Colchie. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.Google Scholar
. 2003. O beijo da mulher-aranha, translated by Gloria Rodríguez, 16th ed. Rio de Janeiro: José Olympio.Google Scholar
Valesco: Adrián Cabedo & Salvador Pons (eds): Corpus Val.Es.Co 2.0, <[URL]>.