Cover not available
Article published In:
The referential ambiguity of personal pronouns and its pragmatic consequences
Edited by Barbara De Cock and Bettina Kluge
[Pragmatics 26:3] 2016
► pp. 473–500

“Que bé, tu! (« that’s great, you! »)”

An emerging emphatic use of the second person singular pronoun tu (you) in spoken catalan

The Catalan second person singular (2sg) pronoun tu (you) has acquired a wide range of pragmatic values in spoken registers that have received little or no attention from scholars in the field. The aim of the present article is to analyse a particular emerging use of the 2sg pronoun tu from a corpus-based perspective. In the light of Grammaticalisation Theory, it is argued that whereas in some contexts this pronoun maintains all or part of its referential function (e.g. as subject or as a vocative, respectively), in other contexts its use is very similar to that of an emphatic pragmatic marker. Data drawn from three spoken corpora suggest that the pronoun has consolidated this new use. Prosodic evidence is also provided to show the semantic and pragmatic changes undergone by the pronoun.

Keywords: Person deixis, Spoken corpora, Pragmatic markers, Grammaticalisation
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.
Published online: 1 September 2016
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.26.3.06bla
References
Aijmer, Karin
(2002) English Discourse Particles. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2007) The meaning and functions of the Swedish discourse marker ‘alltså’―evidence from translation corpora. Catalan Journal of Linguistics 61: 31-59. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Alturo, Núria, and Marianna Chodorowska-Pilch
(2009) La gramaticalització de “sisplau”. Els Marges 881: 15-37.Google Scholar
Ameka, Felix
(1992) Interjections: The universal yet neglected part of speech. Journal of Pragmatics 181: 101-118. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Stephen. R., and Edward L. Keenan
(1985) Deixis. In Timothy Shopen (ed.), Language Typology and Syntactic Description III: Grammatical Categories and the Lexicon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 259-308.Google Scholar
Biq, Yung-O
(1991) The multiple uses of the second singular pronoun ni in conversational Mandarin. Journal of Pragmatics 161: 307-321. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bladas, Òscar
(2012) Conversational routines, formulaic language and subjectification. Journal of Pragmatics 441: 929-957. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Bybee, Joan L., Revere Perkins, and William Pagliuca
(1994) The Evolution of Grammar: Tense, Aspect, and Modality in the Languages of the World. Chicago/London: Chicago University Press.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Clave (Diccionario Clave. Diccionario de uso del español actual)
Fundación Santa María-Ediciones SM. [URL](accessed 13.01.13)
Cuenca, M. Josep
(2000) Defining the indefinable? Interjections. Syntaxis 31: 29-44.Google Scholar
(2002/2008) Els connectors textuals i les interjeccions. In Joan Solà, M. Rosa Lloret, Joan Mascaró, and Manuel Pérez Saldanya (dir.), Gramàtica del català contemporani. Barcelona: Empúries, pp. 3173-3237.Google Scholar
Cuenca, M. Josep, and Marta Torres
(2008) Usos de hombre/home y mujer/dona como marcadores del discurso. Verba. Anuario Galego de Filoloxía 351: 235-256.Google Scholar
DEA (Diccionario del español actual)
Seco, Manuel, Andrés, Olimpia, and Gabino Ramos (1999), vol. II1. 1st ed. Madrid: Santillana Ediciones Generales.
Dostie, Gaétane
(2004) Pragmaticalisation et marqueurs discursifs. Brussels: De Boeck-Duculot. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
DRAE (Diccionario de la Real Academia Española). Real Academia de la Lengua Española
[URL](accessed 13.01.13)
Du Bois, John W
(1991) Transcription design principles for spoken discourse research. Pragmatics 1.1: 71-106. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
(1993) Outline of discourse transcription. In Jane A. Edwards, and Martin D. Lampert (ed.), Talking Data: Transcription and Coding in Discourse Research. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 45-89.Google Scholar
Du Bois, John W., Stephan Schuetze-Coburn, Susanna Cumming, and Paolino Danae
(1991) Discourse Transcription. London: Longman.Google Scholar
DUE (Diccionario de uso del español) Moliner, María
(1966) Madrid: Gredos.Google Scholar
Erman, Britt, and Ulla-Britt Kotsinas
(1993) Pragmaticalization: The case of ‘ba’ and ‘you know’. Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis New Series 101: 76-93.Google Scholar
Fraser, Bruce
(1996) Pragmatic markers. Pragmatics 61: 167-190. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
(1999) What are discourse markers? Journal of Pragmatics 311: 931-952. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
(2009a) An account of discourse markers. International Review of Pragmatics 11: 293-320. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
(2009b) Topic orientation markers. Journal of Pragmatics 411: 892-898. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
GDLE (Gramática Descriptiva de la Lengua Española)
Bosque, Ignacio, and Violeta Demonte (ed.) (1999) Madrid: Espasa Calpe.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving
(1981) Forms of talk. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Heine, Bernd, Ulrike Claudi, and Friederike Hünnemeyer
(1991) Grammaticalization: A Conceptual Framework. Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Helmbrecht, Johannes
(2015) A typology of non-prototypical uses of personal pronouns: Synchrony and diachrony. Journal of Pragmatics 881: 176-189. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hopper, Paul J., and Elizabeth Closs Traugott
(1993) Grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Kitagawa, Chisate, and Adrienne Lehrer
(1990) Impersonal uses of personal pronouns. Journal of Pragmatics 141: 739-759. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Kuo, Sai-Hua
(2003) Involvement vs. detachment: Gender differences in the use of personal pronouns in televised sports in Taiwan. Discourse Studies 51: 479-494. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Kuryłowicz, Jerzy
(1975 [1965]) The evolution of grammatical categories. In J. Kuryłowicz (ed.), Esquisses linguistiques II. Munich: W. Fink, pp. 38-54.Google Scholar
Lehmann, Christian
(1995 [1982]) Thoughts on Grammaticalization. Munich/Newcastle: Lincom Europa.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Nogué, Neus
(2005) Dixi de persona i marcs participatius en català. Ph.D. dissertation, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona. Departament de Filologia Catalana. (Available for download at: [URL]).Google Scholar
(2008a) La dixi de persona en català. Barcelona: Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat.Google Scholar
(2008b) La dixi de persona en el discurs acadèmic oral en català. Caplletra. Revista Internacional de Filologia 441: 195-218.Google Scholar
(2011) Person deixis in Catalan. In Lluís Payrató, and Josep Maria Cots (eds.), The Pragmatics of Catalan. Berlin-Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, pp. 115-144. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Norrick, Neal R
(2009) Interjections as pragmatic markers. Journal of Pragmatics 411: 866-891. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Payrató, Lluís
(2002/2008) L’enunciació i la modalitat oracional. In Joan Solà, M. Rosa Lloret, Joan Mascaró, and Manuel Pérez Saldanya (dir.), Gramàtica del català contemporani. Barcelona: Empúries, pp. 1149-1220.Google Scholar
Stirling, Lesley, and Rodney Huddleston
(2002) Deixis and anaphora. In Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey Pullum (eds.), The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1449-1564. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth Closs
(2010) (Inter)subjectivity and (inter)subjectification: A reassessment. In Kristin Davidse, Lieven Vandelanotte, and Hubert Cuyckens (eds.), Subjectification, Intersubjectification and Grammaticalization. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, pp. 29-71. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth Closs, and Richard B. Dasher
(2002) Regularity in Semantic Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Wheeler, Max, Alan Yates, and Nicolau Dols
(1999) Catalan: A comprehensive grammar. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wray, Alison
(2002) Formulaic Language and the Lexicon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Yan, Yi, and Anna Siewierska
(2011) Referential impersonal constructions in Mandarin. In Andrej Malchucov, and Anna Siewierska (eds.), Impersonal Constructions. A cross-linguistic perspective. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, pp.547-580. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 3 other publications

De Cock, Barbara
2022. Register, genre and referential ambiguity of personal pronouns. Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) ► pp. 361 ff. DOI logo
Droste, Pepe & Susanne Günthner
2021. Enacting ‘Being with You’. Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) 31:1 ► pp. 87 ff. DOI logo
Zobel, Sarah
2022. A pragmatic analysis of german impersonally used first person singular ‘ICH’. Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) ► pp. 379 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 13 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.