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Article published In:
Spanish in Context
Vol. 15:3 (2018) ► pp.441–464

Clicks as discourse markers in Peninsular Spanish

| University of St. Thomas
| University of St. Thomas

The research on clicks in Spanish has been surprisingly scarce. Using a data corpus of 764 clicks produced by 20 speakers from Spain, we approach clicks as discourse markers that execute up to five different functions. Since clicks themselves do not possess any core semantic meaning, their contribution to the discourse depends solely on their placement and the contextual features with which they occur. In addition to an analysis of their functions, we report on several elements present in the contiguous pre- and post-click environment, including pauses, fillers and prolonged syllables. The results indicate significant findings regarding how click functions relate to certain elements in the click environment.

Keywords: clicks, discourse markers, Peninsular Spanish
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
  • 3.Method
    • 3.1Analytical framework and research questions
    • 3.2Participants and data
    • 3.3Phonetic and articulatory properties
    • 3.4Classification of clicks
      • 3.4.1Position
      • 3.4.2Functions
      • 3.4.3Method of classification
    • 3.5Click environment
  • 4.Results
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Summary and conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
Published online: 26 November 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sic.00022.pin
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Pinto, Derrin & Donny Vigil
2020. Spanish clicks in discourse marker combinations. Journal of Pragmatics 159 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Pinto, Derrin & Donny Vigil
2022. Searches and clicks in Peninsular Spanish. Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) ► pp. 83 ff. DOI logo
Vigil, Donny & Derrin Pinto
2020. An experimental study of the detection of clicks in English. Pragmatics & Cognition 27:2 ► pp. 457 ff. DOI logo

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