Variable development of intersubjectivity in Spanish

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Citeable URL: https://scholar.colorado.edu/concern/book_chapters/6w924c72d

Abstract

As has been shown by Traugott & Dasher (2002), discourse markers proceed along the following grammaticalization cline; non-subjective > subjective > intersubjective uses. We look for evidence of this grammaticalization cline using a previously unexamined discourse marker in Spanish - no sé (‘I don’t know’). Inline with Bybee & Sheibman (1999), we show that no sé seems to be stored in lexical representation as a single item in Spanish. We base this analysis on phonological reduction and measures of string frequency and transitional probability of the word combination. Further, following Company Company (2002), a cross-dialectal comparison of relative frequency of use of no sé reveals differing degrees of intersubjectification of this discourse marker.

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