Evidentiality in Spanish morphosyntax: a reanalysis of '(de)queísmo'

Scott Schwenter

Sat. 4-5:40 B

One of the most well-known cases of syntactic variation in Spanish is the variable use of the preposition de before complementizer que to introduce sentential complements (cf. Garcia 1986). With a small set of verbs, de is prescriptively recommended in the standard language; with others, only bare que is prescribed. Variation is found in both instances: de is often absent with verbs requiring its presence in the standard (1), and also present with verbs that don't take de in the standard (2).

(1) me acuerdo QUE no pudo venir

'I remember that he couldn't come' (Standard 'DE QUE')

(2) El oficial comentó DE QUE comenzará pronto

'The official commented that it will begin soon' (Standard 'QUE')

The nonstandard use of 'Ø' (i.e. lack of de) as in (1) is called 'queísmo', while the nonstandard use of de as in (2) is called 'dequeísmo'. Both phenomena considered together are termed '(de)queísmo'.

This study examines '(de)queísmo' variation in one spoken and two written corpora (each over one million words) of present-day Spanish, and proposes a novel interpretation of the function of de. A variable rule analysis of 1,492 tokens using GoldVarb 2.1 reveals that the variation found in these corpora is most strongly influenced by the person of the main clause subject. Third person subjects heavily favor overt de (.72), while first person subjects heavily favor the zero variant (.69). The hypothesis following from these results is that the function of de is similar to that of other grammatical markers of evidentiality found across languages (Palmer 1986; Willett 1988). When the speaker is the first person subject and the source of the information, there is more likely to be full commitment to the proposition, and less use of de; when the speaker and subject don't coincide, e.g. third person subjects, the proposition is often marked by de as constituting hearsay or inferential evidence.

Additional confirmation for the evidential role of de comes from the semantics of the main verbs that participate most often in (de)queísmo variation. These verbs cover two main areas of semantic space: (1) mental processes (e.g. remembering, forgetting, realizing); and (2) speaking/reporting (e.g. commenting, indicating, informing).

The findings of this paper show how a variable rule analysis can be used not only to uncover patterns of variation, but also to draw conclusions about the functions of forms participating in this variation and their place in the grammar. The specific conclusion drawn here is that there exists a grammatical distinction based on evidentiality in Spanish, a distinction not typically found in Romance languages. Thus, at least with some verbs, the variants de and Ø convey meaningful distinctions about the relation of the speaker to the propositional content (cf. Bybee 1994).

References

Bybee, Joan. 1994. The grammaticization of zero. Perspectives on grammaticalization, ed. by William Pagliuca, 235-54. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

García, Erica. 1986. El fenómeno (de)queísmo desde una perspectiva dinámica del uso comunicativo de la lengua. Actas del II Congreso Internacional sobre el español de América, ed. by José Moreno de Alba, 46-65. México: UNAM.

Palmer, F. R. 1986. Mood and modality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Willett, Thomas. 1988. A cross-linguistic survey of the grammaticalization of evidentiality. Studies in Language 12.51-97.