The Pragmatics of Catalan 9783110238693, 9783110238686

Table of contents :
Introduction: Catalan pragmatics and the pragmatics of Catalan
Part I. Pragmatics, grammar, and semantics
Prosody and pragmatics
Pragmatic particles at the syntax-cognition interface
Modal particles in Catalan
Person deixis in Catalan
Indirect evidence in Catalan: A case study
Catalan interjections
Part II. Pragmatics, discourse, sociocultural aspects, and language contact
Pragmatic coherence as a multimodal feature: Illustrative cospeech gestures, events, and states
“Here, many stories begin on a paper napkin”. Argumentation in Catalan discourse
Politeness and cultural styles of speaking in Catalan
Metaphor and style in Catalan
Doing learning languages in a multilingual context: Pragmatic aspects of classroom discourse in Catalonia
Catalan-Spanish language contact in social interaction
Index

Citation preview

The Pragmatics of Catalan

Mouton Series in Pragmatics 10

Editor Istvan Kecskes

Editorial Board Reinhard Blutner Universiteit van Amsterdam The Netherlands N. J. Enfield Max-Planck-Institute for Psycholinguistics Nijmegen The Netherlands

Ferenc Kiefer Hungarian Academy of Sciences Budapest Hungary Lluı´s Payrato´ University of Barcelona Spain

Raymond W. Gibbs University of California Santa Cruz USA

Franc¸ois Recanati Institut Jean-Nicod Paris France

Laurence R. Horn Yale University USA

John Searle University of California Berkeley USA

Boaz Keysar University of Chicago USA

De Gruyter Mouton

Deirdre Wilson University College London Great Britain

The Pragmatics of Catalan

edited by

Lluı´s Payrato´ Josep Maria Cots

De Gruyter Mouton

ISBN 978-3-11-023868-6 e-ISBN 978-3-11-023869-3 ISSN 1864-6409 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The pragmatics of Catalan / ed. by Lluı´s Payrato´, Josep Maria Cots. p. cm. ⫺ (Mouton series in pragmatics; 10) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-3-11-023868-6 (alk. paper) 1. Catalan language ⫺ Spoken Catalan. 2. Catalan language ⫺ Discourse analysis. I. Payrato´, Lluı´s. II. Cots, Josep Maria. PC3814.P718 2011 4491.90145⫺dc23 2011032328

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. ” 2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston Printing: Hubert & Co. GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ⬁ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com

Table of contents Introduction: Catalan pragmatics and the pragmatics of Catalan. . . Josep Maria Cots & Lluı´s Payrato´

1

Part I. Pragmatics, grammar, and semantics Prosody and pragmatics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pilar Prieto and Gemma Rigau

17

Pragmatic particles at the syntax-cognition interface . . . . . . . . . . . . M. Teresa Espinal

49

Modal particles in Catalan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aina Torrent

81

Person deixis in Catalan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Neus Nogue´

115

Indirect evidence in Catalan: A case study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Montserrat Gonza´lez

145

Catalan interjections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Maria Josep Cuenca

173

Part II. Pragmatics, discourse, sociocultural aspects, and language contact Pragmatic coherence as a multimodal feature: Illustrative cospeech gestures, events, and states . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Marina Lloberes and Lluı´s Payrato´

215

‘‘Here, many stories begin on a paper napkin’’. Argumentation in Catalan discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Margarida Bassols

247

Politeness and cultural styles of speaking in Catalan . . . . . . . . . . . . Horte`nsia Curell

273

Metaphor and style in Catalan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Vicent Salvador

309

vi

Table of contents

Doing learning languages in a multilingual context: Pragmatic aspects of classroom discourse in Catalonia . . . . . . . . . . Luci Nussbaum and Josep Maria Cots

331

Catalan-Spanish language contact in social interaction . . . . . . . . . . Joan Pujolar

361

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

387

Catalan pragmatics and the pragmatics of Catalan Josep Maria Cots and Lluı´s Payrato´ 1. Introduction Side by side with a rich philological and grammatical tradition, in applied linguistics (especially in lexicography and phonetics) and in fields like dialectology and sociolinguistics, the Catalan language has recently become the focus of a myriad of studies in pragmatics carried out from grammatical, discourse or sociocultural perspectives. This volume aims to disseminate at an international level a set of studies whose descriptive and applied point of reference is the Catalan language. At the same time, these studies represent a relevant sample of the progress of research in di¤erent areas and theories in pragmatics and language sciences. After examining the studies in pragmatics that have Catalan as a point of reference (see the reviews by Boix and Payrato´ 1995; Alturo 2003, and Payrato´ in press) we notice, in first place, an evident di¤erence regarding the languages in which they were published, which are basically English or Catalan. The distribution of the studies published in English is guaranteed, since they have appeared in easily accessible journals or edited volumes. However, there are many more studies published in Catalan which, in spite of its clearly lower level of dissemination, constitute relevant contributions for scholars who are not exclusively interested in Catalan pragmatics. Indeed, one of our main motivations for this volume is that we are convinced that the data collected as well as the analyses and theoretical reflexions carried out so far in either Catalan or English can make a significant contribution to the field of general pragmatics from two main points of view: firstly, the data represent an extension of the corpus to be used by scholars and they may provide further empirical evidence to support the validity and explanatory power of pragmatic theories; secondly, the analyses constitute a significant contribution to the development of theories. Moreover, we believe that the contribution of this volume is not only applicable to the field of intercultural pragmatics, which seems obvious, but also to a broad range of grammatical and cognitive issues which have been approached from the pragmatic perspective.

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In an attempt to set a starting date for the tradition of Catalan pragmatics, Rigau (1976) may be considered as the precursor, since this is simultaneously the first work on pragmatics published in Catalan and the first study about the pragmatics of Catalan. The study focuses on an analysis of deictic and movement verbs anar (‘go’) and venir (‘come’), whose functioning is, in fact, very similar to their English translations go and come (but di¤erent, on the other hand, to the Spanish translations ir and venir). In this first work we can also appreciate another basic characteristic of many studies on the pragmatics of Catalan, which is also reflected in this volume: its contrastive and comparative nature including languages with which Catalan is in direct contact (especially Spanish and, to a lesser degree, French and Italian; cf., Cuenca and Marı´n 2001, in press; TorrentLenzen 2009) and also with languages that are a universal reference (English, cf. Gonza´lez 2004, 2005a) or that have had an important role in the development of Catalan linguistics, mainly German (cf. TorrentLenzen 1994; Ferna´ndez-Villanueva 2007). Gemma Rigau is also the author of what could be rather loosely considered as the first introduction to pragmatics in Catalan (Rigau 1981). This book, which was based on the author’s Ph.D. dissertation, is situated halfway between an introduction to the field and a specialised research monograph, and it was published between key introductions to pragmatics such as Gazdar (1979) and Leech (1983) and Levinson (1983). However, strictly speaking, it is not until the first decade of the 21st century that we find the first introductory texts to pragmatics in Catalan (Bassols 2001, Payrato´ [2003] 2010). It is important to acknowledge that the gap of 20 years between the work of Rigau and those of Bassols and Payrato´ saw the publication of several articles and studies about Catalan pragmatics in Catalan: e.g. Espinal 1980, 1986, 1988; Payrato´ 1988; Bassols 1990; Salvador 1997; Marı´n 1998; Cuenca 2000, 2001; Torrent-Lenzen 1994, 2001; Pe´rez Saldanya 2001, and Caplletra 29 (2000), on pragmastylistics (see especially Piquer 2000). Likewise, during this period we find studies published in English such as Vallduvı´ (1986, 1992, 1994) on information packaging, Espinal (1987, 1993) on modal adverbs and negation, Cuenca (1997) on tag questions and Cuenca (2000) on interjections, Payrato´ (1993) on emblematic gestures, Pe´rez (2001) on politeness or Montolı´o and Unamuno (2001) on discourse markers. The year 2002 is an important one for Catalan pragmatics because it is the first time that a Catalan grammar includes di¤erent chapters with a clear pragmatic component (Cuenca 2002; Payrato´ 2002; Vallduvı´ 2002), which can be interpreted as

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a public acknowledgement of the relevant contributions that pragmatics can make to the grammatical analysis and description of Catalan. From the point of view of the sociocultural dimension of pragmatics, the first studies about Catalan are closely related to the issue of language contact and, particularly, to language alternation. For Calsamiglia and Tuso´n (1980) pragmatic factors are essential to explain Catalan-Spanish alternation, and it is significant that a few years later, these same authors attempt to clarify the di¤erences and similarities between the pragmatic and sociolinguistic perspectives (Calsamiglia and Tuso´n 1991). In the meantime, Salvador (1984) set the foundations for the development of a new research program in Catalan linguistics, taking pragmatics as one of the key disciplines. A pragmatic perspective is also adopted by Payrato´ ([1988] 1996, (ed.) 1998) for the study of colloquial spoken Catalan and functional variation. At the end of the 20th century, we find that the di¤erent lines of research represented by the works mentioned in this paragraph had produced di¤erent but connected studies, in which the pragmatic perspective joins forces with the sociolinguistic, ethnographic, functional and variationist perspectives (cf. Boix and Payrato´ 1995; Alturo 2003; Payrato´ in press; see inter alia, Calsamiglia et al. 1999; Laborda 1993; Llengua, Societat i Comunicacio´ 3 (2005)). The first decade of the 21st century has brought about a significant increase in the number of publications on pragmatic aspects of Catalan, focusing on either grammatical or discourse and sociocultural aspects. As for the language of publication, there is still a split between works published in Catalan and in English. In Catalan we find topics such as deixis (Montserrat 2005; Nogue´ 2008, 2010; Fito´ 2009; Cuenca 2010), pragmatic aspects of cohesion and connectors (Marı´n 2005a, 2005b; Cuenca 2006; Alturo and Hengeveld 2010), emotion (Torrent-Lenzen 2005), phraseology (Salvador 2006), or advertising (Bassols 2004). Several works that have been published in English focus mainly on issues that could be located at the syntax-pragmatics interface such as pragmatic aspects of prosody (Paya` 2003; Prieto and Rigau 2007), idioms (Espinal and Mateu 2010), connectors (Cuenca 2006; Cuenca and Massip 2005; Bladas 2008; Gonza´lez 2008), modality (Mata 2007; Gonza´lez and Ribas 2008), evidentiality (Gonza´lez 2005b) or politeness (Curell and Sabate´ 2007, 2008; Sabate´ and Curell 2007; Marı´n 2007). The comparative and contrastive focus continues in many studies (see, for instance, Alturo 2001; Cuenca and Marı´n 2001, in press; Cuenca 2003, 2008; Gonza´lez 2004, 2005a, 2009; Sancho 2004; Cuenca and Torres 2008; Torrent-Lenzen 2009). Three

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Catalan journals have published monographic issues on pragmatics: Noves Sociolingu¨´ıstiques (2003, in bilingual version Catalan-English), Articles 42 (2007, on modalisation and politeness), and Caplletra 44, (2008, on orality). We also find di¤erent monographic volumes with a focus on pragmatics such as connectors (Catalan Journal of linguistics 6, 2007), multimodality (Payrato´ et al. (eds.) 2004), humour and emotions (Viana 2004; Torrent-Lenzen 2001, 2005), discourse transcription (Bladas 2009), or argumentation (Alturo et al. (eds.) 2006). Finally, we think it important to mention the creation of the first corpus of spoken Catalan (Payrato´ and Alturo (eds.) 2002, Alturo et al. (eds.) 2004, Payrato´ and Fito´ (eds.) 2008), which has been designed with the idea of facilitating research in di¤erent pragmatic fields. This is the background against which we believe that the contributions in this volume can be considered.

2. Contents The articles included in this volume are organised into two parts. The first one is devoted to works on the pragmatics-grammar interface, and the second part focuses on sociocultural, discourse and communicative issues that arise on the fringes between pragmatics and other areas of the study of language use such as sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, stylistics, multimodality and languages in contact. The first part begins with an article by Prieto and Rigau in which they analyse the pragmatic function of di¤erent intonational and prosodic patterns associated with statements, questions and requests, respectively. Espinal’s contribution focuses on a series of Catalan pragmatic particles taking into account the syntactic positions they can occupy and the information that is linguistically codified in each particle and its di¤erent positions. The third article, by Torrent, constitutes a fairly exhaustive review of modal particles in contemporary Catalan taking into account their function as an illocutionary force indicating device as well as their specific polyphonic, inferential and indexical nature. Nogue´’s article is a thorough account of person deixis and the di¤erent possibilities Catalan o¤ers to refer to speaker and hearer. In the following article, Gonza´lez distinguishes between evidentiality and epistemic modality and discusses them in depth by reference to the two Catalan verbs veure (‘see’) and deure (‘must’). This first part of the volume closes with a contribution by Cuenca in which she gives an overview of the system of interjections in Catalan in terms of their morphological and pragmatic functioning.

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In the second group of articles which form part of this volume, we have included, in the first place, a contribution by Lloberes and Payrato´, in which the authors analyse cospeech hand gestures produced by bilingual informants using Catalan and Spanish and show their role as resources for building discourse coherence. Bassols’ article centres on three text types, advertising, political speech and critical discussion, to analyse the argumentative strategies used by and for Catalan speakers. The article by Curell analyses the structure of the speech acts of apologising, requesting and complaining from the point of view of the face-saving strategies used in Catalan. The next contribution, by Salvador, reflects on and exemplifies metaphorical uses in Catalan both from a synchronic-diachronic and a stylistic perspective. Nussbaum and Cots situate Catalan in the context of an educational environment in which pupils are expected to deal with a minimum of three languages, and they look at language switch in the classroom as an interactional resource through which the participants shape pedagogic activity and orient to particular identities. Pujolar’s article, like that of Nussbaum and Cots, can be considered a continuer of the tradition, initiated by Calsamiglia and Tuso´n (1980), of approaching the study of language contact from a pragmatic perspective. Pujolar shows us how the structure and usage of Catalan has been shaped by a history of language contact, mainly with Spanish, and that it is in this historical context that we need to understand how present day citizens of Catalonia make use of their Catalan-Spanish bilingual repertoire in face-to-face interaction.

3. Closing In the same way that it has been traditionally said that the Catalan language was a bridge between galoromanic and iberoromanic languages, today we could say, broadly speaking, that contemporary Catalan also functions as a bridge between the so-called majority languages, on one hand, and minority or minorized languages, on the other. Indeed, according to the Institut Ramon Llull (see bibliography), there are approximately ten million people who can speak Catalan, a figure which sets the language in place number 84 in the ranking of the languages of the world according to the number of speakers. In other recent data from the Generalitat de Catalunya (Catalan regional government), which were published in the report Balanc¸ de polı´tica lingu¨´ıstica 2004–2008 (2010), Catalan is the tenth language in the world in number of translations, the eighth in

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the blogosphere and the twentieth in terms of books published (with over 10.000 titles a year). Furthermore, Catalan represents the fourteenth most used language in Google and the fifteenth language in the Wikipedia. Although figures are always somewhat relative, there is no doubt that the figures reported are very high compared to many other languages, and they show a more than significant presence in the new media and new technologies. Nevertheless, it is also evident that the information circulating only in Catalan usually remains outside international networks and channels and is limited to the internal market. It is precisely for this reason that we hope that this publication will, first of all, link the internal market with the international research forums so that the flow and direction of the information becomes a little more balanced. As pointed out at the beginning of this introduction, our aim has been to o¤er a representative collection of Catalan pragmatics through which to extend the empirical basis as well as the perspectives and theoretical models of analysis that are currently used in pragmatics. Ultimately, our endeavour has been to contribute to making Catalan, as well as the studies in pragmatics using this language as a point of reference, better known in a world in which information travels faster every day and, hopefully, to the benefit of everybody.

Acknowledgment This book would not have been possible without the initial impetus and constant support of Istvan Kecskes. We also want to express our gratitude to the reviewers for their fruitful comments and suggestions. Finally, our most sincere thanks to all the authors for their patience and commitment, both of which were extremely important to achieve a solid and useful contribution to the field of pragmatics.

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Marı´n, Maria Josep 2005b Gramaticalitzacio´ i funcio´ discursiva dels verbs de percepcio´. Caplletra 38: 47–71. Marı´n, Maria Josep 2007 Political (Im)Politeness: Discourse Power in Electoral Debates. Catalan Review XXI: 43–68. Mata, Meritxell 2007 Els adverbis d’acte de parla i el modus oracional. Llengua & Literatura 18: 285–315. Montolı´o, Estrella, and Virginia Unamuno 2001 The discourse marker a ver (Catalan, a veure) in teacher-student interaction. Journal of Pragmatics 33: 193–208. Montserrat, Sandra 2005 Entre la dixi i la definitud: els verbs de moviment resultatiu en catala`. Caplletra 39: 61–83. Nogue´, Neus 2008 La dixi de persona en catala`. Barcelona: Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat. Nogue´, Neus 2010 La primera persona del plural en catala`. Llengua & Literatura 21: 155–198. Noves SL, Revista de Sociolingu¨ı´stica, Hivern 2003 El calidoscopi pragma`tic. Monographic volume on Pragmatics, coordinated by Lluı´s Payrato´. Accessed from http://cultura. gencat.es/llengcat/noves/edit-hiv03.htm Paya`, Marta 2003 Prosody and pragmatics in parenthetical insertions in Catalan. Catalan Journal of Linguistics 2: 207–227. Payrato´, Lluı´s 1993 A pragmatic view on autonomous gestures: A first repertoire of Catalan emblems. Journal of Pragmatics 20: 193–216. Payrato´, Lluı´s 1996 [1988] Catala` col.loquial. Aspectes de l’u´s corrent de la llengua catalana. 3d ed. Vale`ncia: Universitat de Vale`ncia. Payrato´, Lluı´s 2002 L’enunciacio´ i la modalitat oracional. In Grama`tica del catala` contemporani, Joan Sola`, M. Rosa Lloret, Joan Mascaro´, and Manuel Pe´rez Saldanya (dirs.), II, 1149–1220. Barcelona: Empu´ries. Payrato´, Lluı´s 2010 [2003] Pragma`tica, discurs i llengua oral. Introduccio´ a l’ana`lisi funcional de textos. 2d ed. Barcelona: UOC. Payrato´, Lluı´s in press Pragma`tica i ana`lisi del discurs. Els u´ltims dotze anys (1997– 2008). II Simposi Internacional de Catalanı´stica. Berlı´n.

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Payrato´, Lluı´s (ed.) 1998 Oralment. Estudis de variacio´ funcional, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona / Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat. Payrato´, Lluı´s, and Nu´ria Alturo (eds.) 2002 Corpus oral de conversa col  loquial. Materials de treball. Barcelona: Publicacions de la Universitat de Barcelona. Payrato´, Lluı´s, Nu´ria Alturo, and Marta Paya` (eds.) 2004 Les fronteres del llenguatge. Lingu¨´ıstica i comunicacio´ no verbal. Barcelona: PPU / Universitat de Barcelona. Payrato´, Lluı´s, and Jaume Fito´ (eds.) 2008 Corpus audiovisual plurilingu¨e. Barcelona: Publicacions de la Universitat de Barcelona. Pe´rez, Montserrat 2001 Some considerations on politeness in Catalan Service encounters. In Trabajos en lingu¨´ıstica aplicada, Carme Mun˜oz (coord.) et al., 597–604. Barcelona: AESLA. Pe´rez Saldanya, Manuel 2001 La gramaticalitzacio´ del significat. In La grama`tica i la sema`ntica en l’estudi de la variacio´, Merce` Lorente, Nu´ria Alturo, Emili Boix, Maria-Rosa Lloret, and Lluı´s Payrato´ (eds.), 251– 295. Barcelona PPU / Universitat de Barcelona. Piquer, Adolf 2000 Pragmaestilı´stica del catala`. Caplletra 29: 53–68. Prieto, Pilar, and Gemma Rigau 2007 The syntax-prosody interface: Catalan interrogative sentences headed by que. Journal of Portuguese Linguistics 6 (2): 29–59. Rigau, Gemma 1976 Anem o venim? Els Marges 8: 33–53. Rigau, Gemma 1981 Grama`tica del discurs. Bellaterra: Universitat Auto`noma de Barcelona. Sabate´, Maria, and Horte`nsia Curell 2007 From ‘Sorry very much’ to ‘I’m ever so sorry’: Acquisitional patterns in L2 apologies by Catalan learners of English. Intercultural Pragmatics 4 (2): 287–316. Salvador, Vicent 1984 Cap a un nou programa d’investigacio´ en l’a`mbit de la lingu¨´ıstica catalana. Miscel.la`nia Sanchis Guarner. Vale`ncia: Universitat de Vale`ncia, I, 343–348. Salvador, Vicent 1997 Dialectologia, pragma`tica i ana`lisi del discurs. In Ana`lisi de la variacio´ lingu¨´ıstica, M. Rosa Lloret et al. (eds.), 203–228. Barcelona: PPU / Universitat de Barcelona. Salvador, Vicent 2006 Engegueu el ventilador amb les mans ben netes: Fraseologia, meta`fora i interdiscurs en la comunicacio´ polı´tica. In El discurs

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prefabricat II. Fraseologia i comunicacio´ social, Vicent Salvador, and Laia Climent (eds.), 23–51. Castello´: Publicacions de la Universitat Jaume I. Sancho, Pelegrı´ 2004 La gramaticalizacio´n en los intensificadores: el caso del espan˜ol menudo y del valenciano coloquial d’a xavo. In Le´xico especializado y comunicacio´n interlingu¨´ıstica, Pamela Faber, Catalina Jime´nez, and Gerd Wotjak (eds.): Granada: Universidad de Granada / Universidad de Leipzig. Torrent-Lenzen, Aina 1994 Les partı´cules modals alemanyes i llur corresponde`ncia funcional en catala`. In Zur katalanischen Sprache. Historische, soziolinguistische und pragmatische Aspekte, Gabriele Berkenbusch, and Christine Bierbach (eds.), 111–124. Frankfurt am Main: Domus Editoria Europaea. Torrent-Lenzen, Aina 2001 Que tens gana? Ana`lisi de la funcio´ pragma`tica del que introductor d’una pregunta amb corba entonativa descendent. Estudis de llengua i literatura catalanes / XLIII. Miscella`nia Giuseppe Tavani / 2. Barcelona: Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat, 321–333. Torrent-Lenzen, Aina 2005 Indexicalitat i comunicacio´ verbal d’emocions en catala`. In Estudis de Llengua i Literatura Catalanes / L. Miscella`nia Joan Veny / 6. Barcelona: Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat, 257–284. Torrent-Lenzen, Aina 2009 Polifonı´a de las emociones. Estudio pragma´tico sobre la funcio´n emotiva de las partı´culas modales en castellano, catala´n y rumano. Estudis Roma´nics 31: 7–34. Vallduvı´, Enric 1986 The discourse functions of pro-drop and subject postposition in Catalan. The Penn Review of Linguistics 11: 129–136. Vallduvı´, Enric 1992 The informational component. New York: Garland. Vallduvı´, Enric 1994 Catalan detachment and information packaging. Journal of Pragmatics 22: 573–601. Vallduvı´, Enric 2002 L’oracio´ com a unitat informativa. In Grama`tica del catala` contemporani, Joan Sola`, M. Rosa Lloret, Joan Mascaro´, and Manuel Pe´rez Saldanya (dirs.), II, 1221–1279. Barcelona: Empu´ries. Viana, Amadeu 2004 Acro`bates de l’emocio´. Exploracions sobre conversa, humor i sentit. Tarragona: Arola editors.

Part I.

Pragmatics, grammar, and semantics

Prosody and pragmatics* Pilar Prieto and Gemma Rigau 1. Introduction Prosody is an important feature of oral speech which makes a significant contribution to online utterance interpretation and helps the listener to uncover the subtleties of discourse meaning. It is widely acknowledged that the way we say things (our use of pitch, rate of speech, and voice quality, among other elements) is often as important as (and at times more important) than what we actually say. Prosodic patterns have been characterized as conveying meaning about modality interpretation (e.g., sentence type distinctions), pragmatic usage of a given sentence type, together with the attitude, intentions, and beliefs of the speaker. For example, the use of a specific intonation pattern in statements or questions helps the hearer to grasp the degree of confidence, surprise, or concern with which the speaker is asserting or asking something. In this chapter we provide an overview of a variety of intonational and prosodic features that help Catalan listeners in the process of discourse and a¤ective interpretation. Simultaneously, we will review some of the work that has been conducted on prosodic meaning in Catalan. In general, prosodic studies have concentrated on the description of prosodic and intonational form rather than on its pragmatic and semantic meanings.1 Though this suggests a need for more interdisciplinary work between prosody and syntax, semantics, and pragmatics, recent promising studies

* We are grateful to our colleagues Lluı¨sa Astruc, Victoria Escandell, Leopoldo Labastı´a, Ignasi Mascaro´, and to the editors Josep Maria Cots and Lluı´s Payrato´ for very helpful comments on an earlier version of this chapter. Parts of this chapter are based on our joint work on interrogative sentences in Catalan. This research has been funded by projects HUM2006-13295-C02-01 and FFI2009-07648/FILO awarded by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacio´n and by projects 2009SGR 701 and 2009SGR 1079, awarded by the Generalitat de Catalunya. 1. On Catalan metrics, Ferrater (1981) and Oliva (1980, 1988) deserve to be mentioned.

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are examining prosodic meaning in greater depth and thus helping to bridge this gap between prosody and other linguistic modules. There is no firm agreement within the linguistic community on how to integrate the prosodic analysis into a unified formal syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic approach. From a syntactic perspective, following the cartographic line of research proposed by Rizzi (1997), some studies have explored the integration of prosody in a syntactic analysis of so-called force operators, whose phonological features are suprasegmental or prosodic (and sometimes also segmental) features. Such force operators occupy a peripheral position in the sentence, specifically in the complementizer zone, which incorporates information related to sentence modality and semantic and pragmatic functions (Hernanz and Rigau 2006; Prieto and Rigau 2007; see also Rigau 1984). Taking a pragmatic perspective, a handful of studies have investigated the role of intonation as a means of encoding procedural meaning (or processing instructions), and have argued that intonation contours have the function of encoding restrictions on potential interpretations of the proposition expressed (e.g., Fretheim 1996, 2002 for Norwegian; House 2006 for Swedish; Escandell-Vidal 1998, 2011 for Spanish; Espinal and Prieto 2011 for Catalan). These studies have applied Relevance Theory (Sperber and Wilson [1986] 1995, Wilson and Wharton 2006) and Politeness Theory (Brown and Levinson 1987) to the analysis of intonational meaning. The chapter is organized as follows. Section 2 describes the framework that will be employed for the prosodic and intonational description of Catalan, the Cat_ToBI system. Section 3 describes the role intonation plays in the interpretation of di¤erent sentence-types, using examples from a variety of intonational contours in Catalan. Section 4 analyzes the a¤ective interpretation of some prosodic correlates and discusses the prosodic expression of politeness in Catalan. The final section summarizes the main findings and points to areas of future research in the pragmatics of intonation.

2. The prosodic analysis of Catalan The Catalan data presented in this article has been prosodically analyzed using the Catalan AM analysis, namely Cat_ToBI (Prieto et al. 2009; Prieto in press; Aguilar, de-la-Mota, and Prieto (coords.) 2009). The Cat_ToBI system has been developed on the basis of previous work and the Cat_ToBI corpus of spoken Catalan which can be found on the web page of the

Prosody and pragmatics

19

Interactive Atlas of Catalan Intonation (Prieto and Cabre´ coords. 2006– 2010). The ToBI intonational analysis is couched in the Autosegmental Metrical (or AM) framework (Pierrehumbert 1980; Beckman and Pierrehumbert 1986; Jun (ed.) 2005; Ladd 1996, and Gussenhoven 2004, inter alia). Nowadays this model has become the dominant phonological framework for analyzing intonation. In the AM framework, the F0 contour of an utterance is described as a sequence of high (H) and low (L) tones, with an additional mid (M) tone in certain languages. The tonal units are of two kinds, pitch accents and boundary tones. Pitch accents are tonal events that are associated with the metrically prominent syllables in a sentence, and they can be either monotonal (e.g., H*, L*) or bitonal (e.g., L þ H*, L* þ H, H þ L*). The starred tone is usually associated with the accented syllable, while leading and/or trailing tones are realized in the pre-tonic and post-tonic syllables respectively. Boundary tones are tonal events that are associated with the edges of prosodic phrases. They can associate to two types of prosodic phrases, namely intonational phrases (IPs, or major prosodic phrases) and intermediate phrases (ips, or minor prosodic phrases). The di¤erence between the two domains is the perceived degree of phrasing juncture, which is greater in the case of IPs. The boundary tones associated with the right edge of an intonational phrase are marked with a ‘%’ sign following the tone (e.g., H%, L%), and the boundary tones associated with the right edge of an intermediate phrase are marked with a ‘‘-’’ sign following the tone (e.g., H-, L-). Prosodic phrases can have more than one pitch accent, and the final one is usually referred to as the nuclear pitch accent; the remaining pitch accents are referred to as prenuclear pitch accents. The Cat_ToBI annotation system contains three time-aligned tiers: (a) an orthographic tier; (b) a break index tier, where levels of phrasing are annotated, among them the minor or intermediate phrase level (expressed by index break 3) and the major or intonational phrase level (expressed by index break 4); and (c) the tonal tier, where pitch accents and boundary tones are annotated. ToBI as applied to Catalan, or Cat_ToBI, will be used throughout the chapter (for an example of annotation, see Figure 1 in section 3.1). Table 1 shows a set of commonly occurring nuclear pitch configurations in Catalan. Each tune is represented by a schematic contour, the Cat_ToBI label, and one example of the pragmatic meaning it can convey. In the schematic contours, the shaded box represents the accented syllable. Catalan has six basic pitch accents: H*, L þ H*, L þ>H*, L þ H*, L*, L* þ H, and H þ L*. The H tones can be upstepped or downstepped, !

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Pilar Prieto and Gemma Rigau

i.e., scaled lower or higher than the previous pitch accent. Some of these pitch accents appear only in prenuclear position, such as L þ>H* (rising pitch accent with a peak in the posttonic syllable) or L* þ H (low tone in the accented syllable plus a rise in the posttonic). The nuclear pitch accents can be observed in Table 1 in combination with a variety of boundary tones. Catalan also has a number of boundary pitch movements that convey di¤erent discourse meanings, namely, L%, H%, !H%, L!H%, HH%, LH%, HL%, and LHL%. The di¤erence between boundary configurations with one, two, or three tones corresponds to the number of targets that are produced (see Prieto in press). Cat_ToBI, like many other ToBI systems, is a phonological system that represents work in progress. In order to settle the Cat_ToBI tonal categories, a number of experimental methods have been used to investigate their phonological nature, ranging from semantic congruity tasks to the application of the categorical perception paradigm (Prieto, Torres-Tamarit and Vanrell 2010; and Borra`s-Comes, Vanrell, and Prieto 2010, inter alia 2; see Gussenhoven 2004 for a review of methods that can be applied to the investigation of intonational categories).

3. The intonation of speech acts As mentioned above, prosody is an important tool that helps listeners to identify the communicative goals we typically use in language. Speech acts carry out the purpose or communicative function of an utterance in a dialog. According to Searle (1969), the major types of speech acts are 2. For example, via a set of perception experiments using the categorical perception paradigm, Prieto, Torres-Tamarit, and Vanrell (2010) showed that Catalan listeners perceive the contrast between L þ H* LH% and L þ H* L!H% configurations in a categorical way. The intonational di¤erence between counterexpectational questions and statements of the obvious lies in the height of the sentence-final boundary tone: whereas counterexpectational questions are produced with a sentence-final low-high boundary tone LH%, obvious statements are produced with a low-mid boundary tone L!H%. Similarly, Borra`s-Comes, Vanrell, and Prieto (2010) showed that the contrast between a statement contour and an echo question contour lies in the height of the nuclear pitch accent. In particular, Catalan intonational phonology makes a phonological distinction between a simple rising pitch configuration L þ H* L% (which is used for statements) and an upstepped rising pitch configuration L þ H* L% (which is used for counterexpectational echo questions). !

Prosody and pragmatics

21

Table 1. Schematic representations of some nuclear pitch configurations in Central Catalan, with corresponding Cat_ToBI labels and representative pragmatic meanings (from Prieto in press). Cat_ToBI label

Context

L* L%

Broad focus statement Volen melmelada. ‘They want some jam.’

H þ L* L%

Information-seeking yes-no question (falling) Que l’hi duries? ‘Would you take it to him/her?’

H* L%

Wh- question Que` li dura`s? ‘What will you bring to him/her?’

L* HH%

Information-seeking yes-no question (rising) L’hi duries? ‘Would you take it to him/her?’

L þ H* HH%

Inviting yes-no question Que voleu pastı´s? ‘Do you want some cake?’

L þ H* L%

Narrow focus statement, exclamative, imperative Taronges, i no pas pomes! ‘Oranges, not apples.’

L* HL%

Gentle request (Sisplau), vine. . . ! ‘(Please) come!’

L þ H* !H%

Vocative chant Maria! ‘Mary!’

L þ H* HL%

Vocative (request for attention) Maria, vine! ‘Mary, come!’

L þ H* LH%

Counterexpectational question (Dius que) has parlat amb el president? ‘(You say that) you have spoken with the president?’

L þ H* LHL%

Insistent request Vine. . . ! ‘Come!’

L þ H* L!H%

Statement of the obvious (Home), la Ba`rbara! ‘Barbara (obviously)!’

L þ H* L%

Echo question (Dius que) vindra`? ‘(You say that) he’ll come?’

L þ H* !H%

Uncertainty statement Potser no li agradara`. ‘Maybe he will not like it.’

!

Schematic contour

22

Pilar Prieto and Gemma Rigau

declarations (assertions or statements), commissives (promises), directives (requests, commands, questions), and expressives (expressions of attitudes and emotions). Though some sentence types are typically used for certain types of speech acts (e.g., declarative sentences are typically used for assertions), there is no one-to-one mapping between linguistic form and pragmatic function. The grammatical form of a sentence does not directly express its communicative function in a dialog. For example, questions are commonly used for directive speech acts (e.g., Em pots passar la sal? ‘Can you pass me the salt?’) because being asked to do something is usually felt to be less of an imposition than being ordered to do something. Rhetorical questions are pragmatically equivalent to a strong assertion and speakers thus do not expect answer (e.g., Que no ho saps, que t’estimo? ‘Don’t you know I love you?’, Que et penses que tinc quatre mans, jo? ‘Do you think I have four hands?’). All of these are instances of indirect speech acts, as there is no direct relationship between the illocutionary force and syntactic structure of the sentence. By the same token, there is no one-to-one mapping between intonation and speech act type either. Though there is a general view that prosodic cues convey systematic and inherent meanings, for decades intonation studies have failed to find systematic links between elements of prosody and speech acts. Geluykens’ (1987) experiments revealed that contextual pragmatic factors play a decisive role in the recognition of an utterance with declarative form as a question.3 As Searle pointed out, we probably cannot account for utterance meaning in the absence of the context of a speech act. Thus, although inherent meanings are often proposed for particular intonation contours,4 we should be aware that discourse context has an important role in modulating utterance interpretation. We will discuss this issue later in the chapter. For the Catalan language, traditional work has described the ‘standard’ intonational contours for declarative sentences, yes-no questions, wh3. Geluykens (1987) performed a perception experiment which revealed that when pragmatic cues were su‰ciently strong to determine speech act status, rising intonation (in English) had virtually no impact on utterance interpretation; if, on the other hand, pragmatic cues did not favor any particular speech act type, intonation could, but need not, act as a cue for determining question status. 4. General attempts have also been made to identify compositional meanings for contours within the metrical-autosegmental model (e.g., Pierrehumbert and Hirschberg 1990).

Prosody and pragmatics

23

questions, and requests as a method for beginning the study of intonation in this language (see Bonet 1984; Badia 1994; Prieto 2002, in press, inter alia). Yet since reading tasks are not particularly suitable for analyzing intonational meaning, other methodological strategies have been used more recently, such as role-play interviews designed to elicit the production of specific pragmatic intentions (e.g., Prieto in press). The application of these elicitation methods, together with the analysis of Map Tasks and other corpora, have allowed for a fine-grained study of prosodic meanings such as certainty, insistence, confirmation, or incredulity. The remainder of this section will be devoted to analyzing the prosodic cues that characterize the most thoroughly researched types of sentence-types, namely, statements, questions, and requests, together with a variety of prosodic meanings such certainty, uncertainty, and incredulity. The examples used throughout the chapter correspond to the standard Catalan variety (i.e., they were uttered by a native speaker of Central Catalan). 3.1. Assertions and exclamations The intonation of a broad focus statement in Catalan is characterized by the presence of rising prenuclear pitch accents that are associated with the stressed syllables of the utterance, followed by a low pitch accent that occurs on the phrase-final stressed syllable (i.e., the nuclear pitch accent). Figure 1 exemplifies the pitch contour of broad focus statements with the

Figure 1. Waveform, spectrogram, and F0 pitch track of the broad focus statement Volen melmelada. (want.3pl jam, ‘They want some jam.’).

24

Pilar Prieto and Gemma Rigau

utterance Volen melmelada ‘They want some jam’. This example illustrates the phonetic realization of the rising prenuclear pitch accent with a delayed peak L þ>H* and the low nuclear pitch accent L*, followed by a L% boundary tone, which reaches the bottom range of the speaker. Exclamatives are speech acts that express strong positive or negative emotions, usually without explicitly stating them. Exclamative speech acts can emphasize the degree of a property expressed by a sentential constituent (e.g., the adjectival phrase Que bonic ‘How nice’ in Que bonic que e´s, aixo`! ‘How nice this is!’). They are assertions, imperatives, or questions pronounced with a special intonation that allows the speaker to express surprise, discovery, displeasure, etc. (e.g., Plou! ‘It’s raining!’, Mireu qui ha arribat! ‘Look who’s here!’, A mi que` m’expliques ara?! ‘What are you saying?!’).5 Exclamatory utterances are generally introduced by an interjection (e.g., oh) or a vocative (e.g., noia ‘girl’, home ‘man’, etc.). In the rest of this section we will focus on the prosody of exclamative assertions. As is well known, prosody is a crucial component in the degree of expressiveness of an assertion, and it is generally implemented by the use of emphatic stresses and pitch accents, which are in turn cued by pitch range expansion.6 The pitch contour in Figure 2 illustrates an exclamation contour, which is characterized by the presence of emphatic pitch accents with expanded pitch range (L þ H*) both in pre-nuclear and nuclear positions. From a pragmatic point of view, while the nuclear pitch accent L* signals broad focus, L þ H* signals exclamation and emphasis. Catalan has two intonation contours that are able to convey assertiveness on the part of the speaker.7 The two graphs in Figure 3 illustrate these two intonation contours with the utterances (Home), viuran a Me`rida!, 5. For the syntactic properties of Catalan exclamative sentences, see Villalba (2001, (ed.) 2008). 6. Pitch can vary along two scaling dimensions, pitch range and pitch register (Ladd 1996: 260–261). Pitch range variation involves increases or decreases in the distance between the lowest and highest F0 points in a given pitch accent (as in the case at hand). Register variation, on the other hand, involves the raising or lowering of both the high and the low target points. 7. Degrees of certainty and uncertainty in assertions can be expressed by tonal means, as well as by lexical means through the use of modal verbs such as poder ‘can, may’ or modal adverbs such as evidentment ‘obviously’, segurament ‘surely’, or potser ‘perhaps’. The analysis of the intonational properties of sentences and their concurrence with certain evaluative adverbs, such as desgraciadament ‘unfortunately’ and sortosament ‘fortunately’ is a promising area of research (see Mayol and Castroviejo 2010).

Prosody and pragmatics

25

Figure 2. Waveform, spectrogram, and F0 pitch track of the exclamative utterance Volen melmelada! (want.3pl jam, ‘They want jam!’).

‘They’re going to live in Me´rida, of course!’ (upper panel), and (Home), la Ba`rbara!, ‘Barbara (obviously)!’ (lower panel). The contour in the upper panel is characterized by a nuclear low tone L* followed by a complex boundary movement HL%. Pragmatically it confers a high degree of assertiveness that can contradict the hearer’s beliefs. The contour below is characterized by a rising nuclear L þ H* pitch accent produced on the syllable ba`r- and followed by a complex falling-rising movement L!H% that ends on a mid tone. Figure 4 exemplifies the Catalan uncertainty contour (L þ H* !H%), which expresses a high level of tentativeness and involves a sentence-final mid boundary tone configuration. The utterance (Potser) ve en Joan, i despre´s la Ba`rbara ‘(Perhaps) Joan is coming, and also Barbara’ is produced with a rising L þ H* nuclear pitch accent followed by a falling movement to a final mid sustained tone. 3.2. Questions Questions are the most versatile of the sentence-types, as they are used for a variety of speech acts that range from directive to assertive functions. They can also express degrees of certainty and counterexpectational meanings. In this section, we will analyze the contribution of prosody to the interpretation of pragmatic meanings in questions. We will focus on the description of yes-no interrogative sentences.

26

Pilar Prieto and Gemma Rigau

Figure 3. Waveform, spectrogram, and F0 pitch track of the sentence (Home), la Ba`rbara! (man), the Barbara! ‘Barbara (obviously)!’ (upper panel) and of the sentence (Home), viuran a Me`rida! (man), live.3pl in Me`rida ‘They’re going to live in Me`rida (of course)!’ (lower panel).

3.2.1. Information-seeking questions Central Catalan allows for two possible intonation contours to express information-seeking (or non-presuppositional) yes-no questions, a falling pattern and a rising pattern. The two graphs in Figure 5 show the pitch contours of the falling yes-no question optionally headed by que, (Que) l’hi duries? ‘Would you take it to him/her?’ (top panel) and the rising

Prosody and pragmatics

27

Figure 4. Waveform, spectrogram, and F0 pitch track of the uncertainty contour Ve en Joan. . . i despre´s la Ba`rbara. (comes.3s the John and after the Ba`rbara ‘(Perhaps) Joan is coming. . . and also Barbara.’).

version of the same question L’hi duries? ‘Would you take it to him/her?’ (bottom panel).8 The falling intonation pattern is characterized by a high pitch plateau which spans from the beginning of the sentence to the onset of the last accented syllable in the prosodic phrase. The pitch then falls during this syllable (H þ L*), to be followed by a low boundary tone L%. By contrast, the rising intonation pattern is characterized by a nuclear low tone L* associated with the last stressed syllable, followed by a sharp pitch rise (HH%) at the end of the utterance. Recent work on the pragmatic meaning of interrogative utterances has sought to characterize the pragmatic factors that influence how Catalan speakers choose between the two types of intonation contours. Traditionally, information-seeking interrogative sentences in Central Catalan have been characterized as having both the rising and the falling pattern (e.g., Bonet 1984, Badia i Margarit 1994, Prieto 2002, Torrent-Lenzen 2001). Payrato´ (2002) was the first to observe that the selection of the intonation contour was sensitive to the pragmatic cost-benefit scale in which 8. Catalan yes-no questions display a rich intra- and interdialectal variation which relates to the type of intonation contour, the presence of the particle que, and its semantic/pragmatic properties – for a review, see Prieto and Rigau (2007).

28

Pilar Prieto and Gemma Rigau

Figure 5. Waveform, spectrogram, and F0 pitch track of the falling yes-no question Que l’hi duries? (‘that it to him/her would-take.2s ‘Would you take it to him/her?’) in Central Catalan (upper graph) and of the rising yes-no question L’hi duries? (him take.cond.2s ‘Would you take it to him/her?’) in Central Catalan.

the cost or benefit of the proposed action to the hearer is estimated: for example, a sentence like Em deixara`s el teu cotxe nou? ‘Can you lend me your new car?’ is less adequate and less polite when being uttered with the falling pattern. Prieto and Rigau (2007) confirmed Payrato´’s hypothesis that speakers use the falling intonation pattern when the cost of the proposed

Prosody and pragmatics

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action to the hearer is considered low. As soon as the cost of the action is believed to be relatively high for the hearer, the use of que and the falling intonation pattern is no longer so adequate, as the examples in (1) show – examples in (1) and (2) have been taken from Prieto and Rigau (2007). The sentences with the falling intonation pattern (with or without que) will only be felicitous in the discourse if indeed the hearer has previously o¤ered the apartment or his/her help with the kids: (1) a.

b.

# (Que) em deixes el teu apartament a la platja, aquest cap de setmana? / Em deixes el teu apartament a la platja, aquest cap de setmana? ‘Would you let me use your apartment at the beach this weekend?’ # (Que) et puc deixar els nens, aquest cap de setmana? / Et puc deixar els nens, aquest cap de setmana? ‘Could I leave the kids with you this weekend?’

Likewise, depending on whether it is pronounced with a falling or rising intonation pattern, the utterance Puc fumar? in (2) will lead the hearer to infer two di¤erent beliefs on the part of the speaker. If the sentence (Que) puc fumar? is produced with a falling intonation pattern, as in (2a), it conveys the meaning that the speaker is convinced that the hearer will interpret the action as low-cost, and thus will have no objection to inhaling tobacco smoke. Thus (2a) would not be appropriate when addressed to a person who is trying to quit smoking. On the other hand, Puc fumar? uttered with a rising intonation pattern, as in (2b), communicates the speaker’s belief that the hearer will not necessarily interpret the action as a low-cost action. (2) a. b.

(Que) puc fumar? (falling intonation pattern) Puc fumar? ‘Can I smoke?’

(rising intonation pattern)

The existence of such pragmatic restrictions on the cost-benefit scale explains why interrogative sentences with falling intonation (and optionally headed by que) are used extensively in invitations and small o¤ers, where the benefit of the proposed action is estimated to be relatively high for the hearer (e.g., Que vols me´s cafe`? ‘Would you like more co¤ee?’, Que vol que li ho emboliqui? ‘Do you want me to wrap this up for you?’). Conversely, when participants in a court of law ask questions, something which gen-

30

Pilar Prieto and Gemma Rigau

erally implies a higher-cost interaction, the same intonation pattern and the use of que would be considered inappropriate (i.e., impolite), e.g., #Que he de declarar, senyoria? ‘Am I supposed to make a statement, Your Honor?’, #Que coneixeu l’acusat? ‘Do you know the accused?’. In general, polar sentences headed by que are not found in such formal speech styles. Importantly, the speakers’ selection of falling and rising intonation is sensitive to pragmatic factors such as cost, social distance, and power. In order to investigate these e¤ects in more detail, Astruc et al. (2010) conducted a set of controlled role-play interviews applying existing models of speech-act analysis such as Brown and Levinson’s (1987) to the investigation of o¤ering strategies in Catalan. They found that although the most e¤ective predictor of the intonation contour (rising vs. falling) was the cost scale of the o¤er, factors such as the power of the hearer over the speaker and the social distance between participants had an important interacting e¤ect. From a syntactic point of view, Prieto and Rigau (2007) claimed that information-seeking questions are headed by an interrogative operator that occupies a peripheral position in the complementizer zone. These interrogative operators determine the prosodic properties of the sentence; that is to say, they are ‘visible’ by virtue of the presence of suprasegmental information rather than by the use of segmental material. Assuming the proposal put forth by Rizzi (1997, 2001), the complementizer zone may be schematically represented as in (3): (3) [ Force (. . .) Finiteness [ IP ]] The Inflectional Phrase (IP) expresses the propositional content of the sentence, whereas the positions at the left of IP correspond to the complementizer zone. This zone allows for the expression of sentential modality and the articulation of the discourse. Sentence modality is related to Force position, while Finiteness reflects the finite or non-finite character of the sentence. Between Force and Finiteness other positions, which can remain inactivated, are possible, such as Topic positions and Focus. In (4) we o¤er an approximate representation of the syntactic structure of the sentence Que l’hi duries? (literally, ‘that it to him/her would-take.2s’) ‘Would you take it to him/her?’, whose intonation is represented in Figure 5a. (4) [[ForceP neutral interrogative operator ] [FinP que [IP l’hi duries ]]] 9 9. Catalan is a null-subject language. In (4) and (5) the elliptic subject is recoverable by the verbal inflection (second person, singular).

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31

Force Phrase (ForceP) shows a neutral polar interrogative operator, which is realized by prosodic means (see Figure 5a) and confers a neutral polar question reading to the sentence. The head of Fin(iteness) Phrase, which conveys the information that the sentence is a finite sentence, is realized by the conjunction que (see Prieto and Rigau 2007 for more details). The structure of the sentence in Figure 5b, L’hi duries? (literally, ‘it to him/her would-take.2s’) ‘Would you take it to him/her?’, is roughly represented in (5). As in (4), a neutral polar interrogative operator is in Force Phrase. Its realization is also not segmental but prosodic. However, the operator in (5) determines a rising intonation pattern, contrary to the falling intonational pattern in (4). Moreover, Finite phrase is not phonologically realized, since there is no conjunction in it. (5) [[ForceP neutral interrogative operator ] [FinP [IP l’hi duries ]]] We assume that the neutral interrogative operator in (4) and (5) is a yes-no quantifier originating inside IP, in the same position as the polarity markers yes and no, and moves to Force phrase. Consequently, information-seeking questions are neither true nor false. They express a disjunction between the a‰rmation and negation of their propositional content. The disjunction meaning can be expressed in the question: (que) l’hi duries o no? ‘(that) it to him/her would-take.2s or not?’. 3.2.2. Counterexpectational questions Counterexpectational questions are used to express the denial of a discourse-activated assumption. First, it is worth discussing the relationship between counterexpectational questions and echo questions, also known as reprise questions. Echo questions can be used to signal a failure to understand the previous move in a conversation and thus are typically a repeat (‘echo’) of the preceding sentence, as shown in (6). (6) a.

b.

Speaker A. –He parlat amb el president ‘I have spoken with the president’ Speaker B. –(Dius que) has parlat amb el president? ‘(You say that) you have spoken with the president?’)

Yet the sentence in (6b) can also express a counterexpectational meaning, that is, the lack of agreement between the speakers’ own expectations and the discourse context. Depending on the prosodic correlates chosen,

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Pilar Prieto and Gemma Rigau

Figure 6. Waveform, spectrogram, and F0 pitch track of the echo question (Dius que) has parlat amb el president? (Have.2s spoken with the president? ‘(You say that) you have spoken with the president?’).

this question can communicate either a ‘positive’ counterexpectational meaning (that is, the speaker expresses an acceptance of the situation by expressing a certain degree of surprise or astonishment) or a ‘negative’ counterexpectational meaning (whereby the speaker still expresses a certain degree of incredulity or unacceptance of the discourse-activated assumption). Figure 6 illustrates the standard pitch contour of surprise counterexpectational questions in Catalan. Though echo questions can express a genuine failure to understand the utterance, they can also convey a counter-expectational meaning of surprise. Typically, the pitch contour used to express this type of counterexpectational meaning starts with a low pitch that continues until the last stressed syllable in the utterance, which is pronounced with an upstepped L þ H* pitch accent. After that, the contour ends in a final falling tone. As noted above, Borra`s-Comes, Vanrell, and Prieto (2010) found a phonological contrast in pitch range between two types of rises in Catalan, L þ H* (which indicates contrastive focus) and L þ H* (which is used in surprise counterexpectational questions). The sentence in (6a) can also adopt the rising intonation pattern (see Figure 5b), in which case it would convey incredulity. An important prosodic cue to the counterexpectional meaning is the increased pitch range of !

!

Prosody and pragmatics

33

the final falling or rising pitch movement. Crespo-Sendra, Vanrell, and Prieto (2010) conducted a set of perception experiments with rising pitch contours that showed that an increase in pitch scaling of the boundary tone HH% was the primary cue used by Catalan listeners to identify an incredulity interpretation. The contribution of duration was small but consistent, and served as a secondary cue to the incredulity meaning. Prieto and Rigau (2007) o¤ered a syntactic analysis of counter-expectational questions in which they argue that the interrogative operator, as in other biased questions, originates directly in ForceP, not inside IP. Consequently, in contrast with information-seeking interrogative sentences, counterexpectational questions can be negative, as in (7): (7) Que no volies un collaret? Doncs, jo em pensava que sı´. that not wanted.2s a necklace. Then I myself thought.1s that yes ‘Didn’t you want a necklace? I thought you did.’ In (8) we schematically represent the structure of the sentence in (7). (8) [ForceP counterexpectational interrogative operator [FinP que [IP no volies un collaret ]]] 3.2.3. Confirmation-seeking questions Recent studies in the field of intonational phonology have shown that information-seeking questions can be distinguished from confirmationseeking questions by prosodic means in a variety of languages (see Vanrell et al. 2010b for a review). Typically Catalan confirmatory questions are headed in Force Phrase by question operators such as oi or eh, among others, which are followed by the conjunction que, as in (9a) and (9b). (9) a.

b.

Oi que vindra`s? Op. that will-come.2s ‘You’re coming, aren’t you?’ Eh que vindra`s? Op. that will-come.2s ‘You’re coming, aren’t you?’

The syntactic structure of (9a) is schematically represented in (10). (10) [ForceP Oi [FinP que [IP vindra`s ]]]

34

Pilar Prieto and Gemma Rigau

Confirmatory questions headed by oi que or eh que convey a strong degree of presupposition on the part of the speaker, who expects a clear confirmation on the part of the hearer.10 The other possible form that these sentences may take is tag questions, which are composed of a statement followed by the tag in an interrogative form, as in (11a) and (11b) (for more information on confirmatory questions, see Cuenca 1997; Rigau 1998; Hernanz and Rigau 2006, and Prieto and Rigau 2007). From a prosodic point of view, the sentences in (9) and (11) are characterized by the rising question contour (see Figure 5b), which applies to either the whole sentence or just the tag element. (11) a.

Vindra`s, oi? will-come.2s Op. ‘You’re coming, aren’t you?’

b.

Vindra`s, eh? will-come.2s Op. ‘You’re coming, aren’t you?’

However, as is well known, languages can also use prosodic means to express softer degrees of confirmation-seeking in questions. Vanrell et al. (2010a, 2010b) performed a set of production and perception experiments that showed that di¤erent Catalan dialects use distinct tonal configurations to mark the distinction between non-tag confirmation- and informationseeking questions. In the case of Central Catalan, the interrogative conjunction que ‘that’ and the falling intonation pattern (see Figure 5a) were

10. This is corroborated by the fact that these questions allow for the presence of evaluative adverbs such as per desgra`cia ‘unfortunately’ (1a), something that would be unacceptable with information-seeking questions such as the one in (1b) – see Mayol and Castroviejo 2010 for a discussion. In fact, the question in (1a’) would only be felicitous with a counterexpectational question interpretation: (1)

a. Oi que la Maria, per desgra`cia, ha hagut de marxar? ‘Isn’t it true that Mary, unfortunately, had to go?’ Example from Mayol and Castroviejo (2010:26) a’. #La Maria, per desgra`cia, ha hagut de marxar? ‘Mary, unfortunately, had to go?’

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35

found to correlate with the meaning of confirmation-seeking questions.11 For example, an utterance such as Que tens gana? or Que tens fred? can be uttered with a confirmation-seeking goal. Importantly, in dialects such as northern Central Catalan, questions headed by que have exclusively a confirmation-seeking function.12 Escandell-Vidal (1996) proposed a pragmatic model that takes into account the degrees of knowledge of speaker and hearer in the instantiation of questions. She applied the classical distinction between transactional discursive goals (i.e., the speaker’s intentions are mainly informative) and interactional discursive goals (i.e., the speaker seeks to cooperate and socialize) to interrogative sentences. When the discursive intentions of the speaker are mainly informative (or transactional), the interrogative variable is an informative gap that the hearer can fill through a certain piece of information. Yet in other cases the di¤erent degrees of knowledge on the part of the speaker and the presumed knowledge possessed by the hearer shape di¤erent types of questions that can have di¤erent prosodic forms. Table 2 represents a diagram with a summary of Escandell’s proposal. The left part of the table represents the speakers’ knowledge about the content of the question and the right part of the graph the hypothesis that the speaker formulates about the knowledge possessed by the hearer. Information-seeking questions are located at the top of the scale because they imply minimal knowledge on the part of the speaker and at the same time a maximal presumption of the knowledge in possession of the addressee. By contrast, at the opposite extreme of the scale we find exam-style questions, which imply a maximal degree of knowledge on the part of the speaker and a minimal degree of knowledge on the part of the addressee. Di¤erent types of confirmatory questions, where the speaker’s 11. In the case of Majorcan Catalan, results from a variety of perception experiments showed that it is the choice of the nuclear pitch accent that distinguishes information-seeking questions from confirmation-seeking questions (namely, the choice of a H þ L* for the former and H þ L* for the latter) – for more information on other dialectal di¤erences in the expression of confirmation, see Vanrell et al. (2010a). 12. Interestingly, the presence of evaluative adverbs in interrogative sentences headed by que is more acceptable than in the case of confirmatory sentences starting with oi que (see footnote 10) – although see Mayol and Castroviejo (2010) for a discussion of the role of discourse context in setting up the right presuppositions. This compatibility is corroboration that questions headed by que and falling intonation display a weaker degree of presupposition than confirmatory questions headed by oi que or eh que. !

36

Pilar Prieto and Gemma Rigau

Table 2. Diagram with Escandell-Vidal’s (1996) proposal.

Real knowledge

Speaker

Hearer



þ

þ



Knowledge presupposition

ignorance is not total and he/she seeks di¤erent levels confirmation of his/ her hypothesis, are located at intermediate points in the diagram. Following Escandell-Vidal’s model, Vanrell et al. (2010b) undertook a perception experiment to test whether Majorcan Catalan listeners could distinguish between four levels of knowledge presupposition in questions depending on a set of prosodic and lexical cues. The materials used for the rating test were an information-seeking question (Teniu mandarines? ‘Do you have tangerines?’), a confirmation-seeking question (Teniu mandarines? ‘You have tangerines?’ with the appropriate intonation contour), a tag question (Teniu mandarines, no? ‘You have tangerines, don’t you?’), and a broad focus statement (Teniu mandarines ‘You have tangerines’). Subjects had to rate whether the speaker had knowledge of the presence of tangerines by pressing one of four possible options, namely, ‘‘1’’ for ‘He/She has no idea’, ‘‘2’’ for ‘Perhaps’, ‘‘3’’ for ‘Probably’ and ‘‘4’’ for ‘Definitely’, with number values thus reflecting the strength of certainty of a ‘‘yes’’ or positive answer. The results revealed an average presupposition score of 1.15 for information-seeking questions (in a 1 to 4 scale), 2.05 for confirmation-seeking questions, 3.08 for tag questions and 3.72 for statements, thus providing empirical support for Escandell-Vidal’s model. Further confirmation that intonation can reflect a scale of knowledge presupposition in confirmatory questions comes from a recent analysis of a Map Task corpus in Peninsular Spanish (Pe´rez-Broncano et al. in press). 3.3. Requests Imperative utterances (including both commands and requests) are interpreted as directive speech acts, i.e., they reflect the speaker’s attempt to get the hearer to perform the action described by the proposition. The illocutionary strength with which the speaker conveys this speech act ranges from a strong command to a gentle request or suggestion, and it can be modulated linguistically through lexical choice of linguistic items such as si us plau ‘please’, and/or through the use of prosodic features such as

Prosody and pragmatics

37

Figure 7. Waveform, spectrogram, and F0 pitch track of the command Vine! (‘Come!’).

intonation and speech rate. In this section we describe a set of intonation patterns that characterize commands and requests, as well as the prosodic realization of pragmatic nuances such as di¤erences in the degree of insistence in these types of utterances. Figure 7 illustrates the standard pitch pattern used for strong commands. The stressed syllable is pronounced with a very prominent rising pitch accent (L þ H*) followed by a fall on the posttonic syllables. An important feature of imperative utterances is the expanded pitch range of the focalized pitch accents and the fast speech rate of the whole utterance, which expresses the urgency of this speech act. In Catalan the distinction between commands and requests can be conveyed by pitch accent choice (L þ H* in commands and L* in requests) and by final boundary marking (L% vs. HL%). Furthermore, di¤erences in boundary tones (e.g., L!H% vs. LHL%) can express a variety of modal or attitudinal meanings like degree of insistence. The three panels in Figure 8 illustrate the contrast between a gentle request (L* HL%) and two more insistent requests (L þ H* L!H% and L þ H* LHL%). The tritonal boundary tone LHL%, which expresses a fall-rise-fall pitch movement, is the so-called ‘‘insistence tune’’ mentioned elsewhere (Prieto 2002). Importantly, the illocutionary strength of imperative utterances is ex-

38

Pilar Prieto and Gemma Rigau

Figure 8. Waveforms, spectrograms, and F0 pitch tracks of the same utterance (Sisplau), vine. . . ! (‘(Please) come!’) produced as a gentle request (upper graph) and as two more insistent requests (central and lower graphs).

Prosody and pragmatics

39

pressed through the use of not only intonation but also other prosodic features such as duration. Longer durations can signal stronger degrees of insistence or submission in requests.

4. A¤ective meanings in intonation There is a specific dimension of intonational meaning that is typically associated with a¤ective or emotional states of mind of the speaker. For example, the use of a high register tends to conveys submissiveness, whereas the use of a low register tends to convey dominance (see Gussenhoven 2002). Recently, some authors have endorsed a biological basis for the relationship between pitch height and a¤ective intonational meanings. Initially, Ohala (1984) suggested the existence of a cross-species phylogenetic use of F0, which he labeled the ‘‘frequency code’’. According to his view, the current use of pitch in human languages has evolved from a primitive code which relates high F0 and low F0 to basic meanings of ‘‘smallness’’ and ‘‘bigness’’ respectively (as vocal cord size relates to body size) and to secondary social meanings of ‘‘subordination, submission, lack of threat or confidence, politeness’’ and ‘‘dominance, threat, authority, aggression, assertiveness’’ respectively. As Ohala (1984:2) remarked, ‘‘although the evidence is not as extensive as that concerned with the use of F0 to mark sentence types, it seems safe to conclude that such ‘social’ messages as deference, politeness, submission, lack of confidence, are signaled by high and/or rising F0 whereas assertiveness, authority, aggression, confidence, threat, are conveyed by low and/or falling F0.’’ According to Gussenhoven (2002), ‘‘a¤ective interpretations of the frequency code are rather numerous. Submissiveness, or ‘feminine’ values, and its opposite, dominance, or ‘masculine’ values, constitute one obvious dimension. Meanings that are associated with this dimension are (for higher pitch) ‘friendliness’ and ‘politeness’.’’ He proposed two other biological codes, the e¤ort code and the production code. The e¤ort code relates to the increases in e¤ort expended in speech production, which are signaled in prosody by pitch range variation: this can be related to a general phenomenon across languages whereby increases in pitch range index degrees of prominence and speaker involvement in the speech act. Finally, the production code relates to the tendency in production to have high tones at the beginning of utterances and low tones at the end. This explains why final high tones at the ends of sentences signal marked meanings like continuation. Gussenhoven (2002) claims that although

40

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these types of a¤ective prosodic meanings are universal and based on biological conditions, language-particular di¤erences emerge in the specific use of these correlates. For example, Chen et al. (2004) investigated experimentally the perception of meanings derived from Ohala’s frequency code in Dutch and English, i.e., the perception of semantic scales such as ‘‘friendliness’’, ‘‘confidence’’, or ‘‘surprise’’, as conveyed by gradual changes in pitch range or peak alignment. Their findings showed that, though there were di¤erences in the fine-grained perception of English and Dutch listeners, stimuli with high pitch range tended to be perceived as more friendly. With respect to the expression of politeness, the seminal work by Brown and Levinson (1987) founded Politeness Theory within the field of pragmatics. These authors pointed out that one positive politeness strategy consisted of the exaggeration of ‘‘interest, approval, sympathy with H[earer]’’, which is ‘‘often done with exaggerated intonation, stress, and other aspects of prosodics, as well as with intensifying modifiers’’ (p. 104). Even though this prosodic expression indeed relates to Ohala’s frequency code and the perception of friendliness, it is also clear that politeness can be coded at the linguistic and pragmatic levels. Perhaps one of the most robust tonal correlates of perceived politeness that have been highlighted in the literature is that of tonal pitch range: as Brown and Levinson noted, an increase in pitch span (what they call ‘exaggerated intonation’) can trigger the impression of a higher degree of politeness. For Catalan, Paya` (2003) examined how the perception of politeness in questions is a¤ected by conflicting or non-conflicting prosodic elements (e.g., choice of pitch contour type and speech rate) and non-prosodic elements (e.g., lexical and morphological choice). Her results revealed that the presence of a single impolite cue, of whatever type, overrode all other cues. Nadeu and Prieto (2011) explored the contribution of pitch range increases to the expression of politeness in information-seeking yes-no questions in Catalan. Two perception experiments were carried out with the utterance (Que) tens hora? ‘What time is it?’, spoken with both rising and falling intonation contours and then manipulated so that the ending contained gradual increases or decreases in pitch. The results of the first experiment revealed that, for both contours, increasing the pitch range of the final part of the utterance tone triggered a decrease in perceived politeness, whereas decreasing the pitch range had no e¤ect whatsoever. The second perception experiment showed that adding contextual (gestural) information could reverse the tendency. Taken together, these results

Prosody and pragmatics

41

point to the complex interaction between prosodic cues and contextual information (specifically, facial gestures; see also Paya` 2004). The results of the abovementioned experiments show that there is nothing intrinsically polite about using an increased pitch range, unless it is accompanied by consistent contextual information. Consequently we believe that when assessing the degree of perceived politeness of an utterance, attention must be paid to various prosodic aspects together with contextual and gestural information. As noted, the importance of such contextual factors in prosodic interpretation has been increasingly recognized (e.g., Wichmann and Cauldwell 2003, Wichmann in press, and others). For example, Wichmann and Cauldwell (2003) asked students to use their own labels to describe the attitudinal or a¤ective meanings conveyed by a series of sentences, first out of context and later in context. Participants’ perception changed drastically when sentences were embedded in their context. Crucially, sentences in isolation were typically regarded as negative, whereas when inserted in a context, they received more positive ratings. All in all, these studies showed the importance of factoring in contextual knowledge when attempting to describe of the perceptual association between prosody and meaning.

5. Conclusion Taken together, the results of the studies presented in this chapter have convincingly shown that prosody is one of the linguistic means listeners use in the interpretation of speech acts, alongside choice of lexical and grammatical items, facial and body gestures, or neighboring discourse structure. A promising avenue for future investigation will consist of further uncovering the relative contributions of these cues to utterance interpretation. This chapter has described the pragmatic function of a selection prosodic patterns in Catalan within three well-known types of sentence-types, namely, statements, questions, and requests. We have reviewed the prosodic cues Catalan speakers use to express notions like degrees of certainty/uncertainty in statements and degrees of incredulity and certainty in questions. Nonetheless, we have seen that pragmatic factors such as cost, power, and social distance are relevant when a speaker must choose between two di¤erent pitch contours (rising vs. falling) for information-seeking questions. Thus, though prosody certainly helps the hearer to identify a speech act type, it is not possible to claim a one-toone relationship between prosody and pragmatic interpretation.

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With respect to the expressive meanings of prosody, we have reviewed the expressive attributes that are crosslinguistically related with expansions and reductions of pitch range (Ohala 1984, Gussenhoven 2002). We have highlighted the results of a recent experiment showing that discourse and gestural context can also be crucial in the perception of politeness (Nadeu and Prieto 2011). This experiment showed that the very same questions in Catalan could be perceived as conveying more or less politeness depending on how much information about the context hearers possessed. In the absence of visual cues, participants tended to react more negatively to stimuli whose boundary tone had been increased. When visual cues were brought into play, however, the tendency reversed. Thus, though it is clear that pitch height Thus, though it is clear that pitch height is associated to the perception of politeness, this role is highly dependent on the discourse context. From a methodological point of view, this chapter has pointed to several promising directions for research in the pragmatics of intonation. First, the application of speech act theories to the study of intonation could make use of experimental methodologies to investigate the role of pragmatic factors in the selection of prosodic patterns. Second, the semantic investigation of the combinatorial properties of intonation and modal adverbs could be useful to attain a more fine-grained syntactic analysis of prosodic features. Third, the relative contribution of prosody to overall utterance interpretation could be investigated by means of experimental techniques that simultaneously measure the impact of behavioral data such as facial gestures. Moreover, systematic corpus-based studies of all aspects of intonational meaning, a field of research still largely in its infancy, will likely continue to yield important results. In conclusion, we hope that the examination of Catalan prosodic meaning presented in this chapter will serve as a stimulus for further research in this area that can refine our knowledge on the impact of prosody on utterance interpretation for language in general. References Aguilar, Lourdes, Carme De-la-Mota, and Pilar Prieto (coords.) 2009 Cat_ToBI Training Materials. Web page: http://prosodia.upf. edu/cat_tobi/. Astruc, Lluı¨sa, Maria del Mar Vanrell, and Pilar Prieto 2010 La pragma`tica i entonacio´ dels oferiments en catala`. 2n Workshop d’entonacio´ del catala` i Cat_ToBI, 9/VII/2010, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.

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Mayol, Laia, and Elena Castroviejo 2010 The semantics of evaluative adverbs in French and Catalan. Ms. Universitat Auto`noma de Barcelona. Nadeu, Marianna, and Pilar Prieto 2011 The contribution of tonal scaling to the perception of politeness in Catalan. Journal of Pragmatics 43: 841–854. Ohala, John J. 1984 An ethological perspective on common cross-language utilization of F0 of voice. Phonetica 41: 1–16. Oliva, Salvador 1980 Me`trica catalana. Barcelona: Quaderns Crema. Oliva, Salvador 1988 Introduccio´ a la me`trica. Barcelona: Quaderns Crema. Paya`, Marta 2003 Politeness strategies in spoken Catalan: when prosodic and non prosodic elements don’t match. Paper presented at the 6th NWCL International Conference: Prosody and Pragmatics, Preston (UK), November 15, 2003. Paya`, Marta 2004 Interaccio´ del grup tonal i el gest en el discurs: Una aproximacio´ d’ana`lisi multimodal. In Les fronteres del llenguatge. Entre la lingu¨´ıstica i la comunicacio´ no verbal, Lluı´s Payrato´, Nu´ria Alturo, and Marta Paya` (eds.), 155–172. Barcelona: PPU / Publicacions de la Universitat de Barcelona. Payrato´, Lluı´s 2002 L’enunciacio´ i la modalitat oracional. In Grama`tica del catala` contemporani, Joan Sola`, Maria Rosa Lloret, Joan Mascaro´, and Manuel Pe´rez-Saldanya (eds.), 1151–1222. Barcelona: Empu´ries. Pe´rez-Broncano, Olimpia, Eva Estebas-Vilaplana, Maria del Mar Vanrell, and Pilar Prieto in press La expresio´n del grado de confianza en las preguntas: ana`lisis de un corpus de Map Tasks. Anuario de Filologı´a. Pierrehumbert, Janet 1980 The Phonetics and Phonology of English Intonation. Ph.D. Dissertation, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Pierrehumbert, Janet, and Julia Hirschberg 1990 The Meaning of Intonation in the Interpretation of Discourse. In Intentions in Communication, Philip R. Cohen, Jerry Morgan, and Martha E. Pollack (eds.), 271–311. Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. Prieto, Pilar 1997 Prosodic Manifestation of Syntactic Structure in Catalan. In Issues in the Phonology and Morphology of the Major Iberian Languages, Fernando Martı´nez Gil, and Alfonso Morales Front (eds.), 173–194. Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press.

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Prieto, Pilar 2002

Prieto, Pilar in press

Entonacio´. In Grama`tica del catala` contemporani, Joan Sola`, Maria Rosa Lloret, Joan Mascaro´, and Manuel Pe´rez-Saldanya (eds.), 395–462. Barcelona: Empu´ries.

The Intonational Phonology of Catalan. In Prosodic Typology 2. The Phonology of Intonation and Phrasing, Sun-Ah Jun (ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Prieto, Pilar, Lourdes Aguilar, Ignasi Mascaro´, Francesc-Josep Torres-Tamarit, and Maria del Mar Vanrell 2009 L’etiquetatge proso`dic Cat_ToBI. Estudios de Fone´tica Experimental 18: 287–309. Prieto, Pilar, and Teresa Cabre´ (coords.) 2006–2010 Atles interactiu de l’entonacio´ del catala`. Web page: . Prieto, Pilar, and Gemma Rigau 2007 The syntax-prosody interface: Catalan interrogative sentences headed by que. Journal of Portuguese Linguistics 6 (2): 29–59. Prieto, Pilar, Francesc Torres-Tamarit, and Maria del Mar Vanrell 2010 The role of tonal scaling in distinguishing intonational categories in Catalan, ms. ICREA-Universitat Pompeu Fabra and Universitat Auto`noma de Barcelona. Rigau, Gemma 1984 Reflexions sobre entonacio´ i sintaxi. Folia Phonetica 1: 175–179. Rigau, Gemma 1998 La variacio´ sinta`ctica: Uniformitat en la diversitat. Caplletra 25: 63–82. Rizzi, Luigi 1997 The Fine Structure of Left Periphery. In Elements of Grammar, L. Haegeman (ed.), 281–337. Dordrecht: Kluver. Rizzi, Luigi 2001 Locality and Left Periphery. In Structures and Beyond: The Cartography of Syntactic Structures, vol II, Adriana Belletti (ed.), 223– 251. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Searle, John 1969 Speech acts: An essay in the philosophy of language. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University. Sperber, Dan, and Deirdre Wilson 1995 [1986] Relevance. Communication and Cognition. 2d ed. Oxford: Blackwell. Torrent-Lenzen, Aina 2001 Que tens gana? Ana`lisi de la funcio´ pragma`tica del que introductor d’una pregunta amb corba entonativa descendent. In Miscella`nia Giuseppe Tavani 2, 321–333. Barcelona: Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat.

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Vanrell, Maria del Mar 2006 The phonological role of tonal scaling in Majorcan Catalan interrogatives. MA Thesis, Universitat Auto`noma de Barcelona. Vanrell, Maria del Mar, Ignasi Mascaro´, Francesc Torres-Tamarit, and Pilar Prieto 2010a Preguntar per saber i preguntar per confirmar: l’entonacio´ de les interrogatives absolutes informatives i confirmato`ries en catala` central i balear. Randa 64: 77–95. Vanrell, Maria del Mar, Ignasi Mascaro´, Francesc Torres-Tamarit, and Pilar Prieto 2010b When intonation plays the main character: information- vs. confirmation-seeking questions in Majorcan Catalan. Proceedings of Speech Prosody 2010 (11–14 May, Chicago), 100168: 1–4. Villalba, Xavier 2001 The Right Edge of Exclamative Sentences in Catalan. Catalan Working Papers in Linguistics 9: 119–135. Villalba, Xavier (ed.) 2008 Catalan Journal of Linguistics 7: Exclamatives at the interfaces. Wichmann, Anne in press Prosody and Pragmatic E¤ects. In Pragmatics of Society, Aijmer, K., Andersen, G. (eds.). Berlin / New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Wichmann, Anne, and Richard Cauldwell 2003 Wh-questions and attitude: the e¤ect of context. In Corpus Linguistics by the Lune: A Festschrift for Geo¤rey Leech, Andrew Wilson, Paul Rayson, and Tony McEnery (eds.), 291–305. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Wilson, Deirdre, and Tim Wharton 2006 Relevance and prosody. Journal of Pragmatics 36 (1): 1559– 1579.

Pragmatic particles at the syntax-cognition interface* M. Teresa Espinal 1. Introduction The goal of this chapter is to study the syntactic and semantic properties of a subset of linguistic particles in contemporary Catalan, both from a syntactic perspective that focuses on the syntax-cognition interface and from a pragmatic approach that analyses the cognitive contribution of di¤erent pragmatic particles to the conceptual-intentional (C-I) system. Pragmatic particles, among which discourse particles are a subset, constitute a closed class, like determiners, pronouns, complementizers, conjunctions, (functional) adpositions, and many more lexical items (LI). They do not belong to any of the three basic classes of lexical categories: Nouns, Verbs and Adjectives (Baker 2003). They sometimes look like Adverbs or Interjections, and are clearly functional. They are pragmatic not because they tend to be optional in the syntactic position in which they occur, but because they codify di¤erent types of linguistic information (both conceptual and procedural) to utterance interpretation (Wilson and Sperber 1993) and therefore to the C-I system. I prefer to call them particles, but not markers because, as pointed out by Fischer (2006:6), ‘‘they do not mark anything’’. From a syntactic perspective, it should be noted that the study of pragmatic particles forces the exploration of a syntactic analysis that can account for the huge variety of data typically found both crosslinguistically and intralinguistically. A first issue that must be mentioned is that there is no agreement within the linguistic community on how to approach * I would like to thank Laia Mayol and Gemma Rigau for all their insightful comments on a previous version of this chapter. I am grateful to Adria` Rofes and Michael Kennedy-Scanlon for his assistantship during the preparation of the manuscript. The editors of the volume Lluı´s Payrato´ and Josep M. Cots deserve also a special gratitude for their careful reading of the manuscript. This research has been funded by a research grant awarded by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacio´n, namely HUM2006-13295-C02-01FILO, and by a grant awarded by the Generalitat de Catalunya to the Centre de Lingu¨ı´stica Teo`rica (2009SGR-1073). The author also acknowledges an ICREA Acade`mia award.

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the study of these linguistic items within a coherent approach. However, in this chapter I would like to argue that the cartographic project, put forward since the mid-1990s by Luigi Rizzi and Guglielmo Cinque (Rizzi 1997, 2001, 2004; Rizzi (ed.) 2004; Cinque 1999, (ed.) 2002, 2006; Cinque and Rizzi 2008, and others), best approaches the mapping from syntactic structures to the interpretation of constituents within the C-I system, and provides the most fine-grained syntactic analysis I have been able to find to describe the correlation between a specific linear order of syntactic objects, particular syntactic positions and conveyed information.1 This means that, although it is a simple task neither to determine whether a certain ordering restriction is possible or not nor to decide whether certain LIs occur as heads or as specifiers of these postulated functional projections, cartographies provide an interesting procedure for an understanding of how grammar structures the information encoded by particles within sentential domains. Cartographies provide some of the tools we need to integrate particles within host sentential structures, and are an attempt to represent the set of multiple e¤ects that these expressions may have within the C-I system. I will show that particles codify certain morphosyntactic features that determine the position they occupy at a syntactic cartographic representation such as the one in (1), under the assumption that syntactic features must be adequately valued in appropriate syntactic positions. In other words, the cartography of syntactic structures provides a map for each feature and, in its turn, evidence from the relative order of particles provides support for the hierarchical order postulated in (1).2 (1) [GroundP Ground [VocP Voc [ExclP Excl [ForceP Force [TopP Top [FocP Foc [TopP Top [FinP Fin [PolP Pol [IP Infl ]]]]]]]]]]

1. It should be pointed out that Rizzi (1997) introduced a very productive research line on the study of the left periphery of sentential structures and, in particular, on the study of the Complementizer Phrase (CP) field. In addition, Cinque (1999) proposed an important number of functional projections in order to deal with the relative order of Adverb Phrases within the Inflectional area and above it. 2. In (1) Voc stands for Vocative, Excl for Exclamative, Top for Topic, Foc for Focus, Fin for Finiteness, Pol for Polarity and Infl for Inflection.

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Still, it should be noted that most pragmatic particles have the possibility of occurring as parenthetical expressions, not integrated with the host structure, or simply as isolated syntactic items. In order to account for these structures I will assume a three-dimensional syntactic approach such as the one postulated in Espinal (1991), which adequately explains the nonconfigurationality of syntactic structures corresponding to disjunct constituents.3 From a cognitive perspective, once we know which syntactic positions can be filled up by which particles, we have to face and solve a second problem: what sort of information is linguistically codified by which particles. In order to approach this problem I am going to assume a basic distinction between conceptually encoded and procedurally encoded information, as proposed in relevance theory (Sperber and Wilson 1986/1995; Wilson and Sperber 1993; Espinal 1996; Blakemore 1987, 2002; among many others). I will show that di¤erent particles codify di¤erent sets of instructions on external e¤ects in the C-I system. Pragmatic particles are LIs whose meaning is underspecified by grammar. There is a robust intuition that, generically speaking, most particles do not contribute to truth-conditional e¤ects. They either codify conceptual information that contributes to the explicature (i.e., to the communicated proposition) or to higher-level explicatures (i.e., descriptions of attitudes or speech acts), or codify procedural information that constrains the communicated proposition, the higher-level explicatures or the inferred implicatures. As strongly emphasized by Wilson and Sperber (1993), the present division between conceptual and procedural is orthogonal with the division between truth-functional meanings and non-truth-functional contributions to meaning. It will be shown that only those particles that either contribute to or constrain the explicature are truth-conditional, while the rest of particles are not, because they either contribute to, comment on, or constrain the attitudes of the speaker or hearer towards the communicated proposition, or constrain the cognitive relationship held among relevant accessible propositions. To sum up, the two basic theoretical approaches on which this study is developed are the following: 3. The representation of disjunct constituents consists of postulating ThreeDimensional multirooted syntactic structures for independent structural representations that do not integrate within a host syntactic structure, but rather intersect at a linear axis.

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A.

The cartographic project of syntactic structures, which tries to find out what are the right structural mappings for natural languages expressions within an integrated syntactic representation. The relevance-based analysis to communication and cognition, which tries to find out what are the types of communicated information conveyed by LIs.

B.

The next section is devoted to an analysis of various pragmatic particles of Catalan at the syntax – cognition interface.

2. Types of particles in Catalan A theory of pragmatic particles appears to necessarily account for the role that a class of lexical expressions commonly called discourse markers or discourse particles plays in language. However, in this section my aim is to show that this class of expressions only constitutes a subset of a larger class of LIs that must be considered pragmatic particles.4 The way this section is structured is intended to show their peripheral status. Pragmatic particles in Catalan usually but not always occur in the left zone of linguistic utterances that host particles. These host utterances may show di¤erent syntactic categories, and may or may not have sentential structure. I will start with those LIs that within the Complementizer Phrase (CP) field occur close to the sentential domain, and in subsequent sections I will deal with those LIs that are more external. 2.1. Modal, evidential and emphatic particles ( pla, be´, sı´, prou, e´s clar) Let us start with the expression of modality and evidentiality. Modality (Palmer [1986] 2001), and more particularly epistemic modality, has to do with the speaker’s evaluation, judgement, confidence, belief, doubt, etc., relative to the knowledge of an accessible propositional form. Reference to certainty of knowledge is the domain of epistemic modality (Dendale 4. Due to space limitations I will not be able to deal with speaker- or addresseeoriented adverbials, nor with pragmatic connective particles. I assume for them a syntactic representation in terms of disjunct contituents. Pragmatically, the former contribute to higher-level explicatures (Wilson and Sperber 1993; Espinal 1996), and the latter introduce constraints on implicatures (Blakemore 1987). See also Cuenca (ed.) (2007).

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and Tasmowski 2001).5 By contrast, reference to sources of information and reference to expectations concerning the probability of a statement is considered to be the domain of evidential particles and evidential constructions. In this subsection I will briefly focus on those Catalan particles, both single LIs and lexicalized phrases, that express meanings concerning polarity, epistemic modality and/or evidentiality. This class includes the particles be´ ‘it’s sure’, sı´ ‘yes’, prou ‘it’s sure’, e´s clar / esclar ‘it’s clear’, evidentment ‘obviously’, when they occur at the left periphery of the clause, and particle pla ‘it’s sure’, which is only used in certain North-Eastern dialects of Catalan (Rigau in press).6 (2) a.

b.

{Be´, sı´, prou, e´s clar, evidentment} que vindran. sure yes sure is clear obviously that come.fut.3pl ‘It’s sure/clear/obvious that they will come.’ Ells pla vindran. they sure come.fut.3pl ‘They are sure to come.’

These particles modify the truth of p, but notice that certainty about the truth of p is not only asserted but is also under discussion. The information that these particles linguistically encode aims to strengthen the confidence of the speaker with regard to the truth of p. In accordance with this claim, in relevance-theoretic terms these particles are assumed to contribute to higher-level explicatures regarding the degree of certainty towards p. The linear order in (2a) is such that the particles precede the sentence and are followed by the complementizer que ‘that’, but example (2b) shows that particle pla, occurs after the topic without a complementizer. 5. Modality is often expressed by means of a modification of the proposition that is being evaluated, and natural languages have several means to assert di¤erent evaluations of the knowledge of p with regard to possible worlds that are either logically accessible, or perceptually accessible, or cognitively accessible, etc. To take an example, modal adverbs syntactically modify p by restricting the set of worlds with respect to which we evaluate the necessity, possibility or probability of p (e.g., Catalan necessa`riament ‘necessarily’, obligato`riament ‘obligatorily’, possiblement ‘possibly’, o`bviament ‘obviously’, clarament ‘clearly’, etc.; see Espinal 1987). 6. See also Torrent (in this volume) and Gonza´lez (in this volume).

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What this distribution suggests is that the structure corresponding to a sentence containing emphatic pla has similarities with the structure corresponding to a sentence with emphatic be´ and sı´. I follow at this point Hernanz (2007), who postulates that Spanish bien, like sı´, occurs in a functional projection Pol(arity)P (cf. Laka 1990). Her assumption is that when PolP takes a positive value, the Spec(ifier) position of PolP may be filled by bien / sı´. I will hereby assume, following Rigau (in press), that Catalan pla is an additional a‰rmative emphatic marker generated in this same position. (3) [ForceP [TopP [FocP [FinP [PolP pla/be´ /sı´ [Pol’ [Polo] [IP . . .]]]]]]] When PolP takes a negative value, the Spec position of PolP may also be filled by pla. Being negative, it licenses negative polarity items in postverbal position (4a) (Rigau in press: ex.(11)). This property makes pla close to no . . . pas; however, from a semantic perspective they are di¤erent since, while pla contributes to higher-level explicatures, no . . . pas both contributes to a negative proposition and encodes constraints on implicatures (Espinal 1993). See the glosses in (4a–b). (4) a.

b.

A Mart pla que hi ha estat mai ningu´. on Mars sure that there has been never anyone ‘For sure nobody has ever been to Mars.’ A Mart no hi ha estat pas mai ningu´. on Mars not there has been not never anyone [Contrary to the expectation that somebody may have been to Mars at some time] ‘Nobody has ever been to Mars.’ [Assuming that nobody has ever been to Mars, the speaker reinforces this assumption] ‘Nobody has ever been to Mars.’

c. A Mart sı´ que no hi ha estat mai ningu´. on Mars sure that not there has been never anyone ‘For sure nobody has ever been to Mars.’ In (4a) pla in its basic position specifies a negative PolP, but once moved to Spec,FocP is followed by the complementizer que ‘that’, similar to be´ / sı´ in a‰rmative contexts (see (2a)). Following Hernanz’s and Rigau’s studies, particles generated in PolP are assumed to be able to move to Spec,FocP in the course of the derivation. These cases require an overt

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complementizer. Furthermore, pla also requires a Topic.7 Other modal and evidential particles can also occur after the topic, as illustrated in (4c). (5) o¤ers the representation corresponding to modal particles, after they have moved to the specifier position of Focus. (5) [ForceP [TopP [FocusP plai /be´ i /sı´i [FinP que [PolP ti [IP . . .]]]]]] Pla shows a second basic use as a focal emphatic marker. As such it encodes that the truth of p, which is supposed to be true by the speaker, is significantly salient in the set of propositions (s)he assumes. Notice that in (6a) (Rigau in press: ex. (3)) pla is generated in Focus Phrase and is not followed by que ‘that’. The representation is given in (6b). (6) a.

Per Nadal pla, vam ser colla a taula. by Christmas sure past.1pl be multitude at table ‘At Christmas we really had a lot of people at the table!’ b. [ForceP [TopP [FocusP pla [IP . . .]]]]

In this use pla can even co-occur with the negative adverb no, which can be assumed to occupy the head position of Polo (Rigau in press: ex. (18a)). (7) Alguna cosa pla no devem haver fet be´. some thing sure not must.1pl have done rightly ‘Well there must have been something we didn’t do right.’ In (8a) can be seen the structure corresponding to emphatic evidential particles prou, e´s clar, evidentment (see (2a)), which are assumed to be generated as specifiers of Focus (8b) and moved to the specifier position of Force (8c) in the course of the derivation, in addition to other movements. (8) a. [ForceP [TopP [FocusP prou/e´s clar/evidentment [FinP que [PolP [IP . . .]]]]]] b. Per Nadal, {prou, e´s clar, evidentment} que vindran. for Xmas sure is clear obviously that come.fut.3pl ‘They are sure to come for Christmas.’ c. {Prou, e´s clar, evidentment} que vindran per Nadal. sure is clear obviously that come.fut.3pl for Xmas ‘They are sure to come for Christmas.’ The latter structure is relevant insofar as it provides a representation of evidential particles. Evidentiality is an epistemic modality that expresses the speaker’s commitment to the truth of the proposition expressed 7. A TopP, as it is standardly assumed in cartographic studies (Rizzi 1997), is embedded within ForceP, which is assumed to codify the point of view of the speaker.

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(Aikhenvald 2004; Gonza´lez 2005, and others). Evidential particles mark a proposition as representing information that is expected by the speaker. Syntactically speaking, evidential particles are generated as specifiers of FocP and move to specifiers of ForceP; from this position they introduce a specification of the expectations concerning the probability of the statement being made. The set of modal, evidential and emphatic particles can also occur as disjunct constituents, not integrated in any host structure.8 2.2. Focus (solament, nome´s, fins i tot, no pas) and topic particles (rai) In Section 2.1 I have already mentioned that particle pla in one of its uses is originally a modal particle, generated as a specifier of PolP, and from that position it can move, in the process of the derivation, to a higher position Spec,FocP, where it is licensed as a focus particle. In this section I will point out the existence in the grammar of Catalan of four additional focus particles (nome´s, solament ‘only’; fins i tot ‘even’; no pas ‘not’), whose function is to trigger a syntactic constituent (not necessarily the one they precede) as the focused constituent. (9) a. Solament la Maria va ser puntual. only the Maria past.3sg be punctual ‘Only Maria was on time.’ b. La Maria nome´s va ser puntual. the Maria only past.3sg be punctual ‘Maria was only on time.’ c. La Maria va ser puntual fins i tot. the Maria past.3sg be punctual even ‘Maria was even on time.’ d. No pas la Maria no va ser puntual. not not the Maria not past.3sg be punctual ‘It was not Maria the one who was not on time.’ 8. In the case of pla the disjunct structure is made up of a Topic followed by the particle. Below, in Section 2.6, I will show that, in addition to evidential particles, Catalan has the evidential jo ‘I’ construction (Yngle`s 1996), which introduces a specification of the source of information: the first person is the locus of a piece of knowledge or state of a¤airs, and the speaker introduces p from this source or perspective. I will argue that this first person strong pronoun is syntactically generated above ForceP, in the head position of the most peripheral functional clausal projection: GroundP.

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In (9a) it is inferred that of a set of entities Maria was the only one who was on time; in this example notice that the focus adverb lineally precedes the focus constituent. In (9b) it is inferred that from a set of possible predicates involving Maria, the only one that can be attributed to Maria is that she was on time. (9c) entails that when considering a set of events attributed to Maria this set can even be incremented with the least probable event of her being on time. Finally, the less frequent construction in (9d) illustrates a negative focus particle which presupposes that somebody was not on time and states that Maria was not that person. All in all, these particles are semantic focus-sensitive operators: they select an entity, predicate or event from a set of alternatives (Rooth 1985). I postulate that these particles occur in Spec,Foc, as illustrated in (10), which accounts for the fact that they can be preceded by Topics (see (9b–c)). (10) [ForceP [TopP [FocP solament/nome´s/fins i tot/no pas [Foc’ [Foco] [TopP [FinP [PolP [IP]]]]]]]] Pragmatically, these particles make a contribution that has truth-conditional e¤ects at the time of identifying the explicature being communicated. They make both a conceptual contribution (i.e., the concept of unicity) and a constraint on how to identify procedurally the alternative set. Besides focus particles, Catalan is characterized by having a topic particle: rai ‘unworriedness’.9 According to Sola`-Pujols (1990), rai has two basic uses, an exclamative one (11a) and a non-exclamative one (11b) (Sola`-Pujols 1990: (ex. 8)): (11) a.

b.

Tu rai! you part ‘You have nothing to worry about.’ En Pere rai, ho aprovara` tot. D Pere part it.neut pass.fut.3sg everything ‘We/you shouldn’t be worried about Pere, he will pass everything.’

What these examples have in common is that the constituents that precede rai can also be identified as topics in a sentence without the particle:

9. See Fabra (1956) and Espinal (1980, 1986) for previous studies that assign a predicative status to this particle.

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(12) a.

b.

Tu, no cal que t’amoı¨nis. you not need that you.worry ‘You need not worry.’ En Pere ho aprovara` tot. D Pere it.neut pass.fut.3sg everything ‘Pere will pass everything.’

Furthermore, from a syntactic perspective Sola`-Pujols (1990) shows the following contrasts: (i) rai-exclamatives can be followed by a que ‘that’ clause, similar to a non-restrictive relative clause (13a); (ii) only rai-nonexclamatives can be freely subordinated to a main clause (13b–c); (iii) rai-non-exclamatives can be preceded by additional topics, or followed by other topics or focused constituents (13d–e); and (iv) rai-exclamatives are syntactically defective and are similar to many exclamatives in which no main verb is made explicit (11a), whereas rai-non-exclamatives have the same contour as declarative clauses and rai is usually followed by a finite clause (11b). Examples (13c–d) are taken from Sola`-Pujols (1990: exs. (24b) and (25b)). (13) a.

b.

Tu rai, que tens amics! you part that have.2sg friends ‘You needn’t worry, since you have friends.’ *He decidit que tu rai! have decided that you part

c. He decidit que tu rai ja t’espavilara`s. have decided that you part already you.will.manage ‘I’ve decided that I needn’t worry about you. You’ll work things out on your own.’ d.

Els exa`mens tu rai els aproves. the exams you part them.accus pass.2sg ‘You have nothing to worry about, you’re going to pass your exams.’

e. Tu rai TOTS ELS EXA`MENS aprovara`s i no you part all the exams pass.fut.2sg and not nome´s matema`tiques. only mathematics ‘You have nothing to worry about, you’re going to pass every single exam and not just maths.’

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I hereby assume the hypothesis that rai is always the head of a Topic Phrase, and that the preceding constituent is in Spec,TopP. Notice furthermore that only the exclamative form can be used as a disjunct constituent, as represented in (14a). The di¤erence between the two types of clauses has to do with the syntactic status of the clause following rai. Contrast (14b) with (15a, b). (14) Syntactic structure for rai-exclamatives a. [ForceP [TopP XP [Top’ [Top o rai ]]]] b. [ForceP [TopP XP [Top’ [Top o rai [FinP que [IP . . .]]]]]] (15) Syntactic structure for rai-non-exclamatives a. [ForceP [TopP XP [Top’ [Top o rai [IP . . .]]]]] b. [ForceP [TopP XP [Top’ [Top o rai [FocP [TopP [IP . . .]]]]]]] From a semantic perspective, rai is an LI that is neither conceptual nor truth-conditional (Espinal 1980, 1986). Its meaning is to be understood as a set of instructions to identify the set of propositions that are accessible to the speaker and with respect to which the utterance containing rai is relevant. The relevance of rai is restricted to the possibility that the hearer infers with regard to an entity, property or proposition expressed as a topic, unworriedness, a contradictory or concessive statement, sometimes made explicit in the host utterance. Therefore, it linguistically encodes procedures (i.e., constraints) on the implicatures to be inferred by the hearer. 2.3. Metalinguistic negation particles (ca, i ara)10 In this section I will deal with two particles that syntactically occur at the left periphery of the utterance and which encode the denial of an accessible proposition.11 Consider the examples in (16).

10. I thank Gemma Rigau for pointing out to me the metalinguistic use of i ara. 11. Languages often have expressions that trigger metalinguistic negation in a sentence-peripheral position (cf. uma ova in European Portuguese, like hell in English). Catalan ca can only occur in sentence-peripheral position, whereas other particles of European Portuguese (e.g., la´ /ca´ /agora) must occur in postverbal position. See (i). (i) Eu estava la´ / ca´ / agora um pouco preocupado. Estava morto de preocupac¸a˜o. (Martins 2009: ex. (9Bb)).

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(16) a.

b.

{Ca, i ara} aixo` no te´ cap me`rit. part and now that not has any merit ‘I can’t believe you. I see no merit in that.’ Ca, qui t’ho ha dit? part who you.it.neut has told ‘I can’t believe you. Who told you that?

c. Ca, que n’arriba a ser de beneit! part that parti.arrives to be of fool ‘I can’t believe you. What a fool he is!’ d.

Si li acceptaran la sol  licitud ? Ca! if him.dat accept.fut.3pl the application part ‘You’re wondering if they’ll accept his application? I doubt it!’

As these examples show, ca, like i ara, may co-appear with full sentences, either inflected declarative sentences, wh- interrogative sentences or exclamative sentences. Normally, these expressions follow the particle, but they can also precede it, as in (16d). As for the denying e¤ect of {ca, i ara}, it should be remarked that the denied proposition may be linguistically expressed in the host utterance; in this situation the particle introduces a cataphoric relationship with the subsequent proposition (16a). However, most commonly the proposition that co-occurs with {ca, i ara} does not o¤er any cue to the denied meaning, which means that they are particles that encode procedural information that permits the hearer to select, from the set of accessible propositions, the one the speaker is denying. Particle ca can also occur with the noun barret ‘hat’, in the idiomatic expression of incredulity ca barret, lit. part hat, and can be combined with a second metalinguistic particle expressing disapproval ca! i ara!, lit. part and now. When it precedes a Determiner Phrase (DP), as in (17a), the entity denoted by this DP is inferred to be involved in the proposition which is being denied (i.e., with respect to Maria not p). It can also occur as an isolated fragment answer, as in (17b), even preceded by the conjunction i ‘and’, which strongly links this particle to an accessible unpronounced proposition. (17) a. b.

Ca! la Maria. part the Maria (I ) ca! and part

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These particles are emphatic markers of metalinguistic negation,12 in spite of the fact that the expression they occur with can, but do not necessarily have to, make explicit an overt negation, as illustrated in (18). The introduction of the particle in the answer conveys the information that Joan is not expected to be at home, and the explanation of this expectation is given in the host utterance. (18) A.

Sera` a casa, en Joan? be.fut.3sg at home D Joan ‘Will Joan be at home?’

B. Ca, avui arriba tard de la feina. part today arrives late of the work ‘I don’t think so. Today he is arriving late from work.’ This means that particle ca denies the assertability (not the truth) of an accessible proposition. It also means that utterances with ca and i ara cannot initiate a conversation. In (19) I consider the minimal contrast between no . . . pas and ca. When the sentence is a description of a state of a¤airs (19a), the negative marker reinforced by pas encodes ordinary negation, thus entailing the falsity of the proposition and, in addition, the presence of pas constrains the implicatures that can be drawn from this utterance (19b). As argued in Espinal (1993), pas either strengthens a negative proposition that is accessible from context (19bA), or it rejects that proposition (19bB) (see also Section 2.1 above, ex. (4b)). Notice that ca cannot be used in a context such as this one, uttered out of the blue.13 (19) a.

Aquest vestit no li queda be´. this dress not her.dat suits well ‘This dress doesn’t suit her.’

12. According to Horn (1989: 363), metalinguistic negation is ‘‘a device for objecting to a previous utterance on any grounds whatever (. . .), a speaker’s use of negation to signal his or her unwillingness to assert, or accept another’s assertion of, a given proposition in a given way; metalinguistic negation focuses not on the truth or falsity of a proposition, but on the assertability of an utterance’’. 13. Whereas the symbol * stands for ungrammaticality, the symbol # stands for conceptual ill-formedness, which can be circumvented in a di¤erent contextual setting.

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b.

Aquest vestit no li queda pas be´. this dress not her.dat suits not well Interpretation A: That’s right, it’s a horrible dress; it doesn’t suit her at all! Interpretation B: I thought that this dress was beautiful, but, in fact, contrary to my expectations, it doesn’t suit her at all!

c. #Ca, aquest vestit li queda be´. part his dress her.dat suits well This last utterance could only be felicitous as the denial of a previous assertion in discourse in which it was made explicit that none of the dresses suit her. (20) A.

Aquest vestit, com tots els anteriors, li queda fatal. this dress like all the former her.dat suits bad ‘This dress, like all the previous ones, doesn’t suit her at all.’

B. Ca, aquest vestit li queda be´. ‘I don’t think so. This dress suits her nicely.’ Syntactically speaking, in contrast to regular negation, metalinguistic negation (Horn 1989) is compatible with positive polarity items { forc¸a, ben} lit. quite, well ‘quite, really’, and is incompatible with negative polarity items like ningu´ ‘anybody’ (Horn 1989), which strongly suggests that metalinguistic negation is the head of a functional projection that must be considered apart from PolP.14 (21) A.

a. E´s { forc¸a, ben} bonica. is quite well nice ‘She is {quite, really} nice!’ b. *No e´s { forc¸a, ben} bonica. not is quite well nice

B. Ca! e´s { forc¸a, ben} bonica, e´s la millor. part is quite well nice is the best ‘What do you mean ‘‘She is quite nice’’? She is the best!’ 14. This projection, as would be NegP or Laka’s SP, is assumed to host sentential negation, as well as other markers of sentential polarity.

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(22) A.

63

Tu deus cone`ixer algu´ que sa`piga reparar la caldera. you must know somebody that knows repair the boiler ‘You probably know of somebody who could repair the boiler.’

B. a. No conec ningu´. not know anybody. ‘I don’t know of anybody.’ b. *Ca! conec ningu´.15 part know anybody. This syntactic behaviour is predicted if it is postulated that metalinguistic negation is independent of sentential negation, located in the peripheral ForceP. (23) [ForceP [Force o ca ][TopP Top [FocP Foc [TopP Top [FinP Fin [PolP Pol [IP Infl ]]]]]]] It is assumed that ca is generated in ForceP, as the head Force o, since it is sometimes preceded by the Spec i ‘and’ and followed by a TopicP. ForceP is therefore here assumed to be not only a functional projection that encodes illocutionary force (and which allows distinguishing among various clause types: declarative, interrogative, exclamative, imperative; see Rizzi 1999), but also the functional projection that hosts metalinguistic particles. 2.4. Interrogative (que) and confirmation particles (eh, oi, no) Morphosyntactically, these particles include the default interrogative conjunction que ‘that’, the interrogative confirmation interjections eh and oi, the confirmative use of the negative adverb no lit. not, the verbal form fa lit. does, and the nominal form veritat ‘truth’ (together with its truncated variant (vi)tat ‘truth’). These forms are used across the territory in di¤erent varieties of Catalan (Rigau 1998, Hernanz and Rigau 2006: 444). (Note that (24c–f ) would all have the same translation as (24b)). 15. Furthermore, note that unlike ordinary negation markers, ca does not enter in negative concord relations with other negative expressions such as n-words (e.g., res ‘anything’). (i)

a. No not

he fet res. have done anything

‘I haven’t done anything.’ b. *Ca he fet res. part have done anything

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(24) a. Que hi sereu, per Nadal? that here be.fut.2pl at Christmas ‘Will you be with us at Christmas?’ b. Oi que hi sereu, per N.? – Central Catalan (Barcelona) part that here be.fut.2pl at C. ‘You will be with us at Christmas, won’t you?’ c. Eh que hi sereu, per Nadal? – Central Catalan, Occidental Catalan, Rossellonese d. No que hi sereu, per Nadal? – Central Catalan (Tarragona) e. Fa que hi sereu, per Nadal? – Central Catalan (Girona) f. (Vi )tat que hi sereu, per Nadal? – Valencian Eh, oi, no precede the complementizer que ‘that’ when occurring at the left periphery (24), and immediately follow a declarative sentence when occurring at the right periphery (25). (25) Hi sereu, per Nadal, {oi/eh/no}? here be.fut.2pl at Christmas part ‘You will be with us at Christmas, won’t you?’ Let us now consider the minimal pair in (26): (26) a.

b.

Ha vingut, en Joan? has come D Joan ‘Has Joan come?’ Que ha vingut, en Joan? that has come D Joan ‘Has Joan come?’

According to the author of this chapter, of these two sentences the unmarked interrogative is the second one, which means that a que ‘that’ particle does not introduce any bias: the speaker considers as possible and relevant answers both p and not p. By contrast, the first example is biased in the sense that the speaker regards as the most relevant answer that the truth of p holds.16 16. See also the analysis of interrogatives with and without que put forward by Prieto and Rigau (in this volume) which relates the syntax of interrogatives with di¤erent intonation patterns. On the other hand. Torrent (in this volume) relates the use of the modal particle que with the expression of empathy and communicative interest on the speaker’s side.

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Syntactically, the interrogative conjunction que can be considered the head of ForceP, since this projection is assumed to linguistically encode the information regarding the di¤erence between declaratives, interrogative and imperatives. (27) a. b.

[ForceP [Force o [ þ int]] [FinP ]] [ForceP [Force o que ] [FinP ]]

If we now consider once again the examples in (24), the generalization must be that they share the structure represented in (27b), but add an additional element that specifies the interrogative head particle. This means that, syntactically speaking, confirmation particles (eh, oi, no, fa, veritat) must be considered specifiers of ForceP (Hernanz and Rigau 2006: 445; Prieto and Rigau 2007: 56), that is, as syntactic operators that agree with the interrogative confirmation head. (28) a.

b.

{Eh/oi/no/ fa/veritat} que ha vingut, en Joan? part that has come D Joan ‘Joan has come, hasn’t he?’ [ForceP {eh/oi/no/fa/veritat} [Force o que ] [FinP ]]

Note that, in spite of the fact that these examples have a postverbal subject, confirmatory particles can also precede questions that have a declarative form with a preverbal subject. This is further confirmed by the fact that these questions allow evaluative adverbs, which are unacceptable in ordinary questions (Mayol and Castroviejo 2010: ex. (28a)). (29) Oi que aquesta situacio´, per sort, ha canviat? part that this situation by fortune has changed ‘Fortunately, this situation has changed, hasn’t it?’ From an interpretive perspective, the speaker of these confirmatory questions assumes that the proposition p is part of the common ground and (s)he aims to confirm that the truth of p holds. This means that, pragmatically speaking, confirmation particles do not intervene in the contents of the proposition being processed; this is why they are claimed to be nontruth-conditional and procedural, since they introduce constraints on higher-level explicatures. The speaker expects p to be the most relevant answer if the sentence is a‰rmative, and expects a confirmative attitude on the part of the hearer. Similarly, if the sentence being processed has a negative form, as in (30), the speaker aims to confirm that the truth of not p holds and therefore that such an answer is the most relevant one in the context of

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evaluation. The left periphery of (30a), which is only used in Tarragonese Catalan, would look like (30b). The speaker expects not p to be the most relevant answer if the sentence is negative, and expects a confirmative attitude on the part of the hearer. (30) a.

b.

No que no ha vingut, en Joan? not that not has come D Joan ‘Joan hasn’t come, has he?’ [ForceP no [Force o que ] [FinP ]]

Note, furthermore, that the negative confirmation particle no, which is a form of negation in the CP field, cannot license by itself a negative polarity item in clause-internal position unless an additional negative operator appears in preverbal position (Rigau in press: exs. (14b) and (15b)). (31) a.

b.

No que no em regalara` res? – Tarragonese Catalan not that not me.dat give.fut anything ‘Isn’t it true that (s)he will give me nothing?’ *No que em regalara` res? not that me.dat give.fut.3sg anything

2.5. Vocative (ei, eh) and exclamative particles (ai, ah, oh) In this section I will focus on the main properties of vocative and exclamative particles. Both types of particles lack gender and number formal features, but I will claim that they codify person features, a property that will account for the fact that they may specify an overt deictic strong pronoun. Vocative particles can co-occur with a second person strong pronoun, whilst exclamative particles, even though they are speaker- oriented, cannot co-occur with first person strong pronouns. In addition, I will show that both vocative and exclamative particles codify procedural information. That is, in accordance with a relevance theory framework these particles linguistically encode constraints on higher-level explicatures: ei and eh ‘hey’ constrain the attention of the hearer, whereas ai, ah and oh ‘ow, ah, oh’ constrain the involvement of the speaker (his/her surprise, emotion, happiness, pain, etc.) with respect to an entertained thought.17 17. A phonetic distinction has been observed in Central Catalan between the confirmation particle eh, pronounced [] or [:], and the vocative particle eh, pronounced [e] or [e:]. I would like to thank L. Payrato´ (p.c.) for pointing out this observation to me.

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Some relevant examples are given in (32) and (33). (32) a. b.

(33) a.

b.

Ei, {Joan, tu}. part Joan you [Addressed to the fishmonger] Eh, que sigui fresc! part that be fresh ‘Hey! It had better be fresh!’ Ai, qui ho havia de dir! part who it.neut had of say ‘Wow! Who would have guessed!’ Ah, quin mal que fa! Ah what hurt that does ‘Ow! That hurts!’

Syntactically, it should be remarked that (i) sequences preceded by a vocative particle may or may not have a sentential structure; (ii) vocative particles can only occur at the extreme left periphery of the clause (34a); and (iii) only one vocative particle per utterance is permitted (34b). (34) a. b.

*Vosaltres, {eh, ei}! you part *Ei, tu, ei! part you part

Ei and eh are considered to be vocative particles because they are particles of address, that is, they are used to call the attention of the hearer (Hill 2007). I will assume that these particles directly specify a head Voc o formally defined for a deictic feature. In (35) [þDX] stands for ‘deixis’. (35) [VocP {ei/eh} [Voc o [þDX]]] Vocative particles specify a vocative expression, by default a second person pronoun, or a proper name that shows a deictic constraint (32a) (where the proper noun refers to the addressee or interlocutor) but also a common noun that denotes a property of the addressee (36).18 This 18. As noted by Stavrou (2009: 3) ‘‘vocative nouns can be, and often are, accompained by markers/interjections’’, but whereas vocatives correspond to an open class of nominal expressions, vocative particles are members of a closed class of interjections.

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nominal expression can be either a bare nominal expression unmarked for number, a bare plural or a collective noun. (36) a. b.

Ei, company, com va? part guy how goes ‘Hey, man, how’s it going?’ Ei, nois, calleu! part boys shut

c. Eh, canalla, que` tal? part children how such

‘Hey, boys, shut up!’ ‘Hey, kids, how are you doing?’

It is hypothesized that vocatives and vocative particles are embedded in a pragmatic domain which expands above CP and encodes information about the participants/roles in the speech act. More specifically, VocP (cf. RoleP, Hill 2007) is located above ForceP. In (36) the bare nominals can be said to occur in Voco, followed by an imperative or interrogative clause, as represented in (37). (37) [VocP {ei/eh} [Voc o N] [ForceP [Force o {imperative/interrogative}] [FinP [IP Infl ]]]] Vocative particles can even be used alone, to call the addressee’s attention. In this situation I assume that the VocP is not at the left periphery of a complex sentential structure but is instead a disjunct constituent (Espinal 1991), not integrated syntactically in any host structure. It is also the case that a vocative particle can be followed by an adjective. This is possible when the adjective, like a bare nominal, denotes a property that characterizes the addressee (38a, b), but it should be noted that vocative nominals or pronouns cannot be modified by intersective adjectives (38c, d). (38) a. b.

Ei, guapo! part handsome Eh, desgraciats! part swine

c. *Ei, noi guapo. part boy handsome d.

*Eh, vosaltres desgraciats. part you swine

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The reason for this restriction is probably related to the fact that whereas in (32a), (36) and (38a–b) the vocative is a head (either a strong pronoun, a proper name, a bare nominal or a bare adjective), sequences of N þ A or Pr þ A are not heads and therefore cannot be assumed to occupy the Voco head position. Furthermore, a nominal or adjective co-occurring with the Voco head can only be interpreted as a predicate of the pronoun. The structure corresponding to (39) is represented in (40). (39) a. b.

Ei! tu, noi! part you boy

‘Hey, you boy!’

Eh, vosaltres desgraciats! part you swine ‘Hey, you swine!’

(40) [VocP {ei/eh} [Voc o {tu/vosaltres}i] [DP [D o ti ] [NP {noi/desgraciats}]]] Finally, note that a vocative particle specifies a nominal expression as having vocative case; although not morphologically marked in the syntax of Catalan, this case is instantiated by Ns that have a deictic constraint, in the sense that they refer to the addressee or interlocutor. Syntactically, these nominal expressions can never be preceded by a (in)definite D(eterminer), not even in the case of a proper name, which is usually specified by a D in Catalan. (41) a. b.

*Ei, el company, com va? part the guy how goes *Ei, els nois, calleu! part the boys shut

c. *Eh, una canalla, que` tal? part a children how such d.

*Eh, el Joan, vine! part the Joan come

In semantic terms, vocatives are referential and deictic expressions, but are not arguments.19 In pragmatic terms, vocatives serve as an ostensive stimulus for the hearer, and vocative particles specify this constituent by encoding the addressee’s attention, which means that, like interrogative and confirmation particles, vocative particles linguistically encode constraints on higher-level explicatures. 19. See Espinal (2011) for further details on the structure of vocatives.

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Let us now briefly turn to exclamative particles (ai, ah, oh), also named phatic interjections (Hill 2007). Syntactically, they may appear in isolation, as parenthetical constituents, with (in)definite DPs (42a), or with other exclamative expressions (42b). (42) a. b.

Ah! {El sema`for / el Joan / un ratolı´ }! part the tra‰c.light the Joan a mouse Oh! {De´u meu / Verge Santa / la Verge Maria}! part God mine Virgin Holy the Virgin Mary

The examples in (42) show that exclamative particles precede a nominal expression which is assumed to be the complement of Exclo. That is, these particles precede, but do not specify, the nominal expression they occur with, because the nominal expression may have a Determiner. Furthermore, in contrast with vocatives, the nominal expression with which exclamative particles co-appear is not interpreted as a description, or a specification, or an identification of the first person. Rather, it is interpreted as an expression that refers to a third person. Therefore, the complement of the functional Exclo head may be a DP. Exclamative particles have a freer distribution than vocative particles (Stavrou 2009). This is shown by the fact they are allowed not only in the left periphery of the clause, but also in other positions, and they can even co-occur with one another. (43) (Ai!), nena, (oh! ), quin goig que fas! part girl part how nice that does ‘Ow! Dear, how nice you look!’ Exclamative particles are specifiers of an Exclo head marked for first person, but this head can never be overtly expressed by means of a first person strong pronoun. I will assume that exclamatives project an ExclP, which is –unlike VocP– a recursive projection, as represented in (44). (44) [ExclP Excl [VocP Voc [ExclP Excl ]]] In semantic terms, exclamatives are referential but not deictic expressions, and are not arguments. In pragmatic terms, exclamative particles encode procedures that constrain the speaker’s psychological state. That is, on the interpretation side, exclamative particles linguistically encode constraints on higher-level explicatures attributed to the speaker, since they always inform about the speaker’s pain, emotion, surprise, etc.

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2.6. Evidential jo ‘I’ construction In this section I would like to pay attention to the first person strong personal pronoun jo ‘I’ used either in the left periphery of the clause or as a parenthetical pronoun whose goal is to constrain the involvement of the speaker in what is about to be said. This pronoun is sometimes followed by a psychological verb (45a) or a more complex VP structure with a dative first person clitic (46). An evidential particle can also follow the first person pronoun (45b). Jo ‘I’ can also be used at the most peripheral left position followed immediately by a full sentence, even an impersonal existential clause (47a), a Topic or a Focus constituent (47b–c). Jo {crec/ entenc/ suposo} que . . .20 I believe think suppose that

(45) a. b.

Jo, {e´s clar, evidentment}, {crec/ entenc/ suposo} que . . . I is clear obviously believe think suppose that

(46) a.

Jo {em fa l’efecte/ m’interessaria} que . . . I me does the.impression me.interest.cond.1sg that ‘I have the feeling that / I would be interested if. . .’

20. The evidential jo ‘I’ construction exemplified in (45) should be contrasted with the contrastive topic exemplified in (i). The use of the first person pronoun in the answer introduces an alternative set of entities of which Maria is a member. I would like to thank Laia Mayol for this comment and the examples in (i). (i)

A. Creieu que el Pere vindra` a la festa? think that D Pere come.fut.3sg to the party ‘Do you think that Pere will come to the party?’ B. a. Jo crec que sı´; la Maria no se´ que` en pensa. I think.1sg that yes D Maria not know what part think.3sg ‘I think so, but I don’t know what Maria thinks about it.’ b. #Crec que sı´; la Maria no se´ que` en pensa. think.1sg that yes D Maria not know what part think.3sg

A contrastive topic analysis for jo ‘I’ should also be attributed to sentences of the sort exemplified in (ii). (ii)

Jo {opino / declaro / dic} que . . . I consider declare say that

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b.

(47) a.

b.

Jo {(a mi) em sembla que / (a mi) em costa de}. . . I to me me appears that to me me worth of ‘It appears to me that / I find it di‰cult to. . .’ Jo hi ha gent que no l’entenc. I there has people that not her.understand ‘There are people I don’t understand.’ Jo, la gent, no l’entenc. I the people not her.understand ‘These people, I don’t understand them.’

c. Jo, AQUESTA GENT no entenc. I this people not understand ‘These are the kind of people I don’t understand.’ d.

A mi m’ha passat jo anar a veure’l to me me.has happened I go to see.him i trobar-me que no en sap res. and find.me that not part knows anything (Payrato´ 1998: 94, ex. (4))

This construction, initially observed for Catalan by Lluı´s Payrato´, and independently by M. Teresa Yngle`s (Payrato´ 1988; Yngle`s 1996; Espinal and Yngle`s 2002), could be analysed syntactically as the expression of Force (Rizzi 1997, 2004).21 In particular, it could be assumed that the pronoun together with the psychological verb, with or without a correferential clitic, occurs in the Specifier position of this functional projection, whereas the complementizer que ‘that’ would occupy the Force head positon. In those cases where the complementizer is de ‘of ’, it could be proposed, following Rizzi’s (1999) assumption regarding Italian di, that it occurs at the head of the Finiteness projection. (48) a. b.

[ForceP jo {crec/em sembla} [Force o que . . .]] [ForceP jo em costa [Fin o de . . . ]]

Under this analysis the examples in (45) and (46) would make overt the declarative force, and the whole Specifier would count as the expression of this Force. 21. See Aijmer (1997) for a description of the English I think construction.

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However, the facts seem to be more complex, because as the examples in (47) explicitly show, the declarative assertive psychological predicate is often null. Furthermore, it looks as if the first person strong personal pronoun jo used in the left periphery of the clause is the expression of a reference (or vantage) point (Langacker 1987, 1991, 2008) with regard to which the utterance is due to be interpreted. In Talmy’s (1978, 2000) terms, the pronoun jo acts as a reference entity or Ground with respect to which an event is characterized. With these assumptions in mind we should reconsider the syntactic analysis in (48). In fact, from the perspective of the split CP hypothesis, it has already been proposed (Bianchi 2004: 108, note 42) that the peripheral projection hosting presupposed material is above the projection that encodes the assertive force. More specifically, a functional Ground Phrase projection has been postulated to host backgrounded, familiar or known material, above ForceP. (49) [GroundP Ground [ForceP Force [TopP Top [FocP Foc . . . [IP Infl ]]]]]22 According to this proposal, the syntactic structures given in (48) should be reformulated in the terms given in (50). (50) a.

[GroundP [Ground o jo ] [ForceP crec [Force o que . . . ]]]

b.

[GroundP [Ground o jo ] [ForceP em sembla [Force o que . . . ]]]

c.

[GroundP [Ground o jo ] [ForceP em costa [Fin o de . . . ]]]

The evidential construction Jo (VPSYCH que/de) is to be understood as follows: the strong first person pronoun jo is the head Ground and acts as the reference entity with respect to which the Figure, the whole event, is to be characterized; that is, it is interpreted as the anchoring point with regard to which the subordinate proposition is to be understood. A VPSYCH, sometimes preceded by a clitic doubling form of the first person pronoun em (and sometimes even doubled twice with the prepositional phrase a mi ‘to me’), expresses the epistemic modality according to which the declarative sentence is to be analysed; di¤erent psychological verbs express di¤erent degrees of commitment to the truth of the proposition.

22. It should be remembered that in its origin the concept of Ground, as well as the concept of Force dynamics, is to be attributed to the cognitive semanticist Leonard Talmy (see Talmy 1978, 1985, 2000).

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The complementizer que is the head of the declarative Force projection and the complementizer de is the head of a lower Fin projection. These complementizers are not obligatory. This construction is evidential in that it specifies the source of the information and encodes linguistically the point of view or perspective of the speaker (i.e., the Ground) with regard to the event described (i.e., the Figure). Furthermore, what is crucial is the obligatoriness of the first person strong pronoun at the most external peripheral position, a phenomenon which is especially interesting in a so-called pro-drop language like Catalan. Therefore, a sentence such as (47a) would be assumed to have the structure shown in (51a), (47b) would have the structure in (51b), (47c) the one in (51c), and (47d) the one in (51d). (51) a.

[GroundP [Ground o jo [IP hi ha gent que no l’entenc ]]]

b.

[GroundP [Ground o jo [TopP la gent [PolP no [IP l’entenc ]]]]

c.

[GroundP [Ground o jo [FocP aquesta gent [IP no entenc ]]]]

d.

[GroundP [Ground o jo [FinP anar a veure’l ]]]

Some examples of the jo construction show that the prepositional phrase a mi ‘to me’ (52b) can substitute for the particle jo (Espinal and Yngle`s 2002: exs. (47a–b)). (52) a. Jo em sembla que haurı´em de ser me´s solidaris. I me appears that have.cond.1pl of be more supportive ‘It appears to me that we should be more supportive.’ b. A mi em sembla que haurı´em de ser me´s solidaris. to me me appears that have.cond.1pl of be more supportive ‘It appears to me that we should be more supportive.’ In (52a) the evidential jo reinforces the subjectification of the utterance, by encoding through the first person strong pronoun the source of the communicated information. In the situation described, the speaker’s thought that solidarity should be shared by him or her and the audience can also be expressed by means of a dative form. However, it should be noted that when the state of a¤airs being described depends exclusively on the speaker’s source or perspective, then the dative construction is anomalous. In Espinal and Yngle`s (2002: 64) emphasis is given to the minimal pair in (53).

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(53) a.

b.

75

Jo em sembla que no vinc; dema` m’haig de llevar I me appears that not come tomorrow me.have to get.up d’hora. of.time ‘I think that I’m not coming; tomorrow I have to get up early.’ #A to de to

mi me llevar get.up

em sembla que no vinc; dema` m’haig me appears that not come tomorrow me.have d’hora. of.time

This contrast clearly shows that only the first person strong pronoun jo, but not the oblique form a mi, is the prototype of the experiencer, which expresses direct access to the speaker’s beliefs, opinions and thoughts (Yngle`s 1996). The conclusion to be drawn is that the evidential jo construction is used as a pragmatic particle that encodes the source of the information with regard to which the speaker holds a psychological state.

3. Conclusion In this chapter I have provided an analysis of the structure and meaning of various types of pragmatic particles that exist in contemporary Catalan, excluding speaker- or hearer-oriented adverbs and connective LIs. I have shown the syntactic status that corresponds to di¤erent pragmatic particles, which are either sentential adjunts or disjunct constituents. On the one hand, following the cartographic approach to syntax, I have described the various peripheral positions within the Complementizer area of sentential structure where di¤erent adjunct particles can be located. On the other hand, genuine parentheticals have been assumed to be syntactically independent from their host clauses. Furthermore, following a relevancetheoretic approach to communication and cognition, I have assumed a distinction between various types of conceptual and procedural encodings of linguistic information, and I have shown that di¤erent particles provide contributions to explicatures (e.g., e´s clar, jo), contributions to higher-level explicatures (e.g., pla), constraints on explicatures (e.g., nome´s, ca), constraints on higher-level explicatures (e.g., eh, ei, ai) or constraints on implicatures (e.g., rai).

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References Aijmer, Karin 1997

I think – an English modal particle. In Modality in Germanic languages: Historical and comparative perspectives, Toril Swan, and Olaf Jansen Westvik (eds.), 1–47. (Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs 99.) Berlin / New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2004 Evidentiality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Baker, Mark 2003 Lexical categories. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bianchi, Valentina 2004 Resumptive relatives and LF chains. In The structure of CP and IP, L. Rizzi (ed.), 76–114. New York / Oxford, Oxford University Press. Blakemore, Diane 1987 Semantic constraints on relevance. Oxford: Blackwell. Blakemore, Diane 2002 Relevance and linguistic meaning: The semantics and pragmatics of discourse markers. Cambridge University Press. Blakemore, Diane 1999 Adverbs and functional heads. A cross-linguistic perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Blakemore, Diane 2006 Restructuring and Functional Heads. The Cartography of Syntactic Structures, vol. 4. New York: Oxford University Press. Cinque, Guglielmo (ed.) 2002 Functional Structure in DP and IP. The Cartography of Syntactic Structures, vol. 1. New York: Oxford University Press. Cinque, Guglielmo, and Luigi Rizzi 2008 The cartography of syntactic structures. Ms. University of Venice and University of Siena. Cuenca, M. Josep (ed.) 2007 Catalan Journal of Linguistics 6: Contrastive perspectives on Discourse Markers. Dendale, Patrick, and Liliane Tasmowski 2001 Introduction: evidentiality and related notions. Journal of Pragmatics 33: 339–348. Espinal, M. Teresa 1980 Tu rai! Observacions sobre un mot-frase anafo`ric. Els Marges 18–19 : 102–108. Espinal, M. Teresa 1986 Els mots connectors: entorn de rai. Els Marges 35: 21–42. Espinal, M. Teresa 1987 Modal adverbs and modality scales. Lingua 72: 293–314.

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Espinal, M. Teresa 1991 The representation of disjunct constituents. Language 67.4: 726– 762. Espinal, M. Teresa 1993 The interpretation of no . . . pas in Catalan. Journal of Pragmatics 19: 353–369. Espinal, M. Teresa 1996 On the semantic content of lexical items within linguistic theory. Linguistics 34: 109–131. Espinal, M. Teresa 2011 On the structure of vocatives. Ms. Bellaterra: Universitat Auto`noma de Barcelona. Espinal, M. Teresa, and M. Teresa Yngle`s 2002 L’estudi del le`xic i del significat a la grama`tica. In Sema`ntica. Del significat del mot al significat de l’oracio´, M.T. Espinal (ed.), 21–82. Barcelona: Ariel. Fabra, Pompeu 1956 Grama`tica Catalana. Barcelona: Teide. Fischer, Kerstin 2006 Towards an understanding of the spectrum of approaches to discourse particles: introduction to the volume. In Approaches to discourse particles, Kerstin Fischer (ed.), 1–20. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Gonza´lez, Montserrat 2005 An approach to Catalan evidentiality. Intercultural Pragmatics 2–4, 515–540. Hernanz, M. Lluı¨sa 2007 From polarity to modality: Some (a)symmetries between bien and sı´ in Spanish. In Coreference, modality, and focus, Luis Eguren, and Olga Ferna´ndez-Soriano (eds.), 133–169. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Hernanz, M. Lluı¨sa, and Gemma Rigau 2006 Variacio´n dialectal y periferia izquierda. In Andolin gogoan. Essays in Honour of Professor Eguzkitza, Beatriz Ferna´ndez, and Itziar Laka (eds.), 435–452. Bilbao: Servicio editorial de la Universidad del Paı´s Vasco. Hill, Virginia 2007 Vocatives at the pragmatics-syntax interface. Lingua 117: 2077– 2105. Horn, Laurence R. 1989 A natural history of negation. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Laka, Itziar 1990 Negation in syntax: on the nature of functional categories and projections. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT. New York: Garland 1994.

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Langacker, Ronald W. 1987 Foundations of Cognitive Grammar, vol. 1, Theoretical Prerequisites. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Langacker, Ronald W. 1991 Foundations of Cognitive Grammar, vol. 2, Descriptive Application. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Langacker, Ronald W. 2008 Cognitive Grammar: A Basic Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press. Martins, Ana Maria 2009 Deictic locatives, emphasis and metalinguistic negation. Plenary talk presented at the DIGS 11 conference, Campinas. Mayol, Laia, and Elena Castroviejo 2010 The semantics of evaluative adverbs in questions: a comparison between French and Catalan. Ms. Bellaterra: Universitat Auto`noma de Barcelona. Palmer, Franck 2001 [1986] Mood and Modality. 2d ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Payrato´, Lluı´s 1988 Catala` col.loquial. Aspectes de l’u´s corrent de la llengua catalana. Vale`ncia: Universitat de Vale`ncia. Prieto, Pilar, and Gemma Rigau 2007 The syntax-prosody interface: Catalan interrogative sentences headed by que. Journal of Portuguese Linguistics 6.2: 29–59. Rigau, Gemma 1998 La variacio´ sinta`ctica: uniformitat en la diversitat. Caplletra 25: 63–82. Rigau, Gemma In press Mirative and focusing uses of the Catalan particle pla. In Functional Heads, Laura Bruge´, Ana Cardinaletti, Giuliana Giusti, Nicola Munaro, and Cecilia Poletto (eds.). Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. Rizzi, Luigi 1997 The Fine Structure of the Left Periphery. In Elements of Grammar, L. Haegeman (ed.), 281–337. Amsterdam: Kluwer. Rizzi, Luigi 1999 On the Position Int(errogative) in the Left Periphery of the Clause. Ms. Siena. Rizzi, Luigi 2001 On the position ‘Int(errogative)’ in the left periphery of the clause. In Current Studies in Italian Syntax. Essays o¤ered to Lorenzo Renzi, Guglielmo Cinque, and Giampaolo Salvi (eds.), 287–296. Amsterdam: Elsevier North-Holland.

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Rizzi, Luigi (ed.) 2004 The Structure of CP and IP. The Cartography of Syntactic Structures, vol. 2. New York: Oxford University Press. Rooth, Mats 1985 Association with focus. Ph.D. diss., Amherst: University of Massachusetts. Sola`-Pujols, Jaume 1990 Sobre la particula rai i els to`pics. Caplletra 5: 55–68. Sperber, Dan, and Deirdre Wilson 1995 [1986] Relevance. Communication and cognition. 2d ed. Oxford: Blackwell. Stavrou, Melita 2009 Vocative! Ms. Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Talmy, Leonard 1978 Figure and ground in complex sentences. In Universals of human language (vol. 4): Syntax, Joseph H. Greenberg (ed.), 625–649. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Talmy, Leonard 1985 Force dynamics in language and thought. Papers from the twenty-first regional meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society. Talmy, Leonard 2000 Toward a Cognitive Semantics, vol. 1 Concept Structuring Systems. Cambridge MA: MIT. Wilson, Deirdre, and Dan Sperber 1993 Linguistic form and relevance. Lingua 90: 1–25. Yngle`s, M. Teresa 1996 La construccio´ de l’experimentador. Ms. Bellaterra: Universitat Auto`noma de Barcelona.

Modal particles in Catalan* Aina Torrent 1. Introduction The term modal particle is used to refer to certain uninflected words which underwent a diachronic process of grammaticalisation and at some stage in the evolution of the language left the class of words they used to belong to (conjunctions, adverbs, adjectives, etc.) and took on a meaning that can only be defined, from the synchronic point of view, in terms of their modal function. In other words, it can only be established from their relationship with the sender, the receiver, the topic and the context. In this chapter our aim is to conduct a systematic analysis of the modalising role of several modal particles used in modern-day Catalan and to establish whether they act as illocutionary boosters, illocutionary modifications or otherwise. In some cases and depending on the variant or type of particle, we will also consider their possible polyphonic value, their interactive function, their presuppositional structure, the processes of grammaticalisation and pragmaticalisation underlying their usage, the emotional implications contained within them, as well as their linguistic and normative status.

2. Theoretical framework 2.1. Questions of method Studies on modal particles usually take the modal function of certain uninflected words in continental Germanic languages as their tertium comparationis, due to their being languages that are particularly rich in this type of lexemes (Hentschel 2001: 116). In German, modal particles form a fairly homogeneous and easily identifiable group, and this is why a good number of studies on modal particles have been carried out on

* The author wishes to express her gratitude to Mr M. Andrews for translating this paper and for his help in preparing the final version.

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German1. In the late 20th century linguists started to wonder whether other languages also had lexemes with the same or similar characteristics. As we shall see, Catalan is a language that is rich in modal particles, although they form a group that is not very homogeneous. Moreover, their use is rather restricted and is determined by markers that are not only diaphasic, as is largely the case in German too, but also diatopic and even diastratic (Torrent-Lenzen 2009: 20). As far as the method of study is concerned, and in relation to modal particles, as we understand it, there are three possible perspectives. First, some researchers have carried out onomasiological studies, which start with a certain type of function (in this case the modal function) and look for possible lexemes or structures in a particular language which the sender can use to transmit this type of inferential content2. Second, many semasiological studies have been conducted to analyse the functions of modal particles in a specific language and then they attempt to answer the question of what forms or structures correspond to those functions in another language3. Finally, there is the third method, which is the one we shall employ here and which we shall call comparative. In actual fact, this method draws on both the semasiological and the onomasiological principles, since, as a native speaker and/or scholar of certain languages, the linguist possesses a certain amount of previous knowledge and, based on his or her empirical and linguistic-scientific knowledge of one of those languages, s/he searches for corresponding elements in the other language in terms of their form and function. With the comparative method, the researcher sets out with certain forms in one language and then other forms are sought in another language by comparing both their formal and their functional features. In this study, we implicitly set out from the German modal particles and our aim is to be able to draw conclusions about the existence of modal particles in Catalan. These conclusions will be outlined in the pages that follow.

1. The scientific study of modal particles began in the 1960s with the research conducted by Weydt (1969). 2. This is the method applied by Waltereit (2006). 3. The semasiological method is applied above all by linguists who work from the point of view of translation studies, even though such a perspective obviously also includes an onomasiological process. This is the method applied by most linguists who have addressed the topic of modal particles in di¤erent languages. See, for example, the studies by Weydt (1969), Beerbom (1992), Masi (1996) and Pru¨fer (1995).

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2.2. Characteristics of modal particles 2.2.1. Some general features In all phenomena there are nearly always essential traits and relative traits (the latter referring to those which are specific to a single language) and when searching for modal particles in languages that have still not been studied from this point of view we will have to know how to distinguish between the two types. Whatever happens, however, the non-essential traits must not lead us astray in our pursuit. As we have already mentioned in the introduction, modal particles cannot be inflected and their function is generally to indicate, boost or modify illocution. Moreover, they are lexemes that are essentially vague and therefore highly inferential, in the sense that the receiver is forced to process information that has been transmitted only implicitly. Modal particles are also elements that are mostly interactive and especially characteristic of spontaneous and informal speech4. In the search for modal particles in languages other than German or Dutch, we believe it necessary to point out that they are not elements that are prosodically, semantically and syntactically independent, like interjections, for example. Instead they are elements that are integrated within the structure of the sentence. It is important to bear this aspect in mind for several reasons: first, because interjections also act as modalisers, that is to say, the sender uses them to manifest attitudes (Cuenca 2002: 3175); second, because, as we will see later, modal particles in Catalan often appear in topicalised parts of exclamatory sentences (Ara pla que l’hem feta bona! ‘Now we’ve really gone and done it!’5; Tu rai que saps nedar! ‘Don’t you worry about a thing, you can swim!’6), and are phrases 4. Several authors have conducted detailed studies of the modal particles in German and have found certain traits that can be said to define them to a greater or lesser extent. As an example we can cite the research carried out by Ferrer Mora (2001: 97–102) and by Meibauer (1994: 29–32). 5. Our translations of the examples are only an approximate rendering of the original, since the uses of these modal particles rarely have exact equivalents in other languages. 6. The examples used in this study to illustrate the described uses come from a number of di¤erent sources: many of them were taken from the Internet and have appeared on websites, although many of them have been slightly altered (correction of spelling mistakes, etc.); others come from dictionaries, books and a variety of articles; and the rest are fictitious examples for which, obviously, no source is cited.

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that may even appear as independent sequences (Ara pla! ‘That’s all I needed!’; Tu rai! ‘You don’t need to worry about anything’) (see subsections 3.2 and 3.3 for the particles pla and rai, respectively). The substantial di¤erence between modal particles and interjections lies in the fact that interjections are syntactically and semantically independent (Cuenca 2002: 3175), as well as prosodically independent (Portole´s 2001: 66), whereas this is not the case with modal particles7. 2.2.2. Polyphonic-emotional function Some modal particles have an important polyphonic function, in line with Ducrot’s (1984)8 theory of language polyphony, in the sense that they introduce the voices of other speakers in advance (Waltereit 2006: 62–68; Ruiz Gurillo 2006: 44–48), which justifies the sender’s emotional reactions which are also emitted in advance (Torrent-Lenzen 2009: 15–16). Thanks to their polyphonic potential, modal particles play an especially valuable role in achieving interactive cohesion and control over the development of the interaction. 2.2.3. Indexicality In linguistics the term indexicality has often been used to refer to the vagueness with which some signs denote certain realities. In line with Auer (1999: 127–147), who in turn refers to Harold Garfinkel’s ethnomethodological theory, we will say that a linguistic sign is indexical when it designates an object without describing it. Indexical words and expressions are essentially vague – outside a particular context it becomes almost impossible to determine their meaning – or, to use Putnam’s

7. In his study of Spanish particles and modality, for example, Martı´n Zorraquino (1992: 114) describes interjections as particles that express modality, which we find totally correct and justifiable. Nevertheless, we should not allow this to mislead us: interjections are particles that have a modal function, but they are not modal particles (understanding modal particle as a technical term). 8. Ducrot defends the idea that in most utterances there are also voices that do not belong to the sender in the strict sense of the word. In this context, Ducrot di¤erentiates between the speaker (who is responsible for an idea contained within the utterance) and the utterer, who is the person that realises the speech act (moves the muscles, makes the voice sound, etc.) (Ducrot 1984: 205).

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(1990: 46) words, their scope changes with the context9. Deictic expressions are especially indexical, but so are words like interjections and modal particles (Franck 1980: 254; Torrent-Lenzen 2005), which refer to the context without describing it explicitly. We believe it important to point out the relation that exists between the indexical nature and degree of indexicality of a lexeme and the process of grammaticalisation which that lexeme may have undergone, since every process of grammaticalisation entails a loss of semantic value (Hopper and Closs Traugott 2003: 1–18). 2.2.4. A lexemic class The di¤erent syntactic, semantic and pragmatic uses that a particle can be put to give rise to heterosemes (Meibauer 1994: 5, 16; Autenrieth 2002). Heterosemes are in fact the result of di¤erent stages in the processes of grammaticalisation (Meibauer 1994: 16) and pragmaticalisation. In Catalan, for example, the adjective pla (‘flat’, ‘level’) and the modal particle pla would be heterosemes (see subsection 3.2) and the same can be said of the conjunction si (Si acabes de dinar, no hauries de tenir gana ‘If you’ve just had lunch, you shouldn’t be hungry’) and the modal particle si (Que tens gana! Si acabes de dinar! ‘You’re hungry? But you’ve just had lunch!’). In linguistics there is a debate over whether modal particles constitute a lexemic class of their own. In our opinion, they should, first, because from the point of view of their semantic-pragmatic function they have left the class they used to belong to, and, second, because this allows us to di¤erentiate them from other particles with a modal function, which nevertheless are not modal particles in the true sense of the word10. The term linking device is frequently used, especially in Ibero-Romance linguistics, to denote a fairly broad and heterogeneous group of lexemes, some of which have a modal function. It is also common to hear the terms 9. Auer (1999: 129) stresses the coincidences between Garfinkel’s view and Wittgenstein’s (2003: §126 and §129) philosophy of language. It is clear that they are two ways of approaching the same idea, because if we consider, in accordance with Wittgenstein (2003: §43), that the meaning of words depends on their use, then we will have to acknowledge that this thesis can only be sustained by the indexicality inherent in language. 10. This may be because, for example, they are not elements that are integrated within the structure of the sentence or because they still possess the characteristics of a particular type of words (conjunction, adverb, etc.: see the case of Catalan que in subsection 3.7).

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markers or discourse operators (Ferrer Mora 2001: 108). This terminological tradition has meant that words that we consider to be modal particles have sometimes been analysed as linking devices (Espinal 1986). As we see it, the term linking device is not the most suitable for characterising modal particles, above all because linking devices seem to suggest a relationship of a cotextual nature, whereas in the case of modal particles the type of relationship would be more contextual (Detges and Waltereit 2007: 63)11. In order to understand the function of modal particles it would be necessary to take into account the di¤erences between two very close but very distinct functions, namely, the interactive and the modal functions. The great di‰culty when it comes to separating them lies in the fact that modality usually becomes manifest through interaction. Let us now go on to define what interaction and modality represent, as set out in TorrentLenzen (at press). In linguistics the term interaction refers to the mechanisms of intervention and reference to the context that allow those participating in the conversation to structure the communicative activities they are carrying out, to make the situation more cohesive and to capture the receiver’s attention (Verschueren 2002: 84–91). The term modality refers to the sender’s attitude towards the entities that intervene in the communication, which are the sender, receiver, topic and context (Payrato´ 2003: 55), together with the interactions among those entities. It is a phenomenon that is largely implicit. The linguistic elements that play a modalising role indicate, in a vague way, this complex communicative texture (Ruiz Gurillo 2006: 58). Although it is more likely to appear in dialogue, modality can exist independently of an inter11. Montoro (2006: 250) determines three basic functions for what he calls discourse markers: connection, modality and interaction. He also stresses the fact that the term linking device is often used as an umbrella concept that covers the others (Montoro 2006: 158). For other authors (Garce´s Go´mez 2008: 32), in contrast, discourse markers can only have either a textual function or an interactive function. Clearly, if we endow certain markers or linking device with a modal function, then the distance between the two linguistic categories (modal particles on the one hand and markers and linking devices on the other) would not be very large. It must also be borne in mind that introducing the grammatical category of discourse markers or linking devices comes largely as a response to a desire to expand the field of linguistic analysis beyond the realm of the strictly sentential (Portole´s 1993: 146; Montoro 2006: 158). And both the cotext and the context exceed it. In any case, this hybridism a¤ecting the group of linking devices (Waltereit 2006: 4; Thun 1989: 55) means that this term sometimes is lacking in productivity.

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active situation. Thus, a sentence like Pero` si e´s la Maria! ‘Well, if it isn’t Maria!’ does not necessarily have to be submerged within an interactive context, but it is modal, in the sense that by using the particle si the sender manifests an emotional attitude towards the context (more specifically, surprise).

3. Description In this section we are going to present and outline several modal particles or variants on modal particles in Catalan. By variants we are referring to homophonic modal particles (which are in fact heterosemes) with a common basic meaning but with distinct and clearly di¤erentiated interactive modal functions and polyphonic structures. Variants would be the di¤erent senses of a single particle in a dictionary. If these characteristics are not su‰ciently di¤erentiated, we then speak of uses. It is often di‰cult to decide whether a given modal particle with several applications really constitutes a variant or whether it is merely a use. In her study of German modal particles, Franck (1980: 254) wrote that such lexemes are like a chameleon in that they largely adapt their meaning to the situational context, which gives some idea of the di‰culty we are up against. However, this statement by Franck (1980: 254) is only relatively valid for modal particles in Catalan, as we shall see in the pages that follow, since Catalan modal particles do not display as much semantic-functional flexibility as those in German. 3.1. The inferential variants of pas In the northern areas of the Catalan-speaking territory, sentential negation is often reinforced by the particle pas placed directly after the verb, which is enclosed within the structure no . . . pas. In other words, sentential negation in Catalan prescribes the use of a word or structure that activates the negation in a pre-verbal position (a so-called activator or negative inducer) which allows or even requires the appearance of other words with a negative value after the verb (one of the so-called negative polarity terms) in sequences like No ve ningu´ ‘Nobody’s coming’ or No tinc cap problema ‘I haven’t any problems’12. If we add the negative polarity term 12. It must be noted that a verb followed by pas cannot be preceded by just any kind of negative activator and that the adverb no is the most common; structures such as *res . . . pas, for example, are ungrammatical.

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pas to these sequences, it will in theory reinforce the negation: No ve pas ningu´ ‘Nobody at all is coming’; No tinc pas cap problema ‘I haven’t any problems at all’. Note that these negative elements do not cancel each other out and that the sentence still has a negative meaning13. In some Catalan-speaking areas, pas is merely a semantic device reinforcing that single negative idea. In Girona, for example, the addition of pas to the structure of the negative sentence is a commonplace feature of the language. However, this particle, which began its process of grammaticalisation at a very remote stage in the early days of the Catalan language14, continued to evolve in some areas (Barcelona or Vic, for example) and underwent pragmaticalisation processes. These are very widespread uses, which are still very much alive, although some speakers believe that the use of such variants by the younger generations is becoming less common. If we look at the function of the Romance particle pas, we will see that in the French spoken today pas has become the only negative word in the sentence. In the more northern districts of Catalonia pas merely reinforces a negative idea, while in the more southerly areas, a little further away from the Pyrenees (Barcelona or Vic, for example),

13. In linguistics, negative concordance is the term used to refer to the phenomenon that allows several negative words to appear in a sequence without cancelling out their negativity. The term double negation, used in some studies, is not an appropriate name for the type of structure we are describing, since there is actually only one negative idea which is distributed throughout all or part of the sentence. Moreover, the term double negation is used in some studies to designate structures in which two negative words cancel out the negativity of the sentence (Pe´rez Saldanya and Torrent-Lenzen 2010; Becker and Torrent-Lenzen 2010). 14. In mediaeval texts, the particle pas was already totally grammaticalised; the same can be seen as regards mediaeval French (Buridant 2000: 708). Although in texts from earlier periods it is possible to discover the first symptoms of the process of pragmaticalisation that pas was to undergo later on, such cases are quite rare. It should be pointed out that in the Middle Ages pas was not used to simply reinforce the negation but in fact represented a rhetoricalcontrastive particle with which the sender highlighted the opposition of ideas that are explicit in the text (Torrent-Lenzen 2007). It seems logical to think that this contrasting explicit idea in mediaeval texts later went on to become implicit, and perhaps this was the basis of the process by which pas became a polyphonic, inferential and modal particle. In agreement with Waltereit (2006: 95–96), we think that the speakers very probably then discovered the modalising potential of this particle, which triggered the process of pragmaticalisation.

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pas has taken on, as we shall see, pragmatic functions15. From the geolinguistic point of view, a progression running from north to south can be observed: what starts as a merely semantic-syntactic use (in French) later goes on to play an optional reinforcing role (Catalan in Girona and related dialects) and from there finally it has a clearly inferential use (in the Catalan spoken in Barcelona or Vic and related dialects)16. Negation with pas as a simple way of reinforcing the sentential negation has, in itself, a notable polyphonic nature, since from the moment the sender considers it necessary to reinforce the negation, certain presuppositions that are attributed to the interlocutor are automatically highlighted. We will now go on to present the di¤erent variants of the particle pas in Catalan, some of which are especially interesting due to the inferences they activate and because of their polyphonic-emotional potential17. In interrogative sentences and placed immediately after the verb, pas expresses the fact that the sender expects to receive an a‰rmative answer. From there, two frequent emotional states can occur: when the sender wants the expected a‰rmative response, the use of pas expresses hope: No has pas vist una gateta per aquı´ ? ‘You haven’t seen a little kitten around here, have you?’18; if it is not desired, the particle is used by the sender to express fear or concern: Aquest ca`ntir vessa: no e´s pas esquerdat? ‘This jug is leaking: it’s not cracked, is it?’ (Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana); No has pas oblidat de tancar el gas? ‘You didn’t forget to turn

15. Of course in the speech of Barcelona and related dialects pas can merely reinforce the negation: No voldria pas de cap manera que s’interprete´s la meva opinio´ com una apologia dels abrics de pell ‘Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t want you to take what I said as meaning that I’m in favour of fur coats’ (www.vilaweb.cat/www/elpunt/noticia?p_idcmp. . .). 16. It should be mentioned, however, that in some French-speaking areas, pas is used in sentences like C’est la meilleure chose qu’il y a pas ‘It’s the best thing there is’ (Hunnius 2004: 72), that is to say, in some variants of the French language it is also possible to find pragmatic uses of pas. 17. The description that is included in the Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana on the particle pas seems quite appropriate to us and we therefore refer the reader to the corresponding entry in that dictionary, where the word inferir ‘infer’ or similar expressions (donar a entendre ‘seems to suggest’) appear several times. This lexicographical description shows quite clearly that the inferential uses of pas are the most characteristic of this particle. 18. carmerosanas.blogspot.com/. . ./vaig-voler-dibuixar-el-gatet-que-va.html.

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the gas o¤, did you?’19. As we can see, it is presupposed that something is right, and it is this presupposition that allows the sender to shape certain feelings: hope (because of what is possible and desired) or fear (because of what is not desired). This variant is polyphonic in the sense that the sender anticipates a statement from another speaker. Another variant of pas is used in negative imperative sentences. In this case the sender makes it understood that if the interlocutor does not take heed of his or her indications, then something unpleasant will occur (negative consequences): No facis pas aixo`! ‘Don’t do that!’ (Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana). This variant is very often used, especially in the speech of Barcelona and related dialects, in negative imperative sentences formed with the imperfect subjunctive (No li diguessis pas, que llavors es molesta ‘Don’t tell her or else she’ll get annoyed’20). This use with the imperfect subjunctive is not included in most treatises (see, for example, Badia i Margarit 1995: 179–180; Fabra 1991: 171), probably because it was considered to be dialectal. The polyphonic-emotional potential of this variant lies in the fact that the sender takes it for granted that somebody else has an intention: the sender introduces the voice of another speaker who intends to take a course of action. These two uses analysed here are not the only inferential variants of pas. We can also mention the variant that appears in reactive dialogic interventions, in which the sender invalidates certain presuppositions that his or her interlocutor may have: –Dema` t’ho dire´. –Oh! No ens veurem pas dema` ‘–I’ll tell you tomorrow. –Oh! We won’t be seeing each other tomorrow’ (Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana). Likewise, it is also worth highlighting the fact that pas can appear in the sequence no pas, more often than not as an introduction for sentential adjuncts21, and also that no pas can display modalising functions in comparative sentences, for 19. www20.gencat.cat/docs/Llengcat/Documents/. . ./nivell_llindar.pdf. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the intonation in the three interrogative sentences given in this paragraph is not the same in all the cases and depends on the emotional state that the sender wants to convey. 20. http://forums.vilaweb.cat/www/forum/detall?idcmp=821672&p_edi= bisbaldemporda. 21. We are referring to non-modal uses such as the following: El fet que aquest incendi fos realment provocat per un enemic exterior, i no pas per qualsevol atzar desgraciat, e´s quelcom ben possible ‘The fact that this fire was actually started by some enemy from outside, and not by some unfortunate chance happening, is nevertheless quite possible’ (estaticos.elmundo.es/documentos/ 2009/06/09/catalan.pdf ).

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example: Caminar e´s un exercici millor que no pas anar amb cotxe ‘Walking is better exercise than going by car’22. Finally, to reinforce negation, pas plays an important role in expressing politeness (Te´ aquesta voluntat modesta de ‘‘no voldria pas molestar’’ ‘She has this modest ‘‘I hope I’m not going to bother you at all’’ thing about her’23) or impoliteness (–Tota la vida m’he sacrificat per vosaltres. –No pas per mi ‘–I’ve sacrificed myself all my life for you. –Not for me you haven’t’). All these uses are to a greater or lesser extent inferential, although they do not display as much polyphonic richness as other variants. With regard to the linguistic status of the particle pas, we think that classifying it as a simple negative adverb does not take account of the varied modal functions that it can have. 3.2. The particle pla The modal particle pla, which comes from the adjective pla (‘flat’, ‘level’), is widely used in some of the north-eastern areas of Catalonia. In this case we can also distinguish among a number of variants. The particle pla appears in exclamatory sequences following the adverb ara (Ara pla!). With the expression Ara pla! the sender is reacting spontaneously with surprise to a situation that s/he did not expect and is a little disconcerting (s/he realises s/he has lost his or her keys, for example, or perhaps s/he does not know how to act when asked to do something): this would be the modal function of this particle. In this use of pla the type of language that is manifested is markedly cathartic24. This variant of pla does not necessarily require an interactive situation for it to be emitted in an utterance, indeed the sender can utter this exclamation when alone, as a reaction to a fact. In such cases, and in accordance with the ostensive-inferential model of human communication developed by Sperber and Wilson (1986), we cannot even speak of a communicative 22. books.google.de/books?isbn=847426359X. . . We say that in comparative constructions no pas is a modaliser because, in addition to introducing a negative idea that should usually be considered subjective and in this case would be ‘‘Driving is not such good exercise as walking’’, above all the use of pas implies a rejection (as a ‘‘reply in advance’’) of possible opposing opinions. 23. www2.ub.edu/comunicacions/revista. . ./reportatge_2i.htm. 24. The Swiss philosopher Anton Marty (1976: 275) drew a distinction between the communication of spontaneous non-intentional cathartic emotional states, on the one hand, and the intentional appellative communication of emotional states, on the other.

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intention25. Nevertheless, the sequence Ara pla! can also appear in a dialogic situation. In such cases, its use is a valuable aid in the creation of textual cohesion, since by employing Ara pla! the sender is referring to something that has just been said or done and hints at something related with a very near future26. In interactive situations, the use of pla can express a refusal, because the emotional state of not knowing what to do when asked to do something inevitably involves a refusal. In this case, and again applying the theory put forward by Sperber and Wilson (1986), there is both a communicative and an informative intention. In any event, as we have pointed out above, Ara pla! is quite cathartic and very spontaneous, often free of any intentionality, which means it can be used to express many things, but not impoliteness. The phrase Ara pla! can appear as an independent exclamatory sentence or as a topicalised member of the sentence (Ara pla que hi anire´! ‘Now I will go!’; Ara pla que l’hem feta bona! ‘Now we’ve really gone and done it!’). In line with Sola` (1990: 61– 63), we can say that in this last type of structure the particle acts to reinforce the topicalised part. In this regard, it should be pointed out that the sentential phrase Ara pla que l’hem feta bona! displays a fairly high degree of fixation, since it cannot be applied to as many situations as the simpler Ara pla!: with Ara pla que l’hem feta bona! the sender reacts to a fact which may have unfavourable consequences. In another of its modal variants, the particle pla may appear as an illocutionary booster in an a‰rmative declarative speech act: Aixo` pla que ho fare´ ‘Of course I’ll do it’ (Diccionari catala`-valencia`-balear). Depending on the context, this type of sentence could express a threat. In utterances in which pla is an illocutionary booster, the particle hints at the voice of a speaker who thinks the opposite: if this were not the case, there would be no need to reinforce anything. This use as an illocutionary booster in declarative sentences enables pla to work as a way of indicating irony: Sı´, 25. Communicative intention refers to the speaker’s decision to make contact with another person with the aim of communicating, whereas informative intention refers to the speaker’s decision to transmit a particular message to another person (Pons Borderı´a 2004: 14). 26. The cohesive function of pla in the phrase Ara pla! can be observed in the following example, taken from the Internet: No ha vingut ningu´? Ara pla! Llavors no val la pena fer el mı´ting ‘–Hasn’t anybody come? –That’s all we needed! Then it’s not worth holding the meeting’ (www.rodamots.com/mot_grup. asp?nm=1301-1305). This sentence has a three-part structure: cause (No ha vingut ningu´?), spontaneous and reactive manifestation of surprise and dislike (Ara pla!) and consequence (Llavors no val la pena fer el mı´ting).

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tu pla que ho arreglaries be´ ‘Yes, of course you’d sort it out just fine’ (Diccionari catala`-valencia`-balear). In such utterances, and as always happens with irony, a pseudo-identification takes place (Stempel 1994: 328). 3.3. The particle rai With the particle rai the sender is inquiring about whether somebody (perhaps his or her interlocutor, and given certain consequences arising from a particular set of circumstances) has some reason to be concerned or not. An exclamation such as Tu rai! means, for example, that the person the sender is referring to with the use of tu has no need to worry. In an interactive situation, rai acts as a nexus between something that has been mentioned earlier (some event, a situation, and so on) and possible positive or negative consequences that may arise from it. Two possible uses of rai (which, as we understand it, are not true variants27) can be distinguished according to the di¤erent syntactic and pragmatic-informative structures used. On the one hand, the particle rai can follow the adverb malament: Malament rai! (see translations below). In this case, the consequences are always negative and the people a¤ected are right to be concerned. On the other hand, rai can appear in several di¤erent types of phrases: tu rai! ‘you don’t need to worry!’; de sabates rai! ‘there’s no need to worry about the shoes at all!’; avui dia rai! ‘that’s not a problem today!’; si t’ho diuen rai! ‘If they tell you, there won’t be any trouble’ (Sola` 1990: 56–57). In the situations that justify this use of rai there are either two groups of people involved or one group in di¤erent situations: some of them, who rai refers to in a direct way (either explicitly – Vosaltres rai! ‘You don’t need to worry about a thing!’ – or implicitly – Aquest examen rai! ‘There’s no need to worry about this exam!’), have no reason to be concerned, while the others, who rai refers to indirectly in a totally implicit manner, do have cause for concern. For example, in a sentence like Aquest examen rai!, the people who have to do this exam do not need to worry (either because the exam is easy or because they have had plenty of time to study, and so forth). In contrast, the same or other people who will have to do another exam will have reason to be worried.

27. It should be remembered that, as stated in subsection 3, a variant must display interactive modal functions and polyphonic structures (and possibly distinct and clearly di¤erentiated syntactic positions), but, as we shall see, the overall meaning of rai is the same in all the uses, that is to say, the particle rai is always related to the state of ‘‘not having to worry’’.

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The phrase in which the particle rai appears is often followed by other sequences in which the sender conveys propositional information: Malament rai, si has suspe`s l’examen! Haura`s de repetir el curs ‘Bad news, you’ve failed your exam! You’ll have to repeat the year’; Tu rai, que saps nedar! ‘Never mind, you can swim!’. However, the use of rai is so conventionalised that in a particular interactive context it is possible to do without such sequences: Malament rai [, si has suspe`s l’examen]! [Haura`s de repetir el curs]; Tu rai [, que saps nedar]!. With regard to the polyphony of rai, we can say that, in a given interactive situation, the sender who uses the particle rai starts out from the fact or from the presupposition that somebody, perhaps an interlocutor, thinks the opposite. As far as its linguistic status is concerned, we do not think that rai is one of the most representative modal particles. As we have seen, its informative structure is quite complex – a feature that modal particles do not usually display28. Moreover, rai has no heterosemes, that is to say, there are no other uses of rai with other syntactic-semantic functions; in fact, to date it has not been possible to even determine its origin (Coromines 1996: 42). But we believe that the term modal particle is the one that best describes the pragmatic function of rai, which is undoubtedly modalising, from the moment in which the sender uses it to create conversational links with the receiver and the context. Likewise, we should note how rai appears in the same syntactic position as other modal particles in Catalan, such as pla, that is, in the left-hand topicalised part of the sentence. 3.4. Per aixo`: a ‘pursued’ particle The bimembral particle per aixo` is used in Barcelona and surrounding area. As a modal particle, per aixo` has its origins in the causal consecutive linking device with the same form and pronunciation29. As a modal parti28. In this particular case we use the term informative structure to refer to the information that is implicit in the use of the particle rai. 29. In the following example, per aixo` is clearly a consecutive linking device: Algun dia espero tenir la te`cnica d’aquesta noia; per aixo` estic estudiant i perfeccionant la meva te`cnica ‘One day I hope to have the technique that this girl has, that’s why I’m studying and trying to perfect my technique’ (terapiasmanualesazul. blogspot.com). The consecutive linking device per aixo` comes, in turn, from the free phrase made up of the causal preposition per and the pronoun aixo`, as shown in the following text: ‘‘Si realment ha acomiadat aquesta noia per aixo`, no es pot admetre’’, diu David Mascort, tinent d’alcalde ‘ ‘‘If that is really the reason why this girl has been dismissed, then that is unacceptable,’’ says the deputy mayor, David Mascort’ (www.diaridegirona.cat/. . ./noticia.jsp?pRef. . .3. . .).

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cle, per aixo` implies adversativity, whereby it boosts illocution30. The process of grammaticalisation from a consecutive function to an adversative one seems to be a recurring theme in the evolution of several languages31. Perhaps this can be explained by the propositional reinforcement implied by the two structures and which we have just discussed in footnote 30 in relation to adversativity32. As regards its modal function, per aixo` appears in declarative sentences which express an evaluation. The sender uses it to reinforce illocution, as well as the evaluation, by hinting at a contrasting idea, in sentences like the following: Tu, per aixo`, sempre n’has de fer un gra massa ‘But that’s why you always have to overdo it’ or Aquesta noia, per aixo`, e´s ben amable ‘This girl, however, is very friendly’. It should be noted, however, that it is a weak rather than an emphatic reinforcement, which also introduces a considerable amount of subjectivity. A high degree of spontaneity can be detected in the use of this multilexeme. The examples show that the modal particle per aixo` usually appears in the clause following the first phrase, as is the case with many adversative connectives33. 30. We should bear in mind that in sentences with adversative sequences, what really bears weight in the context is the phrase that comes after the conjunction or adversative connective. Hence, if we compare these two sentences: 1) E´s bonı´ssim, pero` engreixa molt ‘It’s really delicious, but it’s very fattening’ versus 2) Engreixa molt, pero` e´s bonı´ssim ‘It’s fattening, but it’s really delicious’, we will agree that in 1 the person is not necessarily willing to eat the thing being discussed, whereas in 2 she or he is willing to eat it. The key element, that is to say, the one with the most semantic weight despite the other arguments that are given against the idea, is the phrase following pero`. Adversativity therefore implies a propositional reinforcement (of one particular proposition out of several possibilities) of an argumentative nature (Atayan 2006: 73, 125). As is well known, this type of conventionalised implicit information constitutes a conventional implicature. 31. In French, for example, the lexeme pourtant, which originally meant ‘for this reason’, has now acquired a meaning that is similar to that of cependant or mais (Bloch and Wartburg [1964], under the headword tant; Rey et al. [1992], under the headword pourtant; see also Wienen [2006: 153, footnote 12]). 32. For further information about the process of grammaticalisation of the modal particle per aixo`, see Pe´rez Saldanya (2001). In that paper the author uses the graph perxo`, which corresponds to the pronunciation of the term. 33. Our description of the modal function of the Catalan phrase per aixo` helps to di¤erentiate it from the German modal particle aber: this aber is intended to convey objectivity and it seeks to present a proposition as being absolutely valid, whereas the Catalan per aixo` is subjective, less grammaticalised and there is a greater presence of the opposite idea within it.

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The polyphony of the modal particle per aixo` lies in the fact that the sender introduces an idea that contrasts with the one contained in the proposition within his or her own utterance, the aim being to highlight that proposition within the framework of the speech act. Although the modal particle per aixo` appears mainly in dialogues, it can be more or less interactive. This will depend on whether or not one of the interlocutors has just stated a proposition that contrasts with that uttered by the sender. When the sender ‘invents’, so as to speak, adversativity with the sole aim of highlighting what has been said, then it becomes clear that the polyphonic and modal value of per aixo` is greater (from the moment in which imaginary voices are introduced) and its interactivity is lower. The following are two authentic examples of the use of per aixo` as a modal particle: . . . e´s que tenim nivells d’idioma forc¸a diferents. Ell, per aixo`, darrerament s’esta` esforc¸ant i avui ho ha demostrat ‘. . . our levels of proficiency in the language are very di¤erent. Nevertheless he’s been making an e¤ort lately and today he has proved it’34; Conversar amb ell, per aixo`, requereix dosis altes de calma i pacie`ncia ‘When you are talking to him, however, you need to take it easy and be very patient’35. In any case, if a contrasting idea has been uttered earlier, the use of per aixo` introduces, as we have pointed out above, a very high degree of subjectivity, and therefore cannot be compared with other connectives such as tanmateix, pero` or empero` in the same syntactic position. This particle is interesting, among other things, from the sociolinguistic point of view. Thus, the purist normative tendency, which in certain periods of history has stood out in Catalan-speaking society as an attitude to defend its own linguistic identity, attempted to eliminate not only the many examples of castilianisms from colloquial Catalan but also, unfortunately, a number of genuine expressions in the spoken language. This was perhaps the result of a mistaken idea of what the standard language should be like and an excessively narrow view of linguistic functions and categories. Thus, in the grammar book by Marva` (1985: 276), readers are explicitly recommended not to use the particle per aixo`: ‘‘The spoken language today often makes use of the expression per aixo`, but its utilisation with this concessive meaning of pero` is not recommended’’ (author’s trans-

34. http://www.globenotes.com/travel-blog-entry/Ireland/Dublin/5678/De-relax/. 35. blocs.mesvilaweb.cat/node/view/id/163786.

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lation)36. The rejection or even persecution of certain forms of expression that are typically found in the spoken language was a phenomenon that reached quite significant levels in many countries throughout the 20th century and had as one of its saddest examples the persecution su¤ered by the modal particles. In Germany, for example, they were called ‘‘lice on the skin of the German language’’ that had to be eradicated at any cost (Schlieben-Lange 1990: 122). Of course this took place before the ‘pragmatic turn’ in linguistics and was due to blatant analytical shortcomings. 3.5. The particle ja The Catalan language has the modal particle ja, which comes from the homophonic temporal adverb. A very characteristic modal function of ja is its use in permissive sentences: Ja pots entrar, ja ‘Right, you can come in now’37. In this case the perfective temporal meaning of the adverb ja has turned into possibility. The relation between perfective temporality and possibility is quite clear, since what has or will have taken place is experienced as something possible. With regard to the polyphonic value of this variant, the sender introduces the voice of his or her interlocutor,

36. We do not agree that it is a concessive word. As we have pointed out in footnote 30, an adversative connective is followed by the phrase that should be semantically valid in the context, whereas exactly the opposite happens after a concessive connective. Furthermore, we also highlight the fact that the adversative use of per aixo` (that is to say, its non-consecutive use) was already present in the works of Ramon Llull: Na Renard li va dir a l’Elefant que ja era hora que el rei morı´s, ell per aixo` no les tenia totes pero` no li volia fer saber a Na Renard ‘Na Renard said to the Elephant that it was time the king should die; he, however, was not altogether sure about it, but did not want Na Renard to know – Author’s own translation’ (html.rincondelvago.com/elllibre-de-les-besties_ramon-llull_4.html), so it is not a characteristic of speech that has appeared in modern times. Finally, let us stress the fact that, as we have just said, the particle pero` cannot express modal functions in the type of context described in these lines devoted to per aixo`. Although pero` can be classified as a modal particle in some contexts (see section 3.9), it expresses other very di¤erent modal functions. 37. mentre no ocupis el meu llit ja pots entrar ja ‘as long as you don’t get in my bed, you can come in now’ (www.corredors.cat/index.php?option=com): the echoic structure ja . . . ja seen in this example is commonly used in this kind of permissive sentence with ja; see Diccionario de uso del espan˜ol (1998 II: 1436) on the Spanish ya.

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who, in the sender’s opinion, has taken the fact that something cannot be done or is not necessary as his or her starting point. The modal particle ja also frequently appears in reproaches (in sentences like Ja podries haver avisat abans ‘You might have let us know earlier’38 or Ja podries tornar a venir a Londres, lletjota ‘It’s about time you came back to London, gorgeous’39). We believe it is the same variant as the permissive use we have just outlined, since in a reproach the sender includes within his or her utterance act a voice that indicates that it was not necessary to do something – the polyphonic structure is thus similar. Moreover, in this case it is easy to understand the process of grammaticalisation because a reproach can only refer to something that happened in the past. Therefore the perfective temporal meaning of the adverb ja, which indicates that an event has or will have taken place, now refers to a situation in which, in the sender’s opinion, the event should have occurred (although this was not the case). Somewhere between reproaches and permission, we can find sentences like the following: Ja li pots demanar disculpes a en Sergi ‘I reckon you should go and apologise to Sergi’40, which are also very common in the spoken language41. In sentences like Ja s’espavilaran ‘They will have to sort themselves out’42, the sender wants nothing to do with or steps away from what the person referred to is doing and includes the voice of a speaker who has stated the opposite. The future form of this type of construction reflects the process of grammaticalisation that has taken place: the certainty regarding the fact that an event will occur in the future now becomes

38. www.racocatala.cat/forums/fil/107336/khabarovsk. 39. www.fotolog.com.br/lulineta/82925214. 40. See the complete example: Ho`stia, Erik, esta` molt lleig fer aquestes coses . . . ja li pots demanar disculpes a en Sergi ‘Bloody hell, Erik, that’s a really nasty thing to do. . . I reckon you should go and apologise to Sergi’ (www.fotolog. com/o_g_i/18541724). 41. At least in these two uses of ja described so far, the modal particle corresponds to the German ruhig, which is also a modal particle that comes from the homophonic adjective/adverb meaning ‘quiet, quietly’. 42. ‘‘Ja s’espavilaran els qui vinguin darrere!’’ e´s una expressio´ inhumana ‘ ‘‘Those who come after us will have to sort themselves out’’ is a heartless expression’ (books.google.de/books?isbn=8484159205); Si algu´ sap l’hora, perfecte; si no, ja m’espavilare´ ‘If anyone knows what time it is, that’s just fine; if not, I’ll sort myself out’ (cerdanyola.superforos.com/viewtopic.php?p=25771&sid).

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either confidence or a true distancing that, depending on the context, may include negative feelings like disinterest or contempt43. The presuppositional structure of the modal particle ja is quite complex, as stated by Santos Rı´o (2003: 660) with regard to the Spanish ya. In general, and perhaps simplifying a little, we can say that the modal uses of the particle ja include a negative presupposition. As far as its normative status is concerned, the modal uses of the particle ja do not appear in the Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana of the Institut d’Estudis Catalans, which can be considered almost outrageous given, as we have said, its high degree of vitality. It is di‰cult to say if its omission is due to the fact that normative linguistics hardly ever takes modal particles into account44. Nevertheless, its status as a modal particle is beyond all doubt45. 3.6. The unaccented and accented particles si and sı´ In addressing the unaccented modal particle si and the accented modal particle sı´, our starting point must be a process of grammaticalisation, according to which an a‰rmative particle (with the meaning of ‘it sometimes happens that’) has acquired modal functions which emphasise a state of things 46. 43. Many of the modal uses of ja, even in the most everyday sentences, can go almost undetected even to the most experienced linguist, an example being en tot cas ja la trucare´ ‘anyway I’ll give her a call’ (Alturo et al. (eds.) 2004: 52): in such cases, ja expresses certainty that an action will take place. In actual fact, we believe that all the modal uses of ja are related with the evolution from a perfective meaning to another that expresses certainty (that something will happen); from this point on, a number of modal and emotional nuances have developed. 44. It should be pointed out that the Diccionario de la Lengua Espan˜ola does not include the modal uses of the corresponding Spanish particle either and only the adverbial uses of ya are given. See, however, the Diccionario de uso del espan˜ol (1998 II: 1436) for an interesting description of the modal uses of the Spanish ya. 45. Acosta (1984: 40) also considers the Spanish particle ya to be ‘a very emotional’ modal particle in Spanish, as the researcher stresses. 46. A process of grammaticalisation can also be detected in relation to the conditional si and the interrogative, so that in both the condition and the interrogation two states of things must be considered: one which could occur and another that might not occur. This also explains why structures like the condition or interrogation act as negative inducers and admit words with a negative polarity (Espinal 2002: 2753; Pe´rez Saldanya and Torrent-Lenzen 2010; Becker and Torrent-Lenzen 2010).

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As we shall see, in the three variants of the unaccented modal particle si that we are going to discuss, there is a reaction involving opposition (Acosta 1984: 38) or a contrasting idea. This explains the ease with which it combines with pero`, as will be shown by some examples taken from spontaneous speech. In one of the most characteristic variants, the sender uses si to express surprise, disagreement or rejection (Santos Rı´o 2003: 594), in dialogic situations such as in the following example: –Fa`tima! surt a la pissarra– deia la Dolors. –Pero` si acabo d’arribar, no he pogut ni deixar la motxilla. –No em parlis amb aquest to de veu i surt a la pissarra ja! ‘–Fa´tima! Come to the blackboard, said Dolors. –But I’ve only just got here, I haven’t even had time to put my bag down yet. –Don’t talk to me in that tone of voice and come out to the blackboard at once!’47. Note that the proposition introduced by si contains information that is considered to be known by everyone. The particle si indicates, among other things, the relevance of saying something that is already known, in line with the theory put forward by Sperber and Wilson (1986)48; otherwise, the utterance would breach Grice’s collaboration principle, since, in theory, nobody provides any information about what is already known by the other person if the sender is already aware of it. At the same time, by using si the sender is reproaching the receiver for not having taken this information into account. It is a particle with a polyphonic potential because it introduces what is known by the sender and the receiver; and it is this information that justifies the latter’s reaction of anger, disgust or even protest49. Another variant can be found in sentences expressing protest like Pero` si ha estat ell qui ens ha robat a nosaltres! ‘But it was him who robbed us!’50; Pero` si jo mai he fet de paleta, no sabria ni per on comenc¸ar ‘I’ve

47. http://phobos.xtec.cat/llibres/a8054836_667/llibre/index.php?section= 6&page=3. 48. Many modal particles play an important role when it comes to underlining what information is relevant in an interactive situation (Ko¨nig 1997). 49. In Waltereit’s (2006: 54) opinion, the modal particles evoke the meaning or the function of their heterosemes that are not modal particles. This means that when we say Si acabo d’arribar! ‘But I’ve only just got here!’ in the sentential context described in this subsection a, the particle si evokes a situation in which we will have replied to the question Acabes d’arribar? ‘Have you just arrived?’ with the answer Sı´ ‘Yes’. 50. forums.ccrtvi.com/viewtopic.php?t=60777&view=next&sid.

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never worked as a bricklayer, I wouldn’t know where to begin’51; En aquest treball pretenem informar i conve`ncer les persones del perill de malgastar i contaminar l’aigua. Vosaltres direu: Pero` si jo mai he fet aixo`! Pero` inconscientment de vegades tirem papers a terra, que el vent s’emporta i acaben, potser, surant en la platja o en la mar ‘In this assignment our aim is to inform and persuade people to understand the dangers of wasting and polluting water. ‘But I’ve never done that!’ you will say. However, sometimes without thinking we throw litter on the ground, and the wind carries it away and it maybe ends up floating on the beach or in the sea’52. In this case the sender reacts and protests about certain presuppositions that somebody is attributed with. As claimed by Santos Rı´o (2003: 594) about the same si in Spanish, this variant is used to express ‘‘protest or reproach with regard to allegations or theses put forward by the interlocutor or attributed to someone else’’. By using si, the sender reasserts something that, in his or her opinion, is obvious: from the polyphonic point of view, a contrasting idea is introduced that someone defends and the sender reacts to. In exclamations like Pero` si e´s en Joan! ‘Well, if it isn’t Joan!’53, the use of si (or pero` si) expresses surprise. It has a cathartic, spontaneous e¤ect and there is no real informative or even communicative intention. From the point of view of the theory of relevance, here the proposition also contains information that is already known. In this structure, the polyphony lies in the fact that the sender does not expect a particular state of things and includes a voice that expresses this within his or her utterance. When followed by the conjunction que (sı´ que), accented sı´ is used in exclamatory constative sentences in which the sender stresses the intensity of something with surprise and introduces a superimposed voice that says the same thing. It therefore plays an essentially intensifying role: Tu sı´ que tens unes bones fotografies!!! Ets tot un artista! I e´s que tenim un poble molt,

51. www.ficcions.cat/ficcions/detail.php?id=7373. 52. http://html.rincondelvago.com/el-problema-de-aigua.html. 53. Pero` si e´s en Joan d’es tren! L’he vist cada migdia durant dos anys! I fanta`stic!! E´s mel veure sa quantitat de coincide`ncies que mos duu sa vida! ‘Well, if it isn’t Joan from the train! I’ve seen him at lunchtime every day for the last two years! That’s great! It’s a joy to see the number of coincidences life o¤ers us! (http://www.fotolog.com/frontongeniquess/16942328); Pero` si es en Pere! El meu Pepoo! ‘Well, if it isn’t Pere! My dear Pepo!’ (www.fotolog.com/ ploumolt/50847120).

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pero` que molt maco! ‘You have got some good photos!!! You’re a real artist, you are! The fact is we’ve got a really, really nice village!’54. 3.7. Que introducing a question with a falling intonation pattern One structure that is especially typical in the Catalan spoken in Catalonia is a question with a falling intonation pattern introduced by a que (Que tens hora? ‘Got the time, have you?’; Que hi e´s, en Pere? ‘Pere here, is he?’). In our opinion this que must be classified as belonging to the group of modal particles in Catalan, as we shall attempt to show below. In Catalan, the particle que has a wide range of functions, including a great variety of modal functions. It should therefore be borne in mind that in this study we are only characterising the modal particle que, although we will also mention in passing other modal forms of que to enable us to better di¤erentiate the one we are dealing with here. The origins of the modal particle que are to be found in the homophonic sentential nexus que55. A distinction must be drawn between two basic modal uses, which are not really true variants. On the one hand we have the que we shall call the ‘‘empathetic que’’ in sentences such as those we have just seen (Que tens hora?; Que hi e´s, en Pere?)56. As far as the modal function is concerned, we can state that, in general, the sender uses this que to express expectations. In other words, whoever asks the question Tens hora? simply seeks some information, whereas by adding the initial que (Que tens hora?) the sender expresses the fact that she or he expects confirmation of whatever has been stated in the proposition. The modal particle que is a clear expression of empathy and communicative interest. In dialogues in which the sender asks his or her interlocutor whether she or he wants something and introduces que in his or her utterance (Que vols un cafe´ ? ‘Fancy a co¤ee, do you?’ Que tens fred? ‘Cold, are you?’), the sender announces his or her willingness to undertake whatever might be necessary to satisfy the 54. www.panoramio.com/photo/3072104. 55. That is to say, not all particles with a modal function are modal particles. It should be remembered that at the beginning of this article we determined the essential features of modal particles, one being the fact it had left its original grammatical category (see subsection 2.2.4). As we shall see, there are modal usages of que in which the particle fully conserves its characteristics as a conjunction. 56. Please see the article about intonation and pragmatics by Prieto and Rigau (in this volume); see also Prieto and Rigau (2007).

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other person’s wishes, from the moment in which she or he communicates his or her preference for an a‰rmative answer. This que also plays the role of mitigating the impact produced by any kind of rhematic information. We call this variant the ‘‘empathetic que’’ because this use is characterised by the creation of a feeling of closeness towards the interlocutor, towards the theme and towards the context: the sender becomes totally involved in the interactive situation. It should be noted, however, that it is the ‘normal’ way of asking something in the colloquial language used in many parts of Catalonia and that, for this same reason, its emotional or modal role should not be over-estimated. As regards the interactive function, it is important to remark that, in order to distinguish it from other homophonic uses and particles, this kind of structure with the modal particle que initiates a dialogic sequence. The fact that it presents a particular response in advance means that the modal particle que can also be used to formulate rhetorical-tendentious questions. What in the previous use represented hope (of getting a particular answer) has now become fear or displeasure: the sender is quite sure of receiving an answer she or he does not want to hear (Que t’ho has gastat tot? ‘Spent all of it, have you?’). The rhetorical-tendentious que may be combined with the modal particles pero` (Pero` que ho has dubtat mai o que`? ‘Did you ever have any doubts about it or what?’57) and potser (Cesc, que potser et fa peresa aturar-te i respondre la meva pregunta? ‘Cesc, perhaps you can’t really be bothered to stop and answer my question?’58; A veure, d’on treus totes aquestes noietes? Que potser tens un harem? ‘Let me see, where do you get all these young girls from? Have you perhaps got a harem?’59). From the point of view of the interactive function, with this variant the sender reacts to a fact or a previous intervention, and thus does not usually start a dialogic sequence. If we take into account the above-mentioned interactive structure, which is di¤erent from the one that contains the other que outlined earlier, it becomes di‰cult to decide whether they are variants or mere uses of one same modal particle60. The Catalan modal particle que can be compared with the so-called interrogation totale par intonation in French (Stempel 1994: 328), especially as far as the empathetic que is concerned. Stempel (1994: 328) writes, in relation to French, that in such structures (interrogation totale 57. 58. 59. 60.

www.fotolog.com/suby_xik1/44377324. blocs.mesvilaweb.cat/node/view/id/139726. www.flickr.com/photos/ivanbrunes/4094610589/. See subsection 3.9. Please see footnote 27.

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par intonation) the sender dominates the dialogic situation from the moment in which, rather than presenting him or herself with the attitude of ‘not knowing’, she or he acts through a hypothesis that the interlocutor must confirm. This represents a huge communicative advantage, namely, that of being permanently in control of the interactive communication. As regards its polyphonic value, in this type of question (interrogation totale par intonation or question introduced by que with a falling intonation pattern) the sender introduces and heralds within his or her utterance a certain answer that is either preferred or is not desired but is considered likely. As regards its linguistic status, in the case of the modal particle que described in this study, it would be a mistake to speak of a conjunction61. In our opinion it is just as clear that it comes from the conjunctive que (diachronic dimension) as the fact that it now belongs to the group of modal particles (synchronic dimension). Indeed this is one of the chief characteristics of modal particles: the fact of having left their original category through a process of grammaticalisation and pragmaticalisation62. Our thesis, according to which the que discussed above is not seen as a conjunction, is easy to prove if the above-mentioned structures are compared with the clearly conjunctive que (despite having modal, polyphonic and emotional functions) present in reactive interventions in sequences like: A – Tinc gana. B – Que tens gana? Pero` si acabem de dinar! ‘–I’m hungry. –You’re hungry? But we’ve only just had lunch!’. Here, the emotional quality may involve astonishment, mixed with displeasure or even anger. In this kind of structure, que introduces an echoic kind of proposition, which thus makes it clear that it is a conjunction. Catalan can be said to coincide with Spanish as far as this conjunctive que is concerned, but this is not the case with the modal particle que, which, in any event, is a frequent Catalanism produced by Catalan-speakers when speaking Spanish.

61. In contrast, it does seem justified, from a strictly syntactic point of view, to speak of a complementiser (Bosque and Gutie´rrez-Rexach 2009: chap. 4.4.2, especially page 201). 62. Interest in the particle que in French and Spanish began in the mid-1960s (Donaire 1998: 109). Furthermore, in relation to those same languages and at the same time, the first questions about its status as a conjunction also started to be posed (Donaire 1998: 110).

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3.8. The modal uses of prou The modal particle prou, which comes from the homophonic adverb meaning ‘enough’, increases the illocutionary force of a declarative sentence. A sentence like Ara prou que hi anire´ ! ‘That’s enough or I’ll go over and sort you out!’ could be interpreted, depending on the context, as a threat. As a modal particle, prou appears in the same syntactic position as pla. The only formal di¤erence is that in the structure with prou the sentence with propositional information is necessary – without it (that is to say, in sentences like Ara prou!), the receiver would understand prou to be an adverb instead of a modal particle. As with the variant of pla that acts as an illocutionary booster, prou includes the voice of a speaker who thinks the opposite. Nevertheless, in contrast to what happens with pla, ironic uses of prou are not usual63. 3.9. Other uses and particles In this subsection we are going to examine other particles in Catalan that have modal functions. Due to their low degree of combinability, their dependence on other particles or their low level of grammaticalisation, it is often di‰cult to classify them as true modal particles. To use cognitivist terminology, we could say that these lexemes lie on the periphery of the group of modal particles and that they are not very representative elements of that group. By using the particle potser (which in its non-modal uses means ‘perhaps’) in a rhetorical-tendentious question, the sender expresses his or her preference for a negative answer and attempts to inhibit, more or less forcefully depending on the context, an a‰rmative answer that is not desired but is to a certain extent expected: Que potser et fa riure? ‘So, perhaps you think it’s funny?’. As can be seen, it combines with the rhetorical-tendentious que discussed above (see subsection 3.7). Nevertheless, the inhibiting force of this kind of question with the modal particle potser is especially strong, indeed far more so than with que alone. As far as its polyphonic value is concerned, potser is used to introduce in advance an a‰rmative answer that is unwanted but which the sender considers 63. Let us leave to one side for the time being the fact that, in theory, any lexeme can be used ironically (Ruiz Gurillo 2006: 144; Torres Sa´nchez 2009: 81). Nevertheless, it is clear that some lexemes are better suited to expressing irony than others, it could even be said that sometimes they have become specialised in it.

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likely. The process of grammaticalisation has involved a shift from the possibility of something being true to the expression of a fear that it really is true. Depending on the context, the connotations of reproach implicit in a question formed with this modal particle potser can be quite clear64. In structures like Tu tambe´, fas cada cosa! (Du machst vielleicht Sachen!) ‘Only you would have thought of doing something like that!’, that is to say, following a deictic expression referring to a person, generally tu, the word tambe´ ‘also’ does not have an additive meaning: its meaning here stems from its modal function, which consists in expressing reproach. From the point of view of the process of grammaticalisation, it must be borne in mind that the additive element now expresses negative emotional emphasis towards a kind of behaviour in a particular situation. As we have seen above, the modal particles pla and prou can appear after the deictic expression ara, which also has several modal applications65. It intervenes, for example, in idiomatic constructions like Que` (em) dius ara! ‘Now what (have you got to say for yourself )!?’, which is an exclamation used to express surprise, and it is also part of the compound interjection I ara! ‘What!’, a very frequent expression that the sender uses to express indignation. It is di‰cult, however, to be sure that ara is a modal particle. As arguments against this hypothesis (that ara is a modal particle), we must take into account the fact that it has such a set, low degree of combinability (despite the great vitality of some of the expressions with ara). A second argument is that in sequences like Ara pla! the particle actually keeps its temporal deictic meaning. Therefore, we could speak of the existence of additional modal connotations66. 64. In some but not all cases, the particle potser corresponds to the German modal particle vielleicht: Que potser et fa riure? (Findest du das vielleicht lustig?). Yet, no equivalence can be found in sentences like: Du machst vielleicht Sachen! (Tu tambe´, fas cada cosa!). In written Spanish, on the other hand, the modal particle acaso is used to ask rhetorical-tendentious questions. 65. The modal and emotional function (involving the creation and manifestation of empathy, among other things) of many deictic expressions is well known. This is the reason why researchers in linguistics often speak of emotional deixis. The topic is studied in Conte (1991) applied to pronouns. 66. The Catalan modal ara is not therefore equivalent to the German modal particle jetzt, which, after having lost its temporal indexicality, has now come to mean ‘in this situation’ or ‘given these circumstances’: Fahren Sie mich jetzt zum Parkplatz zuru¨ck?, fragt sie den Fahrer. Der nickt und la¨sst Jessica einsteigen. ‘ ‘‘Now, will you take me back to the car park,’’ she asks the driver. He nods and lets Jessica get in.’ (www.erotik-phantasien.de/biz/biz05.html). In

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Finally, let us consider four other particles: pero`, cada, be´, and no. The role played by pero` is that of a modal reinforcement with a high polyphonic value, as we have seen in a number of examples (see subsection 3.6); the particle cada takes on an intensifying role: Ets un puta loco (: i esta be´ aixo` (: que fas cada tonteria a classe que me pos a riure tota sola xD i que tu dius que noo eee pero` ets un puta empollon! ‘You’re fucking mad (: and that’s all right (: you make me laugh all by myself when you start mucking around in class xD and you say you’re not, eh, but you’re a fucking swot!’67; be´ expresses reactive surprise, perhaps with a slight hint of reproach: Be´ m’ho havies dit, que li digue´s ‘But you’d already told me to tell him’; finally, the particle no in subordinate clauses indicates fear: Tinc por que no vingui ‘I’m scared he will come’68.

4. Conclusion From all the material discussed above, which is in no way meant to be an exhaustive, detailed study of the topic, we can conclude that Catalan is a language that is rich in modal particles. These particles, in our opinion, can be considered true modal particles (as a technical term). Given their high polyphonic, inferential and indexical level and also the process of grammaticalisation undergone by the lexemes that were studied as modal particles in Catalan, it seems both appropriate and justified to classify them as such. Unlike what may happen in other languages, the modal particles in Catalan do not display an excessive degree of semantic-functional flexibilany event, in some contexts, it can be said that the Catalan modal ara adopts a sense that is a little vaguer and broader than the temporal adverb itself, as in sentences like: Que` fare´ jo ara sense canviar bolquers per les tardes?! ‘What am I going to do now without nappies to change every afternoon!?’ (www.fotolog.com/une_mandarine/12258314). 67. www.fotolog.com/marcosgb_bini/57413059. 68. This particle updates a negative idea, writes Hunnius (2004) in relation to the corresponding French particle. A number of authors have pointed out coincidences with the German modal particle doch (Hunnius 2004: 71). From the syntactic point of view, we could say that the particle no, which is in actual fact the quintessential negative activator, here becomes a negative polarity term. The use of this no as a negative polarity term (the generally misnamed ‘expletive no’, another more fortunate term being the ‘contextual no’) has other applications apart from the one discussed here.

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ity, that is to say, they are not lexemes that adapt easily to the situational context. Furthermore, they can be placed in widely varying and specific positions in the syntactic structure of the sentence or sequence in which they appear. Here there are also important di¤erences with respect to the modal particles of other languages such as German. According to Meibauer (1994: 50–61), from a syntactic point of view these particles are considered to be adjuncts, whose framework is based on the generativist theory of the X-bar. If we apply the terminology proposed by Gustav Gro¨ber (1985: 271) in his Grundriß der romanischen Philologie, it becomes clear that some of the particles that we have studied are involved in the phenomenon called syntaxis figurata, which is a characteristic of a¤ective, subjective language. Structures like Ara pla! or Tu rai! are syntactically defective and therefore do not belong to logical or regular syntax (syntaxis regularis). Today it seems that the use of some of the particles discussed here is going somewhat out of fashion. Among other reasons, this is undoubtedly due to the sociolinguistic changes that are currently a¤ecting Catalan and which we have not been able to go into here because of space constraints. Nevertheless, most of these lexemes belong to the most genuine, popular and spontaneous thesaurus of our language. By studying them we hope to contribute to their preservation as well as to increase people’s awareness of the expressive possibilities of Catalan.

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Torrent-Lenzen, Aina 2007 La negacio´ amb pas en catala` antic. Randa 59 (Homenatge a Jordi Carbonell 5), 201–214. Torrent-Lenzen, Aina 2009 Polifonı´a de las emociones. Estudio pragma´tico sobre la funcio´n emotiva de las partı´culas modales en castellano, catala´n y rumano. Estudis Roma`nics 31, 7–34. Torrent-Lenzen, Aina in press Las locuciones marcadoras construidas sobre la base del verbo decir: aspectos fraseogra´ficos y traslaticios (espan˜ol-alema´n). In Actas del Congreso de la Sociedad Alemana de Hispanistas, Tu¨bingen 2009. Madrid / Frankfurt am Main: Iberoamericana/ Vervuert. ´ ngeles Torres Sa´nchez, Marı´a A 2009 La relevancia. In Dime co´mo ironizas y te dire´ quie´n eres: una aproximacio´n pragma´tica a la ironı´a, Leonor Ruiz Gurillo, and Xose A. Padilla Garcı´a, (eds.), 65–87. Frankfurt am Main et al.: Lang. Verschueren, Jef 2002 [1999] Para entender la pragma´tica. Madrid: Gredos. Waltereit, Richard 2006 Abto¨nung: Zur Pragmatik und historischen Semantik von Modalpartikeln und ihren funktionalen A¨quivalenten in den romanischen Sprachen, Tu¨bingen: Niemeyer. Weydt, Harald 1969 Abto¨nungspartikel. Die deutschen Modalwo¨rter und ihre franzo¨sischen Entsprechungen. Homburg: Gehlen. Wienen, Ursula ¨ bersetzbarkeit markierter Koha¨sionsformen. Eine funktio2006 Zur U nale Studie zum Kontinuum von Spaltadverbialen und Spaltkonnektoren im Spanischen, Franzo¨sischen und Deutschen. Frankfurt am Main et al.: Lang. Wittgenstein, Ludwig 2003 Philosophische Untersuchungen. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.

Person deixis in Catalan Neus Nogue´ 1. Introduction: deixis Deixis is the phenomenon whereby certain linguistic forms encode, lexically or grammatically, one or more features that make it possible to identify a referent in relation to the participants in communication or to some other element of the spatial and temporal context. So the deictic centre by default (Levinson 1983: § 2.2), or the origin of deictic coordinates (Bu¨hler 1934: 120), is the I-now-here that lies beneath utterances, and whose scope depends on the communicative needs of each given moment: now, for example, may have as a referent the second or millisecond in which a race starts, or the entire period of contemporary history. Due to these features, deixis is one of the properties of language that are most clearly located at the interface between structure (lexicon and grammar) and use (pragmatics). On the one hand, languages encode deixis through grammatical and lexical means; on the other, its importance and functioning cannot be thoroughly understood without dealing with real and contextualized samples of speech. Moreover, the relationship between deictic expressions and context is dual: in some cases they create the relevant context for communication and they are, then, context creators; in other cases, they refer to a context that has already been created, and reflect it linguistically. Deictic categories are the semantic fields which constitute the deictic centre and encode deixis: traditionally, place, time, and person.1 All studies acknowledge their central importance and agree that they are encoded in

1. Deictic categories should be distinguished from deictic usages, which can be described as the di¤erent kinds of strategies that are used to connect a deictic expression and a referent through the deictic centre. We have, then, the basic use, in which we can distinguish between gestural deixis and symbolic deixis (Fillmore 1975: 40–42 and Levinson 1983: § 2.2 and 2004: § 2, among others, and for Catalan Payrato´ [2002] 2008: § 3.2.1.2 and [2003] 2010: § V.2), analogical use or analogical deixis (Klein 1982 § 1.7; Rauh 1983: § 4.2.5 and Vanelli and Renzi 1995: § VI.5.1), transferred use or transferred deixis (Bu¨hler 1934:

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all languages; they are linguistic universals, but they are expressed di¤erently in di¤erent languages (Weinreich 1963: § 2.2.2 and Levinson 2004: § 5). I would add to these three deictic categories a fourth one which incorporates the three components of the deictic centre: modal deixis (aixı´, ‘like this’, for example, means ‘in the way that I show it here and now’).2 Some authors hold that social deixis is also a deictic category. However, bearing in mind that the semantic feature that allows us, for example, to distinguish between tu and vous in French when addressing a single addressee is not deictic in itself but involves a specific social or situational relationship between speaker and hearer that is added to the person deictic component, I include these distinctions in person deixis.3

2. Person deixis Person deixis encodes the reference to an entity in relation to the participants in the communication. My starting-point for characterizing this

121 and Nogue´ 2008a: § 3.5.4), and textual use or textual deixis (as a deictic category, see Fillmore 1975: 39–40; Levinson 1983: § 2.2.4, and other authors; as a use of deixis, see Rauh 1983: § 3.3, and Vanelli and Renzi 1995: § VI.5.2). For a more detailed justification of the distinction between deictic categories and deictic usages of deixis, see Nogue´ (2008a: § 3.5–6). 2. The way in which modal deixis is discussed in the literature reflects its specificity. Some studies include an example (Fillmore 1975: 41, ‘‘She’s about yea tall’’; Kerbrat-Orecchioni [1980] 1999: chap. 2, ‘‘le poisson que j’ai peˆche´ e´tait de cette taille-ci’’; and Levinson 1983: 95, ‘‘Harry can only speak this loud’’ and 2004: § 5, ‘‘yea big’’) but do not consider it a deictic category. Only a few studies claim that it is: Frei (1944: 16) comes close to this concept when he refers to the French form ainsi, the German so, and the English thus as modal adverbs in which the two degree demonstrative distinction is neutralized; and Payrato´ ([2002] 2008: § 3.2.1.1 and [2003] 2010: § II.V.2) talks explicitly of modal deixis: ‘‘Ho ha fet aixı´’’ (‘‘He/she did it this way’’, example from Payrato´ [2003] 2010). Fricke (2007: § 2.3.4) includes modal deixis – or qualitative deixis, as she calls it – within local deixis. 3. Several authors, like Weinreich (1963: § 2.2.2.1), Cinque (1976: § 5), Lyons (1981: 233–234 and 1995: § 10.2), Anderson and Keenan (1985: § 1.3) and Charaudeau and Maingueneau (eds.) (2002, s.v. deixis) consider that social features are added to the deictic one. Other authors are more explicit in considering that social deixis is not a deictic category: see Kerbrat-Orecchioni ([1980] 1999: chap. 2 § 1.3.4), Cifuentes Honrubia (1989: 207–209) and, in particular, Vanelli and Renzi (1995: § VI.6.1).

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deictic category is the concept of participant as defined by Go¤man (1981). Go¤man breaks down the notion of production format (a notion which coincides with the more generic one of speaker) into three components: the animator, the person who uses their voice (or hands) to produce the linguistic sounds (or letters or characters) that constitute an utterance; the author, the person who linguistically encodes the utterance, the one who selects the words and builds the sentences that verbalize what is meant; and the principal, the person or party held responsible for the position attested to by the meaning of what is said. As for the reception format (or hearer), Go¤man distinguishes between ratified participants (accepted in the communicative event) and bystanders (not accepted). The ratified participants can be addressed or unaddressed recipients, and bystanders can be overhearers (perceived) or eavesdroppers (not perceived).4 In all languages, the coding of person deixis depends on the morphological category of person. The first and the second person are deictic in their basic use, while the third person is anaphoric in its basic use and only deictic in some uses. In Catalan the category of person is expressed in person verbal morphemes, unstressed pronouns and stressed pronouns (including possessives).5 However, Catalan is a pro-drop language, and therefore the unmarked way of expressing a first or second person subject is by means of person verbal morphemes, which are often agglutinated with other verbal morphemes, such as those of time.6 2.1. The deictic reference to the speaker 2.1.1. Prototypical or more grammaticalized forms The three components of the production format are usually performed by the same person, but the grammatical category of first person only 4. In Romance languages we can easily create terms such as the Catalan enunciador (‘speaker’) and enunciatari (‘hearer’) (and their equivalents, according to the morphological rules of each language) to refer to what Go¤man (1981) calls production format and reception format respectively. These terms reflect the polyphonic conception of participants inherent in Go¤man’s view better than the terms speaker and hearer. 5. In the exemplification of the basic uses of first and second person, I have tried to include the main morphological variants of stressed and unstressed pronouns from the standard variety of Catalan. 6. For a qualitative and quantitative corpus study of the frequency and distribution of person deixis in colloquial conversation, academic lectures and academic writing in Catalan, see Nogue´ (2008b).

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encodes the reference to the principal. And the first person singular (hereafter, 1SG) makes it possible to do this individually (1) (see Nogue´ 2008a: § 5.1.1 for an explanation based on empirical data).7 (1) a.

[television interview with Pep Guardiola, JGU, former FC Barcelona footballer, 2001] JGU l’u´nic que he de procurar e´s aixo`\ adaptar-me_ al me´s ra`pidament possible_ ‘The only thing I have to do is adapt (myself ) as fast as possible.’

b.

[ family meal; the mother LAU and the father REP are speaking] LAU no vols el crosto´/ ‘Don’t you want the crust?’ REP sı´ \ do´na’m el crosto´ \ ‘Yes, give me the crust.’

c. [a group of four young friends, two men (MJJ and PUY ) and two women (EUU and TRS), spend a weekend evening together] MJJ ((a PUY)) em convides a una altra cervesa\ ‘Will you get me another beer?’ EUU algu´ en vol una altra\ ‘Does anyone want another one?’ MJJ jo\ ‘Me.’ PUY jo\ ‘Me.’ MJJ t’he dit que jo vull una cervesa\ ‘I told you I want a beer.’

7. All the examples in this chapter are drawn from the corpus used in Nogue´ (2005 and 2008a), available at http://www.tesisenxarxa.net/TESIS_UB/ AVAILABLE/TDX-0906105-110703/ (annexes). Oral texts are transcribed following a simplified version of the conventions described by Payrato´ (1996). The contextual information required to interpret them is placed in square brackets and in italics (or in some cases, if any comment is made, in the text).

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[CME and her father PPP talk in the living room] PPP i a mi em sap greu de discutir amb tu\ ‘And I’m sorry to argue with you.’

Go¤man’s distinction enables us to explain utterances like the ones underlined in (2), in which the speaker takes on several roles (or makes progressive changes in footing, in Go¤man’s terms), thus making a structure suitable pragmatically (though not in terms of strict sentence semantics): the wishes expressed by the speaker entail a clash between di¤erent roles: that of a player in another team and that of a former player and supporter of FC Barcelona.8 (2) [television interview with Pep Guardiola, JGU, former FC Barcelona footballer, 2001] JGU M’encantaria poder venir a l’estadi a jugar_ e_ contra el meu equip\ em f-_ em faria molta molta illusio´ tornar a trepitjar_ l’estadi_ tornar a viure una experie`ncia com aquesta\ jugar a l’estadi_ amb una samarreta que no sigui la meva\ ‘I’d love to come to the stadium to play against my team, I’d be really thrilled to step onto the pitch again, to experience something like that all over again, to play at the stadium in a shirt which isn’t mine.’ In its prototypical use, the first person plural (hereafter, 1PL) encodes the reference to a group of persons (or animate entities) where a sole speaker is included (also the principal).9 As Otto Jespersen (1924/1992: chap. XIV) observed, it can be called a plural of approximation, as it is not a conventional plural: usually nosaltres (‘we’) does not mean ‘jo þ jo (þ jo. . .)’ (‘I þ I (þ I. . .’), but ‘jo þ tu (þ tu) (þ ell/a. . .)’ (‘I þ you sing. 8. In relation to the concept of speaker and the di¤erent roles that he or she can play, see Nogue´ (2011), a case study of this phenomenon. 9. For a more detailed presentation of the pragmatics of 1PL in Catalan, see Nogue´ (2010).

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(þ you sing.. . .) (þ he/she. . .)’), which is called ‘inclusive we’ (3), or ‘jo þ ell/a (þ ell/a. . .)’ (‘I þ he/she (þ he/she. . .)’), which is called ‘exclusive we’ (4). In Catalan this distinction is not reflected morphologically, and must be understood gradually, because a large number of combinatory possibilities exist (Nogue´ 2008a: § 5.1.2). (3) [CME and her father PPP talk in the living room] PPP no discutim tant tu i jo\ oi que no com abans discutı´em/} ‘We don’t argue much, not as much as we used to.’ CME no\ ‘No’ PPP discutı´em me´s\ ‘We used to argue more.’ CME abans discutı´em me´s\ ‘We used to argue more.’ (4) [letter to a son, daughter-in-law and grand-children, who are on holidays in Quebec, 1999] El dimarts vaig veure a la teva mare, Nu´ria, a casa vostra, va`rem estar xerrant una hora, ens ho vem passar la mar de be´ i ara hem quedat per la setmana que ve a prendre una orxata al carrer Major. ‘On Tuesday I saw your mother, Nu´ria, at your house, we talked for an hour, we had a great time and we arranged to meet next week to have a drink in the high street.’ Though it is often thought that for an exclusive interpretation some kind of discursive ‘‘antecedent’’ is needed that makes it possible to identify the non-deictic referent, the propositional content of the utterance and the knowledge shared by the participants are often enough to make this identification possible, even when there is a potential discursive antecedent, as in (5): the people who go to Guadalajara are the speaker and his wife, not their daughter, who is mentioned previously in the same sentence. And that is how the addressed recipient of the letter understands it. (5) [letter between two friends] La setmana que ve possiblement operin una filla meva d’un po`lip a les cordes vocals i despre´s pensem anar a Guadalajara a veure la famı´lia que hi tenim.

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(Next week one of my daughters may have an operation to remove a polyp in her vocal chords, and after that we are thinking of travelling to Guadalajara to see our family there.) 1PL is only rarely a conventional plural (‘nosaltres ¼ jo þ jo (þ jo. . .)’, ‘we ¼ I þ I (þI. . .)’): when its referents are two or more speakers (in letters or postcards, in books or articles signed by more than one author. . .) (6). (6) [ personal letter ] Joan Bertrana i Martina Josa Benvolguts, En llegir els textos dedicats a la vostra mare, hem tornat a viure l’emocio´ que vam tenir en sentir-los el passat mes de juliol; una emocio´ que ens retorna sovint, en moments insospitats [. . .] Joan i Martina ‘Dear . . . , Reading the texts dedicated to your mother, we relived the emotion we felt when we heard them last July; an emotion that often comes back to us, at unexpected moments [. . .]’ 2.1.2. Non-prototypical or less grammaticalized forms In addition to the forms that Catalan has grammaticalized to refer to the speaker, individually or collectively, other strategies exist consisting of the use of other forms that encode other kinds of reference, which can be seen as slippages between the category of person and the participant roles (Levinson 1988: § 2.2.1). The main ones, which form a system that can be interpreted iconically (Nogue´ 2008a: § 7.2) are the following. Because of the versatility derived from its being a first person and a plural at the same time, 1PL can be used, besides its prototypical use (which we have just seen) to refer to an individual speaker, with di¤erent values: royal we (7), plural of modesty (8) – including the ‘editorial we’ (8b) – implicating the addressed recipient (9), compensating for the defectiveness of the imperative (10) and with a generic value (11).10

10. Example (9a) is an adaptation from the one used by Vanelli and Renzi (1995: VI.6.1.1.2) for Italian, and (9b) is taken from the CHILDES corpus (, October 2009).

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(7) [Butlletı´ de l’Arquebisbat de Barcelona] DECRET 14/99. Barcelona, 23 de febrer de 1999 Acceptada la peticio´ presentada pel president del patronat de la fundacio´ Institut Pere Tarre´s d’Educacio´ en l’Esplai [. . .]; PEL PRESENT, aprovem la nova redaccio´ dels estatuts de la fundacio´ Institut Pere Tarre´s d’Educacio´ en l’Esplai, i els declarem vigents des del dia d’avui, en substitucio´ dels anteriors. Aixı´ mateix, donem la nostra aprovacio´ al nou patronat [. . .]. Ho decreta i firma l’Emm. i Rvdm. Sr. Cardenal Arquebisbe de Barcelona. þRicard M a Card. Carles, Arquebisbe de Barcelona Per manament del Sr. Cardenal Arquebisbe: P. Enric Puig i Jofra, s.j., secretari general i canceller ‘DECREE 14/99. Barcelona, 23 February 1999 After accepting the request made by the president of the board of the Pere Tarre´s Institute for Education in Leisure [. . .]; We HEREBY approve the new drafting of the statutes of the Pere Tarre´s Institute foundation for Education in Leisure, and declare them in force from today, in substitution of the former. We also give our approval to the new board [. . .]. Decreed and signed by His Eminence the Cardinal Archbishop of Barcelona. þRicard M a Card. Carles, Archbishop of Barcelona By order of the Cardinal Archbishop: P. Enric Puig i Jofra, s.j., secretary general and chancellor’ (8) a.

[television interview with the director of a museum of magic, 2001] MIR aquests auto`mats_ per que` servien\ ‘What were these robots for?’

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XEV eren els joguets_ de la gent rica\ [. . .] ‘They were toys for the rich.’ MIR polsarem aquest_ a veure que` fa_ ‘Let’s push this one to see what it does.’ b.

(9) a.

[Miquel Caminal and Jordi Matas (eds.), The Catalan political system; chapter written by a single author, 1998] Tal com comenta`vem a l’inici de l’exposicio´, el text constitucional permet interpretacions que poden conduir a un model me´s o menys centralista o me´s o menys federalitzant. ‘As we said at the beginning, the constitutional text allows for interpretations that can lead to a more or less centralized or a more or less federalizing model.’ [a stallholder to a customer after weighing a product] Passa cent grams, ho deixem aixı´? ‘It’s just over a hundred grams, shall we leave it like that? ’ ?

b.

[a mother to her one-and-a-half-year-old toddler; they talk about the bib] MAR traiem, traiem, eh? ‘Shall we take it o¤ ? ’ CHI traiem [‘‘tiem’’]. ‘Shall we take it o¤ ’ MAR traiem [‘‘tiem’’, li treu el pitet]. ‘Shall we take it o¤.’

(10) [letter between siblings, 1992] Ara comenc¸a a notar-se la psicosi de les olimpı´ades pero` esperem que tot vagi be´, no hi hagi problemes, s’acabin be´ i puguem comenc¸ar el curs d’una manera normal i afrontant la crisi que se’ns presenta. Be´ no ens posem pessimistes. ‘You can begin to feel the Olympics psychosis, but let’s hope everything goes well, trouble-free, that the Games go o¤ well, and that we can start the academic year as usual and facing the present recession. Let’s not be pessimistic.’

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(11) [sociology handbook] Que la societat no e´s un tot homogeni e´s una d’aquelles afirmacions que tambe´ se situen en l’ordre de les obvietats que no cal ni dir. A mesura que creixem ens adonem que hi ha gent de tota mena, i tambe´ acabem descobrint que no tan sols so´n diferents els uns dels altres, sino´ que hi ha tipus de gent que entre ells s’assemblen en moltes coses, pero` que es diferencien d’altres grups de tipus de gent. ‘That society is not an homogeneous whole is one of those statements that are so obvious that they do not need saying. As we grow up we realize that there are people of all kinds, and we end up discovering that they not only di¤er from each other, but that there are certain types of people who are themselves alike in many things but are di¤erent from other groups.’ The second person singular (hereafter, 2SG), which encodes the reference to the addressed recipient, as we will see later on, sometimes has a ‘concealed I’ value in its ‘‘impersonal’’ use (Hernanz 1990 and Jensen 2002). In those cases it may be considered a deictic and at the same time attenuated strategy to refer to the speaker (12). (12) [television interview with a film director, 1997] SZZ quan vas a festivals veus meravelles_ i dius_ pero` com pot ser\ aquesta pellı´cula_ cap dels meus amics la veura` mai\ perque` no se´ ni com dir-l’hi\ ‘When you go to festivals you see wonderful things and you say, how can it be that none of my friends will see this film, because I don’t even know how to tell them.’ Several third person forms can convey the reference to the speaker, in a more or less indirect way and, therefore, attenuated or distanced: the pronoun un/-a (‘one’) (13),11 the lexical forms menda (14)12 and servidor/-a 11. The pronoun un/-a is also a generalising strategy. Gender variation allows women to choose between including themselves in the collective formed only by women (una, femenine) and including themselves in a wider collective (un, masculine). 12. The menda form is equivalent to I, and Coromines (1980–91, vol. V) considers it a term from ‘‘calo´, of Hindu gypsy origin’’, which is consistent with its use in informal contexts.

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(‘servent’) (15),13 and several noun phrases: metapragmatic phrases (16), phrases that express the role assumed (17) or phrases that comprise the name of the speaker (18). Only in (17b–d), and especially in (18), does the access to the referent depart from the deictic reference, in so far as the speaker talks of himself or herself as if he or she were another person, in which case the process of interpretation is inferential. In all other cases, the access to the speaker’s identity is directly contextual and, thus, deictic. (13) a.

[interview with the writer Andreu Martı´n, 2004] Si un pensa que cada llibre que escriu sera` un esdeveniment transcendental per a la literatura, li agafa tanta angoixa que no e´s capac¸ ni d’escriure una plana. ‘If one thinks that each book that one writes will be a momentous literary event, one experiences such anguish that one is not able to write a single line.’

b.

[interview with the writer Flavia Company, translator of her own books into Spanish, 2002] ` bviament, traduir-se una mateixa e´s molt diferent de traduir O altres autors. ‘Obviously, translating one’s own work is very di¤erent from translating other authors.’

(14) [excerpt from the narrative ‘‘Barris baixos’’ (Poor neighbourhoods), by Salvador Espriu, 1935] L’home li exigia me´s diners, i ella s’hi resistia. El pinxo comenc¸a` a maltractar-la sense soroll. Tothom s’ho mirava amb indifere`ncia. –Afluixara` al capdavall la mosca, menda t’ho diu –fraternitzava el negre, en una pausa de la cacera del brou. ‘The man wanted more money, and she continued to refuse. The braggart started to pester her. Everyone looked on indi¤erently. ‘‘She’ll give in in the end, I tell you’’, said the black man, during a pause in the hunting of the broth.’ (15) [ press review of the novel The little girl who was too fond of matches, by Gaetan Soucy, 2001] 13. The form servidor -a (‘servant’) is used to express distance, and often also politeness, to put oneself at somebody else’s disposal, as is suggested by its literal meaning.

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I tot aixo` perque` La nena. . . e´s una de les millors obres que una servidora ha tingut la satisfaccio´ de llegir u´ltimament. ‘And all this because The little girl . . . is one of the best books that I have had (lit., ‘your servant has’) the pleasure to read of late.’ (16) a.

[note by poet Gabriel Ferrater on the publication of the collection Les dones i els dies (Women and days), 1968] NOTA [. . .] L’autor vol fer notar que, encara que les peces aquı´ recollides so´n poemes des del moment que so´n escrits en vers, les coses que diuen no eren pas fatı´dicament destinades a la poetitzacio´. ‘NOTE The author wishes to state that, although the pieces collected here are poems – since they are written in verse – the things they say were not fated to become poems.’

b.

[ presentation of a radio program] Rebeu salutacions de qui us parlara` fins a les sis: Pep Lluı´s Forne´s. ‘Hello from the person who will talk to you until six: Pep Lluı´s Forne´s.’

c. [application form] La persona que subscriu aquest document formula insta`ncia a l’Ajuntament de Badalona ‘The person signing this document makes the request to the Badalona town council.’ (17) a.

[interview with Montserrat Tura, the Catalan Home O‰ce Minister, 2004] — « Aquests collectius [taxistes i transportistes] argumenten, i tenen una part de rao´, que en el cas que se’ls retiri el carnet de conduir se’ls deixa sense professio´. I la resposta d’aquesta consellera, amb tot el respecte, e´s que precisament perque` aquesta gent so´n professionals de la conduccio´ mai no els haurem de sancionar i per tant mai no perdran el carnet. »

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‘— « These groups [taxi-drivers and van drivers] argue, and they are in part right, that if they have their driving licences suspended, they will be out of work. And this minister answers with all due respect that precisely because they are professional drivers they shouldn’t ever be fined and have their licence suspended.’ b.

[letter from a father to his son, in London on a pre-doctoral fellowship, 1992; closing] Una forta abrac¸ada del teu pare ‘A big hug from your father.’

c. [a mother to her one-and-a-half-year-old toddler] MAR mira la mare, Pep. ‘Look at mother, Pep.’ d.

[institutional declaration by the President of Catalonia, 2004] El president de la Generalitat no es pot doblegar tanmateix ni a les emocions del moment, per sinceres i justificades que siguin, ni a la freda planificacio´ del Partit Popular. ‘However, the President of the Generalitat cannot give in either to the emotions of the moment, no matter how sincere and justified, or to the cold planning of the Popular Party.’

(18) [Joan Sola`, Prescriptive syntax: state of the art, 1994] Els conceptes d’ ‘‘abstraccio´’’ i ‘‘intensitat’’ amb que` Sola` va dividir el camp d’estudi l’any 1972 han estat generalment acceptats i difosos ‘The concepts of ‘abstraction’ and ‘intensity’ into which Sola` divided the field of study in 1972 have been generally accepted.’ In a use that could be called 1PL of speaker’s implication, the 1PL includes the speaker in a group to which, strictly speaking, he or she does not belong. The e¤ect obtained by this strategy is one of empathy, and the situations in which we find it usually involve a certain degree of competitiveness: for instance, in politics or sport (19). (19) [a group of four young friends, two men (MJJ and PUY ) and two girls (EUU and TRS), spend a weekend evening together; they have just finished watching a football match on television]

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MJJ lo que e´s tristı´ssim e´s que no haguem guanyat_ quatre o cinc a dos fa estona eh\ [. . .] ‘What is really sad is that we didn’t go four or five-two up long before the end.’ TRS quant hem quedat al final\ ‘What was the score at the end?’ MJJ tres dos\ ‘three – two.’ tres dos\ ‘three – two.’ bueno\ t’has apropat\ ‘well, you were close.’ de fet quatre dos\ perque` hem marcat quatre gols nosaltres\ ‘four – two, in fact, because we scored four goals ourselves.’ Even though it may seem paradoxical, the 1SG may have two uses other than its prototypical one: a generalizing use and a metonymic use. In contexts like (20), this grammatical category has a generalizing value that reduces its deictic meaning of direct and exclusive reference to the speaker. In the example below, the generalizing 1SG combines with a 1PL with the same value. (20) [Salvador Cardu´s, coord., The gaze of the sociologist, 1999] Per que` podem afirmar que la societat e´s la nostra experie`ncia? La societat e´s el context de totes les meves experie`ncies. Fins i tot de la meva experie`ncia del mo´n, i de l’experie`ncia que tinc de mi mateix. Els altres intervenen en totes les meves experie`ncies, des del moment mateix del naixement fins al moment de la meva mort. ‘Why can we a‰rm that society is our experience? Society is the context of all my experiences, including my experience of the world and my experience of myself. Others take part in all my experiences from birth to death.’

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In other cases, through the 1SG the speaker claims for himself or herself a reference that is actually wider. In the example below, a politician claims that voters have voted for him, rather than for a candidature including many other people (21). (21) [interview with the mayor of a town in the outskirts of Barcelona, 2003] A les darreres municipals, molta gent de CiU em va votar a mi i si els dirigents d’aquesta formacio´ a la ciutat continuen per aquest camı´, amb la campanya que estan fent, encara me´s gent seva em tornaran a votar. ‘In the last local election, many CiU supporters voted for me, and if the leaders of that party in our town continue to do what they are doing, with their present campaign, even more of their supporters will vote for me again.’ 2.2. The deictic reference to the addressed recipient 2.2.1. Prototypical or more grammaticalized forms The grammatical category of the second person specifically encodes the reference to the addressed recipient(s) of the utterance – that is, not to anyone who can access it. And the 2SG makes it possible to do this individually, as in (22). (22) a.

JGU aquesta pregunta_ d’aquı´ uns mesos_ te la podre´ contestar_ de millor manera que no pas ara\ (In a few months I’ll be able to give you a much better answer than I can now)

b.

[letter between two young friends, 1993] Si mal no recordo l’u´ltima carta que et vaig enviar era per fer-te saber que em casava, i tu em vas contestar amb una tarja de JA ERA HORA!!. ‘If I remember rightly, in my last letter I wrote to tell you I was getting married, and you replied with a note saying that it was HIGH TIME!! ’

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c. [letter between siblings, from Barcelona to London, 1992] No se´ si aquesta carta t’arribara` pel teu aniversari, ja que la teva postal va trigar sis dies en arribar ‘I don’t know whether you’ll get this letter before your birthday, as it took six days for your postcard to arrive.’ The 2PL encodes the reference to a plural number of persons, or animate beings, among which there is at least one addressed recipient, but the speaker is not included. When the referents are all addressed recipients (‘vosaltres ¼ tu þ tu (þ tu. . .)’, ‘you pl. ¼ you sing. þ you sing. (þ you sing. . . .)’), the 2PL is a prototypical plural, which some authors relate to the inclusive 1PL (23, two first tokens); but when it includes nonparticipants, it is once again a plural of approximation (see § 2), which some authors relate to the exclusive 1PL (23, third token). Here too, the distinction is gradual, not discrete, because a large number of intermediate situations exist (Nogue´ 2008a: § 5.2.2). (23) [ family meal; the father REP, the son ROM, and the mother LAU are talking] REP i a vosaltres com us ha anat el dia\ ‘And how has the day been for you?’ ROM be´\ he fet dos hores de classe_ he estudiat_

LAU

hem anat a dinar_ pra`ctiques i:_ ‘Good, I had two hours of class, I studied, we went for lunch, practicals and. . .’ aixı´s avui heu tingut un dia light\ ‘So you ( pl.)’ve had a light day today.’

When the 2PL includes persons who are not the addressed recipient, access to these non-contextual referents is sometimes made through the nearest discursive context (24). (24) a.

[letter from a young woman to a friend who is in London on a pre-doctoral fellowship, 1992] Has de fer contactes, ve´s a veure a la gent del Partit Laborista, parla amb gent de la Universitat, segur que teniu coses en comu´

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‘You (sing.) should make contacts, go to see the people in the Labour Party, talk to people at the University, I’m sure you ( pl.) have things in common.’ b.

[a group of four young friends, two men (MJJ and PUY ) and two women (EUU and TRS), spend a weekend evening together] EUU mira\ fotre’m a la platja_ i que vingui un tio_ i se’m foti al costat a mirar-te els pits_ perque` e´s lo que foteu_ els tios_ ‘So, go down the beach, and then a bloke comes along and stands next to me to have a look at my tits, because that’s what you blokes do. . .’

But in other cases, as in the exclusive 1PL, the referents are obtained through the propositional content of the utterance and the knowledge shared by the participants. In (23), for example, the propositional content of the utterances that constitute the speech turn by ROM makes it possible to establish his son’s colleagues as non-participant referents of the 2PL in LAU’s turn. The vocative, which Apollonius Dyscolus considered as a noun in the second person, also encodes the addressed recipient. It can do so with two di¤erent pragmatic purposes, related to the two functions that deixis has of creating context and of reflecting it in language. On the one hand, vocatives can declare somebody to be the addressed recipient of an utterance (calls or summonses in Levinson 1983’s terms), either at the absolute beginning of the speech event (initial calls or initial summonses, in my own terms) (25), or selecting him or her from among several participants in an ongoing speech event (selection calls or selection summonses, in my own terms) (26). (25) [letter from a father to his son, who is in London on a pre-doctoral fellowship, 1992] Estimat Joan: Avui e´s el dia del pas de l’equador, e´s a dir, la meitat, justa, del teu llarg estiueig ‘Dear Joan: Today you’re exactly half through your long vacation.’

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(26) [ family meal; a daughter, MMA, the mother LAU, and the father REP are talking] MMA papa\ tu em pots port- – em– em pots tenyir uns pantalons de color lila/ ‘Dad, can you bring me, can you dye some lilac-coloured trousers?’ LAU no Marta\ ‘No, Marta.’ REP no\ xata\ ‘No, dear.’ On the other hand, vocatives can convey empathy towards an already constituted addressed recipient (addresses, in Levinson 1983’s terms) (27). (27) [CME and her father PPP talk in the living room about a woman he saw in the underground ] PPP al baixar_ ella ha passat a davant meu i ha fet aixins\ m’ha mirat\ no ho se´\ ‘When I was coming down she passed in front of me and went like that, she looked at me, I don’t know.’ CME e´s que voste` e´s molt guapo pare\ ‘Well, you’re very handsome, father.’ The lexical forms that can be vocatives are subject to certain restrictions: in Catalan it is usual to say ‘‘Hola, doctor’’ (‘Hello, doctor’ [i.e., the academic title]), but not ‘‘Hola, metge’’ (‘Hello, doctor’ [i.e. the standard term for the profession]); ‘‘Perdoni, professora’’ (‘Sorry, teacher’), but not ‘‘Perdona, alumne’’ (‘Sorry, pupil’), etc. (Payrato´ [2002] 2008: § 3.2.3). And besides fulfilling the above pragmatic functions, inherent to their person deictic character, they convey several meanings which are related to politeness and to the roles assumed by the speaker and the addressed recipient, as illustrated in the examples above.

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2.2.2. Non-prototypical or less grammaticalized forms Other less grammaticalized strategies are used to refer to the hearer. Catalan has several alternative strategies to refer specifically to the addressed recipient. The speaker can attenuate the reference and obtain an e¤ect of implication or empathy using the 1PL. This strategy is found in informal contexts (28a), often in di¤erent kinds of situations that entail a certain degree of hierarchy, such as the relationship between parents and children, between teacher and students, between doctor and patient, or between sports coach and players (28b–c) (Nogue´ 2010: § 3.2.1).14 Stirling and Huddleston (2002: § 2.2.2c) talk of ‘‘contexts of illness (doctor, nurse, etc., to patient) or tuition (teacher to pupil: We need to practice our scales)’’. (28) a.

b.

[a woman greets the Mayor of Barcelona in the street, 2004] SRA hola_ que` tal\ com anem\ ‘Hello, how are you (lit., we) today?’ [a mother to her one-and-a-half-year-old toddler, Pep, who is having an afternoon snack] MAR pero per agafar el cuento hem de beure una mica, eh. ‘If you want the story you (lit., we) have to drink a little, OK?’

c. [a korfball coach to the players] ENT fem u contra u_ sempre anem al mig_ vale/ i anem a buscar_ un dels defensors\ ‘You (lit., we) play one against one, you (lit., we) always go down the middle, OK? and you (lit., we) look for one of the defenders.’ 14. Kitagawa and Lehrer (1990: § 3.3, n. 2) think that in this use the 1PL emphasizes the relations of power focusing on a deliberately misplaced sense of solidarity, and that the e¤ect is o¤ensive. In my opinion, at least in Catalan, this strategy weakens these relations of power, and the e¤ect is positive (that is, precisely the opposite).

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This use of the 1PL has formed several fixed constructions, which are found in colloquial or, at least, informal speech: com anem? (‘how are you?’, lit. ‘how are we’), com estem? (‘how are you?’ , lit. ‘how are we’), No fotem! (‘come o¤ it’ (but in the 1PL), No comencem (‘don’t start’, lit. ‘let’s not start’) and Ja comencem! (‘o¤ we go’). The 2PL, on the other hand, is used in two di¤erent strategies to refer to the addressed recipient: honorific vo´s (formal you singular) and generalizing 2PL. Honorific vo´s, which is morphologically equivalent to its French morphological equivalent (vous), has been used traditionally to convey cordial and friendly respect (Coromines 1971/1983: 90) towards a single addressed recipient, in contrast to the familiarity of tu (‘you’ sing.; plural, vosaltres, ‘you’ pl.) and also in contrast to honorific voste`(s) (formal you, singular or plural, in the third person), which conveys a greater social distance or formality (see below, also in this section). Today, however, this value of vo´s is only preserved in some religious contexts (29), in rural areas, and among Catalan-speaking gypsies (Escudero 2004: § 5).15

?

b.

?

(29) a.

[ prayers] Beneita sou Vo´s entre totes les dones ‘Blessed art thou among women.’ Senyor Jesu´s, nome´s vo´s sou just davant De´u, vo´s que heu estat lliurat com un culpable a mans dels homes, vo´s que vau ser jutjat, condemnat, ajusticiat ‘Lord Jesus, only thou are just before God, thou that were handed over as a criminal by men, thou that were judged, condemned and executed.’

The Catalan government’s choice of the honorific vo´s in its relations with citizens (30) in the last thirty years has actually modified the degree of formality of this term and that of voste` (s): now vo´s is perceived by most speakers, especially by young people, as more formal and distant than voste` (s) (Nogue´ 2008a: § 6.2.1.b.i).

15. The honorific system of Catalan consists of three terms (tu/vosaltres – vo´s – voste` /voste`s). It thus di¤ers from the two-term systems in use in French (tu/vous – vous) and Spanish (tu´ /vosotros, vosotras – usted/ustedes).

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(30) [Model of administrative document, 2002] Senyor, En resposta a la vostra carta del 17 de febrer, en primer lloc, em plau felicitar-vos per l’intere`s que demostreu per la llengua catalana. ‘Sir, In reply to your letter of February 17th, let me first of all congratulate you on your interest in the Catalan language.’ In Catalan this honorific form agrees in the plural with the verb and in the singular with adjectives and participles – a case of agreement ad sensum –, which present gender variation. All these features can be seen in (29). Generalizing 2PL conceives the addressed recipients of an utterance in a vague, unspecific way, similar to that found in the generic 1PL. It is typical of the references to listeners or viewers on radio and television (31a) – together with honorific voste`s – and to readers of scientific texts (31b).16 (31) a.

[end of a radio news program] MRO gra`cies en nom de tot l’equip que ha fet possible aquest Catalunya Vespre_ (.) Martı´ Rigol_ Ester Santper_ ` ngela Zorrilla_ A Carles Prunera_ i qui us ha parlat_ Marta Romagosa\ ‘Thank you on behalf of all the team that has made this Catalunya Vespre program possible: Martı´ Rigol, Ester ` ngela Zorrilla, Carles Prunera, and the person Santper, A who has talked to you, Marta Romagosa.’

16. In other cases where the reference is even more vague, as in instructions addressed to the public (No fumeu ‘Do not smoke’, Deixeu sortir abans d’entrar ‘Please let passengers out before entering’, Un cop obert l’enva`s conserveu-lo al frigorific ‘Once opened, keep refrigerated’), this use coincides with honorific vo´s. The hypothetical ambiguity resulting from this coincidence is, nevertheless, pragmatically non-relevant.

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b.

[Sebastia` Bonet and Joan Sola`, Catalan generative syntax, 1986] Per a l’ana`lisi de les tematitzacions i els clivellaments, vegeu Cap. II, §§ 5.2., 5.3. ‘For the analysis of topicalizations and cleft sentences, see Chap. II, §§ 5.2., 5.3.’

The third person is also used to refer to the addressed recipient, through three strategies: 1. Honorific voste` (s), referred to above, which conveys social distance (32a) or formality (32b).17 Syntactically, in Catalan it is less usual than in Spanish to use the explicit pronoun and to put it after the verb when it is the subject (Sola` 1999: § 50; Jane´ 2001: 3; Vallduvı´ [2002] 2008: § 4.4.2.1). (32) a.

b.

[CME and her father PPP talk in the living room] CME e´s que voste` e´s molt guapo pare\ ‘Well, you’re very handsome, father.’ [ press interview with an actress and singer; M.C. is the interviewer] M.C. Va estar cinc anys fent la Can˜´ı al teatre. Va marxar cansada del personatge? ‘You played Can˜´ı in the theatre for five years. Did you grow tired of playing the character?’ [. . .] M.C. Li haig de confessar que se’m fa difı´cil la relacio´ entre el seu personatge a ‘Nissaga’ i la seva interpretacio´ al disc que ha gravat amb Toti Soler, ‘M’aclame a tu’, precio´s, per cert. Evidentment, no te´ res a veure. ‘I must say that it is di‰cult for me to relate your character in ‘Lineage’ and your performance in the disk you have recorded with Toti Soler, ‘I acclaim you’, beautiful, by the way. Clearly, they are di¤erent things.’ [. . .] M.C. Seguiran treballant junts? ‘Will you work together again?’ ?

?

17. Very few children use voste` to address their parents or grandparents today; most of them use tu (‘you’, informal).

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2. The use of several kinds of noun phrases, especially people’s names. This strategy is very common in interviews, when the interviewer is speaking (33a) – where it helps the viewer/listener to remember the name of the person interviewed (Nogue´ 2008a: § 6.2.1.c.ii) – and also in baby-talk (33b) (Wills 1977: 281–282). (33) a.

[ press interview with an actress and singer] M.C. Esther Formosa e´s me´s cantant que actriu? ‘Is Esther Formosa more a singer than an actress?’ E.F. Vaig comenc¸ar cantant. ‘I started out as a singer.’ ?

b.

[a mother to her one-and-a-half-year-old toddler, Pep, who is having an afternoon snack] MAR oh! Com menja sol, el Pep! ‘Oh, look at Pep eating on his own! ’

3. Verbal morphemes and pronouns, which are typically used in situations of conflict (34).18 (34) [Madame Bovary, translation by Lluı´s M. Todo´ ] –[. . .] Tu no m’has estimat mai! Ets igual que tots els altres! Es traı¨a, es perdia. Rodolphe la va interrompre afirmant que ell tambe´ passava un mal moment. –Ah, quina pena que em fas! –va dir Emma–. Sı´, una pena terrible! I aturant els ulls en una carrabina damasquinada que brillava en una pano`plia: –Pero` quan un e´s pobre, no te´ culates de fusell de plata! No es compra rellotges amb incrustacions de carei! –va continuar assenyalant un rellotge de Boulle–, ni xiulets de plata per als fuets –els tocava!–, ni penjolls per al rellotge! Oh! Si no li falta res! Fins te´ una licorera a la cambra; perque` tu saps cuidar-te, vius be´, tens un castell, granges, boscos; fas caceres, viatges a Parı´s. [. . .]

18. This strategy is also found in the original French text.

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– [. . .] Que`? Ja no te’n recordes, dels nostres projectes de viatge? Oh! Aquella carta! Aquella carta! Em va destrossar el cor!. . . I despre´s, quan torno a ell, a ell que e´s ric, felic¸, lliure!, per implorar una ajuda que em donaria el primer que passe´s, suplicant i donant-li tota la meva tendresa, em rebutja perque` li costaria tres mil francs! ‘[. . .] You never really loved me! You are just like all the others!’ She was betraying herself, courting ruin. Rodolphe broke in on her, swearing that he was ‘in deep water’ himself. ‘For that I am sorry,’ said Emma: sincerely sorry. . . .’ She fixed her gaze on a damascened carbine which formed part of a trophy of arms. ‘But a poor man like you doesn’t lavish silver on the butt of a gun, or buy a clock inlaid with tortoiseshell ’ – she went on, pointing to a buhl timepiece – ‘or silver-gilt whistles for riding-crops’ – she touched them as she spoke – ‘or trinkets for watch-chains. I notice that you want for nothing, not even for a liqueur-stand in your bedroom. The only person you love is yourself. You live well, you have a chaˆteau, farms, woods. You hunt, you take trips to Paris. . . [. . .]’ [. . .] ‘[. . .] Do you remember what journeys we planned? Oh, that letter you wrote! – it tore my heart to shreds . . . and now that I come back to my rich, free, happy lover, to implore of him such help as any stranger would have given, kneeling to him with an o¤er of love and devotion, he pushes me away for no better reason than that it would cost him three thousand francs!’ [Translation by Gerard Hopkins] In the second and third strategies, access to the referent through the third person departs from the deictic reference (see also § 2.1.2), in so far as the speaker talks of the addressed recipient as if he or she were not a participant, and the process of interpretation is thus inferential. In all three cases the third person conveys indirectness in the reference and an e¤ect of distancing. The use of singular instead of plural when an utterance has more than one addressed recipient is a way to individualize each of them as if he or she were the only real addressed recipient, and thus obtains an e¤ect of closeness. It is used in the 2SG and also in other kinds of reference to the

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addressed recipient, and it very often appears in music broadcasts for young people (35), in advertising (36), and in political elections – here very often together with the verb vote – (37); and also in the phrase el lector (‘the reader’) in written formal texts (38). (35) [ presentation of a radio program] Deu minutets falten per arribar a les vuit del matı´. Si t’acabes d’aixecar, bon dia, si no ho has fet, ja te donare´ es bon dia d’aquı´ a una horeta. ‘Ten minutes to eight o’clock in the morning. If you just woke up, good morning to you. If you haven’t, I’ll say good morning to you in an hour’s time.’ (36) a.

[advertising] VINE AL CARRER ` CIA GRAN DE GRA ‘COME TO CARRER GRAN DE GRACIA’

b.

(37) a.

MARISQUERIA DEL PORT (Oyster Bar) ` mplia terrassa vora el mar, climatitzada a l’hivern, que li A permetra` gaudir del millor marisc i peix fresc tot l’any [. . .]. I recordi: tots els dissabtes al vespre mu´sica en viu. ‘Large terrace overlooking the sea, heated in winter, where you can enjoy the best seafood and fresh fish all year round [. . .]. And remember: live music on Saturday nights.’ [electioneering material ] CAP A LA INDEPENDE`NCIA ` ngel Colom A VOTA ERC l’Esquerra puja ‘TOWARDS INDEPENDENCE ` ngel Colom A VOTE ERC Esquerra is rising.’

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b.

Que guanyi GIRONA Vota Quim Nadal ‘Let’s make GIRONA win Vote Quim Nadal ’

(38) [Salvador Cardu´s, coord., The gaze of the sociologist, 1999] Sobre la invencio´ de la joventut, el lector pot llegir a Cardu´s i Estruch (1984) el capı´tol ‘‘La joventut com a problema: vells nome´s de joventut’’. ‘On the invention of youth, the reader should read the chapter ‘‘Youth as a problem: old from being young’’ in Cardu´s and Estruch (1984)’

2.3. The deictic reference to unaddressed recipients and overhearers The reference to unaddressed recipients (39) and overhearers (40) (see above, in the introduction to this section) is always made in the third person. As can be seen in the examples, in these uses person deixis is clearly similar to place deixis. (39) a.

b.

[ family meal; MMA sneezes] LAU Jesu´s\ ‘Bless you!’ ROM senyor\ ‘God!’ REP si te´ un estornut pobra criatura deixa-la que estornudi no/ ‘If she’s got to sneeze, just let her.’ [a group of four young friends, two men (MJJ and PUY ) and two women (EUU and TRS ), spend a weekend evening together; MJJ speaks of EUU, and points her] MJJ despre´s li vaig fer un susto a n aquesta_ ‘Afterwards I gave her [this woman] a fright.’

c. [ family meal, dessert] REP una poma per la mare\ ‘an apple for your mother.’

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d.

141

[television interview with the president of the Catalan government] JPB bona nit\ TV3 ha_ convidat aquesta nit_ el_ president de la Generalitat de Catalunya_ Jordi_ Pujol_ per fer un repa`s_ de l’actualitat polı´tica_ ‘Good evening, tonight TV 3 has invited the President of the Catalan government to give a summary of the current political situation.’

(40) [in a play, a group of friends are waiting at a bar terrace] jove [. . .]: Aquella tia no e´s la cambrera? ‘YOUNG MAN [. . .]: Isn’t that woman the waitress?’ 3. Conclusions In this chapter we have seen how the application of the theoretical framework proposed by the sociologist Erving Go¤man (1981) is ideally suited to the study of person deixis (Levinson 1983). Applying this framework to Catalan, in combination with a strictly grammatical analysis, we achieve an accurate characterization of the encoding of person deixis in this language, and also of other less grammaticalized strategies that allow reference (deictic or not) to the participants in communication (see also Nogue´ 2008a, 2008b, and 2010). The analysis sheds light on some little understood areas of person deixis and on the linguistic strategies for reference to participants in general. Many of the results will also be useful for contrastive analysis. Bibliography Anderson, Stephen R., and Edward L. Keenan 1985 Deixis. In Language Typology and Syntactic Description III: Grammatical Categories and the Lexicon, Timothy Shopen (ed.), 259–308. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Bu¨hler, Karl 1934

Sprachtheorie. Stuttgart / New York: Gustav Fisher Verlag. (Spanish version: Teorı´a del lenguaje. Madrid: Alianza Universidad, 1979.) Charaudeau, Patrick, and Dominique Maingueneau (eds.) 2002 Dictionnaire d’analyse du discours. Paris: Seuil. Cifuentes Honrubia, Jose´ Luis 1989 Lengua y espacio. Alicante: Secretariado de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Alicante. Cinque, Guglielmo 1976 Sulla deissi linguistic. Lingua e Stile XI (1): 101–126. Coromines, Joan 1971/1983 Lleures i converses d’un filo`leg. Barcelona: Club Editor, 3rd ed. Coromines, Joan 1980–91 Diccionari etimolo`gic i complementari de la llengua catalana. 9 vol. Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa. Escudero, Jean-Paul 2004 Societat i llengu¨es dels gitanos catalans. In Les llengu¨es a Catalunya. Cicle Joan Coromines III, Lluı´s Payrato´, and F. Xavier Vila (eds.), 67–74. Sabadell: Fundacio´ Caixa de Sabadell. Fillmore, Charles J. 1975 Santa Cruz Lectures on Deixis 1971. Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club. Fricke, Ellen 2007 Origo, Geste und Raum. Lokal Deixis im Deutschen. Berlin / New York: de Gruyter. Go¤man, Erving 1981 Forms of talk. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Hernanz, M. Lluı¨sa 1990 En torno a los sujetos arbitrarios: la 2 a persona del singular. In Estudios de lingu¨´ıstica de Espan˜a y Me´xico, Violeta Demonte, and Beatriz Garza Cuaro´n (eds.), 151–178. Me´xico: UAM / Colegio de Me´xico, A.C. Jane´, Albert 2001 Els quatre tractaments del catala`. Llengua Nacional 35, 33–35. Jensen, Mikkel Hollænder 2002 La referencia en algunas expresiones impersonales – Diferentes lecturas de uno y la segunda persona del singular. Romansk Forum 16 (, 25/09/2009). Jespersen, Otto 1992 [1924] The Philosophy of Grammar. London: George Allen and Unwill Ltd. / Chicago: Chicago University Press. Kerbrat-Orecchioni, Catherine 1999 [1980] L’e´nonciation. De la subjectivite´ dans le langage. 4th ed. Paris: Armand Colin.

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Klein, Wolfgang 1982 Local Deixis in Route Directions. In Speech, Place, and Action, Robert J. Jarvella, and Wolfgang Klein (eds.). Chichester / New York / Brisbane / Toronto / Singapore: John Wiley and Sons. Levinson, Stephen C. 1983 Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Levinson, Stephen C. 1988 Putting linguistics on a proper footing: explorations in Go¤man’s concepts of participation. In Erving Go¤man: exploring the interaction order, Paul Drew, and Anthony Wootton (eds.), 161–227. Cambridge: Polity Press. Levinson, Stephen C. 2004 Deixis and pragmatics. In The Handbook of pragmatics, Laurence R. Horn, and Gregory Ward (eds.), 97–121. Oxford: Blackwell. Lyons, John 1981 Language, Meaning and Context. London: Fontana Paperbacks. Lyons, John 1995 Linguistic semantics. An introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mac Whinney, Brian 2000 The CHILDES Project: Tools for Analyzing Talk. 3rd ed. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Nogue´ Serrano, Neus 2005 Dixi de persona i marcs participatius en catala`. Ph. D. diss., Departament de Filologia Catalana, Universitat de Barcelona. Available at: http://www.tesisenxarxa.net/TESIS_UB/AVAILABLE/ TDX-0906105-110703/. Nogue´ Serrano, Neus 2008a La dixi de persona en catala`. Barcelona: Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat. Nogue´ Serrano, Neus 2008b La dixi de persona en el discurs acade`mic oral en catala`. Caplletra. Revista Internacional de Filologia 44: 195–218. Nogue´ Serrano, Neus 2010 La primera persona del plural en catala`. Llengua & Literatura 21: 155–198. Nogue´ Serrano, Neus 2011 ‘‘M’encantaria poder venir a l’estadi a jugar contra el meu equip’’: dixi de persona, footing i identitat, una entrevista a Pep Guardiola. Ms. Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona. Payrato´, Lluı´s 1996 Transcripcio´ del discurs oral. In Corpus, corpora, Lluı´s Payrato´, Emili Boix, Maria Rosa Lloret, and Merce` Lorente (eds.), 181– 216. Barcelona: PPU / Universitat de Barcelona.

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Payrato´, Lluı´s 2008 [2002]

Payrato´, Lluı´s 2010 [2003] Rauh, Gisa 1983

L’enunciacio´ i la modalitat oracional. In Grama`tica del catala` contemporani, vol. 2, Joan Sola`, Maria Rosa Lloret, Joan Mascaro´, and Manuel Pe´rez Saldanya (eds.), 1149–1220. Barcelona: Empu´ries, 4th ed. Pragma`tica, discurs i llengua oral. Introduccio´ a l’ana`lisi funcional de textos. Barcelona: Editorial UOC. Aspects of Deixis. In Essays on deixis, Gisa Rauh (ed.), 9–60. Tu¨bingen: Narr.

Sola`, Joan 1999 Parlem-ne. Converses lingu¨´ıstiques. Barcelona: Proa. Stirlling, Lesley, and Rodney Huddleston 2002 Deixis and anaphora. In The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, Rodney Huddleston, and Geo¤rey K. Pullum [(eds.)], 1449–1564. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vallduvı´, Enric 2008 [2002] L’oracio´ com a unitat informativa. In Grama`tica del catala` contemporani, vol. 2, Joan Sola`, Maria Rosa Lloret, Joan Mascaro´, and Manuel Pe´rez Saldanya (eds.), 1221–1279. Barcelona: Empu´ries, 4th ed. Vanelli, Laura, and Lorenzo Renzi 1995 La deissi. In Grande grammatica italiana di consultazione, vol. III, Lorenzo Renzi, Giampaolo Salvi, and Anna Cardinaletti (eds.), 261–375. Bologna: il Mulino. Weinreich, Uriel 1963 On the semantic structures of language. In Universals of language, Joseph H. Greenberg (ed.), 142–216. Cambridge, MASS / London: MIT Press.

Indirect evidence in Catalan: A case study Montserrat Gonza´lez 1. Introduction There is no agreement among linguists on what kind of marking the speaker makes use of when assessing the reliability of a piece of information. Most research on evidentiality concentrates on the expression of the source and on the kind of evidence that the speaker has at his disposal in relation to the truth of the propositional content of an utterance. Traditionally, the coding of source of knowledge has been linked to the speaker’s degree of certainty and commitment too, so evidentiality has usually been treated as a type of epistemic modality (Givo´n 1982; Chafe and Nichols (eds.) 1986; Palmer 1986; Willett 1988; Bybee 1985; Plungian 2001, inter alia). The relationship between the two categories makes sense if we consider that speakers often make epistemic judgements on the basis of an evidence (perceptual, reported, or inferred). Such is the case of inferential marking, for instance, which even allows degrees in the reliability of the inference by means of strong, moderate and weak forms (Nuyts 2005: 11–12). However, lately there have been a variety of proposals that view evidentiality and epistemic modality as two distinct though often related systems, taking not only grammatical and morphosyntactic parameters into account, but also pragmatic and context-bound phenomena and interaction (Van der Auwera and Plungian 1998; Mushin 2001; Fitneva 2001; De Haan 2001, 2005; Aikhenvald 2004; Nuyts 2005). Linguists working on this line argue that source-of-knowledge marking does not necessarily involve speakerattitude marking and that in fact quite a few languages linguistically code the two categories separately (‘‘evidentiality asserts the evidence, while epistemic modality evaluates the evidence’’, De Haan 2005: 379). In this paper I explore the latter position, that is, that which views evidentiality and epistemic modality as two distinct yet related systems whose main points of encounter are mostly found in the pragmatics (inferential, intentional, attitudinal) domain, paying particular attention to the role that deixis and subjectivity play in the coding of both evidential and epistemological stance. After briefly discussing the relationship between evidentiality and epistemic modality, firstly I explore the position that sustains

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that evidentiality is a deictic category, not an intrinsic modal one, whose basic meaning is that of marking the relationship between the speaker and the action being described, independently of the epistemic evaluation made by the speaker. Secondly, I explore the inferential epistemological stance coding based on the available external evidence and on the speaker’s own capacity for reasoning (Mushin 2001; Nuyts 2005). The discussion of both evidential and epistemic readings is illustrated with examples taken from di¤erent written and spoken corpora of two Catalan linguistic forms that apparently fall within the broad category of indirect (inferential and reportive) type of evidentials: es veu que (impersonal verb form see þ that; one can see that, translated as ‘apparently’, ‘allegedly’, ‘presumably’, ‘it is said’), and the periphrastic modal deure þ inf (must þ inf; ‘aquest deu ser un bon restaurant’ / ‘this must be a good restaurant’; ‘deu tenir molts diners’ / ‘he must have a lot of money’)1. The goal of this paper is show that the speaker uses the two forms distinctly to state that the action took place outside or inside the speaker’s deictic sphere (De Haan 2001), thus establishing more distance (in cognitive terms, taking a more objective epistemological stance) between speaker and action in the case of es veu que, and less distance (thus taking a more subjective epistemological stance) in the case of periphrastic deure (3rd person singular form: deu þ inf). In order to illustrate such division, see the evidential and epistemic readings of the two forms in (1) and (2) respectively. (1) S’han quedat sense llum, a Girona. Es veu que hi ha nevat molt. Lights have gone o¤ in Girona. Presumably/Apparently there has been lots of snow. (2) S’han quedat sense llum, a Girona. Hi deu haver nevat molt. Lights have gone o¤ in Girona.There must have been lots of snow. (1) illustrates an evidential use of the perceptual (visual) Catalan form. The source of information is indirect, reportive; the speaker makes an 1. Catalan modal verbs do not present a unified syntactic behaviour; modal periphrastic forms can be classified as epistemic or as deontic, depending on their semantic interpretation. In standard Catalan, deure þ inf can only have an epistemic interpretation of possibility, but in other dialectal varieties (valencia`) this verb form can also express obligation (deontic interpretation), as in: ‘Dec anar a comprar’ / ‘I must go shopping.’ (Gavarro´ and Laca 2002: 2710– 13).

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assertion based on what he has seen, heard or read in the media (radio, TV, newspapers); somebody else might also have informed him (colleague, friend, relative). There is no interpretation of facts; the speaker can confirm the evidence by means of external objective sources (Friedman 1986). On the other side, (2) illustrates an inferential epistemological stance. All the speaker knows is that lights have gone o¤ in Girona. He’s not certain about weather conditions, but he speculates and makes an evaluation; he infers the information based on deduction and reasoning; if all the city’s lights have gone o¤, the weather conditions must be terrible. There’s some sort of evidence (common ground knowledge: winter time; cold, rain and snow everywhere in the northeast of Spain) but the speaker cannot confirm it. Furthermore, whereas the evidential construction in (1), based on source of knowledge, cannot be cancelled or challenged, the inferential epistemic construction in (2) can: (1’) ?? S’han quedat sense llum, a Girona. Es veu que hi ha nevat molt. Pero` potser m’equivoco. ‘Lights have gone o¤ in Girona. Presumably/Apparently there has been lots of snow. But maybe I’m wrong’. (2’) S’han quedat sense llum, a Girona. Hi deu haver nevat molt. Pero` potser m’equivoco. ‘Lights have gone o¤ in Girona. There must have been lots of snow. But maybe I’m wrong’. In this line of work, this paper is a first step towards exploring the semantic and pragmatic nature of the perceptual marker es veu and the periphrastic modal verb form deure þ inf. I describe es veu as a reportive evidential mainly used in text genres that require distance between the conceptualiser and the object of construal (vicarious narratives of personal experiences, factual articles). A contrastive analysis with deure will serve to illustrate the distinct evidential and epistemic nature of the two forms. My ultimate goal is to test the hypothesis that, in some contexts of use, the evidential marker es veu might acquire epistemic inferential uses (such as those found in deu ser; must be), where the conceptualiser is part of the scene and less distance is required; the changing of semantic category would then go together with a deictic shift on the part of the speaker. 2. Evidentiality and/or epistemic modality The study of the source or nature of the speaker’s knowledge, as well as the degree of certainty and commitment attached to it has been under con-

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tinuous debate and reformulation in the past decades. English linguists have come to name linguistic units that facilitate such understanding evidentials and French linguists me´diatifs 2. In all cases their center of interest has been the sources of knowledge behind utterances, often linked to attitudes about and references to the epistemic status of the information. The relationship between evidentiality and modality has been described as one of disjunction, inclusion or overlapping (Dendale and Tasmowski 2001: 340, 342), depending on the points of encounter of the two semantic domains. According to Pietrandrea (2005: 33), speakers indicate the source of evidence when they cannot subscribe to the truth-value of the proposition unconditionally, thus the degree of reliability of the source and the degree of certainty of the speaker when evaluating the truth of the proposition would be closely linked: ‘‘while evidentiality qualifies the source that justifies the assertion of a proposition, modality qualifies the genuine belief of the speaker about the truth of the proposition.’’ The inferential value brought about by the pragmatics of epistemic modality has been highlighted by scholars working in procedural meaning and interpretive processes, trying to bridge the gap between descriptive, that is, truth-conditional representations of states of a¤airs, and interpretive attitudes, abstract representations of meaning (Nuyts 2000; Papafragou 2000; Ifantidou 2001; Pietrandrea 2005). See in (3) an example provided by Palmer (2001: 8) to illustrate the link between epistemic and evidential modality, both ‘‘concerned with the speaker’s attitude to the truth-value or factual status of the proposition (propositional modality)’’. According to Palmer, the di¤erence between the two types of modality lies in the fact that whereas in the case of epistemic modality ‘‘speakers express their judgments about the factual status of the proposition’’, in the case of evidential modality ‘‘speakers indicate the evidence they have for its factual status’’. See it illustrated in (a) and (b), respectively; (c) illustrates a case of deontic modality, ‘‘events that are not actualized, events that have not taken place but are merely potential (event modality).’’

2. The term e´videntialite´ was rejected by French linguists because its meaning in French is just the opposite to what the English term evokes: ‘‘Instead of focusing on the kind of evidence at the speaker’s disposal, the term mediativity focuses on the special character of utterances mediated by references to the evidence, i.e. on distances between speakers and what they say.’’ (Dendale and Tasmowski 2001: 340–341)

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Kate may be at home now. (speculative; possible conclusion)

b.

Kate must be at home now. (deductive; the only possible conclusion)

c.

Kate will be at home now. (assumptive; a reasonable conclusion)

In (a) the speaker is uncertain (epistemic modality); in (b) the speaker makes a firm judgment based on evidence (evidential modality), either visual, based on observation (Kate’s car is parked outside the house; the lights are on) or reasoning (the speaker knows Kate’s schedule and deducts that she is at home now); in (c) the speaker has a sound knowledge of Kate’s routines, so he makes a reasonable judgement based on such knowledge (deontic modality). According to Palmer (2001: 24), two types of contrasts can be drawn from the examples: one between speculative may (what is epistemically possible) and deductive must (what is epistemically necessary), and the second between inference from observation (deductive must) versus inference from experience or general knowledge (assumptive will ). The subdomains of evidential modality proposed by Palmer, the sensory and the reported, coincide with the direct and indirect modes of knowledge proposed by Willett (1988: 57), the best known overview of classification for evidential values. Based on this last proposal, Plungian (2001: 354) presents three main types of sources of information that a speaker has for a situation (P): A.

Direct evidence (including direct access to P) (i) Visual: ‘P, and I see/saw P.’ (ii) Sensoric: ‘P, and I perceive(d) P’ [P may be heard, smelled, tasted, etc.]. (iii) Endophoric: ‘P, and I feel(felt) P’ [P is the speaker’s inner state; cf. I am hungry, I want to sleep, I know the answer, etc.].

B.

Reflected evidence (including direct access to some situation Q related to P). (i) Synchronous inference: ‘P, because I can observe some signs of P’; cf. He must be hungry (because he shows some signs of it, etc.). (ii) Retrospective inference: ‘P, because I can observe some traces of P’; cf. He must have slept there (because we see his untidy bed, etc.).

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(iii) Reasoning: ‘P, because I know Q, and I know that Q entails P’: cf. Today there must be a fair in Salzburg (because I know the routines of this region, etc.). C.

Mediated evidence (including neither direct nor reflected access to P). (i) Quotative: ‘P, because I was told that P’; cf. They say he’s leaving; He is said to have left, etc.

The interest of this paper lies in the expression of Indirect evidence in Catalan, and more particularly the Reflected one, by means of inferential markers. Plungian refers to the above values in terms of more or less speaker’s personal involvement, so that the quotative one would exclude that involvement completely and information would then be ‘mediated’. The overlapping between evidential and epistemic values would arise when the probability of P is evaluated and the speaker has no direct knowledge of it. See Plungian’s proposal (2001: 353) summarized in Table (1). Table 1. Di¤erent possibilities of clustering evidential values (Plungian 2001). Indirect evidence Direct evidence

Reflected evidence (¼Inferentials and Presumptives)

Mediated evidence (¼Quotatives)

Personal evidence

As we will see in the following sections when analyzing the Catalan evidential and epistemic forms es veu (it is said/apparently/presumably) and deu þ inf (3rd person must þ inf ), the status of inference is ambiguous. On the one hand, the speaker can make use of an inferential evidential (as 3b above) when he ‘sees’ traces of the evidence but, on the other hand, the speaker can make a deduction from facts based on reasoning, without seing any trace. In both cases of Reflected evidence the speaker is confident in the truth value of the information conveyed because his deduction is factual. Mushin (2001: 26) discusses the following two examples in terms of speaker’s commitment and linguistic explicitness of facts: (4) It looks like it’s going to rain. (5) It looks like I’ll have to completely rewrite this chapter.

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Both examples are introduced by the same linguistic form, but whereas (4) is a deduction drawn from visual evidence whose interpretation is based on source of knowledge, (5) is a deduction based on unspecified evidence; the speaker, in this case, makes a judgment. Although both show speaker’s commitment to the assessment by means of inference, (4) encodes a type of source of knowledge, while (5) encodes an attitude. Mushin claims that both examples are epistemic constructions with properties that depend on context; in her view, there is overlapping in what counts as ‘type of evidence’ (4) and what as ‘speaker’s commitment’ (5). She sustains such claim with other examples introduced by the modal verb must. (6) [looking in my purse] I must have lost my wallet! (7) [hearing the football scores] Morris must be happy about his football team’s victory. Both instances are inferential but of a di¤erent nature. In (6) the speaker makes a deduction based on visual evidence (she doesn’t see the wallet in her purse) and reaches a conclusion. In (7) the speaker makes a deduction that is a judgement, an evaluation of facts. Note the parallelism in the Catalan examples (8) and (9) by means of the periphrastic construction deure þ inf. (8) [touching the clothes on the line] Deu haver plogut molt aquesta nit. La roba de l’estenedor esta` xopa. ‘It must have rained heavily last night. The clothes on the line are soaked’. (9) Deu estar molt contenta. Li han concedit la beca. ‘She must be very happy. She’s got the scholarship’. Evidential meaning can be rendered by means of forms which are grammaticalized (su‰xes, clitics, derivation, modal auxiliaries), by means of lexical expressions, or by the use of forms whose core meaning is not necessarily evidential but is context-bound dependent. Most Indo-European languages fall within the latter group since they do not present inflectional morphology in its evidential system, as do most languages discussed in the evidential literature. Catalan is a Romance language whose speakers make use of lexical and modal verbs (10), adverbial forms working as parenthet-

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ical, i.e. not integrated VP adverbials (11)3, and adjectives (12) to cue their stance; they also render source-of-knowledge and attitude by means of hedges (13), epistemological expressions used to code our experiences when no precision is required (Chafe 1986: 270). (10) a. b.

Suposo que li agrada molt viatjar. ‘I guess he enjoys travelling’. Li deu agradar molt viatjar. ‘He must enjoy travelling’.

(11) Probablement, li agrada molt viatjar / Li agrada, probablement, molt viatjar / Li agrada molt viatjar, probablement. ‘Probably, she enjoys travelling’ / ‘She probably enjoys travelling’/ ‘She enjoys travelling, probably’. (12) Clar, li agrada molt viatjar. (working as ‘pragmatic marker’)4 ‘Well/ Of course, she enjoys travelling’5. E´s obvi que li agrada molt viatjar. ‘It is obvious that she enjoys travelling’6. 3. The position within the clause a¤ects interpretation: whereas parenthetical expressions are semantically external to the proposition and are non-truth conditional, non-parenthetical ones are integrated in the propositional content of the sentence and are truth-conditional. See Ifantidou (2001: 97¤, 119¤ ) for a thorough discussion on the semantic and pragmatic criteria of adverbial evidential forms. 4. See Gonza´lez (2004: 244) for a full discussion on the role of the pragmatic marker clar in Catalan oral discourse (narrative genre). The translation of clar into English, as a core inferential pragmatic marker, is not clear-cut: sometimes it can be translated as well (‘Sı´, e´s clar. D’aquı´ ve´ que sigui un repte’: ‘Well, yes, that’s what makes it a challenge’ – ibid: 345), but very often it is left untranslated (see pp. 326–328 for the list of functions it conveys, all related to the inferential discourse component). In Catalan, the forms clar and e´s clar are often exchanged (the latter form being sometimes written, lately, esclar, not acceptable from the point of view of the standard Catalan norm). 5. The possible translations depend on the interaction and on the cognitive communicative context. 6. Note that in this case the adjective can take the form of an adverbial paren` bviament, li agrada molt viatjar / Li agrada, o`bviament, thetical evidential: ‘O molt viatjar/Li agrada molt viatjar, o`bviament. (‘Obviously, she enjoys travelling’ / ‘She obviously enjoys travelling’ / ‘She enjoys travelling, obviously’).

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(13) . . . i tinc una sensacio´ com de mareig quan fa molta calor. ‘. . . and I feel sort of dizzy when it’s very hot’. . . . i uns cinc minuts despre´s va sonar el tele`fon. ‘. . . and about five minutes later the phone rang’. The case of pragmatic markers working as evidentials deserve close attention. These units are full-fledged devices used by speakers to convey procedural meaning (processing of the information, guiding interpretive processes), carrying out outstanding illocutionary, structuring and inferential discourse functions (Gonza´lez 2004). Let’s briefly analyze the evidential status of clar / e´s clar above (12) and temptatively explore the epistemic values of this pragmatic marker following Paradis’ (2003) proposal on a semantic/pragmatic reading of really (versus the syntactic/positional reading of Ste¨nstrom 1986). In spite of their distinct grammatical categories (adjective and adverb), I propose that their pragmatic roles as epistemically qualifying expressions may run parallel7. The three uses of really proposed by Paradis (2003: 194) are the following: a)

marker of evidentiality (truth attesting): Really, they are quite strange.

b) subjective emphasis of situation I really appreciate your support. c)

reinforcement of scalar property They are really nice.

According to Paradis (2003: 194), the three examples with really express epistemic commitment and ‘‘serve a function of epistemic grounding in that they specify an expression relative to the speakers and the addressees and their spheres of knowledge (cf. Langacker 1987: 489)’’. Now, note the pragmatic roles of clar and e´s clar in the following examples8. a’)

Clar, es va preocupar quan es va fer de nit i no trucava. Clar (well/of course/clearly), he was worried when it got dark and she didn’t call.

7. In fact, the functional domain of pragmatic and discourse markers include various grammatical categories (adjectives, adverbs, verbal predicates). 8. In Catalan and in Spanish, when categorized as sentence adverb, clar can be paraphrased by means of be followed by a conjunctive que. As seen in (a’) and (b’), the two forms – clar and e´s clar- can be exchanged.

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b’) Clar que anire´ a la festa! / E´s clar que anire´ a la teva festa! ‘Of course I will go to your party!’ c’)

Aquest matrimoni e´s clarament nefast ‘This marriage is clearly unlucky’.

In my view, the Catalan marker clar in (1’) is used by the speaker to express a judgement of truth so, in that sense, it behaves as (1); besides, clar is used in oral discourse to introduce an evaluative comment and to share common ground and knowledge with the hearer; these properties provide this marker with a clear epistemic reading (Gonza´lez 2004: 257). The subjective emphasis shown in (2’) by means of the marker takes the form of a verbal predicate (be þ clar), which highlights the emphasizing e¤ect. Finally, the reinforcement of scalar property in (3) is exemplified with the adverbial form clarament modifying an adjective. The grammaticalization of former adjectival clar into a pragmatic marker with epistemic values has become the norm, as far as the use of this lexical unit is concerned; the speaker introduces an utterance by means of this marker to show personal stance and subjectivity, though the stylistic variation determined by the register, interpersonal relationships and textual purpose may a¤ect the epistemic meanings of this marker. Stancetaking has been widely explored by linguists working in the linguistic expression of evaluation, a¤ect and epistemicity, thus value judgements, assessments, attitudes, personal feelings, and commitment have been treated from di¤erent perspectives (Biber and Finegan 1989; De Haan 2001; White 2003; Precht 2003; Englebretson (ed.) 2007). In the following section I will concentrate on the speaker’s stance from a deictic point of view, exploring the use of the two aforementioned Catalan forms. 3. A deictic approach to the expression of speaker’s stance in Catalan Evidential marking involves taking a stance in relation to the information conveyed. Interaction and contextual features pave the way for a dynamic construction of meaning, so certain markers and morphemes work as signposts of the enunciation process. From a cognitive-pragmatic perspective, epistemic modality involves taking into account mental processes and conceptual systems that integrate structural, semantic and functional readings so that form and function are closely tied (Nuyts’ paradigmatic approach; 2000: 24). The integration of all these layers in relation to speaker’s stance has been widely studied in narrative discourse, for instance, where di¤erent voices and perspectives are found.

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Brandt (2004: 6) talks about the enunciational position of the narrator (the fictive voice) and the semantic space delegation of the voice. According to the author, there is a basic deictic enunciational position of the speaker (I am here now) that can be turned into an experiential position (I see/hear/feel that X), with highly personal involvement and emotional load, or into an epistemic position, more impersonal and logical (X, because I conclude/know/find that X); both positions can work in the inner or in the outer speaker’s world and are, in Brandt’s terms, ‘strongly realistic’. Besides these two voices, Brand also refers to the polyphonic and aphonic voices, the first referring to the voice of others that the speaker reproduces directly or indirectly (quotes, irony; deontic utterances) and the second found when the speaker withdraws and makes use of imagination (literary fiction and jokes). The model proposed by Brandt may account for all the space shiftings we make in a narrative. Other authors have worked on similar lines, in relation to narrative telling and perspectivisation. The deictic centre theory approach developped to analyse displaced subjectivity in narrative (Rappaport et al 1989; Duchan et al 1995, reported by Mushin 2001: 13) tries to account for ‘‘spatial, temporal, psychological coordinates establishing a deictic perspective in the narrated world’’ (p. 14). Mushin sustains that such theory may be applied not only to fictional but also to conversational narratives of personal experiences. She refers to a continuum between subjective and objective deictic poles, arguing that epistemological expressions do not necessarily fall under either one or the other, but show di¤erent degrees of the two. Her proposal situates epistemic stance reflecting private as well as factual experience, with perceptual, inferential, reportive, and imaginative sort of experience in-between the two poles (2001: 81). Similar cognitive interpretations can be found in Kamio’s (1991) theory of territory of information, on information ownership, or in De Haan’s (2001) notion of deictic sphere. In all these interpretations, the need to ground the information in relation to situational (here, now) and participants’ (I, you, they, we. .) parameters make the speaker (or, in cognitive terms, the conceptualizer) take a stance in relation to more or less involvement and subjectivity. Mushin establishes the relationship between subjectivity and deixis in this terms: A conclusion one could draw from casting a wide net around the notion of ‘deixis’ is that all subjective phenomena are deictic phenomena, since they function to identify a ‘speaker imprint’ – a point of origin from which to interpret all expressions. (Mushin 2001: 7)

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In oral narratives of lived experiences (Labov 1972), there is a continuous back and forth between the deictic center of the speaker (here, now, I ) and the events and attitudes of the participants. An interesting case in Catalan narratives9 has proved to be the functioning of the verbal form es veu, a grammaticalized expression of a former sensory marker (veure, ‘see’, to see) that, in my view, carries out an evidential function. (see Pepa’s account in (14)). The marker becomes a perfect tool to be used when telling a vicarious experience, that is, somebody else’s story; it is mostly found in the development of the action, the backbone of the narrative. Note the displacement of the narrator’s deictic center and the distance taken by Pepa when explaining what happened to Merce´, a friend of hers. She cannot claim direct evidence for an experience that was highly personal, thus she makes use of es veu to indicate that the evidence is indirect (she was not physically there, so she cannot attest direct evidence) and that the facts she is reporting are in fact temptative (so the degree of involvement is also relative). In Plungian’s terms (see Fig. 1 above) the type of evidence conveyed by es veu que is both reflected and mediated. (14) 10doncs aquesta e´s la histo`ria que em va explicar la Merce`, una amiga meva, ah, estudiant de filologia anglesa, i que sortiem molt sovint per la nit no, i llavors hi havia un lloc aquı´ al carrer Escudellers que es diu La Macarena, que e´s de flamenc, flamenc. i i ella e´s molt apassionada. per tot lo que e´s. e´s molt calenta per entendre’ns no. e´s molt calenta per entendre’ns no. i llavors anava molt sovint alla`. i es veu que una nit hi havia una taula amb molts nois nois. eren tot nois. pel que em va explicar. i be´ van comenc¸ar a beure junts. a xerrar i tal no. mmmm va acabar bueno se’n van cansar d’estar alla`. i sembla que van marxar a un altre local de Barcelona. no se´. serien les sis de la matinada tard ja no. i despre´s es veu que aquests nois vivien a Castelldefels. i i ella va marxar. va marxar amb ells sola aquesta noia amb set o vuit nois, gitanos eren i llavors ah es veu que per l’autovia que va de Barcelona a Castelldefels mmm la cosa es va comenc¸ar a desmadrar una mica no. i es veu que anava un que era fadrı´. no estava casat. i es veu que volien que s’enrrolle´s bueno que s’enrrolle´s amb ell no. clar la cosa es va comenc¸ar a posar tensa. em sembla que em va explicar que un li va pegar una galtada. ella es va posar a xillar. i al final la van deixar tirada alla` a l’autovia.

9. See Gonza´lez (2004) for a thorough analysis and discussion on the use of markers in English and Catalan oral narratives of lived experiences of situations of danger. 10. The transcription of the oral narrative has been done without taking into consideration ortographic norms (capital letters, sentence final periods, commas), just flow of information.

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well this is the story that Merce`, a friend of mine, told me, ah, she’s an English philology student and we used to go out a lot at night, okey, and there was a place here on Escudellers street that is called La Macarena that does flamenco dancing and and she’s very passionate for all that has to do, she’s very passionate, you know what I mean, and she went there very often and apparently one night there was a table with many guys guys, they were all guys according to her and well they all started drinking together, chatting and so on right, mmmm it ended up, well, mmm they all got tired of being there and it seems that they went to another pub in Barcelona, don’t know, it was probably six o’clock in the morning, late, right, and then apparently these guys lived in Castelldefels, and and she left she left with them all by herself, that girl and seven or eight guys, gypsies they were, and then ah apparently on the motorway that goes from Barcelona to Castelldefels mmm the whole thing started getting out of control a bit and apparently there was one that was single, he wasn’t married, and it seems that they wanted her to have an a¤air well to have an a¤air with him. then the whole thing started getting tense. I think she explained to me that one of them slapped her on the face, she started screaming and they finally left her abandoned on the motorway [nar 10 Pepa narrator]11

Pepa’s account is built from an objective stance since she is o¤ stage of the situation or object construal and does not include herself in the scene (Langacker 2002). She is both reporting the facts and trying at the same time to convey all the e¤ects that such happening may have had on her friend, since the narrative is an account of a situation of danger. Notice that she does not use the marker to subjectively interpret the facts, contrary to what may have occurred had she used the modal verb must (1 and 2 above), and therefore does not include herself in the scope of the conceptualisation; the use of this marker helps the speaker put distance between the narrative world and hers, which do not coincide. In addition, the truth-value and the source of the information she is reporting can be confirmed by talking with the participants. It can be concluded that es veu is a marker used when the situation does not require a strong degree

11. This narrative comes from the corpus of Catalan oral narratives that I elicited to carry out a contrastive study of English and Catalan pragmatic markers in my PhD thesis (see Gonza´lez 2004). The instrument used was one of the modules of the sociolinguistic interview (Labov 1972), Danger of Death. The question I posed to the informants modified Labov’s question into Have you ever been in a situation where you thought you were in serious danger?. I considered that whereas practically everybody has sometimes felt in a situation of danger, barely anybody has been in a situation of serious danger of being killed.

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of entitlement and responsibility. According to Kamio (1991), when signalling source of information speakers make use of direct and non-direct forms (hedgings –it looks like– and conditional forms –if you come, . . .) depending on whether the information falls more or less deeply within the speaker’s territory (1991: 146). Kamio talks about a ‘particular cognitive state’ on the part of the speaker, claiming that this can be interpreted in terms of the speaker’s assumptions about both speaker and hearer’s degree of knowledge of a given piece of information; if this one is obtained through the direct experience of the speaker or hearer, then it falls into their territory of information. According to Kamio’s interpretation, the Catalan form es veu que (similar probably to its Spanish counterpart se ve que) would be a non-direct form used by the speaker to show that the information he claims does not fall deeply within his cognitive territory of information. The following section will deepen into the functioning of the two Catalan forms es veu que and deu þ inf according to the position which views evidentiality and epistemic modality as two distinct yet related systems of interpretation.

4. Veure and deure: evidential and epistemic readings De Haan (1999, 2001, 2005) is critical with the view that epistemic modals are part of the evidential system and that evidence and judgement run parallel, position which has traditionally been assumed by most scholars working in this semantic field (Palmer 1986, Willett 1988, inter alia)12. According to De Haan, whereas evidentiality has to do with source of information, epistemicity is related to degree of commitment; evidentiality is a deictic category, not an intrinsic modal one, and the interface with epistemic modals is only found in the pragmatic domain, namely the inferential and attitudinal. De Haan exemplifies it by means of the Dutch

12. The point of De Haan is that, although it is true that languages grammaticalize evidentiality, it cannot be asserted that this is a universal phenomenon. De Haan’s study is based on languages from North and South America, Europe and Asia. Most studies on evidentiality have focused on minority languages from America and Asia, which make use of verbal and lexical morphology (su‰xes, particles, tense, aspect) to trace source of knowledge. Recent research has focused on lexical evidentiality (De Haan 2005; Squartini 2008) and has paved the way for further studies on European languages.

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modal verb moeten (English must), claiming that the same form may have two readings, and that the presence of the modal verb does not necessarily involve an evidential use since the same evidence can be found in a declarative sentence13. Following De Haan’s position, I will try to show that es veu que and deure þ inf are two indirect evidential forms that share inferential traits but which di¤er in terms of stance and perspective taken by the speaker or conceptualizer, i.e. in deictic terms. According to the traditional view, direct evidence (visual, auditory) is more reliable than the indirect one (inferential, reported), position which cannot be sustained really if we take into consideration that inference is either based on: a) observable results (direct evidence) or on a mental construct (reasoning). As shown in (8) and (9), the link between direct and indirect evidence is clearly found in the two meanings adopted by must, both deductions but of a di¤erent nature: (8’) perceptual evidence [touch], (9’) judgement/evaluation of facts: (8’) [touching the clothes on the line] Deu haver plogut molt aquesta nit. La roba de l’estenedor esta` xopa. ‘It must have rained heavily last night. The clothes on the line are soaked’. (9’) Deu estar molt contenta. Li han concedit la beca. ‘She must be very happy. She’s got the scholarship’. Direct evidence o¤ers traces of the actions; the speaker is a witness of the action. Indirect evidence doesn’t; the information is conveyed not through senses or personal witnessing, but through hearsay (reported evidence) or through inferential reasoning, so the speaker knows the action or event from another person or by deduction from facts. Direct is considered firsthand evidence; indirect is secondhand. Following this rationale, De Haan argues that inference is a hybrid category since it shares [þdir] and [1st] traits: the speaker witnesses the traces or consequences [þdir] but after the action or fact has taken place so, in this respect, it is secondhand evidence [1st]. The two classifications provide us with a useful framework for linguistic units whose functions are mostly found in the inferential domain but which do require a fine grained analysis. The classification of evidential categories is the following according to De Haan (2001: 195–6) division: 13. See Gonza´lez and Ribas (2008) for a thorough discussion on the construction of epistemic space via Catalan causal connective perque`.

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Table 2. Classification of evidential categories with [dir] as basic feature. Sensory

[þdir]

Inferential

[þdir]

Quotative

[dir]

Table 3. Classification of evidential categories with [1st] as basic feature. Sensory

[ þ 1st]

Inferential

[1st]

Quotative

[1st]

The speaker makes use of the evidential ‘‘that expresses the most salient source’’ so that ‘‘a speaker will typically use the highest possible evidential for which he/she has evidence’’. The hierarchy of categories is: Sensory > Inferential > Quotative (De Haan 2001: 197). Let’s see these categories applied to Catalan. I’ve taken the example from De Haan (2001: 214) to see the di¤erent readings (epistemic and evidential) of Catalan modal deure (deu þ inf) and veure (es veu). (15) De film moet uitstekend zijn. The film must:3rd:pres excellent be:inf (16) La pel  lı´cula deu ser excel  lent. The film must:3rd:pres be:inf excellent (17) Es veu que la pel  lı´cula e´s excel  lent. It is said:3rd:imp that the film is excellent In (15) De Haan argues that Dutch moeten, as English must, is always [1st] but that it has two interpretations, one quotative (somebody told me that the film is excellent) and one inferential (I’ve read reviews, I know the director’s work, I’ve seen movie posters) so, according to Tables (2) and (3), moeten presents [dir] [þdir] and [1st] (the information has not been acquired firsthand). The distinctive underlying feature of that verb is therefore the first-second hand division (De Haan 2001: 214). To my understanding, the Catalan forms in (16) and (17) are always [1st] but, with a fine-grained analysis, they present traits which are distributed slightly di¤erently, as far as the inferential component is con-

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cerned. Catalan modal deure has a primary inferential meaning [þdir], while Catalan veure, in the impersonal form es veu, has a primary quotative meaning [dir]. Consequently, I propose that the distinctive underlying feature of these two verbal forms is the direct-nondirect division. See the way they operate in (16) and (17). In (16) the speaker makes an inference deducting that the film is excellent because he knows the director’s work and has probably read and followed the reviewers’ comments on the movie; he makes an evaluation of facts based on his own reasoning and previous or acquired knowledge (reading, seeing other movies from the same director), thus in this respect, same as Dutch moeten and English must the evidence is [þdir] and not firsthand [1st]. However, the evaluation or judgement made by the speaker is not drawn from direct witnessing of the action, so the inferential meaning contains the [dir] feature as well. Finally, we can also conclude that, since the speaker does not make an assessment about source-ofknowledge but an evaluation of facts, the core meaning of deure in this context of use is, strictly speaking, epistemic rather than purely evidential (see Section 2 above). In (17) the speaker makes use of es veu to provide evidence for a piece of information that was neither perceived nor acquired directly [dir] in any way. The speaker was probably told that the movie was excellent and reports the bare information to his interlocutor, thus the evidence is secondhand [1st]. In addition, contrary to (16), notice that in (17) there is neither evaluation of the evidence nor commitment to the truth-value of the utterance, just assessment of facts. Following this line of argument, and focusing on distinctive traits, we can therefore conclude that the core meaning of veure in this context of use is evidential rather than epistemic. My proposal on the basic evidential features of deure and veure are summarized in Table (4): Table 4. Proposal of basic evidential features of Catalan deure and veure. Deure [deu þ INF ]

[þdir] [dir] [1st]

Veure [es veu þ que]

[dir] [1st]

See more examples of the slightly di¤erent meanings conveyed by the two Catalan forms in (18) (19) and (20).

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(18) (a) La mare no e´s a casa. Es veu que ha anat a comprar. [m’ho ha dit el pare] ‘Mum is not at home. Apparently, she has gone shopping. [dad told me]’ (b) La mare no e´s a casa. Deu haver anat a comprar. [conec la seva rutina dia`ria] ‘Mum is not at home. She must have gone shopping. [I know her routine]’ (19) [talking about a colleague] (a) Es veu que ha publicat molt darrerament. [m’ho han dit] ‘Allegedly/Presumably, he has published a lot lately. [I have been told]’ (b) Deu haver publicat molt darrerament. [li han concedit el projecte] ‘He must have published a lot lately. [he’s got the research project]’ (20) [talking about a relative who’s had a motorbike accident] (a) Es veu que li agrada molt co´rrer. [m’ho han dit] ‘He’s had an accident riding his motorbike. Presumably, he loves speed. [I have been told]’ (b) Ha tingut un accident amb la moto. Li deu agradar molt co´rrer. [conec els joves; els agrada co´rrer] ‘He’s had an accident riding his motorbike. He must love speed. [I know young people; they love speed]’ The use of the form es veu in the examples above illustrate the core reportive function of this marker, in front of the primary evaluative function of modal deure. According to De Haan, the epistemic function of a modal verb (moeten, must, deure) can be proved by the fact that the speaker can insert a clause after the utterance, indicating degree of agreement or disagreement. Observe that this property applies for the two Catalan forms as well. (18’) (a) La mare no e´s a casa. Deu haver anat a comprar. [i d’aixo` n’estic segura] ‘Mum is not at home. She must have gone shopping. [and I am convinced of it]’

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La mare no e´s a casa. Deu haver anat a comprar. [ pero` ho dubto] ‘Mum is not at home. She must have gone shopping. [but I doubt it]’

(c) *La mare no e´s a casa. Es veu que ha anat a comprar. [i d’aixo` n’estic segura] ‘Mum is not at home. Apparently, she has gone shopping. [and I am convinced of it]’ (d)

*La mare no e´s a casa. Es veu que ha anat a comprar. [ pero` ho dubto] ‘Mum is not at home. Apparently, she has gone shopping, [but I doubt it]’

The epistemic-evidential distinction presents interesting morphosyntactic features worth considering. The point raised by De Haan is that grammaticalized evidentials cannot be modified. This would explain the ungrammaticality of Catalan es veu in (18c) and in (18d) above, as well as the unfelicity of example (1’) aforementioned: ?? S’han quedat sense llum, a Girona. Es veu que hi ha nevat molt. Pero` potser m’equivoco / Lights have gone o¤ in Girona. Presumably/Apparently there has been lots of snow. But maybe I’m wrong. The point is that whatever kind of information that is based on a factual source of knowledge cannot be cancelled or challenged. De Haan exemplifies the epistemic-evidential distinction by the use of a negative form; both readings of Dutch moeten are possible because the negation falls within the scope of the modal verb, but fully-grammaticalized evidentials cannot be within the scope of negation (2001: 214). This observation is also made by Aikhenvald (2004: 4), who claims that evidential morphemes cannot be negated or questioned without modifying (negating and questioning) the predicate itself. If we apply such interpretation to veure we observe that, in this line of argument, the form es veu could be considered a fully-grammaticalized evidential since it cannot be challenged or questioned (21), and is found outside the scope of negation (22): (21) [Es veu que] va ploure molt a Barcelona ahir a la nit. ‘Presumably/Apparently, it rained a lot in Barcelona last night’. ?? Es veu que va ploure molt a Barcelona ahir a la nit. [ pero` ho dubto]

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?? ‘Presumably/Apparently, it rained a lot in Barcelona last night. [but I doubt it]’

?

?? Es veu que va ploure molt a Barcelona ahir a la nit? ?? ‘Presumably/Apparently, did it rain a lot in Barcelona last night?’ (22) [Es veu que] no e´s una bona pel  lı´cula. ‘[Presumably/Apparently/I’ve been told that] it is not a good movie’. From the point of view of grammaticalization and development of evidentials, es veu is an indirect grammaticalized evidential that has probably developed from direct visual sensory evidence (see), though this requires further investigation. Finally, from the perspective of degree of commitment and responsibility to the truth-value of the statement, in (18) (19) and (20) we observe that when the speaker makes use of epistemic deure (moeten, must) the information conveyed is, rather than uncertain, left unconfirmed (Friedman 1999). On the other hand, the information presented by means of veure (es veu) can be confirmed. Consequently, we can conclude that the semantic analysis of these two Catalan forms cannot really be done in terms of certainty-uncertainty but rather in terms of being able to confirm or not to confirm an action or an event. Note that the use of evidential es veu in (18) (19) and (20) does not assign any commitment value to the statement (as the use of epistemic deure does), just accounting of facts. In the following section I discuss the repercussions this may have from the speaker’s standpoint who, depending on the form used, will take a subjective or an objective stance. 5. Veure and deure: a deictic reading According to Du Bois (2007), in any process of interaction the speaker aligns himself with other subjects (intersubjectification), evaluates the event or object being described, and positions himself as subject of the action; he describes this process as the stance triangle. The speaker expresses such positioning or stance by means of lexical or verbal morphemes that express time and nature of the event, and status of the proposition (Palmer 2001; tam acronym: tense, aspect, modality) and shows more or less involvement in the event depending on whether he has been or not been a direct witness of the action. From a cognitive perspective, the speaker, as subject of construal, can be on or o¤ stage (where the action takes place), so the degree of subjectification (if he is on stage) or objectification (if he is o¤ stage) will

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di¤er (Langacker 1991). Following this argumentative line, Sanders (1999) sustains that subjectivity is constructed when the subject ‘‘foregrounds his estimation of the relative certainty of his statement.’’ (1999: 473). As shown in the previous section, in the epistemic inferential domain the speaker is on stage, so he is highly subjectified. Furthermore, according to Sanders, the degree of subjectivity is directly related to the ‘‘relative foregroundedness of the speaker with respect to the modified information.’’ (1999: 474). This observation can be taken to the epistemic-evidential distinction previously discussed. See it illustrated in (23). I have adapted the example from Sanders (1999: 474); he discusses Dutch moeten (‘must’) and blijken (‘apparently’), establishing a link between degree of foregroundedness and anaphoric resolution. Notice that the impersonal evidential form es veu (veure), same as Dutch blijken, shows a lower degree of subjectification than epistemic deure þ inf because it is less foregrounded to the information. (23) a.

b.

Piet blijkt Henk te haten, want hij slaat hem. ‘Apparently, Piet hates Henk, because he hits him. [Piet hits Henk]’ Es veu que en Pere li te´ mania, a l’Albert, perque` el pega. [en Pere pega a l’Albert] Piet moet Henk haten, want hij slaat hem. ‘Piet must hate Henk, because he hits him. [Henk hits Piet or Piet hits Henk]’ En Pere li deu tenir mania, a l’Albert, perque` el pega. [l’Albert pega en Pere o en Pere pega a l’Albert]

c. Piet blijkt Henk te haten, want hij slaat hem. ‘Apparently, Piet hates Henk, because he hits him. [Piet hits Henk]’ Es diria que en Pere li te´ mania, a l’Albert, perque` el pega [en Pere pega a l’Albert] Clauses (a) and (b) in (23) di¤er in terms of interpretation. In (23a) the preferred anaphor resolution is that Piet is the agent of the action, thus he is the one who hits Henk. In contrast, in (23b) the interpretation is ambiguous because our world knowledge tells us that both are possible (‘whenever somebody hits you, you will probably begin to hate this person or this person will probably grow to hate you’). This ambiguous interpretation is caused by the high degree of subjectification and foregrounded-

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ness involved in moeten (must, deure), in (23b) (Sanders 1999: 474). My claim is that this same rationale works for veure and deure in this evidential context of use. Notice that in (23c) the translation of blijkt/apparently into the Catalan conditional form es diria que (one would say that) has the same anaphor resolution as veure (no ambiguous agent) but, in terms of subjectification and foregroundedness, works as deure since the interpretation is closer to that found in (23b); thus it could be said that the conditional form is a grammatical evidential with a strong epistemic value since the speaker interprets the evidence14. Degree of subjectification and foregroundedness is related to the distance taken by the speaker from the action or events being described. Palmer (1986) provides a deictic account of the use of epistemic modals relative to the distance established with the actual world. De Haan (2001, 2005) argues that evidential features can be correlated with ‘propositional deixis’. If the speaker is separated from the action being described (thus if he is o¤ stage), he is outside the deictic sphere of action; if the speaker is included in the description of the action (thus if he is on stage), he is inside the sphere of the action. The deictic sphere concept (De Haan 2005: 392) provides us with a sound framework to understand the behaviour of epistemic and evidential forms of expression. Epistemic marking involves a stance process of subjectification in which the speaker is on stage; in contrast, evidential marking, understood as source-of-knowledge, involves a process of objectification in which the speaker is o¤ stage. This di¤erent perspective on the part of the speaker was exemplified in (14), in the use of evidential es veu in the telling of a vicarious narrative of lived experience. Pepa, the narrator, positions herself o¤ stage to report her friend’s past negative experience with a group of boys. She was not physically present at the moment of the action, so she is out of the deictic sphere of the action, establishing, by means of es veu que, both distance from the event and a low degree of subjectivity and non-commitment to the validity of the proposition. Her account is just factual, reporting source of evidence; she neither evaluates nor judges the boys or her friend’s behaviour. Had she used an epistemic modifier, she would have shown a certain degree of convergence with her friend’s stance but the use of an evidential form makes the account ‘neutral’, in terms of involvement and convergence. The relevance of the evidentiality-deixis relationship has been highlighted 14. See Tasmowski (2001) and Squartini (2008) for the use of grammatical forms (conditional, future) in the domains of inferential and reportive evidentiality in Romance languages.

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by several scholars working in the field (De Haan 2001, 2005; Mushin 2001; Basso 2008 inter alia). Mushin (2001: 33) describes it in the following way: Evidential markers are deictic because they index information to the conceptualiser who makes an epistemological judgment. In context, the choice of evidential categories (e.g. witness or report) serves to select the deictic origin, the one from which all temporal, spatial and identifying information can be calculated.

The oral narrative analyzed in (14) serves to illustrate the importance not only of speaker’s stance, but also of the status of the context of use in a specific genre. De Haan (2005) illustrates this point through must in two excerpts taken from newspaper articles. He argues that the presence of this modal does not imply uncertainty about the truth of the assessments, just that the information presented is left unconfirmed; it is the reader’s task to interpret the truth value of the facts. In addition, there are languages whose speakers make deictic shifts by using di¤erent forms of tenses or person (first to third) to mark deictic distances between the speaker and the action (2005: 381–3). As mentioned in the introductory section, I aim to explore the deictic behaviour of Catalan deure and veure in genres where information is presented as factual (newspaper articles, vicarious narratives) and in genres which require interpretation of facts (newspaper editorials, letters to the editor). My hypothesis is that the use of the two forms might not correlate with the expected genre (veure in factual texts where more distance is required; deure in texts which require evaluation and interpretation of facts and less distance) and that the speaker or writer might use one or the other to perform a deictic shift. Furthermore, I tend to believe that both Catalan forms are mostly translated by the English modal must, independently of evidential or epistemic uses in context (interactive, informative). See in Table (5) my proposal on the epistemic, evidential, and deictic traits of Catalan epistemic deure and evidential veure. 6. Conclusion The coding of source-of-knowledge has been the object of discussion and analysis of the scientific linguistic community in many languages in the world. Traditionally, only minority American and Asian languages with derivational morphology have been under study, but in the recent past

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Table 5. Epistemic, evidential, and deictic traits of Catalan deure and veure. Deure (deu B INF)

Veure (es veu B que)

1

epistemic marker

evidential marker

2

speculation about the action described

assessment based on some type of evidence (source of information)

3

evaluation and judgement of the evidence

action or events presented as factual

4

speaker interprets the evidence

speaker asserts that there is evidence

5

information cannot be confirmed

information can be confirmed

6

speaker inside the deictic sphere of action: less distance speakerhearer

speaker outside deictic sphere of action: more distance speakerhearer

7

high degree of subjectivity

low degree of subjectivity

8

strong foregroundedness to the information

weak foregroundedness to the information

there have been a variety of proposals to investigate the behaviour of evidentiality in European languages spoken by large communities. Thus, the analysis of some Romance and Germanic languages has taken not only grammatical and morphosyntactic parameters into account, but also lexical and pragmatic ones that consider context-bound phenomena and speaker’s stance and attitude. This paper has aimed to explore the nature and behaviour of two Catalan verb forms whose study falls within the broad field of evidentiality, veure and deure (es veu þ que and deu þ inf), but which present relevant distinctive features worth considering. Apparently, both are indirect inferential markers with descriptive and procedural meaning relevant for interpretive processes of understanding source of information. However, a fine grained analysis shows that their behaviour di¤ers in terms of speaker’s stance, involvement and foregroundedness on the information. A deictic approach to stance, understood as distance between speaker-hearer, has proved revealing as well. Es veu is a perceptual evidential form with a primary quotative/reportive meaning that is used by the speaker to assess secondhand factual information which can be confirmed, from a distant objective stance (i.e. outside the speaker’s deictic sphere of action), with no personal involvement in

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the action or event being told. A good example of the way this marker operates is the vicarious experiential oral narrative, where there is a continuous displacement of the deictic center of the narrator to report the events and the feelings of other; newspaper factual articles can also serve to illustrate such behaviour (English apparently, presumably, it is said ). In the use of es veu there is no entitlement and responsibility on the speaker’s part, either, so the degree of commitment to the truth-value of the assessment is basically zero. On the other hand, deu þ inf (third person singular form of periphrastic modal deure þ inf) is an epistemic modal form with a primary inferential meaning that is used by the speaker to evaluate and judge the propositional content of the action or events being told from a subjective stance (i.e. inside the speaker’s deictic sphere of action). The speaker makes use of it not to provide source-of-information, but to convey a given personal interpretation of the information being told. The inferential meaning of deure is ambiguous in the sense that the information it provides is indirectly based on perceptual direct evidence (I have seen, heard, touched something, so I conclude X) or on reasoning from facts (I know X, so I conclude Y). Further research on di¤erent text genres will show the distinct nature of the two forms under discussion, both from the semantic and the pragmatic points of view. References Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. 2004 Evidentiality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Auwera, Johan van der, and Vladimir A. Plungian 1998 Modality’s semantic map. Linguistic Typology 2: 79–124. Basso, Ellen B. 2008 Epistemic deixis in Kalapalo. Pragmatics 18 (2): 215–252. Biber, Douglas, and Edward Finegan 1989 Styles of stance in English: Lexical and grammatical marking of evidentiality and a¤ect. Text 9 (1): 93–124. Brandt, Per Aage 2004 Evidentiality and enunciation. A cognitive and semiotic approach. In Perspectives on Evidentiality and Modality, Juana Marı´nArrese (ed.), 3–10. Madrid: Editorial Complutense. Bybee, Joan 1985 Morphology: a study of the relation between meaning and form. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

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Chafe, Wallace 1986 Evidentiality in English conversation and academic writing. In Evidentiality: The Linguistic Coding of Epistemology, Wallace Chafe, and Johanna Nichols (eds.), 261–272. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Chafe, Wallace, and Johanna Nichols (eds.) 1986 Evidentiality: The Linguistic Coding of Epistemology. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. De Hann, Ferdinand 1999 Evidentiality and epistemic modality: Setting boundaries. Southwest Journal of Linguistics 18: 83–101. De Hann, Ferdinand 2001 The place of inference within the evidential system. International Journal of American Linguistics 67 (2): 193–219. De Hann, Ferdinand 2005 Encoding speaker perspective: Evidentials. In Linguistic Diversity and Language Theories. Zygmunt Frajzyngier, Adam Hodges, and David S. Rood (eds.), 79–397. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Dendale, Patrick, and Tasmowski, Liliane 2001 Introduction: evidentiality and related notions. Journal of Pragmatics 33: 339–348. Du Bois, John W. 2007 The stance triangle. In Stancetaking in Discourse: Subjectivity, evaluation, interaction, Robert Englebretwson (ed.), 139–182. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Englebretson, Robert (ed.) 2007 Stancetaking in Discourse. Subjectivity, evaluation, interaction. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Fitneva, Stanka A. 2001 Epistemic marking and reliability judgments: Evidence from Bulgarian. Journal of Pragmatics 33: 401–420. Friedman, Victor A. 1986 Evidentiality in the Balkans: Bulgarian, Macedonian, and Albanian. In Evidentiality: the linguistic coding of epistemology, William Chafe, and Johanna Nichols (eds.), 168–187. Norwood: Ablex. Gavarro´, Anna, and Brenda Laca 2002 Les perı´frasis temporals, aspectuals i modals. In Grama`tica del Catala` Contemporani, vol. 3. Joan Sola`, Maria-Rosa Lloret, Joan Mascaro´, and Manuel Pe´rez Saldanya (eds.), 2663–2726. Barcelona: Empu´ries. Givo´n, Talmy 1982 Evidentiality and epistemic space. Studies in Language 6 (1), 23– 49.

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Gonza´lez, Montserrat 2004 Pragmatic Markers in Oral Narrative. The Case of English and Catalan. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Gonza´lez, Montserrat 2005 An approach to Catalan evidentiality. Intercultural Pragmatics 2 (4): 515–540. Gonza´lez, Montserrat, and Montserrat Ribas 2008 The construction of epistemic space via causal connectives. In Intention, Common Ground and the Egocentric Speaker-Hearer, Istvan Kecskes, and Jacob Mey (eds.), 127–150. Berlin / New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Ifantidou, Elly 2001 Evidentials and Relevance. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Kamio, Akio 1991 Evidentiality and some discourse characteristics in Japanese. In Directions in Functional Linguistics, Akio Kamio (ed.), 145–171. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Labov, William 1972 The Transformation of Experience in Narrative Syntax. In Language in the Inner City. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Langacker, Ronald W. 1987 Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Langacker, Ronald W. 1991 Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Vol. 2. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Langacker, Ronald W. 2002 Deixis and subjectivity. In Grounding. The Epistemic Footing of Deixis and Reference, Frank Brisard (ed.), 1–28, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Mushin, Ilana 2001 Evidentiality and Epistemological Stance: Narrative Retelling. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Nuyts, Jan 2000 Epistemic Modality, Language, and Conceptualization. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Nuyts, Jan 2001 Subjectivity as an evidential dimension in epistemic modal expressions. Journal of Pragmatics 33: 383–400. Nuyts, Jan 2005 Modality: overview and linguistic issues. In The Expression of Modality, William Frawley (ed.), 1–26. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

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Palmer, Frank R. 2001 [1986] Mood and Modality. 2d ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Papafragou, Anna 2000 Modality: Issues in the Semantics-Pragmatics Interface. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Paradis, Carita 2003 Between epistemic modality and degree: The case of really. In Modality in Contemporary English. Roberta Facchinetti, Manfred Krug, and Frank Palmer (eds.), 191–220. Berlin / New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Pietrandrea, Paola 2005 Epistemic Modality. Functional properties and the Italian system. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Plungian, Vladimir A. 2001 The place of evidentiality within the universal grammatical space. Journal of Pragmatics 33: 349–357. Precht, Kristen 2003 Stance moods in spoken English: Evidentiality and a¤ect in British and American conversation. Text 23 (2): 239–257. Sanders, Jose´ 1999 Degrees of subjectivity in epistemic modals and perspective representation. In Issues in Cognitive Linguistics, Leon de Stadler, and Christopher Eyrich (eds.), 471–489. Berlin / New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Squartini, Mario 2008 Lexical vs. grammatical evidentiality in French and Italian. Linguistics 46 (5): 917–947. Stenstro¨m, Anna-Brita 1986 What does really really do? Strategies in speech and writing. In English in Speech and Writing, Gunnel Tottie, and Ingegerd Ba¨cklund (eds.), 149–163. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Willett, Thomas 1988 A cross-linguistic survey of the grammaticization of evidentiality. Studies in Language 12 (1): 51–97. White, Peter R.R. 2003 Beyond modality and hedging: A dialogic view of the language of intersubjective stance. Text 23 (2): 259–284.

Catalan interjections* Maria-Josep Cuenca Abstract Interjections are generally defined as a peculiar word class, apparently peripheral to language and similar to non-linguistic items such as gestures and vocal paralinguistic devices. In this chapter, the main Catalan interjections will be described and classified from two complementary points of view: morphosyntactic and pragmatic. Morphosyntactically, interjections are classified into primary and secondary. Primary interjections are simple vocal units, sometimes very close to non-verbal devices. Secondary interjections are words or phrases that have undergone a semantic change by pragmaticisation of meaning and syntactic reanalysis, that is, they are grammaticalised elements. As for their meaning, interjections are classified into expressive, conative, phatic, metalinguistic and referential (onomatopoeic words). Interference and borrowing from Spanish and English interjections will be addressed. Finally, an excerpt of informal conversation with several interjections will be analysed in order to highlight the key role of these units in conversation flow and management.

1. Definition of the class Interjections are a part of speech di‰cult to define. Their nature makes them rather peculiar items, apparently peripheral to language (see Go¤man 1981; Almela 1982; Ameka 1992; Cuenca 2000, 2002). The most frequently described ‘anomalies’ that they exhibit can be summarised as follows:

* This research is part of the project Cohestil (reference FFI2008-01230/FILO) supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science and of the research group GEV, Grup d’Estudi de la Variacio´ (reference 2009-SGR 521) supported by Generalitat de Catalunya. I am indebted to Anna Matamala and an anonymous reviewer for their comments on this paper.

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Interjections do not develop any syntactic function nor do they need to enter into construction with other elements. Some of them seem not to fit in the phonological system of the language they belong to. They do not encode any precise lexical meaning, at least not in the traditional sense. Interjections are a heterogeneous class including onomatopoeic words (blub, bang, boom, knock-knock, meow, whoop. . .), one word units (ouch, oh, wow, oops. . .), and phrasal units (thank you, good heavens, come on, well done, behold. . .). Although they are claimed to be a universal word class, they are language specific.

As argued in a previous paper (Cuenca 2000), their syntactic and pragmatic behaviour is best understood if they are considered as a peripheral class of the category ‘sentence’. Interjections behave like sentences, because they can stand as complete utterances, but are peripheral to them since they formally correspond to words or phrases. Generaly speaking, interjections can be defined as idiomatic units or routines syntactically equivalent to a sentence: f

f

f

Interjections are idiomatic because ‘‘they are frozen patterns of language which allow little or no variation in form and [. . .] often carry meanings which cannot be deduced from their individual components’’ (Baker 1992: 63). Interjections are routines since they can be defined as ‘‘highly conventionalised prepatterned expressions whose occurrence is tied to more or less standardized communication situations’’ (Coulmas 1981: 2–3). Interjections are a peculiar part of speech whose form corresponds to a word (i.e., hey, right, absolutely. . .) or a phrase (i. e. good Lord, for God’s sake, good-bye, come on. . .), but syntactically they behave like sentences: ‘‘They correspond to communicative units (utterances) which can be syntactically autonomous, and intonationally and semantically complete’’ (Cuenca 2000: 332).

Catalan interjections are fixed units, morphologically non-inflected, whose meaning cannot be defined lexically but pragmatically – they express pragmatic values such as feelings, interpersonal relationship, discourse structuring and so on. Their meaning often depends on contextual factors (surrounding text, intonation, gestures) and most of them are polyse-

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mous.1 For instance, an exclamative eh (pronounced as [e]) can express contempt (Eh, calla ja! ‘hey, shut up’) or can call someone’s attention (Eh! Vine! ‘hey, come (here)’). The same graphic form (although pronounced as [], in some Catalan dialects), as an interrogative, can be a question tag asking for confirmation (Tornara`s a casa aviat, eh? ‘you’ll come back home early, huh?’), an indication to obtain a repetition (Eh? ‘pardon?’) and also a reinforcer of a command or a threat (No em diguis me´s mentides, eh? ‘don’t you tell me any more lies, huh?’). Finally, with a neutral intonation, eh (pronounced as [e] or [‘]) is also used as a filler indicating doubt, hesitation or an interruption in the discourse flow (Perque` ell. . .eh. . .no en sabia res ‘cause he . . .uh. . . didn’t know anything about it’). Interjections are typical markers in oral informal language and are usually associated with an emphatic (generally exclamative) intonation.

2. Primary and secondary Catalan interjections Interjections are generally classified into two groups –primary and secondary–. Primary interjections, such as oh!, ah!, ecs!, bah!, apa! (roughly corresponding to ‘oh!, ah!, ugh!, no way!, go on!’), are simple vocal units, sometimes very close to non-verbal devices. Secondary interjections, such as mare de De´u!, ostres!, vinga!, de´u n’hi do!, bon dia! (‘good heavens!, damn!, come on!, quite!, good morning!’), are words or phrases which have su¤ered a process of grammaticalisation (i.e., semantic change by pragmaticisation of meaning and syntactic reanalysis).2 Being grammaticalised, secondary interjections have undergone: f

f

Pragmaticisation of meaning, that is, a semantic change from their literal meaning to a pragmatic meaning related to interjective values (emotions in the case of expressive interjections); Structural fixation and reanalysis, that is, a process of grammatical change from di¤erent categorial sources, and optionally morphological and phonetic modifications.

1. On the polysemy of discourse markers, see Fischer (2000) and Cuenca (2008). 2. On the principles of grammaticalisation, see Traugott and Heine (eds.) (1991), Hopper and Traugott (1993) and the synthesis included in Cuenca and Hilferty (1999: chap. 6). On the grammaticalisation of pragmatics markers, see Brinton (1996) and on the grammaticalisation of interjections, see Cuenca and Marı´n (2001), and Cuenca (2004).

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According to their morphosyntactic nature, pragmatics is crucial in both types of interjections: Primary interjections are highly polysemous and context-sensitive, whereas pragmaticisation is a key process in the fixation of secondary interjections. 2.1. Primary interjections in Catalan Primary interjections are simple forms, generally exhibiting a monosyllabic structure based on a vowel and/or a semi-vowel sometimes followed by a semiconsonant or a consonant, especially occlusive or sibilant. Many of them are anomalous with respect to the phonetic and orthographic Catalan system: Some have no vowels (e.g., br, ps, pst, sst, xstt); some include an aspirated h (e.g., he, ha, ehem, etc.), and others a graphic h in final position, which is not pronounced (e.g., ah, eh, uh, bah). They include lengthenings (aaaaah, mmmmm, buum, eeeeh, ieee´ ), segment repetition and reduplication, (bub-bub, bom-bom, bum-bum, pam-pam, piu-piu, xim-xim, xop-xop; ai, ai; he, he; elis-elis), sometimes with vowel alternation (catacric-catacrac, clic-clac, ning-nang, nyigo-nyago, patim-patam, pim-pam, plif-plaf, ric-rac, tic-tac, tris-tras, zim-zam).3 These anomalies stem from the transcription process applied to vocal sounds that are not articulated as words or are associated with expressive e¤ects. Primary interjections encode modality and subjective values in a very general way and its context adds the precise meaning to the form. As a consequence, although they can stand on their own, it is not infrequent that they are followed by a secondary interjection (Oh, de´u meu ‘oh, my God’), a vocative or a complement identifying the addressee (Ai, Marta ‘oh, Marta’, Ai de tu ‘oh, (of ) you’, Hola a tots ‘hi (to) everyone’) or a phrase or sentence specifying its meaning (Oh, quin desastre ‘oh, what a mess’, Uf, estic esgotada ‘phew, I am exhausted’). 2.2. Secondary interjections in Catalan Secondary interjections are fixed units derived from words or phrases – mainly nouns and noun phrases, imperatives and adverbs – that have developed a pragmatic meaning related to subjectivity or discourse structuring. They are usually more complex phonetically and structurally than primary interjections, though some of them exhibit di¤erent degrees of phonetic reduction as a result of the grammaticalisation process. When

3. For a description of these processes in Catalan, see Cabre´ (2002).

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this reduction is complete, some can be considered primary interjections since it is di‰cult to determine its origin (e.g. the expressive form ido` or the phatic unit oi). Some have di¤erent phonetic and graphic variants (e.g. veiam, vejam, aviam, viam; a veure, avere; veritat, vritat, vitat, itat, tat) and others exhibit formal modifications by the addition of an emphatic prefix (e.g. redimonis), word synthesis (ade´u from a De´u, literally ‘to God’; vatua, from the Spanish expression voto a ‘I invoke. . .’; esclar, which some authors propose as a graphic alternative to e´s clar, literally ‘it is clear’) and also modification or substitution of all or part of the unit, generally because of taboo and euphemism (caram instead of carall ‘prick’, mecatxis instead of me cago en. . . ‘I shit on. . .’). Syntactically, secondary interjections occur on their own more often than primary ones, since they are more meaningful and transparent. However, they usually combine with vocatives, phrases or clauses: Compte, Carles! (‘Beware, Charles’), Mare de de´u, quin desastre! (‘Oh my God, what a mess’), Mira, anirem a l’aeroport amb taxi i no en parlem me´s (‘Look, we’ll go to the airport by taxi, and that’s enough’). If the following unit is a clause, some interjections can subordinate it by the use of the general complementiser que ‘that’: I tant que ho sabia! (‘of course (that) she knew it’), E´s clar que vindra`! (‘of course (that) he will come’), Mira que li ho he advertit! (‘I did warn him about it’). Table 1 classifies some interjections according to their source category and some examples are given.4 Some general facts of the Table 1 can be pointed out: f

Nouns are an important source of secondary interjections. Among them, exclamations invoking the deity (mainly, God and the Virgin Mary) and swearwords (referring to the sexual act, sexual organs or excrement) are notable. It can be seen that many interjections of this group show processes of modification by means of euphemism (e.g. o`ndia, ostres, ospa to avoid ho`stia ‘the holy wafer’; caram, casson to avoid carall ‘prick’) and intensification (e.g. rede´u; recony for De´u ‘God’, cony ‘cunt’) or both (rede´ula; rebotons for De´u ‘God’, collons ‘balls’), related to their semantic and pragmatic nature as taboo words (substituting words such as God, holy wafer, penis, testicles, vagina, etc.).

4. The forms followed by (*) are included as interjections in the o‰cial Catalan Dictionary (DLC). The examples come mainly from this dictionary.

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Adjectives fixed as interjections encode positive emotions by a process of metaphorisation applied to fields such as goodness, bigness, completeness or excellence (genial ‘great’, perfecte ‘perfect’, sort ‘luck’). Adverbs and prepositional phrases indicate directionality (amunt ‘up’), modality (de cap manera ‘no way’) or quantity ( prou ‘enough’). Verbal interjections derive from a grammaticalisation process taking the imperative as a basis. Similarly, many clauses include a second or a first person marker (escolta ‘(you) listen’, que` hi farem (literally, ‘what will we do?’, indicating resignation), encoding the conative or phatic value strengthened in the interjective meaning. The final group (‘‘others’’) includes borrowings from di¤erent languages (e.g. Latin, al  leluia, bravo, salve; Italian, bravo; Greek, eureka; Spanish, alto), and forms that have gone through severe processes of phonetic reduction and deformation, so that sometimes their source is not identifiable anymore (e.g. hola;5 vatua, from Spanish voto a ‘I invoke. . .’, etc.).

One common feature of nouns, adjectives and verbs used as interjections is that they have become morphologically invariable. However, some can show inflection morphemes. This is the case of the verbs mira/ miri, escolta/escolti, disculpa/disculpi, perdona/perdoni (2nd/3rd person singular depending on the form of address selected, general or polite) and the adjectives entesos, llestos (masculine plural). As Ameka (1992) notes, those morphemes do not properly imply morphologic alternation, like they do when used as verbs or adjectives.6 The case of home/dona used as a pragmatic marker is similar. Though gender alternation can be observed, the masculine variant, home (‘man’), can be used and is generally used for both, men and women. So, an utterance like Home, no em dira`s que ha estat be´ el que ha fet (‘home, you won’t say that what he did was right’) can have both a man or a woman as an addressee. Dona (‘woman’)

5. There are di¤erent opinions on the origin of hola. DCBV indicates that it comes from Spanish hola, originated in Arabic ua-Allah ‘for God’, while DECat considers that it is a Romance formation related to the interjection hala. 6. As Ameka (1992: 106) indicates regarding examples like French interjection tiens, ‘‘. . . some interjections which evolve from verbs could carry a particular inflection but they do not obey the agreement rules of the language in question. In other words, the inflections together with the verb stem have become frozen and form a completely new word.’’

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Table 1. Catalan interjections: categorical source classification. Category

Forms

Examples

Nouns and noun phrases

aire*, alerta*, a`ngela*, atencio´*, bon dia/nit, cama, carall* (and euphemistic variants: carai, caram*, carat*, caratxos*, caratsos*, cavall), cony* (and euphemistic variants: coi, conxo), collons (and euphemistic variants collins, botons, cordons. . .), enhorabona, felicitats, gra`cies, gra`cies a De´u, ho`stia* (and euphemistic variants o`ndia*, ostres, ospa. . .)*, home/dona, jesu´s*, lla`stima, malviatge, mare, mare meva, mare de De´u, (moltes) merce`s, merda*, noi* (and variants: manoi, renoi*), (i) punt, punyeta*, (i) un rave, raves fregits, rede´u*, res*, salut (i forc¸a), salutacions, silenci, sort, ull viu

Aire, que vol dir vent! ‘Aire (‘out’, literally ‘air’), which means wind.’ Compte, que el terra e´s rellisco´s. ‘Compte (‘beware’), slippery floor.’ Merda! m’he tornat a equivocar. ‘Merda (‘shit’)! I got it wrong again.’ Noi! Si que corres! ‘Noi (‘boy’) You’re fast!’ Res, no t’amoı¨nis me´s: ha estat un malente`s. ‘Res (‘it’s OK’), don’t you worry anymore: it was a misunderstanding.’

adjectives

bo*, conforme*, (e´s) clar, entesos, fanta`stic, fet, fort*, genial, justa la fusta, llestos, mut, mutis, mut i a la ga`bia, natural*, molt agraı¨t, perfecte

Bo!, ara s’ha trencat el llapis. ‘Bo (‘alas’), now the pencil breaks.’ T’ha pegat? Fort! Aixı´ el deixara`s tranquil i no l’insultara`s. ‘Did he hit you? Fort (‘Serves you right’)! You will leave him alone and won’t insult him anymore?’

adverbs and prepositional phrases

a gosa(d)es/ausa(d)es, amunt*, avant/endavant*, (molt) be´*, com*, d’acord?, d’aixo` res, de debo`?, de cap manera, de res, de veres?, de veritat?, encara com, i ara, ja*, massa poc, per favor, per l’amor de De´u, per molts anys, prou

Com!, encara sou aquı´? ‘Com (‘gee’)!, are you still here?’ Amunt i fora! ‘Up and away.’ –Que` t’ha semblat l’actuacio´ de l’Helena? –Be´, molt be´! ‘How did you like Helena’s

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Category

Forms

Examples performance? –Be´ (‘good’), molt be´ (‘very good’)!’ De veritat que t’ho has cregut? ‘Did you de veritat (‘really’) believe that?’

verbs

alc¸a*, bufa*, calla, comprens?, disculpa, entens?, escolta/escolti, fot*, fotre*, fuig, goita/guaita, jac¸ ( jau)*, mira/miri, perdona, saps?, va, vaja*, vatua*, ve´s, veura`s/ veura`, (ho) veus?, vigila, vinga*, visca

Guaita, quin cotxe me´s bonic! ‘Guaita (‘look/wow’), what a beautiful car!’ Va, decidim-nos. ‘Va (‘come on’), let’s make up our minds.’ Vinga, anem a sopar. ‘Vinga (‘come on’), let’s go for dinner.’ Hem guanyat el partit. Visca! ‘We won the match. Visca (‘hooray’)!’

clauses

a passar-ho be´, a veure, creut’ho, dema` m’afaitara`s, De´u vos guard, espera’t, fot-li, i que` me´s, ma (tu) que. . . , (m’)e´s igual, mira per on, mira que be´, mi-te’l, ni pensar-hi/ni pensar-ho, ni parlar-ne, no se’n parli me´s, no s’hi val, no et/te fot, no fotis, no es mereixen, nome´s faltaria, que` dius (ara), que` hi farem, que` vols fer-hi, (ves) quin remei, se me’n fot, si us plau, som-hi, tant e´s, tant (me) fa/fot, tant se val, te´ fort, tu dira`s, veges (tu), ves per on, vet-ho aquı´*, vols dir?

Tornem a classe. Som-hi! ‘Let’s go back to class. Som-hi (‘come on’)!’ –No ha fet els deures. –Tant se val. ‘She didn’t do her homework.’ –Tant se val (‘it doesn’t matter’).’ –Segur que dema` et torna els diners –Sı´, creu-t’ho! ‘–I am sure that he will give the money back tomorrow.’ –Yes, creu-t’ho (‘not likely’)!’ No ho fare´. Ni parlar-ne! ‘I won’t do it. Ni parlar-ne! (‘no way’)!’ Se’n van de viatge, saps? ‘They are going on a trip, saps (‘do you know?’)?’

Others

ade´u*, ade´u-siau*, alto*, al  leluia*, aixo` mateix, ame´n*, bingo*, bravo*, ca*, eureka*, fo´scara, i tant, ido`, moixoni*, mutis*, oi, oi tant/

Ade´u, noi: ara ja no ens veurem me´s fins a les festes de Nadal. ‘Ade´u (‘bye’), boy: we won’t see each other till Christmas.’

Catalan interjections

Category

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Forms

Examples

tal, salve*, sı´ home, tafoi*, vatua*

Alto! Parlem-ne! ‘Alto (‘halt’)! Let’s talk about it!’ Dius que guanyara` el doble que tu? I ca! ‘Do you say that he will earn double than you? I ca (‘no way’)!’ I ara, mutis!, no vull sentir ningu´! ‘And now, mutis (‘hush’)!, I don’t want to hear anyone.’ Tafoi! Quina alegria veure-us aquı´. ‘Tafoi (‘oh, my’)! What a joy to see you here.’

is only used in final position with respect to its utterance, generally with a conative component (see Cuenca and Torres 2008).7

3. Pragmatic classification Interjections typically encode pragmatic meanings while their so-called lexical meaning is weak and, strictly speaking, they have no referential content, that is, they do not contribute to the truth-conditions of the utterance where they occur. As a consequence, interjections must be interpreted in relation with the surrounding text. As proposed elsewhere (Cuenca 2000, 2002; cf. also Matamala 2008, 2009), they can be classified according to the linguistic functions defined by Jakobson (1960) and Bu¨hler, except for the poetic function. It would be almost impossible to classify all Catalan interjections and to account for all the contextual meanings that they can perform. In the 7. The same evolution can be observe regarding tio (literally uncle, and equivalent to ‘man’ as a solidarity marker), a borrowing from Spanish that is very frequent in informal conversation. It is a vocative usually inflected for gender (tia, when addressed at a woman) but is increasingly being used with men and women addressees, especially among youngsters.

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following sections, the main meanings will be listed along with the most frequent interjections associated with them (cf. Cuenca 2002, DLC).8 Some examples will be also included to help understand their meaning in context, since a one-to-one translation into English is generally di‰cult to provide. The examples are excerpts of a conversation (conversation 2) from Corpus Oral de Conversa Col  loquial (cf. Payrato´ and Alturo (eds.) 2002), in which the participants are talking about weddings. 3.1. Expressive interjections Expressive interjections refer to the speaker’s feelings, which can be positive, such as joy, negative, such as disapproval, anger, sorrow, pain, and also positive, negative or neutral, such as surprise and admiration. Among expressive interjections, there are many oaths and curses, mainly related to religion (De´u meu, senyor, mare de De´u, ho`stia, dimoni) and sex and eschatology. These forms are sometimes considered taboo or blasphemous and, as already noted, tend to be partially transformed through euphemism (e.g., carai, caram, caratsos, caratsus instead of carall, literally ‘prick’, botons, collins instead of collons, literally ‘testicles’, coi, conxo/conxos instead of cony literally ‘cunt’; ho`stima, o`stia, ospa, ostres, o`ndia instead of ho`stia ‘holy form’; redena, rede´nia, redeula, rediela, instead of naming God). Expressive interjections are the most frequent and varied. In considering the corpus on which the Dictionary of Catalan Language is based (Corpus Textual Informatitzat de la Llengua Catalana Contempora`nia), which contains 1,200 di¤erent interjective units, it is possible to observe that the most used interjections are expressive, namely oh (12,886), ai (8,233), ah (7,585), vaja (2,699), apa (1272).9 In fact, oh, ah and ai are the basic expressive interjections and, as the Table 2 shows, are polysemous, since they can indicate most of the values, either positive or negative.

8. Their translation into English is almost impossible out of context, since oneto-one correspondences are often di‰cult to find. So I will not even try to translate the forms in tables or lists; the general meaning can orientate the reader regarding their use and the examples will illustrate the use of some units. In the text, a translation, sometimes approximate, will be o¤ered whenever possible. 9. Among the most frequent, there are also two interjections that can be expressive, but have other basic values: oi (2,531), eh (2,042).

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Table 2. Expressive interjections. Meaning

Interjections

Disapproval, anger, refusal, grief (negative)

ah; ai; brr; oh; ntx; nye; uei; xe a quin sant; bufa; collons; cony; ho`stia; De´u meu (senyor); dimoni; diantre; i ara; jesu´s; malviatge; mare de De´u; mare, mare meva/meua, la mare que et va parir/fer/matricular, la mare que va, la mare del Tano; me cago en de´u, mecagoendena, mecagoen (la mar salada); merda; mira que be´; no et/te fot; per l’amor de De´u; punyeta; rede´u; ves/mira per on; vaja; vatua

Revulsion (negative)

ecs; uix

Sorrow, regret (negative)

oh; ai; ai las; ai mare; lla`stima; oix; pobre/pobra, pobret(a); vaja

Pain, fear, despair (negative)

ai; ai mare; ah; au; hala; oh; oi; uf; ui

Tiredness, e¤ort (negative)

ah; buf; uf; up

Incredulity, disbelief, contempt, aversion (negative)

apa; au; bah; ca; hala; hu ah, sı´?; alc¸a; fora, hala ve´s; i ara; ido`; no fotis; que` dius (ara); sı´ home; vols dir?

Distrust (negative)

hem; hmm; mau

Indi¤erence, resignation (negative or neutral)

bah; pse; rai; be´; bo; encara gra`cies; ido`; (m’)e´s igual; mmm; mira; que` hi farem; que` vols fer-hi; (ves) quin remei; se me’n fot; tant e´s; tant (me) fa/fot; tant se val

Relief (positive)

ah; buf; uf encara com; gra`cies a De´u; sort

Admiration, surprise (positive or negative)

ah; ah sı´?; aha`; ai; apa; ei; eu; oh; ui; uei; uep; xe; a gosa(d)es/ausa(d)es; alc¸a; bufa; calla; carai; De´u meu; de´u n’hi do; fo´scara; fotre, fot; goita/guaita; ho`stia; i ara; ma (tu) que. . .; manoi; mare (de De´u); mare de De´u, senyor; mi-te’l; mira (que be´); mira per on; renoi; senyor; tira peixet, tafoi; vaja; valga’m De´u; vatua; ves per on

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Meaning

Interjections

Wish (positive)

oh; tant de bo

Joy, praise (positive)

ah; ai; ha, ha, he, he; hurra; oh; oida`; ui; xe; hm, hum, mmm; al  leluia; (molt) be´; bravo; eureka; fanta`stic; genial; osti, ho`stia; perfecte; que be´; visca

Expressive interjections also include forms which are stereotypical from di¤erent territories, such as xe (typically Valencian), rai (typically used in Catalonia) or ido` (typically Balearic).10 The following excerpts illustrate some of the uses and meanings. The primary interjection (ai) and two secondary interjections of religious and eschatological origin (mare de De´u, mecagon) indicate a negative feeling of grief (1), embarrassment (2) and anger (3), respectively: (1) 106 FAN per l’esgle´sia evange`lica {(??) el van batejar\} 107 NAA (.. 0.90) ai \ 108 NAA (.. 0.69) sembla mentida n/ 109 NAA [que puguin arribar_] 110 HIL [sı´ \ 111 HIL una mica rotllo no] tot plegat\ (2) 852 HIL comencem a recitar el vers no/ 853 HIL mig de memo`ria mig llegint_

it was in the evangelical church that he was baptised ai ‘oh, dear’ it doesn’t seem possible that they can get to yes a little bit of a bore, huh, all in all

we start reciting the poem, huh? half by heart, half by reading

10. For an analysis of typical Valencian interjections, see Sancho (1999). Sancho (2003) compares de´u-n’hi-do, typical of Central Catalan, and ausades, typical of Valencian Catalan. Wheeler, Yates, and Dols (1999) also include interjections of di¤erent Catalan speaking territories, especially some Balearic ones. On rai, see Sola` i Pujols (1990).

Catalan interjections

854 HIL (.. 0.55) me’l sabia de memo`ria p(e)ro`_

I knew it by heart but

855 856 857 858 859 860 861 862 863 864 865

inwell being nervous because of nervousness and hurrthe shame mare de De´u ‘oh, my god’ and and no fine it turned out fine

HIL en- – HIL [1 home\] NAA [1 am(b) els] ner[vis_ 2] HIL [2 en]tre els nervis_ HIL [3 les pre- –] NAA [3 la ver]gonya_ HIL (. 0.22) mare de De´u \ HIL (.. 0.52) i:_ HIL i no\ HIL be´ \ HIL em va sortir be´ \

(3) 116 HIL (.. 0.59) es va casar a casa seva\ 117 HIL (.. 0.89) al:_ 118 HIL (. . . 1.34) no al pati sino´ al:_ 119 HIL (. . . 1.34) [{(??) me cagon- –}] 120 NAA [al celler\] 121 HIL al celler\

185

he married at home at not in the courtyard but at me cagon ‘damn it’ the wine cellar the wine cellar

The following excerpts illustrate more specific negative feelings, namely tiredness (uf; excerpt 4) and disbelief (ah sı´ ; excerpt 5): (4) 830 HIL el tio del vı´deo alla` aixı´ \ ((fent el gest de filmar)) 831 HIL (.. 0.35) aquı´_ 832 HIL a a un pam meu_ 833 HIL amb la am(b) el flash aquell i la ca`mera i aquı´_

the guy with the video there like this ((like filming)) here a handspan from me with the with that flash and the camera and here

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834 FAN (.. 0.37) uf \ 835 FAN (.. 0.49) l:es gotes de suor {(@) queien per aquı´_} ((passant-se la ma` pel front))

uf ‘phew’ the drops of sweat falling here ((she touches her forehead))

(5) 945 NAA quan entren els nuvis s’aplaude:ix\ 946 SUS (.. 0.50) ah sı´ [::/]

when bride and groom come in, people clap their hands ah sı´ ? ‘oh, really?’

947 HIL [ jo] no hi he estat a un casament [que aplaudeixin\] 948 SUS [{(@) jo tampoc\}]

I’ve never been to a wedding where they clap their hands me neither

In excerpt (6), encara gra`cies indicates resignation, whereas perfecte shows joy. (6) 1225 HIL encara gra`cies\ 1226 HIL (.. 0.46) que: que t’ajuden a tenir un lloc\ 1227 HIL (.. 0.64) [1 a tenir] un pis o una casa\ 1228 NAA [1 sı´ \] 1229 FAN [2 {(??) encara gra`cies\}] 1230 HIL [2 encara] [3 gra`cies\ 1231 HIL perfecte\]

encara gra`cies ‘thank goodness’ that they help you have a place to have an apartment or a house yes encara gra`cies ‘thank goodness’ encara gra`cies ‘thank goodness’ perfecte ‘perfect’

The next excerpts illustrate positive feelings of relief (sort que; excerpt 7), admiration (ho`stia; excerpt 8) and surprise and joy (goita; excerpt 9): (7) 1105 HIL (. . . . 3.31) doncs jo hi quedat molt be´ am(b) aquest dinar Anna\ 1106 HIL (. . . 1.31) sort que l’Anna ens ha donat {(L2) sal de frutas\}

well, I am really fine, with this lunch, Anna sort que ‘fortunately’ Anna has given us liver salts

Catalan interjections

(8) 1453 HIL vaig mirar de tots els meus companys que s’han anat casant i tot aixo`_ 1454 HIL (.. 0.48) ho`stia\ 1455 HIL som uns privilegiats (9) 1075 HIL (.. 0.84) no heu fet ni la llista de noces encara\ 1076 FAN (. . . 1.03) {(??) goita\} 1077 (. . . . 4.49) 1078 NAA ai\ 1079 NAA quina hora e´s_ 1080 (. . . . 3.89) 1081 NAA tres quarts de nou/

187

I look at all my colleagues who have married and all ho`stia ‘damn’ we are privileged

you haven’t even done your wedding list yet goita ‘wow’ oh what time is it a quarter to nine

3.2. Conative interjections Conative interjections aim at modifying the addressee’s behaviour, generally to make a person or animal start doing, go on doing or stop doing something. They are often followed by a vocative identifying its target. The main conative interjections and the meanings they express are included in Table 3. Conative primary interjections are usually more complex than expressive interjections and it is worth noticing that some of the forms are typically addressed to animals. Conative secondary interjections mostly derive from nouns (alerta, ajuda, atencio´, compte), imperatives (ve´s, ves, escolti/escolta, perdoni/ perdona; va, vinga, vigila; som-hi) and adverbs indicating movement (amunt, avant/endavant). Their relationship with the imperative can also be observed in the fact that some of them reinforce commands or requests and it is not unusual to find them combined with vocatives and with the form tu (‘you’) whose deictic force is already weakened (e.g. No ho sabia, tu ‘I didn’t know, ‘you’’) Excerpt 10 shows the use of va as a conative interjection in direct speech:

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Maria-Josep Cuenca

Table 3. Conative interjections. Meaning

Interjections

Calling to attention

ei; ep; eh; ehem; eu; psit; pst; uep/uei; xe; disculpi; escolti/escolta; perdoni to animals: cotx; curt; mix/mixeta; pull; quisso; tites; xitxo

Warning, threat

ei; ep; eh; ah; ai; ai, ai, ai; uei; uep; ui; ui, ui, ui; atencio´; alerta; compte; pobre de tu; ull viu; vigila

Asking for help

ajuda; auxili

Calling to silence

xit; xist; xut moixoni; mut; mutis; mut i a la ga`bia; prou; silenci

Encouragement

apa; au; ar; eia; hala; uix; arruix; a`pala, a`pali: a veure; aire; amunt; a`nsia; avant/ endavant; cama; da-li; espavila (to hurry up); fort; fot-li; fuig; jas (to make somebody take something), jau; pit i fora; som-hi; up, upa, u´pala; va; vinga; ve´s only to animals: arri; arruix; cotx; oixque, oixca; ollao`; atra`s; sus

Stopping

ep; alto; llestos; (i) prou; (i) punt; to animals: xo; ou; eis, bo

Adjuncts of a command or request

au (va/vinga) per favor; per De´u; per l’amor de De´u; si us plau; va; vinga

(10) 1325 NAA el que ens passa tant a nosatres com a vosatres_ 1326 NAA e´s que no podeu prendre una decisio´ de dir_ 1327 NAA doncs mira\

what happens to us and also to you is that you cannot take the decision of saying OK

Catalan interjections

1328 1329 1330 1331 1332 1333 1334 1335 1336 1337 1338

NAA va\ NAA (.. 0.45) a[:_ NAA tal mes_] HIL [fem aixo`:_] NAA di- – NAA va\ NAA dicidem-nos me´s o menys que pel:_ NAA per: la:_ NAA la tardor de l’any que ve ens casarem per exemple\ NAA (.. 0.33) no pots dicidir_ NAA (. 0.29) perque` no saps el que tindra`s o el que no tindra`s\

189

va ‘come on’ uh that month we do that xx va ‘come on’ let’s decide on more or less that by by autumn, next year, we’ll get married, for instance you cannot decide because you don’t know what you will or you won’t have

3.3. Phatic interjections Phatic interjections establish contact between speaker and hearer. They are ritualised forms constituting a speech act (from speaker to hearer) or a verbal response to a communication act (from hearer to speaker). The first group indicates a speech act such as greeting, thanking or apologising and often occur as a complete utterance. Some of them form adjacency pairs; for instance, when someone thanks someone else (gra`cies ‘thank you’), the hearer is expected to give an interjective response in return (de res ‘not at all’). This is also the case of greetings such as hola, as in excerpt 11: (11) 1095 ((arriben els pares)) 1096 HIL (.. 0.56) goita\ 1097 NAA (. . . 1.42) {(@) ja han arribat\} 1098 (. . . . 5.13) 1099 NAA ((a MEL)) hola:\ 1100 NAA @ 1101 ??? hola

((their parents arrive)) look they are already home

hola ‘hi’ hola ‘hi’

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Table 4. Phatic interjections (I). Meaning

Interjections

Greetings

ei; hola ade´u; bon dia (i bona hora); bona tarda, vesprada, nit. . . ; De´u vos guard; expressions, memo`ries, records

Farewells

au (ade´u); apa (ade´u) ade´u/ade´u-siau; a reveure; fins ara/ aviat/despre´s; fins dema`/fins una altra. . . ; passi-ho be´/a passar-ho be´; salut; salutacions

Thanks

gra`cies, molt agraı¨t, (moltes) merce`s

Response to thanks

de res, no es mereixen, no s’ho val

Apologies

disculpi/disculpa; perdo´; perdoni/ perdona

Good wishes

bravo; felicitats; (l’)enhorabona; (molt) be´; memo`ries; per molts anys; records: salut (i forc¸a) invocations: salut (when sneezing); Sant Pau (when coughing), Sant Blai (glorio´s) (when choking); Sant Antoni (a bang or knock)

Mockery or approval of the hearer’s disgrace

elis, elis; pam i pipa; tururut (especially among children); encara com; fort; massa poc

The second group of phatic interjections indicates the hearer’s attitude towards the speaker’s words (agreement, confirmation, disagreement, negation, and so on) or the speaker’s demands to ascertain the hearer’s attitude (asking for agreement or confirmation). These phatic forms often occur in transition places in conversation. A‰rmative and negative interjections are responses to a previous intervention, whereas most interrogative interjections ask for a verbal reaction on the part of the hearer. Excerpt 12 includes an interrogative interjection (eh) and an a‰rmative one (i tant), as an adjacency pair:

Catalan interjections

191

Table 5. Phatic interjections (II). Meaning

Interjections

Agreement

(molt) be´; bo; conforme; d’acord; entesos; fet; home/dona (partial agreement); no se’n parli me´s, nome´s faltaria; va; vinga

A‰rmative responses and reinforcements

eu; eh?; aixo` mateix; a`ngela; (e´s) clar (que sı´); justa la fusta; i tant; mira; natural; patapam; oi tant/tal; te´; tu dira`s; veges (tu); vet-ho aquı´ /acı´; vet-li aquı´ /acı´

Disagreement

bah (bah); ca; ara pla; com; de debo`?; de veritat?; de veres?; espera’t; fuig; home/dona; i ara; no s’hi val; que` dius (ara)?; un rave; raves fregits; res; sı´; home; sı´; sı´?; sı´; sı´; va; vinga; vols dir?

Negative response and disbelief

ah no; ca; nyiclis; ara hi corro; calla; creu-t’ho; de cap manera; d’aixo` res; dema` m’afaitara`s; i que` me´s; ni pensar-hi/-ho; ni parlarne; sı´ home/dona

Asking for agreement

eh?; d’acord?; entesos?; comprens?; entens?; no trobes?; saps?; sı´; (ho) veus?

Asking for confirmation

eh?; mm?; oi?; de debo`?; de veritat?; no?; veritat?

To obtain a repetition

eh?; com?; mana?; que`?; sı´

(12) 886

HIL [p(e)ro`] va se:r una estona tambe´ \

but it was a moment also

887 888

FAN mhm\ HIL que te que te’n recordes eh/ NAA (. . . 1.28) i tant\ NAA i quina vergonya\

mh that you that you remember it, eh? ‘huh’ i tant ‘of course you do’ and what a shame!

889 890

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The following excerpts illustrate agreement (aixo` mateix, 13; clar, 14) and partial agreement (home, 15): (13) 744 745 746

NAA el padrı´ qui e´s\ NAA (.. 0.90) el que et fa el vers i et regala el ram\ HIL aixo` mateix \

(14) 1413 NAA si: ara tu els hi dius als teus pares_ 1414 NAA mira que hem trobat un pis_ 1415 NAA (.. 0.35) el comprem el lloguem o qualsevol cosa 1416 NAA i et diran_ 1417 NAA home\ 1418 HIL (.. 0.55) clar \ (15) 383 NAA (. . . 2.02) nosatres de moment fins que no tinguem casa no decidirem re\ 384 SUS (.. 0.43) @@ 385 NAA (.. 0.95) p(er)o` evidentment per fer-me il  lusions_ 386 387 388

HIL (. . . 1.94) home\ NAA (. . . 1.13) p(er)o` si ens hem d’anar a viure sota un pont_ NAA tampoc cal que ens casem i fem tant de muntatge\

the godfather, who is he? the one who reads the poem and o¤ers you a bouquet aixo` mateix ‘that’s it’

if now you tell your parents look, we’ve found an apartment we buy it or rent it or anything and they will tell you well clar ‘of course’

at the moment, until we have a house, we won’t decide anything

but obviously I can look forward to it home ‘well. . .’ but if we have to go under a bridge to live we don’t need to get married and make such a big fuss

Interjections are reinforcers of the previous (eh, 16) or the following proposition (mira que, 17) in the following excerpts:

Catalan interjections

(16) 458 HIL [ jo] no se´ quantes peles es pensa [gastar xxx\] 459 NAA [me’l fare´ jo\] 460 HIL {(??) p(e)ro`} jo_ 461 NAA jo: o algu´ que me’l faci eh\ 462 NAA jo passo d’anar-me– 463 HIL jo am(b) el meu {(L2) traje} em penso gastar lo mı´nim eh\ 464 HIL (. . . 1.67) p(e)ro` lo mı´nim eh\ (17) 1378 NAA (. 0.25) els planells aquells_ 1379 NAA (. 0.20) d’alla` a l’entrada_ 1380 NAA mira que_ 1381 NAA (.. 0.38) hi tenia il  lusio´_

193

I don’t know how much money she is thinking of spending I will make it myself but I or have it done, eh? ‘huh’ I don’t feel like going me, with my dress, I intend to spend the least possible, eh? ‘huh’ but the least, eh? ‘huh’

those maps down there, at the entrance mira que ‘I really’ was looking forward to it

Interjections asking for agreement (18, 19) or confirmation (20) can be tags or occur in an initial position, generally subordinating the utterance that is the object of the interrogation, which can be also represented by an a‰rmative (sı´ ) or negative marker (no) (cf. Cuenca 1997). (18) 793 HIL i el padrı´ fa de testimoni i de padrı´ [no/] 794 795

FAN [mhm\] HIL (.. 0.85) que e´s lo normal\

the godfather acts as bestman and as godfather, no? ‘right?’ hm which is normal

(19) 1440 HIL i tenint bon arreglo com tenen el vostro cas i el nostro cas_

and being easy to solve your case and our case

1441 HIL que tenen_ 1442 HIL bons arreglos\

as there are easy to solve

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Maria-Josep Cuenca

1443 HIL entens/

entens? ‘do you follow?’

1444 NAA i tant\

sure

1445 NAA poca gent esta` a la nostra [situacio´\]

not many are in our situation

(20) 907 NAA {(E)(L2) es que habla de una manera ası´_} 908 NAA (.. 0.79) oi que sı´/

he speaks in a way, like this oi que sı´ ‘doesn’t he?’

3.4. Metalinguistic interjections Metalinguistic interjections are very close to the second group of phatic interjections and to discourse markers, since they relate speaker and hearer indicating their attitude or stance towards discourse progression and they can also bracket units of talk, as discourse markers typically do (Schi¤rin 1987). Metalinguistic interjections are mostly related to turn distribution and discourse continuity. Some of them are used as fillers whenever the speaker interrupts the flow of their words.

Table 6. Metalinguistic interjections. Meaning

Interjections

Backchanneling

ah; aha; mm/mhm; sı´ (sı´); ja (ja); (e´s) clar

Turn taking or overlapping

a veure; escolta/escolti; mira/miri

Beginning of a discourse unit (e.g., new topic, explanation, direct speech)

ah; be´; escolta/escolti; (molt) be´; veura`s/ veura`; mira; a veure

Pause, doubt or hesitation

eh; mm; hum; aa; ehem; a veure; be´

Correction

ah; ai; ei; ep; glup; be´ (no)

Catalan interjections

195

Backchannels are very frequent in conversation (21): (21) 477 HIL per una modista famosa no/ 478 HIL [que treballa\] 479 NAA [mhm\] 480 HIL (.. 0.65) i:_ 481 HIL com que e´s d’Olesa_ 482 HIL la coneix_

by a famous dressmaker who works mhm ‘hm’ and she is from Olesa she knows her

In (22), NAA is calculating how long would it take for her home to be ready and mira introduces an explanation of the previous idea (it may take about two months); HIL introduces a new subtopic prefaced by escolta. (22) 1053 NAA (. . . 2.27) bueno amb dos mesos\ 1054 NAA mira\ 1055 NAA (.. 0.59) febrer marc¸ i abril\ 1056 NAA ja sera` aixo` ja\ 1057 NAA ja sera` el que vem dir\ 1058 1059 1060 1061 1062

??? (. . . 1.24) mhm\ HIL [@@@] FAN [@@@]@@ HIL escolta\ HIL avisa amb temps eh\

well, in two months mira ‘well’ February, March and April it will be so, yes it will be what we said hm

escolta ‘hey’ let us know in time, huh?

In excerpt 23, aviam, combined with bueno, introduces a change of topic; in excerpt 24 mira introduces direct speech: (23) 373 NAA li estem parlant i no s’entera\ 374 HIL no s’entera de re\ 375 NAA o deu tenir la ra`dio a tope_

we are talking to her but she doesn’t understand she understands nothing at all or the radio volume must be turned right up

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Maria-Josep Cuenca

376 377 378

(. . . . 10.30) NAA ((to FAN)) bueno\ NAA aviam avui el teu pare si:_ FAN (.. 0.67) que`/ NAA si ha parlat am(b) el [teu] tiet\

379 380

(24) 490 HIL (.. 0.36) es van veure un dia i es van posar d’acord_ 491 HIL {(AC) mira jo el vull aixı´_ 492 HIL no se´ que`/}

bueno ‘well’ aviam ‘let’s see whether your father today what whether he has talked to your uncle

they met one day and they got an agreement mira ‘look’ I want it like this and so on

Finally, excerpt (25) shows ai prefacing an admission of an error, because the speaker is not sure about the right term to refer to a religion, and corrects: (25) 93 NAA (.. 0.55) i la seva dona e´s evange`lica/ 94 NAA (.. 0.58) ai evange`lica\ 95 NAA [1 evangelista/]

and his wife is an evangelical ai ‘oops’, evangelical evangelist

3.5. Representative interjections and onomatopoeia Representative interjections reproduce sounds or movements and correspond to onomatopoeia. This group has been studied by several Catalan authors (see Bassa, Cabot, and Dı´az 1991; Pons 1987; Riba and Rius 1997) and there are also repertories and lists in Catalan grammars (GLC in progress; Ruaix 1998; Wheeler, Yates, and Dols 1999: chap. 24) in general dictionaries DLC, DCBV and, especially, in two interjections dictionaries (Riera-Eures and Sanjaume 2002; 2010).11 11. The dictionary of onomatopoeia and other interjections by Riera-Eures and Sanjaume (2010) includes 952 entries, most of them onomatopoeic; 399 of the concepts listed are expressed by onomatopoeic words; it is worth noticing that all the entries include correspondences in English, Spanish and French. There are also several webpages on interjections and onomatopoeic words listed in the reference section.

Catalan interjections

197

The interjections representing sounds can be classified according to their source: it can be a person (e.g., atxem –sneezing–, ue` –crying–, ha-ha-ha, he-he, hi-hi –laughing–), an animal (bub-bub –dog–, me`u –cat–, piu –birds in general–) and a thing (tic-tac –watch–, rum-rum –car engine–, panyeu –bullet–). Ideophones also represent processes such as movements (zas –quick movement ra`pid–, pam –something falls–, gloc-gloc, glec-glec –liquids– etc.), and events like an explosion (bum) or vomiting (uag). Table 7, adapted from the Catalan normative grammar (GLC, in progress) illustrate some of the most frequent forms followed by the sound they imitate in brackets. Table 7. Representative interjections. Source represented

Onomatopoeia

Object

blow, knock

clac, patatxap, pataxup, paf, pataplaf, plaf, plof, puf, xac, xap, xec; flist-flast (whipping), pif-paf (slaping), xip-xap (splashing)

rustle, breaking

catacrac, crac, crec

detonation, shot

bum/pum (boom), pam, pim-pam (shot)

moving

gloc-gloc, zas, zim-zam

whisper

xiu-xiu

Machinery Musical instruments

Living beings

catric-catrac (loom), cric-crac (lock), taf-taf (explosion engine), tic-tac (watch) string

nyigo-nyigo (violin)

percussion

ning-nang, ning-ning (bells), tampatantam (drums)

wind

tararı´, tiroliro, tarara`/tururut

people

atxim (sneezing), ha ha ha (laughter), nyamnyam (chewing), nyec-nyec ( pleading, quarrel ), nyeu-nyeu (speak hypocritically), nyic-nyic (irritating and high-pitch talking), taral  lara` (singing), tris-tras (stepping)

animals

bub-bub (dog), cloc-cloc (hen), nyic (gemec), piu-piu (birds), quiquiriquic (cock), ric-ric (cricket)

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Onomatopoeic words are sometimes used as nouns or adverbs (sentir el gloc-gloc de l’aigua ‘to hear the plop-plop of water’; se n’anaven ranyarany ranya-rany ‘they went clackety-clack, clackety-clack’) and can be the basis for a verb, e.g. piular (‘to peep’), xiuxiuejar (‘to whisper’). They are usual in narrative texts to ‘‘express or refer to a sudden (surprising) action or noise or recapture the surprise or other emotional e¤ect produced suddenly in the speaker (and aimed at in the listener) by an unexpected event’’ (Steel 1985: 40). The following excerpt illustrates this kind of use in conversation: (26) 423 NAA a mi els vestits de nu´via m’agraden aquests vestits aixı´ tipo:_ 424 NAA de hippie_ 425 NAA aixı´_ 426 NAA bueno de hippie\ 427 NAA tipo eivissenc_ 428 NAA una cosa aixı´ \ 429 430 431 432 433 434 435 436 437 438 439 440 441

NAA fiu fiu\ ((moving her arm up and down)) FAN eivissenc com e´s\ NAA d’aquests_ SUS (.. 0.54) [de tirat\] HIL [xxx\] NAA tirat\ NAA aixı´_ NAA una cosa:_ NAA me´s senzilla:_ NAA no tan dallo`\ FAN (.. 0.72) mhm\ NAA (. . . 2.05) jo no vull un vestit {(L2) pomposo\} FAN (.. 0.97) {(L2) pomposo\}

I like those bride dresses like that hippies like that well, hippie style Eivissa’s style something like this fiu fiu ((moving her arm up and down)) it is Eivissa’s style this kind laid down laid down sort of something very simple not so much huh I don’t want a pompous dress pompous

Catalan interjections

199

4. Interference and borrowing of interjections in Catalan Interjections seem to be a very dynamic class that incorporates elements through the influence of other languages. As already indicated, some Catalan interjections are borrowings from other languages. This is the case of bravo (Italian), ame´n, ave, salve (Latin) or alto (Spanish). Nowadays, the pressure of forms and uses from Spanish and English is really intense. Foreign uses are introduced, sometimes banishing genuine interjections. Although reference books and dictionaries, and as a consequence also linguistic revisers advise to avoid them, a number of foreign interjections occur in informal Catalan. Regarding Spanish, it is not unusual to hear in Catalan conversation interjections such as anda (ya), arrea, bueno, claro, cuidado, guay, hombre, ojo, vale, vaya, vamos, venga (roughly equivalent to ‘come on, get going, well, of course, careful, fab, man, watch it, OK, come on, no way’, respectively). Puah subtitutes ecs as an expression of revulsion; ja, ja, ja represents laughter instead of ha, ha, ha; que` va! is used instead of i ara! to express disbelief. People greet one by another saying que` tal?, (molt) bones tardes or bones, calques of Spanish que´ tal?, buenas tardes and buenas, when com va/anem?, bona tarda/vesprada would be the normal solutions. As di¤erent authors have pointed out (Espuny 1998; Gonza´lez 1998; Vila 1998), bueno and vale are very frequent in today’s oral Catalan. In Matamala’s (2009) study of interjections in a corpus of original and dubbed sitcoms, bueno and vale are listed as ‘‘widely used interjections’’ though ‘‘not included in the dictionary’’. She comments that ‘‘interjections such as bueno or vale, calques from their Spanish counterparts, find their way in Catalan sitcoms because actors include them spontaneously’’ (2009: 491), which is a sign of a widespread use in informal conversation. The following excerpts show some uses of Spanish interjections (bueno, vale, vamos, cuidado, jolı´n) in Catalan conversation:

?

(27) 816 NAA (. . . 1.27) que coneixies a la seva famı´lia\ 817 NAA que els coneixies\ 818 HIL (.. 0.30) sı´:\ 819 NAA ah bueno\ 820 NAA [menys mal\]

that you knew his familiy that you knew them yes oh, bueno ‘fine’ fortunately

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(28) 763 SUS (. 0.19) ell va fer de padrı´ i de testimoni a la vegada\ 764 NAA ah\ 765 NAA [vale\

he was both godfather and best man aha vale ‘OK’

(29) 641 642 643 644 645 646 647 648 649

and with her and she said she was vamos ‘wow’ very beautiful it is so the. . . and what about Pep? did he like it? vamos ‘wow’ phew

HIL (. 0.12) i amb ella_ HIL ella deia que estava_ HIL vamos\ HIL guapı´ssima\ HIL (. . . 1.04) [e´s aixı´ la–] NAA [i al Pep] que`/ NAA li va agradar/ HIL vamos \ HIL uf \

(30) 945 NAA quan entren els nuvis s’aplaude:ix\ 946 SUS (.. 0.50) ah sı´ [::/] 947 HIL [ jo] no hi he estat a un casament [que aplaudeixin\ ] 948 SUS [{(@) jo tampoc\}] 949 NAA no/ 950 SUS nxt\ 951 HIL (.. 0.57) bueno\ 952 HIL cuidado\ 953 HIL quan entres al restaurant sı´ \ 954 NAA (.. 0.55) sı´::\

well cuidado ‘watch out’ when you enter the restaurant, they do yes

(31) 990 NAA (.. 0.31) {(L2) jolı´n\} 991 NAA jo que em volia casar la setmana que ve\

jolı´n (‘darn’) I wanted to get married next week

when the bride and groom come in people clap their hands oh, really? I’ve never been to a wedding where they clap their hands me neither no

Catalan interjections

201

The influence of English a¤ects both Catalan and Spanish, especially through inaccurate translation or dubbing processes, so that some uses derived from interference spread to informal conversation. As noted by several authors, interjections are highly language-specific and translating them is not a matter of word translation (Cuenca 2006). For instance, when accepting or turning down an o¤er, an English speaker says ‘‘yes, please’’ or ‘‘no, thank you’’, whereas in Catalan both possibilities include the interjection gra`cies ‘thank you’ (sı´, gra`cies ‘yes, thank you’, no, gra`cies ‘no, thank you’). Similarly, on passing someone, ade´u or an equivalent is the general greeting, whereas in English it is hello or hi.12 A literal translation of the English routines would thus bring about a pragmatic error. When an interjection or any idiomatic unit is not properly identified and interpreted, literal translation usually takes place (Cuenca 2004, 2006). Literal translation of an English interjection by a unit with di¤erent meaning or use conditions in the target language can result in interference and eventually borrowing not only at the lexical level, which is easily identifiable, but at the pragmatic level, which is more implicit and di‰cult to avoid. At the lexical level, primary interjections such as aha, guau/uau13 and hey are loans or graphic adaptations of English interjections (aha, wow, hey) that have been introduced in informal conversation.14 In the case of secondary interjections, the polysemy between the source form (the literal interpretation) and the grammaticalised form (the interjective interpretation) also increases the possibility of literal translation and thus interference. This would be the case of De´u or Dios used in informal Catalan instead of De´u meu or mare meva, mimicking the use of English God as an expressive interjection and its literal translation into Spanish, Dios. Other interferences are those of sı´ expressing joy (English ‘yes!’ for celebrating a success, whose equivalent is be´!). At the pragmatic level, one of the most cited cases of interference is the overuse of oh, which is more frequent in English than in Catalan, where ah or zero are often a more accurate translation. One can also hear, especially in children’s programs oh, oh! instead of the Catalan ai, ai, ai!. 12. Both di¤erences also apply to Spanish, as noted by Steel (1985: 26, 20). 13. Guau is a graphic adaptation of English wow, and corresponds to the Spanish onomatopoeic word used for the bark of a dog. 14. Another case is that of the interjection expressing joy iupi, probably an adaptation of yippee throught the Spanish form yupi.

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Another interference based on a di¤erence in frequency and context of use is that of well, often used in contexts where Catalan would use no mark at all (Cuenca 2008; Televisio´ de Catalunya 1997: cap. 6; see also www.esadir.cat).15 In conclusion, Spanish interjections frequently occur in Catalan informal conversation. On the other hand, wrong translations are the main source of the incorporation of calques and borrowings from English, often indirectly through Spanish dubbed versions of American audiovisual products.

5. An example: Interjections in informal conversation We have analysed some examples of di¤erent types of interjections. Nevertheless, their function and interaction become more evident when a relatively long excerpt is considered. In this section, a longer fragment will be reproduced and analysed in order to highlight the key role of interjections in informal conversation. The following conversation (COC, conversation 9) takes place at a Sunday family lunch. There are 11 participants: the grandmother, the parents, brothers and sisters and their spouses, an aunt and a child. After lunch the mother o¤ers her son-in-law a drink: (32) 122 IDA Jordi\ 123 IDA (.. 0.81) saps que` ens va dir ahir la meva cunyada/ 124 ELE (. 0.17) Marc/ 125 JJJ (. 0.19) la teva cunyada\ 126 JJJ a ve(u)re\ 127 128 129 130

IDA la [1 meva\ IDA la meva\ IDA la tieta Carmeta\] T?? [1 xXXx]

Jordi saps ‘do you know’ what my sister-in-law told me yesterday? Marc? your sister-in-law a veure ‘well’ my my auntie Carmeta

15. On problems on translating interjections and other idiomatic units into Catalan, see Cuenca (2004), Chaume (2004) and Matalama (2007); for a parallel situation in Spanish, see Go´mez Capuz (1997, 1998, 2001). On the translation of onomatopoeia, cf. Martos (1999).

Catalan interjections

131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159

IDA que va anar x:_ IDA alla`\ IDA a [2 l’All i Oli\] JJJ [2 la tieta Carmeta/] JJJ (. 0.18) e´s la teva cunyada/ (. 0.16) LIA @ @@@ [3 @@] IDA [3 tota la vida] ha sigut la me[4va cu]nyada\ JJJ [4 {(??) apa\}] IDA pensa_ LIA Jordi_ JJJ (.. 0.32) jo e´s la primera cunyada que [he tingut\] MSA [{(F) ets un desastre\}] LIA @@ @@@@ (.. 0.82) JJJ tieta Carmeta/ (.. 0.36) ??? (tos) [(tos)] IDA [la:_] IDA la dona del Daniel gran_ JJJ (.. 0.95) ah coi \ JJJ cla:r\ JJJ e´s v(e)ritat \ JJJ [sı´ home\] IDA [@] IDA {(@) mi[ra\]} LIA [e´s] cunyada_ IDA (. 0.16) {(@) ve:s per on ara\} IDA @

203

who went there to ‘‘All i Oli’’ ((a restaurant)) auntie Carmeta? is she your sister-in-law?

she’s been my sister-in-law for all my life apa ‘oh, come on’ think Jordi me, she is the fist sister-in-law I’ve ever had you’re so hopeless

auntie Carmeta? (coughing) the old Daniel’s wife ah coi ‘oh yeah’ clar ‘sure’ e´s veritat ‘it’s true’ sı´ home ‘yes, of course’ mira, ‘look’ she’s the sister-in-law ve:s per on ‘look’ now

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160

JJJ (.. 0.32) [doncs ara no hi queia\] SER [xx xx][xx] IDA [be´ \] IDA doncs aquesta_ IDA ens va dir\ IDA que la menta_ IDA (.. 0.59) era mo:lt dolenta_ IDA (. 0.18) perque` feia pujar la pressio´\ JJJ (.. 0.60) ah:\ JJJ p(e)ro`:_ JJJ {(??) a lo millor} la tinc baixa\ IDA (.. 0.33) ah\ IDA be´ \ (COC09, 122–172)

161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172

but I couldn’t place her now

be´ ‘OK’ well, she told us that mint is very bad cause it made blood-pressure go up ah ‘oh’ but maybe my pressure is down ah ‘oh’ be´ ‘fine’

The two main participants of the fragment are IDA, the mother, who is hosting this family lunch, and Jordi (JJJ), her son-in-law. IDA o¤ers Jordi a drink made of mint but he turns the o¤er down. IDA tries to explain that her sister-in-law says that mint is very bad because it makes blood pressure go up. But the conversation changes to a side comment on who her sister-in-law is. IDA starts the explanation by a direct appeal to Jordi: a vocative and a phatic unit (Jordi, saps que. . . ?, 122–123). By using the metalinguistic a ve(u)re (126), Jordi gives her an instruction to go on. IDA says that her sister-in-law is auntie Carmeta, a piece of information that Jordi is surprised (apa, 139) not to know. At the end, Jordi can identify the person and agrees and reinforces his positive response (ah coi, clar, e´s veritat, sı´ home, 151–154), whereas IDA expresses positive surprise (mira, ves per on, 156, 158) because he can finally place the person and she can go on with her explanation. The metalinguistic be´ (162) indicates that the excursus is finished and she can finally get to the point (‘‘La meva cunyada ens va dir que la menta era molt dolenta perque` feia pujar la pressio´’’ ‘My sister-in-law told us that mint was very bad cause it made blood pressure go up’). Then Jordi indicates understanding and agreement (ah, 168) but adds a restriction (‘‘a lo millor la tinc baixa’’, ‘maybe it [his blood pressure] is low’’), to which IDA also expresses understanding (ah, 171) and agreement (be´, 172).

Catalan interjections

205

This excerpt highlights the frequency and role of di¤erent types of interjections in conversation. The propositional content of the excerpt is reduced if compared with the interactional values introduced by the markers described. The progress of conversation is based on a negotiation of meanings for which interjections are key-elements.

6. Concluding remarks Interjections are frequent elements in informal conversation where they encode subjective and intersubjective meanings crucial for conversation progress and management. Catalan interjections have proved to be a rich and varied class of lexical items. Formally, they range from simple vocal sounds, sometimes close to non-verbal devices, to complex structures that have lost their original morphosyntactic properties, have become fixed and equivalent to a whole utterance and have developed a pragmatic meaning. They have been classified into expressive, conative, phatic, metalinguistic and representative considering the pragmatic function that they encode. Finally, language contact and interference explains the fact that forms and uses of Spanish and English make their way in Catalan informal conversation.

References Almela Pe´rez, Ramo´n 1985 Apuntes gramaticales sobre la interjeccio´n. Madrid: Secretariado de Publicaciones, Universidad de Murcia. Ameka, Felix 1992 Interjections: The universal yet neglected part of speech. Journal of Pragmatics 18 (2–3): 101–118. Baker, Mona 1992 In Other Words. A Coursebook on Translation. London / New York: Routledge. Bassa, Ramon, Miquel Cabot Sastre, and Ramon Dı´az Villalonga 1991 Llengua de pedac¸: onomatopeies i embarbussaments. Classificacio´ i u´s dida`ctic. Mallorca: Moll. ´ scar Bladas, O 2009 Manual de transcripcio´ del discurs oral. Materials de treball. Barcelona: PPU. Brinton, Laurel J. 1996 Pragmatic Markers in English. Grammaticalization and Discourse Function. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

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Cabre´, Teresa 2002

Altres sistemes de formacio´ de mots. In Grama`tica del Catala` Contemporani, Joan Sola`, Maria-Rosa Lloret, Joan Mascaro´, and Manuel Pe´rez Saldanya (coords.), vol. 1, 889–932. Barcelona: Empu´ries. Chaume, Frederic 2004 Discourse markers in audiovisual translating. Meta 49 (4): 843– 855. Coulmas, Florian 1981 Introduction: Conversational Routine. In Conversational Routine. Explorations in Standardized Communication Situations and Prepatterned Speech, Florian Coulmas (ed.), 1–17. The Hague: Mouton. Cuenca, Maria Josep 1997 Form-use mappings for tag-questions. In Discourse and Perspective in Cognitive Linguistics, Wolf-Andreas Liebert, Gisella Redeker, and Linda Waugh (eds.), 3–19. Amsterdam/Philadephia, John Benjamin. Cuenca, Maria Josep 2000 Defining the indefinable? Interjections. Syntaxis 3, 29–44. Cuenca, Maria Josep 2002 Els connectors i les interjeccions. In Grama`tica del Catala` Contemporani. Joan Sola`, Maria-Rosa Lloret, Joan Mascaro´, and Manuel Pe´rez Saldanya (coords.), vol. 3, chap. 31. Barcelona: Empu´ries. Cuenca, Maria Josep 2004 Translating interjections: An approach from grammaticalization theory. In Linguagem, Cultura e Cognic¸a˜o. Estudos de Linguı´stica Cognitiva, Augusto Soares da Silva, Amadeo Torres, and Miguel Gonc¸alves (eds.), vol. 2, 325–345. Coimbra: Almedina. Cuenca, Maria Josep 2006 Interjections and pragmatic errors in dubbing. Meta. Journal des traducteurs 51 (1), 20–35. Cuenca, Maria Josep 2008 Pragmatic markers in contrast: the case of well. Journal of Pragmatics. 40 (8): 1373–1391. Cuenca, M. Josep, and Joseph Hilferty 1999 Grammaticalizacio´n. Introduccio´n a la lingu¨´ıstica cognitiva, Barcelona, Ariel, chapter 6. Cuenca, Maria Josep, and Maria Josep Marı´n 2001 Verbos de percepcio´n gramaticalizados como conectores. Ana´lisis contrastivo espan˜ol-catala´n. In Estudios cognoscitivos del espan˜ol, Special issue of Revista Espan˜ola de Lingu¨´ıstica Aplicada (RESLA), Ricardo Maldonado (ed.), 215–238.

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Cuenca, Maria Josep, and Marta Torres 2008 Usos de hombre/home y mujer/dona como marcadores del discurso. Verba 35, 235–256. DCVB ¼ Alcover, Antoni M., and Francesc de B. Moll 1985– Diccionari catala`-valencia`-balear. Palma de Mallorca: Moll. 10 vol. [on-line 2004-2009] DECat ¼ Joan Coromines (with the collaboration of Joseph Gulsoy and Max Cahner) 1980–2001 Diccionari etimolo`gic i complementari de la llengua catalana. Barcelona: Curial. 10 vol. DLC ¼ Institut d’Estudis Catalans 2007 Diccionari de la llengua catalana. Institut d’Estudis Catalans. Barcelona: Edicions 62. [on-line: , 2007– 2009] Espuny, Janina 1998 Aspectes de la interfere`ncia le`xica castellana en el discurs oral catala`. In Oralment. Estudis de variacio´ funcional, Lluı´s Payrato´ (ed.), 276–290. Barcelona: Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat. Fischer, Kerstin 2000 From Cognitive Semantics to Lexical Pragmatics. The Functional Polysemy of Discourse Particles. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. GLC ¼ Institut d’Estudis Catalans in progress Grama`tica de la llengua catalana. Barcelona: Institut d’Estudis Catalans. Go¤man, Erving 1981 Response cries. In Forms of Talk, 78–122. Oxford: Blackwell. Go´mez Capuz, Juan 1997 Towards a typological classification of linguistic borrowing (illustrated with Anglicisms in Romance Languages). Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses 10, 81–94. Go´mez Capuz, Juan 1998 Pragma´tica intercultural y modelos extranjeros: la interferencia pragma´tica en los doblajes al espan˜ol de pelı´culas y seriales norteamericanos. Quaderns de Filologia. Estudis Lingu¨´ıstics 4: 135–151. Go´mez Capuz, Juan 2001 Usos discursivos anglicados en los doblajes al espan˜ol de pelı´culas norteamericanas: hacia una perspectiva pragma´tica. In La lingu¨´ıstica aplicada a finales del siglo XX. Ensayos y propuestas, Isabel de la Cruz (ed.), vol. 2, 809–814. Alcala´: Universidad de Alcala´. Gonza´lez, Montserrat 1998 Be´ i bueno. Apunts sobre l’u´s dels marcadors discursius. In Oralment. Estudis de variacio´ funcional, Lluı´s Payrato´ (ed.), 241–257. Barcelona: Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat.

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Hopper, Paul J., and Elizabeth Closs Traugott 2003 Grammaticalization. Cambridge: CUP. Institut d’Estudis Catalans 2006– Corpus Textual Informatitzat de la Llengua Catalana. [on line: ] Jakobson, Roman 1960 Linguistics and poetics. In Style in language, Thomas A. Sebeok (ed.), 340–377. Cambridge: MIT Press. Martos, Josep Lluı´s 1999 La traduccio´ de l’onomatopeia. In La traduccio´ del discurs, Josep Lluı´s Martos (ed.), 9–18. Alacant: Publicacions de la Universitat d’Alacant. Matamala, Anna 2007 The translation of ‘oh’ in a corpus of dubbed sitcoms. Catalan Journal of Linguistics 6, 117–135. Matamala, Anna 2008 Interjeccions i lexicografia: ana`lisi de les interjeccions d’un corpus audiovisual i proposta de representacio´ lexicogra`fica. Barcelona: Institut d’Estudis Catalans. Matamala, Anna 2009 Interjections in Original and Dubbed Sitcoms in Catalan: A Comparison. Meta 54 (3): 485–502. Payrato´, Lluı´s 1995 Transcripcio´n del discurso coloquial. In El espan˜ol coloquial, Luis Corte´s (ed.), Almerı´a: Universidad de Almerı´a, 45–70. Payrato´, Lluı´s, and Nu´ria Alturo, (eds.) 2002 Corpus oral de conversa col  loquial. Materials de treball. Barcelona: Publicacions de la Universitat de Barcelona. [on line: ] Pons, Lı´dia 1987 Xinxirinxina, trap-trap. Aspectes de la motivacio´ fone`tica en catala`. In Studia in honorem Martı´ de Riquer, vol. 2, 165–177. Barcelona: Quaderns Crema. Riba, Ce`lia, and Lluı´s Rius 1999 Aproximacio´ a les onomatopeies catalanes a partir de les rondalles mallorquines en la versio´ de Mn. Antoni M. Alcover. In Actes de l’XIe` Col  loqui Internacional de Llengua i Literatura Catalanes (Palma, 8–12 de setembre de 1997), vol. 2, 435–452. Barcelona: Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat. Riera-Eures, Manel, and Margarida Sanjaume 2002 Diccionari d’onomatopeies i mots de creacio´ expressiva: les paraules transparents de la llengua catalana. Barcelona: Edicions 62. Riera-Eures, Manel, and Margarida Sanjaume 2010 Diccionari d’onomatopeies i altres interjeccions. Vic: Eumo.

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Ruaix, Josep 1998 El catala` complet, vol. 2. Moia`: Ruaix. Sancho, Pelegrı´ 1999 Introduccio´ a la fraseologia. Aplicacio´ al valencia` col  loquial. Valencia: Denes. Sancho, Pelegrı´ 2003 Ana`lisi contrastiva interdialectal de la fraseologia: el cas de de´un’hi-do, ausa(d)es/a gosa(d)es i espaiet, Catalan Review 17 (2): 151–175. Schi¤rin, Deborah 1987 Discourse Markers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sola` i Pujols, Jaume 1990 Sobre la partı´cula rai i els to`pics. Caplletra 8, 55–67. Steel, Brian 1985 A Textbook of Colloquial Spanish. Madrid: Sociedad General Espan˜ola de Librerı´a. Traugott, Elizabeth Closs, and Bernd Heine (eds.) 1991 Approaches to Grammaticalization. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. TVC ¼ Televisio´ de Catalunya 1997 Criteris lingu¨´ıstics sobre traduccio´ i doblatge. Barcelona: Edicions 62. Vila, Xavier 1998 ‘Bueno, vale ja de criticar, no?’ Marques transco`diques le`xiques i variacio´ funcional en catala`. In Oralment. Estudis de variacio´ funcional, Lluı´s Payrato´ (ed.), 259–273. Barcelona: Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat. Wheeler, Max W., Alan Yates, and Nicolau Dols 1999 Catalan. A Comprehensive Grammar. London: Routledge.

Web pages Corporacio´ Catalana de Mitjans Audiovisuals. E´s a dir: Interjeccions i recursos expressius

Guardiola, Maribel Les onomatopeies

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Appendix 1. Transcription conventions (cf. Payrato´ 1995 and Bladas 2009). 1.

Prosodic aspects Intonation unit (one line for each intonation unit) Boundary tone/Closure falling

\

rising

/

continuative

_

Truncated intonation unit

–

Manner/Quality high

{(A) text}

low

{(B) text}

Voice of another

{(EV) text}

Tempo accelerated speech

{(AC) text}

piano, attenuated speech

{(DC) text}

Lenghtening (short, medium and long) 2.

: :: :::

Vocal aspects Laughing text

{(@) text}

Laugh

3.

One symbol per pulse

@

Long fragment, timed

@R(time)R@

Inhalation and exhalation

(INH) (EXH)

Pauses and overlaps Pause, timed very short (0.1 < p < 0.3)

(. time)

short (p < 1)

(.. time)

medium (1 a p < 3)

(. . . time)

long (p b 3)

(. . . . time)

Overlaps

[text]

Catalan interjections 4.

Regularizations and comments Deletion

use of brackets to mark the deleted sound

Transcriptor’s comments

5.

concrete

(comment)

general

((comment))

Di‰cult fragments Uncertain words

{(??) text}

Unintelligible

6.

One sign per syllable

x

Long fragment, timed

xX(time)Xx

Other aspects Code-switch

{(L2) text}

Truncated /cut-o¤ word

wor-

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Part II.

Pragmatics, discourse, sociocultural aspects, and language contact

Pragmatic coherence as a multimodal feature: Illustrative cospeech gestures, events, and states Marina Lloberes and Lluı´s Payrato´ Approach and purpose Applying the pragmatic and multimodal perspective of the concept of coherence (and, therefore, of discursive or communicative coherence), this study focuses on the functions carried out by a set of hand gestures that are coexpressive with verbal language regarding the representation of motion and dynamicity in verbal statements. The synchronous and complementary nature of verbal and non–verbal channels is evidenced through the analysis of gestures in a selection taken from the CAP corpus, an audiovisual corpus in three languages (Catalan, Spanish and English) incorporating a variety of text types (narrative, descriptive, expositive, argumentative and directive) produced by bilingual informants (Catalan–Spanish) in semi–supervised conversations, some samples based on ad hoc stimuli and others on subjects’ experiences and memories (Payrato´ and Fito´ eds., 2008). In the data analysed, the cooccurrence of illustrative hand gestures and eventive or stative verbal statements presents some combinations that are systematic and recurrent and others that are complex and highly distinct. Nevertheless, a detailed analysis confirms specific hypotheses suggesting that gesture contributes to the process of building discursive coherence, local as well as global. No notable di¤erences are observed in cospeech gestures regarding the bilingual informants’ L1 (Catalan or Spanish). Both these languages are described as verb–framed (Talmy 1985), in contrast to satellite–framed (such as English). The conclusions regarding the study’s specific goals also confirm the general hypothesis, to the e¤ect that coherence cannot be defined successfully as a strictly verbal (grammatical and pragmatic) concept. Just as there are phenomena conceived as resources that can be proposed and analysed from a multimodal perspective (metaphoric and metonymic skills, speech or reported speech and politeness, to give three relevant examples), discursive or multimodal communicative coherence provides

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interpretative congruence to oral discourse, beyond the lexical and grammatical links of cohesion contained in verbal text sequences.

1. Introduction. The concepts of cohesion and textual or discursive coherence Topics related to textual cohesion and coherence have been a recurrent focus in linguistics in recent years, ever since the work of Halliday and Hasan (1976) on the creation of mechanisms of cohesion (and texture, in their terms) in English. Since that proposal, the bibliography on this topic has increased rapidly and many authors and schools have added nuances to the usage and application of both concepts (cf., inter alia, Brown and Yule 1983; Fonseca 1992; Alturo 2010; Alturo and Hengeveld 2010). In dictionaries of linguistics and pragmatics, the most widespread usage of both terms tends to denote the set of shallow relations between verbal elements (sentences, clauses and phrases) by the term cohesion, and the deep relations associated to interpretation of statements and texts globally by the term coherence. For instance, Richards, Platt and Weber (1985: 45) define coherence as ‘‘the relationship which links the meanings of utterances in a discourse or of the sentences in a text’’, and cohesion as ‘‘the grammatical and/or lexical relationship between the di¤erent elements of a text’’. A recent example is observed in the Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics (Matthews 2007: 62–63), which defines the two terms as: (1) cohesion 1. The connection between successive sentences in texts, conversations, etc. in so far as it can be described in terms of specific syntactic units. [. . .] 2. The property of syntactic units which are not interrupted by elements that do not belong to them. [. . .]’’ (2) coherence Used semi–technically of the way in which the content of connected speech or text hangs together, or is interpreted as hanging together, as distinct from that of random assemblages of sentences. [. . .]’’ The boundaries between the two definitions in (1) and (2) are not obvious, and in fact the definitions orientate rather than define. In a clear reflection of this uncertainty, and another example of the di‰culties in establishing simple and explanatory definitions, some specialists group the terms together and propose matched definitions in spite of giving them independent entries. For instance, Wales (1989: 73–75) writes:

Pragmatic coherence as a multimodal feature

217

(3) ‘‘Coherence and cohesion are two very prominent terms in discourse analysis and text linguistics, but are di‰cult to distinguish. They are related etymologically and share the same verb (cohere). That there are grounds for a useful distinction, however, is indicated by the derived adjectives coherent and cohesive [. . .]. Coherence is sometimes seen, after Widdowson (1979), as referring to underlying development of propositions in terms of speech acts, in contrast to cohesion, concerned with surface features of connectivity.’’ Cruse (2006: 26–27) reflects the same controversy in a recent glossary of semantics and pragmatics and also defines the two terms jointly: ‘‘cohesion vs. coherence: These are types of connectedness which distinguish texts from random collections of words. Cohesion is a matter of form and concerns (mainly grammatical) ways of connecting one piece of language to another, such as agreement and anaphora. Coherence is a matter of meaning compatibility and relevance. [. . .]’’. The impossibility of finding clear, simple definitions for the terms cohesion and coherence is due to the complexity inherent in textual and discursive phenomena and to the relatively restricted explicative potential of the available theories (cf. inter alia Kehler 2002; Alturo 2010; Alturo and Hengeveld 2010). In spite of the expansion of studies in recent years, we are not yet able to explain principles of text construction categorically, or to define the relations between a text and its situational and cognitive context. One of the reasons is that the relation between the concept of coherence and the principles of usage or linguistic praxis regulation (cooperation, relevance, salience, informativeness or communicativeness, depending on the theory supported) has not been clarified. Another important reason is that the multimodal nature of the phenomenon of coherence, in particular in spontaneous, oral text, and typically in face– to–face social interactions, has not been taken into account. 2. The background to the study. A multimodal perspective on coherence and gesture From a multimodal perspective, understood as an attempt to integrate the whole set of codes and channels of meaning production into core social interactions, we state at the outset that it seems essential to take into account non–verbal elements – specifically, cospeech gesture – in the analysis of mechanisms of coherence associated with oral texts. Without

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excluding other elements or basic factors, above all related to mental models of individual and cognitive principles of relevance and salience, we assume that speakers’ communicative ability is multimodal and in each interaction type (writing, oral, (non) planned) may use resources from di¤erent channels integrated into a single product. This result varies according to the conditions of production and reception, sociocultural conventions, and communicative styles. Coherence in oral discourse is achieved not only through linguistic engineering (including intonation and prosody), but through gesticulation that also occurs systematically (ignoring individual di¤erences). In fact, the recognition of the role of gesture in coherent discourse elaboration is not new. The classical rhetorician Bulwer ([1644] 1974: 121) wrote that the body ‘‘in the propriety of its utterance express the silent agitations of the mind’’ and the hand ‘‘is most talkative, whose language is as easily perceived and understood as if man had another mouth of fountain of discourse in his hand.’’ The reference to ‘Discoursing Gesture of the Finger’ is very clear, as are the associations between verbal and non–verbal elements developed many years later, in the second half of the twentieth century, by Ray L. Birdwhistell, Adam Kendon and David McNeill. Birdwhistell (1970) associated kinetic elements (in his own terminology) with verbal ones, and was the author of an unsuccessful attempt to build a formal model of gesture analysis similar to the structuralist conception of language. Kendon and McNeill proved the close relation between verbal and non–verbal channel on a much more solid scientific basis, finally proposing a definitive and forceful consideration of cospeech gestures as part of the statement (Kendon 1972, 2000, 2004; McNeill 1992, 2000; cf. Payrato´ [2003] 2009: 181). The last quarter of the twentieth century saw the first studies specifically devoted to valuing the role of cospeech gesture in processes of creation of cohesion and coherence (cf. inter alia Levy and McNeill 1992; McNeill and Levy 1993; Contento 1998) and the functions of gesture in di¤erent text types, specifically in creating or reinforcing narrative structures (McNeill 1992; Mu¨ller 2003). Furthermore, the speakers’ experience and intuition show beyond all doubt that, with regard to the processes of textual and discourse understanding, visual and auditive samples are more valuable than auditive samples alone. For this reason, we usually prefer for example, in terms of understanding, face–to–face interactions to telephone conversations. Laboratory experiments reach the same conclusions, but, moreover, seem to prove (although this may sound surpris-

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219

ing) that the interpretation of certain kinds of phonetic features depends on perceptive and visual factors (facial expression) more often than on perceptive auditive factors (phonetic features: see Massaro 2001; Borra`s– Comes and Prieto [in press]).

3. The corpus and the sample. Data and methodology The sample used in this study is based on that of Lloberes (2008) and comes from the CAP corpus (Corpus Audiovisual Plurilingu¨e, Payrato´ and Fito´ (eds.) 2008), comprising 360 audiovisual files with records of texts produced by 12 informants in semi–supervised conversations. A detailed explanation is given in the next section.1 3.1 The CAP. Corpus construction. Informants, interviews and transcription The first group of informants was composed by 18 women aged between 18 and 30 years old who were educated in the 1980s and 1990s. All were undergraduate students of Economics or business studies who were born and resident in the metropolitan region of Barcelona and, by extension, in the Central Catalan linguistic area, with an intermediate level of English. As regards family language, informants belonged to one of the following groups: Catalan–speaking (with Catalan as L1), Spanish–speaking (with Spanish as L1) or family bilingual, i.e. raised in a bilingual home (with both Catalan and Spanish as family languages). Three recording sessions took place (L1/L2/English), with a minimum 30–day interval between sessions. Digital recording was performed using two cameras (general view/facial view). We then selected 12 of the 18 recordings, depending on factors such as fluency in the three languages, competence in English, and lack of non–verbal inhibition. The elicitation system consisted of three semi–directed interviews in which informants were requested to produce texts following the guidelines shown in Appendix 1. In all sessions, five experimental texts and five experiential texts were produced. The order of elicitation of texts was the same in the three sessions. The first session, in the informant’s L1, included 1. This section summarizes the arguments in Nogue´ and Payrato´ (2006) and Payrato´ and Fito (ed.) (2008).

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information about her linguistic background (following the format of the ‘‘European Language Portfolio’’). The second session was held in the informant’s L2, and the third in English, with a part devoted to the linguistic ideologies of the informant. Each session also included a sequence of free conversation. In the case of texts based on the experience of the speakers the response was stimulated by a simple verbal request, and no materials were used: (a) recommending a film or book (argumentative), (b) explaining how the informant goes from class to her home (instructive), (c) describing the room and the apartment/house where the informant lives (descriptive), (d) discussing the current situation of immigration in Europe (descriptive), and (e) narrating a dangerous or frightening situation (narrative). In the case of experimental texts, responses were stimulated using visual materials (drawings and pictures), which guide the informants towards typical situations corresponding to: (a) a story about a frog that escapes and a boy who tries to find it 2 (narrative), (b) the description of an apartment (descriptive), (c) the preference for life in the country or life in the city (argumentative), (d) the current situation of immigration in Europe (expository), and (e) how to follow a route through the streets on a map of an imaginary village (instructive). The data were transcribed according to the conventions described in Appendix 2 (see also Du Bois et al. [1993] and Payrato´ and Alturo (eds.) [2002]). 3.2. Corpus structure. Format and access The CAP is conceived as a ‘‘monitor’’ corpus that can be expanded. It initially contained 360 core samples and 48 extra samples, with approximately 18 hours of recordings (24 hours of interviews) and approximately 100,000 transcribed words. With the combination of text, sound and image, the corpus contains text files (discourse transcription) with corresponding audiovisual recordings (image with sound). It is stored as a DVD and is restricted to the adapted subcorpora; general tagging is not envisaged. The corpus structure is shown in Appendix 3, where samples are classified according to language (Catalan, Spanish, English), elicitation procedure, and text type.

2. This well–known story is based on the book by Mercer Meyer (1969): Frog, where are you? New York: Dial Press.

Pragmatic coherence as a multimodal feature

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Regarding codification, the samples are coded according to six criteria: language of the text (C: Catalan, S: Spanish, E: English), relation of the language to the speaker (1: first language, 2: second language, 3: third language), elicitation strategy (T: experimental, C: experiential, E: interview), text type (N: narrative, D: descriptive, E: expository, I: instructive, A: argumentative, C: conversation), informant number (01–18), and family language usage (CC: Catalan, CS: Spanish, CS: Catalan – Spanish). Thus, for instance, the code C1TN01CC corresponds to a text in Catalan (C) made by a speaker whose first language is Catalan (1); the text is experimental (T) and narrative (N), the informant is number 01, and her family language is Catalan (CC).

4. Cospeech gestures 4.1. Speech gestures as a prototypical category Speech is a complex tool in which a wide range of strategies are used to make it a successful communicative event. Broadly speaking, words and sentences (segmental units) are associated with prosodic (suprasegmental) units like stress, pitch and length, vocal paralinguistic features (voice quality, loudness, rhythm, non–linguistic sounds) and kinesic elements (non–verbal, non–vocal units). When humans talk we perform spontaneous movements with our body, usually with hands and arms, but also with head, eyes and eyebrows. Many of these gestures are closely linked to speech because they only occur in speech contexts (Ekman and Frisesen 1969). Traditionally, gestures of this kind are known as illustrators, but we term them cospeech gestures to emphasize their close relation with speech, as argued by McNeill (1992). These gestures are di¤erent from those that Ekman and Friesen (1969) named emblems. Whereas cospeech gestures are speech–dependent and non–conventional in meaning (i.e. we are incapable of judging whether they are well or badly performed), emblems may occur without speech (in fact, they usually do) and they can easily be translated into language. Well–known examples of emblems are the ‘ok’ gesture (performing a circle using index and thumb fingers) or victory gesture (performing ‘v’ with index and middle fingers). On the other hand, a cospeech gesture is, for example, the pointing movement performed by the index finger to indicate an object’s location.

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4.2. Structure and distribution in intonational units Because of the special behaviour of cospeech gestures, they constitute a gesture class that is distinct from other gesticulations. Speech dependence and non–conventionality are not the only features of this gesture group; according to McNeill (1992), gestures are also global and synthetic. They may be segmented into kinesic phases but they cannot be built by combining their parts (i.e. they are global), and cospeech gestures may express more than one meaning (i.e. they are synthetic). Although gestures cannot be segmented into smaller meaningful units, they are composed by units of a certain kind regarding kinesic structure (Kendon 1980). Gestures occur during a period of time in which the arms begin to move and then reach a rest position again. This period is a gesture unit. Simultaneously, the gesture unit is formed by one or more gesture phrases, and each gesture phrase contains some movements or phases (Kendon 1980): f f

f

f

f

Preparation (optional). Phase in which the limb moves from rest position to the position where the stroke will be performed. Pre–stroke hold (optional). This phase appears optionally after preparation phase and before the stroke. The limb is held in position where the preparation finished in order to solve problems between speech and gesture synchronization. Stroke (obligatory). The core movement or the two core movements in which the gesture meaning is expressed. This phase is usually synchronized with coexpressive speech segments. Post–stroke hold (optional). The position reached at stroke end, appearing because the speech segment which would be synchronized with gesture is omitted. Retraction (optional). This phase coincides with the period of time when the limb returns to a rest position. The last rest position may be di¤erent from the first one.

In our data, gesture phrases occurred more frequently in the speech context than in the non–speech context (92% of occurrences vs. 8%, see Table 1).3

3. The data shown refer to informants 01, 04, 05, 06 of corpus CAP named as Speaker 1, Speaker 2, Speaker 3 and Speaker 4, respectively, in tables. See further information in note 6.

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Table 1. Number of gesture phrases (GP) regarding speech context. GP during speech context

GP during non–speech context

Total

Speaker 1

8 (100%)

0 (0%)

8

Speaker 2

38 (90.5%)

4 (9.5%)

42

Speaker 3

26 (93%)

2 (7%)

28

Speaker 4

35 (92%)

3 (8%)

38

107 (92%)

9 (8%)

116

Total

The percentage of stroke and speech sequence synchronization is also high (56.3% occurrences), as shown in Table 2. Table 2. Number of strokes regarding syncronized speech (SS). Stroke before SS

Stroke and SS coincidence

Stroke after SS

Total

Speaker 1

3 (30%)

7 (70%)

0 (0%)

10

Speaker 2

24 (40%)

34 (57%)

2 (3%)

60

Speaker 3

17 (47%)

17 (47%)

2 (6%)

36

Speaker 4

17 (38%)

27 (60%)

1 (2%)

45

Total

61 (40.4%)

85 (56.3%)

5 (3.3%)

151

On the other hand, cospeech gestures cannot be combined in order to create more complex gesture units. In general, in each intonational unit (Du Bois et al. 1993) a single gesture unit occurs. However, in one intonational unit more than one gesture may occur, and a gesture may refer to more than one intonational unit (McNeill 1992). Both situations, considered non–archetypal by McNeill (1992), may be related to the fact that more than one idea would be expressed in a single intonational unit, in the former case, or the same idea widens to more than one intonational unit, in the latter (Kendon 1980). In any case, gestures do not interact in the two situations, due to the preforming of complex units. In our data, one–to–one matchings of intonational units and gesture units are the most frequent cases (50% occurrences). Nevertheless, there are also di¤erent cases (see Table 3) which show that two gesture units widened into an intonational unit are also frequent (31% occurrences); in

224

Marina Lloberes and Lluı´s Payrato´

one of the informants, speaker 3, these occurrences are even more frequent than one–to–one matchings. This finding stresses the need to take individual gesticulation styles into account. Table 3. Number of gesture units (GU) in intonational units. 1 GU

2 GU

3 GU

4 GU

5 GU

Total

Speaker 1

4 (67%)

0 (0%)

2 (33%)

0 (0%)

0 (0%)

6

Speaker 2

22 (64%)

5 (15%)

5 (15%)

1 (3%)

1 (3%)

34

Speaker 3

6 (24%)

14 (56%)

4 (16%)

1 (4%)

0 (0%)

25

Speaker 4

14 (50%)

10 (36%)

1 (3%)

3 (11%)

0 (0%)

28

Total

46 (50%)

29 (31%)

12 (13%)

5 (5%)

1 (1%)

93

As regards gesture phrases, the most frequent number of gesture units is one–to–one (82% occurrences), but there are some examples of a gesture unit including two gesture phrases (14% occurrences), as shown in Table 4. Table 4. Number of gesture units with regard to the number of gesture phrases (GP). 1 GP

2 GP

3 GP

4 GP

Total

Speaker 1

4 (67%)

2 (33%)

0 (0%)

0 (0%)

6

Speaker 2

28 (82%)

4 (12%)

2 (6%)

0 (0%)

34

Speaker 3

22 (88%)

3 (12%)

0 (0%)

0 (0%)

25

Speaker 4

22 (79%)

4 (14%)

1 (3.5%)

1 (3.5%)

28

Total

76 (82%)

13 (14%)

3 (3%)

1 (1%)

93

Authors such as Kendon (1980) and McNeill (1992) note that the coordination of gesture and speech is not a question of chance. They occur simultaneously because they are coexpressive: gesture may express identical or similar meanings as speech, and also meanings that are not expressed by speech. 5. Cospeech gestures in events and states During speech production, speakers often perform gestures that are synchronized with verbs. Because of this coincidence in time, we may

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225

think that, from a multimodal point of view, there is a close connection between cospeech gesture and verbs within speech which goes beyond mere time cooccurrence (Kendon 1980; McNeill 1992). In other words, the synchronization of cospeech gestures and verbs shows that meanings conveyed through non–verbal and verbal channels are coexpressive (McNeill 1992), and also that it is plausible to assume that gesture appears in speech in order to provide identical, similar or non–expressed meanings. For this reason, it seems that when the cospeech gesture is synchronous with a verb it helps the global message interpretation (McNeill 1992) and is consequently a key issue in the process of providing coherence to speech. Multimodal studies of the coexpressiveness between verbs and synchronized cospeech gestures coincide in confirming, either directly or indirectly, the multimodal hypothesis proposed initially by McNeill (1992). However, these studies di¤er in terms of aktionsart due to the wide range of proposals which contribute to classify verb semantics according to aspect. We observe at least two tendencies of analysis from a linguistic perspective: studies on a cognitive basis (McNeill 1992; McNeill and Duncan 2000) and studies based on the dynamicity parameter (Alturo 2004). 5.1. Approaches to gesture based on motion events McNeill (1992) and McNeill and Duncan (2000) find in cognitive linguistics the main argument to demonstrate the relation between cospeech gestures and speech, because this discipline claims that the cognitive processes linked to language and other cognitive abilities (gesture, among others) are the same. Specifically, they base their proposal on Talmy’s theory (1985), since semantic components in motion events also explain the meaning of cospeech gestures. Talmy (1985) builds his theory around the idea that lexical aspect is formed by fundamental semantic components that define a basic motion event: f f f f

Figure: Moving object. Ground: Stable object in relation to which the Figure is moving. Motion: Presence or absence of motion or location. Path: Course followed or site occupied by the Figure.

There are two additional components: Manner, the way in which the motion is carried out, and Cause, the reason for the motion. Accordingly, Talmy (1985) establishes two language typologies regarding lexicalized semantic components: satellite–framed and verb–framed.

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The former (e.g. Chinese, English) express Path in a verb satellite, such as English particle out in example (4). In contrast, verb–framed languages (e.g. Romance languages, Japanese, Turkish) lexicalize Path in the verb root, for example, sortı´ (‘went out’) in (5). In addition, while satellite– framed languages lexicalize Manner in the main verb as in (4) in the verb floated, among verb–framed languages Manner is optional and, when it appears, it always outside the main verb, as observed in example (5), in which Manner is expressed by a gerund ( flotant ‘floating’). (4) The bottle floated out. (5) L’ampolla sortı´ flotant. ‘The bottle went out floating.’ Studies on cospeech gestures and motion events (McNeill 1992; McNeill and Duncan 2000) argue that when gesture is coexpressive with speech and, specifically, with verbs, its meaning may be defined by means of Talmy’s (1985) semantic components. This approach specifies three gesture types: gestures lexicalizing Manner (6), gestures expressing Path (7) and gestures that describe both components, Manner and Path (8), as McNeill and Duncan’s examples (2000: 150–151) show:4 (6) [But it rolls] him out (7) And he rolls. . . [down the drain spout] (8) [entra] [r se mete] [por el] [desagu¨e], si? ‘He goes in through the drainpipe, yes?’ ?

In example (6), both hands wiggle to mimic roll movement and this movement is synchronized with main verb roll. Consequently, both the gesture and the verb in example (6) focalize the way in which Motion is performed, that is to say, they express the Manner component. On the other hand, in example (7), the gesture expresses Path as the hand moves down4. Regarding gesture transcription conventions, we follow McNeill (1992): Gesture phrase [ . . . ] Stroke bold Preparation no mark; between opening square bracket (‘[’) and stroke Retraction no mark; between stroke and closing square bracket (‘]’) Pre–stroke hold __________ (without movement) Post–stroke hold - - - - - - - - (with slight movement)

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227

wards to illustrate the downward course and the hand performance occurs at the same time as the particle down, which expresses Path in the motion event. A totally di¤erent situation is presented in (8). Here, Manner is not coded linguistically, but is expressed by gesture. While the main verb (meter ‘go into’) is pronounced, both hands rock and rise simultaneously. Consequently, the gesture expresses Manner (the way in which the course is carried out) and Path (upward course). After this movement, a second gesture appears with the Path expression ( por el desagu¨e ‘through the drainpipe’). The right hand continues the movement of the previous gesture, rising (Path) and rocking (Manner). McNeill and Duncan (2000) establish two patterns for English. On the one hand, gestures are used to emphasize Manner (6), and on the other, gestures appear to minimize Manner, since English usually overexpresses this semantic component (e.g. using Path in its performance, as in (7)). This argument is reinforced by means of gesture–speech synchronization. Gestures expressing Manner occur with verbs expressing Manner (6); gestures non–expressing Manner do not synchronize with verbs expressing Manner, but occur at the same time as other linguistic units expressing Path (7). In contrast, Spanish, a verb–framed language (Talmy 1985), rarely codes Manner linguistically. Nevertheless, as McNeill and Duncan (2000) argue, gesture may express Manner when it is not coded linguistically, as in (8). On other occasions, gesture may combine other values, such as Path, also in (8).5 5.2. Approaches to gesture based on dynamicity Although most studies that relate gesture and verbs base their proposals on Talmy’s semantic components (1985), other multimodal studies (Alturo and Payrato´ 2003; Alturo 2004) di¤er from the cognitive perspective and concentrate on cospeech gesture analysis regarding information about aktionsart and, specifically, about the dynamicity parameter. Dynamicity indicates that situations conceptualized during speech may either express motion or change in space and time or may be stable 5. There are studies about motion events and gesture for other languages. For example, Ibarretxe (2004) states that Basque is a verb–framed language which tends to detail the Path lexicalizing source and goal in motion events, and this feature has consequences over non–verbal channel because gesture may express a detailed Path.

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(Vendler 1957, 1967; Mourelatos 1978; Verkuyl 1989; Alturo 1997). In other words, conceptualized situations may be materialized like events (9) or states (10), depending on the presence or absence of dynamicity. (9) Ha viatjat durant tota la nit. ‘He travelled during the entire night.’ (10) L’exposicio´ consta de dotze sales. ‘The exhibition has twelve rooms.’ Events and states are materialized in speech by dynamic verbs in the former case (e.g. pujar ‘to go up’, cantar ‘to sing’, estudiar ‘to study’) and state verbs in the latter (e.g. tenir ‘to have’, odiar ‘to hate’, saber ‘to know’). However, some other linguistic aspects allow a dynamic interpretation (for example, progressive tenses; e.g. M’esta` agradant la pel  lı´cula ‘I am enjoying the film’) or a static interpretation (for example, a habitual construction: La meva mare fuma ‘My mother smokes’). Regarding cospeech gestures, the studies by Alturo and Payrato´ (2003) and Alturo (2004) suggest that states behave di¤erently from events. In speech fragments which describe a static situation, gestures may appear; however, they never express the same values as cospeech gestures in events, because they express a property or di¤erent properties of the entities described. This feature has consequences for gesture. Gestures that occur in states refer to properties of entities, platja ‘beach’ in example (11), and never express the relation established between entities. In contrast, dynamic relations may be gestured (12). In these contexts, gesture does not express a relation between entities but shows dynamicity as a property of entities, as the following examples demonstrate (Alturo 2004: 146). (11) I la platja, estava molt plena de gent. ‘And the beach was crowded with people.’ (12) Bluuuts! [l’abella] Es llenc¸a en picat. ‘Bluuts! It [the bee] plummets downwards.’ In example (11), both hands perform a circular movement. The gesture does not express the relation of the lexicalized static verb (esta` ‘was’), but the entity described ( platja ‘beach’) and indicates the property of the entity described ( plena de gent ‘crowded with people’). In (12), the hand performs a downward movement in order to illustrate a downward path at the same time as the main verb is pronounced (llenc¸a ‘plummets’).

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229

This gesture, therefore, expresses dynamicity, understood as a property of entities involved in the event. 5.3. Features of cospeech gestures in events and states In this section, we present the results of an exploratory study of Catalan based on Lloberes (2008) which describes phenomena in speech when events and states are expressed jointly with gestures linked to the discourse content. Our main aim is to determine whether cospeech gestures play a relevant role in the process of attribution of discursive coherence to emitted discourses,6 and our premise is that in both events and states cospeech gestures are present to contribute to the global interpretation of the message that emanates from discourse. Among the total set of gesture phrases detected and analysed in our data (116 gesture phrases), 76 occurred in events and 40 in states. 5.3.1. Cospeech gestures in events Catalan is a verb–framed language and therefore follows the pattern defined for this language typology (Talmy 1985). In other words, most Catalan verbs lexicalize the Path component; the Manner component is not often coded linguistically, although when it appears it is usually expressed inside linguistic elements other than the verb. The set of data analyzed shows that gesture in events (76 gesture phrases) has two patterns. Some gestures express features of motion (55 of the 76 gesture phrases in events, 72.4% of occurrences), analogous to the studies about cospeech gestures and motion events described above (McNeill 1992; McNeill and Duncan 2000). There is also another gesture set that is not related to the motion event but to some aspects of the situation expressed, such as the localization, size and morphology of entities described in events (21 of 76 gesture phrases, 27.6%). 6. The data presented in this section, as shown in section 3, are selected from the CAP corpus (Payrato´ and Fito´ (ed.) 2008). We selected experimental narrative and descriptive texts produced in Catalan from informants whose family language is Catalan. We only studied narrative and descriptive texts because narrative texts tended to contain more eventive verbs and descriptive texts more stative verbs. We selected eight texts, transcribed according to oral discourse transcription conventions presented in Appendix 2 and annotated with gesture information (McNeill 1992, see note 4). Unlike several studies on gesture based on the production of a single informant, we present data from four speakers, which provides more reliable data that are not restricted to an individual style of gesticulation.

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Looking at the first group of gestures, those which express motion features shows that two behaviors may be observed. While a set of gestures (49 of 76 gesture phrases in events, 64.5%) are synchronized with verb (gestures coordinated with verbs and gestures coordinated with verbs that last longer than the verb in Table 5), there are some other gestures (6 of 76 gesture phrases, 7.9% of occurrences) that synchronize with a di¤erent linguistic unit (gestures not coordinated with verbs in Table 5). Firstly, as shown in Table 5, when gestures synchronize with the verbs, they most frequently express Path (18 gesture phrases, 33% occurrences), as occurs in Spanish (McNeill and Duncan, 2000). Nevertheless, there are also some other more complex gestures (15 gesture phrases, 27% of occurrences), defined by a set of movements coordinated with verbs expressing Path and continuing to other linguistic units after the verb expressing Ground, as in (14). (13) [(.. 0.38) el gos va caure_] ‘The dog fell.’ (CAP, C1TN06CC) (14) [(.. 0.57) llavors cauen e] [n u:n_ lloc d’aigua_] ‘Then they fall into a place with water.’ (CAP, C1TN04CC) In (13), at the same time as the verb is pronounced, the hand performs a downward movement from the chest to illustrate the path expressed by the verb (va caure ‘fell’). In this example, then, the gesture and the verb express Path. In (14), two cospeech gestures occurred, the first one synchronized with the verb (cauen ‘fall’) and the second with the locative expression (en un lloc d’aigua ‘into a place with water’). Firstly, the left hand performs a downward movement to describe the fall, a movement equivalent to the gesture representing Path. After that, the same hand performs two horizontal movements from one side of the body to the other to describe the locative expression and, as a consequence, to describe Ground in a non–verbal way. As for the less frequent occurrences in Table 5, Manner values are rarely found, and Manner is performed once in a single gesture phrase, in (15).

Gestures not coordinated with verbs

Gestures coordinated with verbs which last longer than verbs

Gestures coordinated with verbs

Total

2 values

1 value

2 values

1 value

2 values

1 value

0 0 0 0

Path þ Ground (verb) / Path (other) Ground Manner Figure þ Ground

1

0

0

Path (verb) / Ground (other)

Manner (verb) / Path (other)

0

Path þ Manner

0

0

Path þ Figure

Path (verb) / Manner (other)

0

0

Manner Path þ Ground

1

Speaker 1 Path

Table 5. Cospeech gestures expressing motion features.

18

0

0

1

1

0

1

7

0

2

4

0

2

Speaker 2

20

1

1

3

0

0

0

4

0

0

3

1

7

Speaker 3

16

0

0

0

0

1

0

4

1

1

1

0

8

Speaker 4

55

1 (2%)

1 (2%)

4 (7%)

1 (2%)

1 (2%)

1 (2%)

15 (27%)

1 (2%)

3 (5%)

8 (14%)

1 (2%)

18 (33%)

Total

Pragmatic coherence as a multimodal feature

231

232

Marina Lloberes and Lluı´s Payrato´

(15) [i:_ es despedeix] {(@) de les altres\} ‘And he says goodbye to the others.’ (CAP, C1TN05CC) In (15), the right hand makes an upward and downward movement cotemporal with the verb (despedir–se ‘to say goodbye’) representing the act of saying goodbye. Consequently, both speech and gesture refer to the same idea, expressing the Manner component. As pointed out at the beginning of this section, apart from gestures that express motion features, there is a set of gestures that occur in events but do not share the same characteristics. These gestures are related to events, but they illustrate values other than motion and constitute a small set of the gestures in the first group (21 of 76 gesture phrases, 27.6% of occurrences), as shown in Table 6. Table 6. Cospeech gestures expressing non–motion features.

Gestures not coordinated with verbs

Speaker 1

Speaker 2

Speaker 3

Speaker 4

Total

Size

0

0

0

1

1 (4.8%)

morphology

1

0

2

1

4 (19%)

localization

0

0

2

2

4 (19%)

localization þ morphology

0

0

1

2

3 (14.3%)

pointing

0

1

0

0

1 (4.8%)

enumeration

0

1

1

2

4 (19%)

group

1

1

1

0

3 (14.3%)

quality

1

0

0

0

1 (4.8%)

3

3

7

8

Total

21

The main contrast between the two gesture types analyzed is that while gestures expressing motion are synchronized with verbs as in (16), gestures non–expressing motion values are never synchronized with verbs of the event as in (17).

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233

(16) i quan es desperta_ l[a granota marxa_] ‘And when he wakes up the frog leaves.’ (CAP, C1TN05CC) (17) i el va portar cap a:_ u:n_ (.. 0.33) un barran[c aix]ı´ petito´_ ‘And it carried him towards a small gully like this.’ (CAP, C1TN06CC) In example (16), the right hand performs a movement opposed to the body which represents the trajectory expressed by the verb marxa (‘leave’): Path in terms of Talmy (1985). In (17), the right hand goes downwards at the beginning of the utterance of aixı´ petito´ (‘like this, small’). This movement indicates the dimensions of the entity described (barranc ‘gully’). 5.3.2. Cospeech gestures in states Unlike events, states have no temporary internal structure. This feature has consequences in gesture, at least in the data we analyzed. The values that cospeech gestures (40 gesture phrases) express in states coincide with gestures non–expressing Motion in events, such as size, morphology, size and morphology combined, pointing, enumeration, etc. These gesture values are shown in Table 7. Like cospeech gestures non–expressing Motion in events, no gestures occur synchronously with verb. This means that these gestures are always coordinated with linguistic units other than verbs (18–19). (18) te´ dos lli:ts_ i dues tauletes de ni:t_ (.. 0.77) [ {(P) dos d’i- d’individuals_}] ‘It has two beds and two bedside tables. . . two individual bedside tables.’ (CAP, C1TD06CC) (19) (.. 0.51) hi ha:_ doncs_ [el bany_ que esta` me´s elevat que: l:]o altre_ ‘There is. . . so the bathroom which is higher than the other.’ (CAP, C1TD05CC)

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Table 7. Cospeech gestures values in states.

Gestures not coordinated with verbs

Speaker 1

Speaker 2

Speaker 3

Speaker 4

Total

Size

0

0

0

1

1 (2.5%)

morphology

1

4

1

0

6 (15%)

localization

0

1

2

3

6 (15%)

localization þ morphology

0

0

0

0

0 (0%)

pointing

0

0

0

0

0 (0%)

enumeration

2

10

5

7

24 (60%)

group

0

0

0

1

1 (2.5%)

quality

1

0

1

0

2 (5%)

4

15

9

12

Total

40

In (18), both hands point to both sides of the body and stretch forward, with index and middle fingers moving upwards and downwards to enumerate the whole set of entities described in the state (two individual bedside tables). In (19), the hand performs an upward movement to indicate the height where the entity described (bany ‘bathroom’) is located with regard to other entities. 5.3.3. Cospeech gesture and dynamicity Despite the wide range of cospeech gesture behaviors (gestures synchronized with verbs and expressing motion features, gestures non–synchronized with verbs which express properties other than Motion, and gestures in states), a detailed observation of phenomena carried out in each gesture type regarding the dynamicity parameter reveals that some of these types behave similarly. In relation to the whole set of gestures analyzed (116 gesture phrases), gestures expressing Motion and synchronized with verbs (49 gesture phrases altogether, 42% of occurrences) show motion or change in space and time (Table 8).

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235

Table 8. Cospeech gesture values in events and in states. Events

States

Total

Dynamicity property

Entity property

Dynamicity property

Entity property

Speaker 1

1

3

0

4

8

Speaker 2

17

4

0

15

36

Speaker 3

15

12

0

9

36

Speaker 4

16

8

0

12

36

49 (42%)

27 (23%)

0 (0%)

40 (35%)

116

Total

In other words, this gesture type illustrates dynamicity. For this reason, they only occur in events in which dynamicity is evident, and they synchronize with the only linguistic unit that expresses this parameter, the verb. In example (13), now repeated as (20), a movement coordinated to the verb is performed: the hand makes a downward movement to illustrate the change in space and in time carried out by the verb va caure (‘fall’). (20) [(.. 0.38) el gos va caure_] ‘The dog fell.’ (CAP, C1TN06CC) The remainder of the gestures (27 gesture phrases, 23% of occurrences in events and 40 gesture phrases, 35% of occurrences in states) describe properties of entities referred to in speech, as also observed in Table 8. This argument is confirmed by the fact that these gestures are never synchronized with the verb but with other coexpressive linguistic units, as observed in examples (17) and (18), now repeated as (21) as (22). (21) i el va portar cap a:_ u:n_ (.. 0.33) un barran[c aix]ı´ petito´_ ‘And it carried him towards a small gully like this.’ (CAP, C1TN06CC) (22) te´ dos lli:ts_ i dues tauletes de ni:t_ (.. 0.77) [ {(P) dos d’i - d’individuals_}] ‘It has two beds and two bedside tables. . . two individual tables.’ (CAP, C1TD06CC)

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In the hand gesture associated with aixı´ (‘like this’) in example (21), a property of the entity is expressed: specifically, the gesture represents the size of the gully through a downward movement synchronized at the beginning of the coexpressive verbal sequence. The same occurs in example (22), where the gesture performed expresses an enumeration and the attribution of several entities to another entity through an upward and downward movement. 5.4. Cospeech gesture values and coherence in discourse The existence of gestures that are cotemporal and coexpressive with oral discourse is no chance event: they play a specific role in discourse. As argued above, cospeech gestures carry meanings associated to meanings transmitted in oral discourse but not in a redundant, superfluous way. The gesticulation analyzed either conveys new information which is not present in the semantic content of the utterance, or acts as a marker or intensifier of the degree of the communicative relevance or salience of the utterance. In both cases, cospeech gestures reinforce the discursive coherence of the global message, providing evidence and giving clues for its interpretation. Frequently, the cospeech gestures analyzed give new information that is non–expressed in semantic content of statements, reinforcing the discursive coherence of the global message, verbal and non–verbal, in both cases. Like a token of this first case, where the gesture gives us new information, in example (16), now repeated as (23), the verb and the gesture represent a path between a starting point and an ending point of motion that refers to the same idea, but, moreover, the gesture gives additional information that is not expressed by the verbal channel: while the verbal channel expresses horizontal movement indicating the path followed, the non–verbal channel, i.e. the gesture, performs a parabolic movement, indicating that, when the frog left, it jumped. Similarly, in example (18), now (24), apart from enumerating the entities described (two bedside tables), both hands are symmetrically located at the sides of the body to indicate the place where the entities are supposed to be located. Once again, in this example, now a descriptive fragment, the gesture gives new information that is not expressed by the verbal channel. (23) i quan es desperta_ l[a granota marxa_] ‘And when he wakes up the frog leaves.’ (CAP, C1TN05CC)

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(24) te´ dos lli:ts_ i dues tauletes de ni:t_ (.. 0.77) [ {(P) dos d’i - d’individuals_}] ‘It has two beds and two bedside tables. . . two individual bedside tables.’ (CAP, C1TD06CC) Therefore, in these cases gesture and discourse are not merely coexpressive. In fact, in many cases like these, gestures do not act as a simple complement of synchronic discourse, and give new and pertinent information, similar to that provided by onomatopeia (in the verbal channel) or that provided by sounds, facial gestures, head gestures and emblem gestures (all of them non–expressed in the verbal channel), increasing the discursive or communicative coherence of the overall message. On other occasions, the cospeech gestures analyzed do not strictly give new information to the verbal statement but emphasize it. In example (13), now as (25), the hand moves downwards to illustrate the vertical course denoted by the verb va caure (‘fall’). In (19), now (26), the gesture indicates that the entity described is located above another entity in order to reflect the meaning of the synchronic linguistic unit, me´s elevat (‘higher’). In both cases, the semantic and gesture content is very close, and gestures are understood as a strategy to focalize the meaning and, specifically, as a mechanism which reinforces the salience and relevance of verbal utterances. (25) [(.. 0.38) el gos va caure_ ] ‘The dog fell.’ (CAP, C1TN06CC) (26) (.. 0.51) hi ha:_ doncs_ [el bany_ que esta` me´s elevat que: l:]o altre_ ‘There is. . . so the bathroom which is higher than the other.’ (CAP, C1TD05CC) A more accurate study of communicative and coherence values of cospeech gestures would require highly detailed analyses of the processes through which receivers understand and interpret di¤erent kinds of

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matched, multimodal sequences. However, the above examples already manifest that cospeech gesture carries out a decisive role as a resource or mechanism that focalizes relevant, prominent aspects of information contained in synchronic verbal statements. In all these cases, gesticulation behaves in a similar way to prosodic resources, also contributing to discursive coherence.

6. Concluding remarks The main reason why the concept of coherence, as distinct from the concept of cohesion, has not been successfully defined in terms of grammar or linguistics is that multimodal factors have not been taken into account in its analysis. In this study, we propose a redefinition of this concept in order to reinterpret it as a discursive and communicative concept in multimodal terms, as a property of discourse that guarantees a guided, consistent and relevant interpretation. Despite its introductory character, the analysis carried out with our oral textual corpus provides us with arguments in favor of the role of cospeech gestures in the attribution of coherence to verbal utterances, with di¤erent expressive mechanisms and with the possibility of di¤erent synchronization processes (with verbs or other lexical items) among verbal and non–verbal sequences. Future work should envisage a global study of coexpressive verbal and non–verbal sequences. In our view, this change in direction will be indispensable in order to analyze di¤erent pragmatic, discursive and cognitive topics such as metaphoric or metonymic skills, reported or polyphonic speech and politeness, since they are parallel to the topic analyzed in this study. They all reflect the idea that oral and verbal language usage is always a multimodal process to construct shared meanings in social interaction.

References Alturo, Nu´ria 1997

La sema`ntica verbal del catala`: la representacio´ dels esdeveniments. Ph. diss., Barcelona: Publicacions de la Universitat de Barcelona. [available at http://www.tesisenxarxa.net/TDX– 0204108–121704]

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Hipo`tesis sobre la representacio´ multimodal (verbal i gestual) dels esdeveniments. In Les fronteres del llenguatge. Lingu¨´ıstica i comunicacio´ no verbal, Lluı´s Payrato´, Nu´ria Alturo, and Marta Paya` (ed.), 141–153. Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona – Promociones y Publicaciones Universitarias.

Coherencia discursiva: dimensiones contextual y gramatical. Cı´rculo de Lingu¨´ıstica Aplicada a la Comunicacio´n 41, 3–30. [available at http://www.ucm.es/info/circulo/no41/alturo.pdf ] Alturo, Nu´ria, and Kees Hengeveld 2010 La motivacio´ pragma`tica de la cohesio´ en la conversa. Caplletra 49, 9–26. Alturo, Nu´ria, and Lluı´s Payrato´ 2003 The Cognitive Processing of Situations: Evidence from Multimodal Discourse. 8th International Cognitive Linguistics Conference. Universidad de la Rioja (Logron˜o, July 2003). Birdwhistell, Ray L. 1970 Kinesics and Context: Essays on body motion communication. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Borra`s–Comes, Joan, and Pilar Prieto in press Seeing tunes. The role of visual gestures in tune interpretation. Laboratory Phonology. Du Bois, John, Stephan Schuetze–Corbun, Susanna Cumming, and Danae Paolino 1993 Outline of discourse transcription. In Talking Data: Transcription and coding in discourse research, Jane A. Edwards, and Martin D. Lampert (ed.), 45–89. Philadelphia: Lawrence Erlbaum. Brown, Gillian, and George Yule 1983 Discourse analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bulwer, John 1974 [1644] Chirologia or the natural language of the hand. Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press. Contento, Silvana 1998 Forme et fonction du geste pour la cohe´sion discursive. In Oralite´ et gestualite´. Communication multimodale, interaction, Serge Santi, Isabelle Guaı¨tella, Christian Cave´, and Gabrielle Konopczynski (eds), 589–594, Paris: L’Harmattan. Cruse, Alan 2006 A Glossary of Semantics and Pragmatics. Edinburgh: Edinburg University Press. Ekman, Paul, and Wallace Friesen 1969 The repertoire of nonverbal behavioural categories: Origins, usage and coding. Semiotica 1, 49–98. Fonseca, Joaquim 1992 Linguistica e texto/discurso: Teoria, descric¸ao, aplicac¸ao. Lisboa: Ministerio da Educac¸ao.

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Halliday, Michael A. K., and Ruqaiya Hasan 1976 Cohesion in English. London: Longman. Ibarretxe–Antun˜ano, Iraide 2004 Motion events in Basque narratives. In Relating events in narrative: Typological and contextual perspectives, Sven Stro¨mquist, and Ludo Verhoeven (eds.), 89–111. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Kehler, Andrew 2002 Coherence, Reference, and the Theory of Grammar. Stanford: CSLI Publications. Kendon, Adam 1972 Some relationships between body motion and speech: An analysis of an example. In Studies in dyadic communication, Aaron Siegman, and Benjamin Pope (eds), 177–210. Elmsford, New York: Pergamon Press. Kendon, Adam 1980 Gesticulation and Speech: Two Aspects of the Process of Utterance. In: Nonverbal Communication and Language, Mary Richtie Key (ed.), 207–227. The Hague: Mouton Publishers. Kendon, Adam 2000 Language and gesture: unity or duality? In Language and gesture, David McNeill (ed.), 47–63. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kendon, Adam 2004 Gesture: Visible Action as Utterance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Levy, Elena T., and David McNeill 1992 Speech, gesture, and discourse. Discourse Processes 15 (3), 277– 301. Lloberes, Marina 2008 La representacio´ del moviment i l’estatisme als gestos coexpressius amb el discurs oral. Master diss., Department of Catalan Philology, University of Barcelona. Massaro, Dominic W. 2001 Perceiving the many modalities of spoken language. Theories and data. In: Oralite´ et gestualite´. Interactions et comportements multimodaux dans la communication, Christian Cave´, Isabelle Guaı¨tella, and Serge Santi (eds), 34–37. Paris: L’Harmattan. Matthews, Peter H. 2007 The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press (1st ed, 1997). McNeill, David 1992 Hand and mind: What gestures reveal about thought. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

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McNeill, David, and Susan D. Duncan 2000 Growth points in thinking–for–speaking. In Language and gesture, David McNeill (ed.), 141–161. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McNeill, David, and Elena T. Levy 1993 Cohesion and gesture. Discourse Processes 16 (4), 363–386. McNeill, David (ed.) 2000 Language and gesture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mourelatos, Alexander P. D. 1978 Events, Processes and States. Linguistics and Philosophy 2, 415– 34. Mu¨ller, Cornelia 2003 On the gestural creation of narrative structure: a case study of a story told in a conversation. In Gestures. Meaning and Use, Monica Rector, Isabella Poggi, and Nadine Trigo (eds.), 259– 265. Porto: Edic¸o˜es Universidade Fernando Pessoa. Nogue´, Neus, and Lluı´s Payrato´ 2006 The University of Barcelona Plurilingual Audiovisual Corpus (CAP). Paper presented at 3rd Freiburg Workshop on Romance Corpus Linguistics, Corpora and Pragmatics. Albert–Ludwigs University Freiburg, September 14th–17th, 2006. Payrato´, Lluı´s 2009 [2003] Reprint. Nonverbal communication. In Key notions for pragmatics, ¨ stman (eds.), 163–194. Amsterdam/ Jef Verschueren and Jan–Ola O Philadephia: John Benjamins. Original edition: Handbook of prag¨ stman, Jan Blommaert, and matics, Jef Verschueren, Jan–Ola O Chris Bulcaen (eds.), Amsterdam/Philadephia: John Benjamins. Payrato´, Lluı´s, and Nu´ria Alturo (eds.) 2002 Corpus oral de conversa col.loquial. Materials de treball. Barcelona, Publicacions de la Universitat de Barcelona. Payrato´, Lluı´s, and Jaume Fito´ (eds.) 2008 Corpus Audiovisual Plurilingu¨e (CAP). Barcelona: Publicacions i Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona. Richards, Jack, John Platt, and Heidi Weber 1985 Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics. Harlow: Longman. Talmy, Leonard 1985 Lexicalization patterns: Semantic structure in lexical forms. In: Language typology and syntactic description, vol. 3, Timothy Shopen (ed.), 36–149. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vendler, Zeno 1957 Verbs and Times. The Philosophical Review LXVI: 143–160. Vendler, Zeno 1967 Linguistics in Philosophy. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.

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Verkuyl, H.J. 1989 On the Compositional Nature of the Aspects. Dordrecht: Reidel. Wales, Katie 1989 A dictionary of stylistics. London and New York: Longman. Widdowson, Henry G. 1979 Explorations in applied linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Pragmatic coherence as a multimodal feature

Appendices Appendix 1. Elicitation processes in the CAP.

243

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Appendix 2. Transcription conventions. 1. Prosodic aspects Final tone sequence descending final tone

\

ascending final tone

/

maintaining final tone

_

Truncated tonal group

–

Maintenance of the intonation ascending

{(A) a¤ected text}

descending

{(B) a¤ected text}

Altering the voice

{(EV) a¤ected text}

Intensity high

{(F) a¤ected text}

very high

{(FF) a¤ected text}

low

{(P) a¤ected text}

very low

{(PP) a¤ected text}

Time fast

{(AC) a¤ected text}

slow

{(DC) a¤ected text}

Short, medium and long lengthening

: :: :::

2. Vocal aspects Simultaneous laughter with speech

{(@) a¤ected text}

Non–simultaneous laughter with speech one symbol per syllable

@

long fragment with duration

@R(duration)R@

Inhalation and exhalation

(INH) (EXH)

3. Pauses and overlaps Pause very short (0.1 < p < 0.3)

(. duration)

Pragmatic coherence as a multimodal feature short (p < 1)

(.. duration)

medium (1 a p < 3)

(. . . duration)

long (p b 3)

(. . .. duration)

Overlapping

[a¤ected text]

4. Regularizations and comments Elision

(spelling of the elided sound)

Transcriber’s comment descriptive

(comment)

general

((comment))

5. Problematic fragments Doubt about the transcribed text

{(??) a¤ected text}

Unintelligible fragment one sign per syllable

x

long fragment with duration

xX(duration)Xx

6. Other aspects| Second language

{(L2) a¤ected text}

Truncation of word

-

Truncation of word and of tonal group

-–

245

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Marina Lloberes and Lluı´s Payrato´

Appendix 3. Structure of the CAP.

Here, many stories begin on a paper napkin. Argumentation in Catalan discourse Margarida Bassols 1. Introduction The purpose of this study is not to reach generalisations about how Catalan speakers argue, which would require a comprehensive, exhaustive corpus of its realms of use, but rather to examine some of the most prominent features of the way some members of this group argue in prototypical situations. All sociolinguistic issues related to language mixing and bilingualism in these speakers shall be ignored, and the cases of Catalan language use chosen show neither interferences nor code shifting, both of which are quite common among autochthonous speakers (cf. Cots & Nussbaum and Pujolar, in this volume). It should be borne in mind that not all Catalan speakers were born in Catalonia; many come from elsewhere, as Catalonia has always been a stopping point and destination for immigrants. To accomplish this, three very di¤erent examples shall be analysed which can provide an overview of the strategies used and speech acts preferred. These examples are a highly symbolic advertisement, an excerpt from a political rally on Catalonia’s independence and an intervention in a debate on immigration.

2. Identifying statements of Catalan society Catalan society’s idealised view of its role in a globalised world is expressed clearly in a leaflet entitled La Catalunya que ve ‘The Catalonia to come’, which was given out free to all the readers of one of the newspapers with the highest readership in the country, La Vanguardia, on the 8th of February 2009. The texts it includes were devised by the government of the Generalitat, which at that time was run by a tripartite leftist coalition. Traces of this vision can be seen through a series of utterances used as headlines, the most significant ones being: Una realitat dina`mica, un sol

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poble ‘A dynamic reality, a single people’, Serveis socials per a tota la poblacio´ ‘Social services for the entire population’, Una cultura sense exclusions ‘A culture without exclusion’, Aules que obren les portes de Catalunya ‘Classrooms that open up the doors to Catalonia’, Oportunitats per a tothom ‘Opportunities for everyone’, La llengua e´s per entendre’ns ‘Language helps us understand each other’, El futur e´s trilingu¨e ‘The future is trilingual’, Catalunya, societat xarxa ‘Catalonia, a network society’, Catalunya, ciutat de ciutats ‘Catalonia, a city of cities’, Catalunya surt al mo´n ‘Catalonia goes out into the world’, Fa`brica de coneixement ‘Knowledge factory’, Conservar els tresors de la natura ‘Conserving nature’s treasures’, Despertar l’intere`s per la polı´tica ‘Arousing an interest in politics’ and Compromı´s amb el Sud ‘Commitment to the South’. These statements reveal an interest in achieving a dynamic, cohesive, non-exclusive1 society open to everyone yet committed to the South, either Africa or South America, the origin of most of the people coming here to seek a better life. They also show an interest in being a society made up of a network of cities which aim to be on the cutting edge of knowledge and to conserve the natural treasures they boast. This society has two main identifying features: its culture and language. Regarding the former, the society wants the culture to be an instrument of integration, which accepts the cultural mores of the new arrivals. Regarding the latter, a bone of contention with the Spanish government, the society declares its intention to spread knowledge of all three languages (Catalan, Spanish and English) to the entire population, and not to use them for identity or political purposes, nor for anything beyond their communicative function.2 In some of the claims we can glimpse a society concerned with its less fortunate groups, yet cohesive around the issues of education,3 healthcare 1. The fact that the national name ‘‘Catalans’’ is never used is highly indicative, and that more generic terms poble ‘people’, poblacio´ ‘population’ and tothom ‘everyone’ are preferred. Obviously, the goal is to overcome the ‘locals/ immigrants’ dichotomy, or even the ‘‘Catalan/Spanish’’ contrast. With poblacio´, the stress is on the fact of ‘‘living’’ in a place more than ‘‘having been born’’ there. 2. Despite the fact that the Spanish right’s most productive point is their use of and legislation in Catalan, electorally speaking, and that historically this has been the most identifying feature of people born in Catalonia. 3. What stands out is the metaphor applied to education in which it is regarded as the gateway through which immigrants enter our society, the place where they enter into contact with it.

Argumentation in Catalan discourse

249

and justice, one with prominent industrial and agricultural sectors and with a strong neighbourhood network structure in place. The analysis shall reveal the contrast between this idealised vision upheld by the political leaders and the one that can be gleaned from specific, broadly disseminated argumentative acts.

3. The theoretical framework To ground the analyses, we shall bear in mind Searle (1969, 1975) for the characterisation of the speech acts, Grice (1975, 1981) for the application of the principle of conversation and its maxims, Walton (1992a, 1992b) for the analysis of fallacies and plausible arguments, Anscombre (1995) for argumentative schemes, Adam and Bonhomme´ (1997) for argumentative textual sequences and Van Eemeren and Grootendorst (1992) for the rules of the critical discussion within the strict pragma-dialectical theory and the strategic manoeuvres within the extensive pragma-dialectical theory (Van Eemeren and Houtlosser 2001). We shall start with Walton’s definition of argumentation (1992a: 185), which extends far beyond a vision that limits it to being a means to reach a conclusion: Argument is best defined as reasoning directed toward fulfilling an obligation in a context of dialogue. So conceived, an argument is a part of guided reasoning leading from a dialectical basis, or initial situation of a type of dialogue, toward some goal that is appropriate or characteristic for that type of dialogue. This conception of argument is pragmatic and dialectical, because an argument is defined in terms of its use in a context of dialogue.

In fact, in an argumentative discussion or discourse, the goal is not only for the respondent to accept the counterpart’s standpoint, which according to Eemeren and Houtlosser (2002: 383) would be the rhetorical objective; rather the speaker also tries to use reasonable persuasive strategies, which would be the dialectical objective. At every point in the dialectical evolution of argument and counter-argument, the participants choose a given strategy that matches their desire to persuade and convince. According to Innocenti (2006: 341): ‘‘The force of argumentation is not wholly logical but also pragmatic, since not all argumentation is best understood as being designed to resolve a di¤erence of opinion, and since argumentation is not and ought not always be cooperative’’.

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4. Persuasive (advertising) argumentation4 It is clear that analyses of advertising do not always provide information on the rational and conscious arguments of the collective being targeted, but they do convey the feelings, desires and prejudices of the group. This kind of communication has a twofold purpose: economic (to sell a product or service) and symbolic (to represent the group), according to Adam and Bonhomme´ (1997: 24). Television advertisements always reflect two illocutionary acts: an expressive kind of constative representative act (I assert, describe, attribute, inform, etc.) and an implicit directive kind of act (buy, use, remember, etc.). If these acts are successful, the corresponding perlocutionary act will change the desires and attitudes of the targets, who will mainly have a desire to do, consume a product or use a service, yet with the goal of feeling part of a symbolic universe, of a possible world. Ultimately, what is being sold is a way of life. As Adam and Bonhomme´ (1997: 36) say: ‘‘Referential communication grounded on the values of the use of products vanishes in favour of connotative communication that glorifies the value of the sign on par with the expectations of the clientele, either social or imaginary’’. For this reason, the advertiser pledges to respect the principle of cultural recognition, that is, to move within cultural parameters and coordinates that it shares with the consumer. 4.1. The polyphonic speaker The speaker in the advertisement is polyphonic (Bassols 2004: 96), as it encompasses the advertising company or institution, represented by the brand or logo; the advertising agency that created it, which is oftentimes totally invisible; the medium used to transmit the message, which also determines, for example, what language is used; and the audiovisuals, including the voices that appear in it (often o¤-screen, which sometimes includes the voice of the social group being targeted, such as in the example below, and the voices of one or more actors).

4. In a broader sense than the one upheld by Perelman (1982), who believes that an argument is persuasive if it is addressed to a specific audience, if it is not universal, as in the latter case it would be ‘‘convincing’’.

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In the television advertisement being examined, the advertiser is Damm, a Catalan beer company founded in 1876. Its products are extremely popular. Its website claims that ‘‘Damm has always had close ties with the country’s society, of which it is part and with which it is particularly connected’’.5 In the summer of 2009, the main character in the advertisement was Leo Messi, a player who joined Futbol Club Barcelona in 2000 and has helped the club to win a series of trophies in the past decade. Futbol Club Barcelona is the most important football club in Catalonia; it enjoys mass popularity and is identified with the slogan ‘‘Molt me´s que un club’’ ‘Much more than a club’, which leads us to believe that it plays a clear social function. In fact, for Catalans this slogan is interpreted in the sense that this football club is identified with ‘‘a country’’, or ‘‘represents a country’’, obviously Catalonia. The fact that immigrants from other parts of Spain joined the club in the 1960s and 1970s, followed by South American immigrants in the past decade, is viewed as an example of integration in a society that views itself as very welcoming of outsiders. 4.2. The advertising message The message of the advertisement analysed is shaped through two semiotics: auditory and visual. Both reinforce each other in a denotative and simultaneously connotative interplay. According to Bassols (2004: 101): ‘‘The advertising and propaganda message is a mediator; it plays the role of intermediary between an object, or a deed in the world, and a cultural class or social sector. It acts as a call to loyalty to the group to which one belongs. And it is echoic, it sends back to each group, sector, stratum or class its own image.’’ This kind of message is quite adept at linking implicit information and activating knowledge shared by the group (cultural referents, symbolic deeds, indisputable beliefs, etc.). It precisely allows for di¤erent levels of reception, from more to less profound, according to the recipient’s access to this knowledge and, in short, according to their degree of socialisation or integration in Catalan society.

5. http://www.damm.es. Pay close attention to the word ‘‘country’’ (cat. paı´s) used in this statement of principles, which shall be analysed below.

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(1) Man’s o¤ screen voice Quan els Messi van voler venir a Europa van quedar amb un representant del Barc¸a en un bar i van firmar un contracte amb ell en un tovallo´ de paper. En aquell tovallo´ deia que jugaria amb els millors, ‘When the Messi family wanted to come to Europe, they met with a Barc¸a representative at a bar and signed a contract with him on a paper napkin. On that paper napkin, he said he would play with the best,’

Images

Scenic view of a mountain with a sunrise, as if seen from a car window. Scenic view of a bar overlooking a city. A group of people seated at a bar table. Framed contract over a mantelpiece. Three Barc¸a players (Henry, Xavi and Eto’o) giving each other gestures of encouragement before entering the pitch. Players moving around the pitch.

que guanyaria tı´tols, que en Leo Messi es convertiria en l’ı´dol de TOT un paı´s. ‘that he would win trophies, and that Leo Messi would become the idol for an ENTIRE country.’

Joy in the bleachers with blurred flags waving. Close-up of Messi in his Barc¸a uniform running onto the pitch.

A la famı´lia, al principi, els va estranyar. ‘‘El futur del nostre fill en un tovallo´ de paper?’’. ‘The family was surprised at first. ‘‘Our son’s future on a paper napkin?’’.’

Pero` me´s tard van entendre que allo` era el me´s normal del mo´n, perque` aquı´ la gent fa vida al carrer, als bars, a les terrasses. Per aixo` estem acostumats a fer negocis en un tovallo´ de paper, i a respectar-los. Aquı´ s’ha arribat a pagar un sopar amb un tovallo´, a dibuixar-hi idees.

Girl reading a book about him seated on a bus. Barcelona beach and two people playing sports

Argumentation in Catalan discourse ‘But later they understood that that was the most common thing in the world because here people live outdoors, in bars on terraces. That’s why we’re used to making deals on a paper napkin, and to respecting them. Here, dinner has even been paid with a napkin, with the ideas sketched on it.’

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Messi (wearing number 15) playing between two players from another team (wearing red) on an earthen pitch. People on the terrace of a bar talking and playing guitar. Boy skating. Boy riding a bicycle. View of a bar. Young people at a bar drinking Estrella Damm. Group of young business people on the terrace of a bar with views of the tower of Martin the Humane. Inside a restaurant on whose wall hangs a drawing by Picasso. Picture of a sheet of paper with a sketch by Foster of the telecommunications tower. Sweeping view of the real telecommunications tower.

Aquı´, moltes histo`ries comencen en un tovallo´ de paper, i e´s que aquı´ un tovallo´ pot ser molt me´s que un tovallo´. ‘Here, many stories begin on a paper napkin, and in fact a paper napkin can be much more than a paper napkin.’

Boy passing a hidden love note to a girl on a paper napkin. Girl smiling. Messi smiling while looking at something where the camera is.

De fet, hi ha coses aquı´ que so´n molt me´s del que semblen. ‘In fact, there are things here that are much more than they appear.’

Close-up of an empty Estrella Damm bottle next to a full glass with views of the sea in the background.

Estrella Damm, la cervesa que es beu on millor es viu. ‘Estrella Damm, the beer that’s drunk where people live the best.’

View of a beach with a few people and a blue sky. Above it are the Estrella Damm and Barc¸a logos, with the slogan ‘‘O‰cial sponsor of FC Barcelona’’.

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4.3. The persuasive strategies The persuasive strategies that the advertiser chose in order to convince the viewers, possible beer consumers, are principally the following: (i) Evocation of group feeling: This strategy relies especially on the use of a deictic element of place, aquı´ ‘here’, which is heavily symbolic and abstract and allows for many interpretations; in Catalonia it is equivalent to this country. It appears four times and is implicitly contrasted to alla` ‘there’, which may well be Argentina or perhaps the rest of the world. La gent ‘people’ is a generalisation to indicate everyone living in Catalonia – more than a specific group, it is a way of life. And paı´s ‘country’ has an ambiguous referent but is a common way of referring to Catalonia as opposed to the state of Spain, equating paı´s ‘country’ and nacio´ ‘nation’, even though it has no state of its own. However, for a non-Catalan viewer, paı´s could well refer to Spain, equating paı´s and Estat ‘State’. However, when discussing Europe, Catalonia becomes situated in a symbolic space, politically and economically speaking, which enables all reference to its belonging to the state of Spain to be eliminated. However, the violation of the maxim of quality through an ambiguous use of the term paı´s enables the advertiser to reach two kinds of audiences: first Catalans, who identify with and recognise themselves in the images, and secondly Spaniards, who identify a Mediterranean place that belongs to their symbolic space. The statement That napkin said that Leo Messi would become the idol for an ENTIRE country is an example. The recognisable images of Barcelona, like the mediaeval tower of Martin the Humane and the Foster telecommunications tower, reinforce the equation of ‘‘us’’ with Barcelona residents and, by extension, with Catalans.6 Therefore, the so-called ‘pact of open interpretation’ is fulfilled (Adam and Bonhomme´ 1997: 219). (ii) Atmosphere of familiarity: This is achieved thanks to els Messi ‘the Messi family’, represented by their surname as if they were a neighbourhood family whom everyone knows. And we see this used again in la famı´lia ‘the family’, a basic symbolic space of interaction of the group

6. If this recovery of shared knowledge does not take place, the interpretation is more general, as just discussed.

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members. Likewise, Futbol Club Barcelona is also called Barc¸a, a common, popular nickname.7 (iii) Symbolic language: This is especially driven home with tovallo´ de paper ‘paper napkin’, which is the theme of the advertisement and is associated with the product being advertised because of their similar metonymy: ‘napkin-beer bottle’. It appears eight times in one minute, which reinforces its symbolic weight. A napkin is an everyday, homely object, and if it is made of paper it is also ephemeral and volatile. As a result, it seems unlikely as the best place for saving or representing important things, like a million-dollar contract. Therefore, a paradoxical atmosphere with a great deal of persuasive force is created. (iv) Shared beliefs: The beliefs include that Barc¸a now has the best players, that it will win trophies and that its players become the idols for an entire country. Because Barc¸a and paı´s or nacio´ are one and the same. Furthermore, Estem acostumats a fer negocis en un tovallo´ de paper i a respectar-los ‘We’re used to making deals on a paper napkin, and to respecting them’ is a presumption that resorts to the custom, to reaching agreements, of the usual way of doing things within the social group represented. It also implies, or lets the audience infer, that the people involved in the communicative act make deals and respect them, a rather stereotyped view of Catalans, yet one that is widely shared. Therefore, it revives the belief in this self-representation as entrepreneurs and ethical people, and it thus conveys a positive axiological assessment of the restricted consumer-receiver group, and by metonymy of the product. (v) Attention to the interests and conative states 8 of the audience: The advertisement features the way they like living outdoors, chatting in a bar, skating by the sea, riding around on a bicycle, falling in love or playing on the beach. And this is mainly achieved through images. (vi) Reported speech and pseudo-dialogue: En aquell tovallo´ deia que ‘That napkin said that’ is used to reinforce this shared knowledge about what happens to the players who sign on with Barc¸a: a whole series of good, positive things. Likewise, El futur del nostre fill en un tovallo´ de paper? ‘Our son’s future on a paper napkin?’ is an utterance that is

7. One President of Futbol Club Barcelona went so far as the say that we Barcelona natives had a city with the name of a sports club, so close was the identification between the city and the football team. 8. In Pinto’s terminology (2003: 9), states are opposed to actions and processes and are conative because they are related to desires, fears and hopes.

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attributed to the player’s parents. In this question, which is argumentative in tone, the conflict that the advertisement wishes to spotlight is verbalised: parents ‘‘from abroad’’ are surprised about ‘‘our’’ way of being. (vii) Indirectness: Some contents can be merely inferred instead of directly understood. Therefore, La cervesa que es beu on millor es viu ‘the beer that’s drunk where people live the best’ comes with the assumption that People live better in Catalonia than anywhere else or Spain is where people live the best. Here the importance of activating one place or the other will play a crucial role in assigning meaning to the statement. (viii) Word plays: La cervesa Damm es beu on millor es viu ‘Damm beer is drunk where people live the best’’ presents a pun and a poetic structure. This last utterance acts as an ‘‘argumentative matrix with a global value’’ according to Ascombre (1995). In addition to the parallelism between Aquı´ un tovallo´ pot ser molt me´s que un tovallo´ ‘Here a napkin can be much more than a napkin’ and Hi ha coses aquı´ que so´n molt me´s del que semblen ‘There are things here that are much more than they appear’ echoes Aquı´ un club e´s molt me´s que un club ‘Here a club is much more than a club’ and suggests by analogy that Damm beer is much more than it appears, much more than just a beer, which is also inferred. Damm represents a unique lifestyle. (ix) Implicit conclusion: This is much more e¤ective than an explicit conclusion like Drink Damm beer, which might have seemed like a rude intrusion into the consumers’ life and the image, according to Brown and Levinson (1978). With regard to shared knowledge, which is primarily activated by the images, it includes the location of the Barcelona settings that appear, biographic knowledge of the Messi family which indeed recounts that his contract was written on a paper napkin, identification of the drawing shown as a Picasso work, recognition of the Barc¸a players that appear (Thierry Daniel Henry, Xavier Ferna`ndez Creus and Samuel Eto’o) and especially, the reactivation of archetypes like life in a Mediterranean city, and the appeal to sentiments thanks to triumphant images of Barc¸a, pictures of fun and leisure, and images of the joyful, youthful physiognomies of the characters filmed.

5. Emotional (political) argumentation Many scholars of argumentation have upheld the idea that emotions generate fallacies and should be cast out of the pathway that leads to conclusions. They believe that rational arguments are the right tools to convince interlocutors. Yet others, like Walton (1992b) and Gilbert

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(1997) believe the opposite: that appealing to emotions is legitimate and persuasive. The latter even speak about ‘‘emotional logic’’ aimed at coalescence, at the merger of opinions. Appealing to emotions is related to situational norms which make this strategy legitimate or not. The listener determines whether this resource is appropriate according to the argument of which it is part (for example, whether or not it is highly personal, whether or not it is inflammatory), on the specific occasion when it is used (academic debate versus family dispute, for example), other strategies and arguments accompanying it (only appealing to feelings without also providing more rational reasons may not be very convincing, for example), whether or not it contributes to achieving the arguer’s objectives, the listener’s expectations of the situation, argumentation and the role of the interlocutors. Feelings tend to leave a heavy impact and be e¤ective. Even van Eemeren and Houtlosser (2000), from the perspective of pragma-dialectics, had to take them into account in their latest examination of strategic manoeuvres. After all, they are a highly empathetic strategy which unites the speaker and audience and e¤ectively focuses the subject of the discourse. 5.1. The communicative act The act in which the argumentation analysed below took place was a political rally to support a popular, non-binding consultation on Catalonia’s independence held on the 13th of September 2009 in a small town near Barcelona. The verbal reaction of the Spanish government and the statewide parties was forceful, and the Falange Espan˜ola, the most hard-line former party of the Franco regime, was present on the day of the consultation. The arguer is Anna Simo´, a young politician and spokesperson of the Esquerra Republicana party in the Parliament of Catalonia, a party that defends independence as a desirable political goal. Simo´’s speech matches what Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca ([1958] 1988: 67) state: ‘‘The speaker tries to establish a sense of communion centred around particular values recognized by the audience, and to this end he uses the whole range of means available to the rhetorician for purposes of amplification and enhancement’’. Her speech is epidiptic;9 it strives not to prove something but to glorify some value professed by the participants in the communicative act (in this 9. More than deliberative. It would have been deliberative if she had given practical reasons for voting in favour of independence, such as the social and political advantages that this new situation would entail.

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case, the hope for a political change), so it has very few possibilities of being refuted. It is one kind of discourse that fits in perfectly with emotional appeals, as Walton (1992b: 67) reminds us: ‘‘Others have argued that emotions have some legitimate role to play in argument, especially in ethical and political deliberation, in spheres of argumentation where personal loyalties and commitments are involved in a decision, and in controversial issues where hard knowledge of the facts is not decisive in leading a single conclusion’’. 5.2. The speech Simo´ speaks directly to her listeners, and at a given point she tells them: (2) Nome´s una cosa: obvieu els provocadors, obvieu els que no volen que la consulta es faci, els que ve´nen a buscar MERDER. Aı¨lleu-vos, aı¨lleu-LOS, a tots ells. No els feu cas. Actueu amb normalitat i, sobretot, NO tingueu por de cap tipus de coaccio´. Sera` una jornada festiva, democra`tica, tranquil  la. Molts de vosaltres durant quaranta anys vau tenir molta por, durant quaranta anys no us vau poder expressar. Ara e´s l’hora d’expressar-vos amb tranquil  litat perque` hi ha unes lleis que tambe´, en aquest cas, us emparen. [. . .] No hem de desesperanc¸ar-nos, no hem de rondinar, PROU de rondinar. Prou de desesperanc¸ar-nos pero` toquem de peus a terra, perque` l’independentisme CREIX, esta` creixent, gra`cies a la feina de TOTA la gent que estem aquı´ i de molta molta gent que ens han precedit en aquesta feina. Aixo` no ho oblideu. I ha de cre´ixer encara me´s per tenir aquestes majories. Ara no hi so´n. A Arenys, sı´. Doncs, molt be´, que comencin a Arenys. Pero` a la resta dels Paı¨sos Catalans no hi so´n i, per tant, hem de continuar treballant perque` e´s la forc¸a de la majoria la que ens ho ha de fer tirar endavant. Repeteixo, ha de ser una jornada festiva, normal, de descre`dit d’aquells que volen fer-la enlaire. No tingueu por perque` el que els fa por e´s la vostra normalitat des del comenc¸ament. ‘Just one more thing: ignore the troublemakers, forget the people who don’t want the consultation10 to be held, the ones who come looking for TROUBLE.11 Isolate yourselves, isolate THEM, all of them. Don’t pay them any attention. Act normally and especially DO NOT fear any kind of coercion. It will be a festive day, democratic and peaceful. Many of you were fearful for 40 years; for 40 years you were unable to express yourselves. Now is the time to express yourselves with utter peace of mind because there are laws that also, in this case, protect you. [. . .] 10. The consultation was being held in a town named Arenys de Munt. 11. The emphasis is marked with upper-case letters.

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There is no need to despair, no need to grumble. ENOUGH grumbling already, enough despair. But let’s keep our feet on the ground, because the pro-independence movement is GROWING thanks to the e¤orts of EVERYONE here and many, many people who have come before us in this endeavour. Don’t forget this. And it should continue to grow even more to secure these majorities. Right now there isn’t a majority. In Arenys there is. Great, so let it begin in Arenys. But in the other Catalan-speaking lands there isn’t a majority, so we have to keep working because it is the strength of the majority that will make this successful. I repeat: it should be a normal, festive day, to the discredit of those who want to boycott it. Do not be afraid because what makes them afraid is your normality from the start.’

5.3. Emotions The emotions and feelings appealed to in this semi-impromptu speech are fear, indi¤erence, peace of mind, hope, disgruntlement ( prou de rondinar ‘enough grumbling’), normality (as the absence of emotions) and discredit. Simo´ evokes fear, recalling that the listeners felt it during the 40 years of the Franco regime, and she assumes that recent events have rekindled this fear. Mentioning this emotion is relevant if we bear in mind that it may be the main detraction to the act, namely voting, that the speaker wishes to encourage. The ultimate goal of her speech is to guide the listeners’ actions. For this reason, she also invokes indi¤erence (to provocations), peace of mind, hope, normality and discredit (of those who want to boycott the consultation) because she wants them to be present in the listeners’ future actions, the actions on the day of the popular consultation. 5.4. Plausible arguments According to Walton (1992a: 3), plausible argumentation works with presumptive arguments, is based on opinions, moves forward thanks to suggestion and provisionalities, and can admit exceptions, qualifications and rebuttals. In the most spontaneous language, in everyday conversations, arguments based on practical reasoning (Walton 1992a: 32) are common, that is, based on proposing courses of action for a given listener in specific circumstances. This kind of reasoning takes on the guise of directive speech acts, either direct or indirect, which seek a perlocutionary e¤ect on the interlocutor’s actions.

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To achieve this, the proponent and respondent supply plausible arguments, as their premises are a series of presumptive propositions which are accepted by both, albeit provisionally since they are open to exceptions and counter examples, and therefore to being nullified. A presumption is ‘‘a kind of assumption anticipated for a party in a dialogue’’ says Walton (1992b: 56).12 It is a request for compromise that the proponent asks of the respondent which, if the latter does not refute it, makes the proposition become shared, a premise. It is the respondent’s responsibility to refute it by providing reasons or evidence that contradict it. It is extremely useful when there is no rational, clear evidence of either opinion, when the preponderance of credibility shifts from one side to the other. It is a kind of assumption that has pragmatic e¤ects on the discourse that ensues. It often reflects the predominant customs or values in a society, or conventional wisdom and common sense. ‘‘Our most impassioned and cherished convictions may be based more on personal familiarity, in many instances, than on analysis of reasons for and against,’’ says Walton (1992b: 64). The speaker is addressing the listeners at the event in a direct, informal way and starts with the assumption that the listeners are fearful of the threat of the presence of Falangists and the declarations of Spanish politicians. She situates this presumption as an implicit assumption at the beginning of her speech. Based on this initial presumption, she constructs the subsequent argumentative momentum: ‘‘I know that you know what fear is; you felt it for 40 years of dictatorship. Back then the law did not protect you, but now it does. So, there’s no need to fear now. Now they are the ones who fear our (legal and democratic) normality.’’ To act presumptively, one must be capable of making conjectures about the listeners’ deepest convictions, their most hidden and unmentionable feelings. Simo´ sees the old fear (our own) and the new fear (theirs). Using ad populum arguments, which appeal to popular sentiment, she forges an empathetic relationship and reinforces her argument. ‘‘If everyone wants independence, let’s vote to make this known,’’ (not to achieve it, since the consultation is not binding either legally or politically). In order to build this empathetic relationship, she provides an entire series of practical arguments driven by explicit, directive speech acts, like

12. This hovers between a hypothetical assumption and an assertion proven by evidence.

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obvieu ‘ignore’, aı¨lleu-vos ‘isolate yourselves’, aı¨lleu-los ‘isolate them’, no els feu cas ‘don’t pay them any attention’, actueu amb normalitat ‘act normally’, no tingueu por ‘don’t be afraid’ and no ho oblideu ‘don’t forget this’, addressed to the listener. She also says no hem de desesperanc¸ar-nos ‘there is no need to despair’, no hem de rondinar ‘no need to grumble’ and toquem de peus a terra ‘let’s keep our feet on the ground’, all in the first person plural, to reinforce group feeling and enhance the empathy between the listener and speaker. Walton (1992b: 255) states that: The basis of all persuasive argumentation lies is the choice of suitable initial premises for convincing your respondent through your ability to have empathy with your respondent. Empathy is the ability to put yourself inside your opponent’s position in an argument, metaphorically speaking – is the ability to arrive at presumptive conclusions concerning your respondent’s commitments in a dialogue.

What is more, the assumptions associated with this kind of utterance create a given atmosphere: ‘‘there are provocateurs’’, ‘‘there are people who don’t want the consultation to be held’’, ‘‘there are people who come looking for trouble’’. These are the ones whose opinions are di¤erent to ours and are marked with negative axiological terms. Yet also: ‘‘we despair’’, ‘‘our feet aren’t on the ground’’ and ‘‘we grumble’’ applied to ourselves, also with a certain negative axiology. The positive values, in contrast, are attributed to the day of the consultation: festiva ‘festive’, democra`tica ‘democratic’, tranquil  la ‘peaceful’ and normal ‘normal’. However, not all directive speech acts are explicit. The one that serves as the conclusion in this excerpt, ‘‘vote on Sunday for independence with peace of mind, without any fear and protected by the law’’ for example, is not. ‘‘Independence’’ was still associated with problemes and agitation, not with peace and legality. 6. The experiential (critical) discussion The critical discussion is the theoretical model proposed by pragmadialectics (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1992; van Eemeren, Jacobs, and Jackson 1993) to reconstruct the process of resolving di¤erences in opinion among speakers. It entails a dialogue with two participants who have di¤erent viewpoints on a given subject or issue. Since it is an ideal model, it starts with the premise that the conditions in which the dispute takes place are optimal and that the behaviour of the interlocutors obeys a

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series of rules (Van Eemeren & Grootendorst 2003), the rules of ‘‘reasonable arguers’’.13 6.1. The communicative situation The critical discussion analysed below comes from the programme Catalunya Opina broadcast on Canal Catala` TV (the most widely viewed private local television channel in the country). It was chosen not so much for the media resonance this afternoon programme might have, as its viewership is not extremely high, but for the topic examined (immigration in Catalonia) and the degree of spontaneity found on the show. Since it is a private channel, it is not very heavily influenced by the political authorities, and opinions are aired and guests invited that would not be seen on the more widespread channels. For example, viewers can share their opinions via telephone, which means that spontaneous, direct arguments can be heard without too many filters. This is a programme whose format is a debate, in an ‘‘eristic’’ dialogue, in Walton’s words (1992a: 123), which encourages participation by discordant parties and viewers through a minimum of rules of engagement. It tends to be informal, an adversarial dialogue in which what is sought is not necessarily to defend a given opinion or reach a shared conclusion but the contrary, as the interlocutors are generally unwilling to change their opinions and act with a strong emotional drive. 6.2. The dialogue The question asked to the participants in the debate and the television viewers is: Els immigrants, feines indignes? ‘Immigrants: unworthy jobs?’ And the excerpt analysed below is an exchange between the host of the programme, who reformulates the question with interesting changes, and a guest speaker who used to be a columnist at Avui, a major newspaper in Catalonia at the time. 13. Here we could wonder if being a good arguer is the same as being a reasonable arguer. According to Van Eemeren and many theoreticians of argumentation, ‘‘being reasonable’’ is closely associated with following a proper structure and logical arguments; but ‘‘being a good arguer’’ is more linked to achieving the intended e¤ects and this, as experience shows us, is often done by using so-called ‘‘fallacies’’ and other resources that go beyond strict logic. The negative view of fallacies as a violation of principles is o¤set by the pragmatic approach to argumentation, the kind that takes the e¤ects achieved into account.

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(3) Conductor: Els nostres immigrants tenen REALMENT un treball digne? Tertulia`: Jo crec que tots els treballs so´n dignes i naturalment que si aquests immigrants ve´nen a viure a Catalunya, vol dir que als seus paı¨sos tenien unes condicions molt me´s indignes. Per tant, ve´nen aquı´, tenen la possibilitat de treballar, tenen la possibilitat de guanyar-se la vida. I jo el que no faria mai e´s anar a casa d’una altra persona, en plan individual, ni en plan col  lectiu, anar a casa d’una altra persona i a sobre queixar-me del sopar que em donen. Jo trobo a faltar, com sempre dic, trobo a faltar dels immigrants me´s agraı¨ment, me´s voluntat d’integracio´, me´s capacitat de no crear problemes. I, en canvi, em sobren, doncs, totes aquestes llic¸ons que em volen donar. Perque` jo vull recordar que ve´nen d’un subdesenvolupament atroc¸, el seu sistema no ha funcionat. Lo mı´nim que podrien fer quan ve´nen aquı´ e´s respectar les normes i adaptar-se, com al capdavall fem tots. ‘Host: Do our immigrants TRULY have worthy jobs? Guest Speaker: I think that all jobs are worthy, and naturally if these immigrants come to Catalonia to live, it means that the conditions in their country were much less worthy. So they come here, they have the chance to work, they have the chance to earn a living. And what I would never do is go to someone else’s home, either individually or collectively, to go to someone else’s home and on top of it complain about the dinner they serve me. What I find missing, as I always say, what I find missing from immigrants is more appreciation, more desire to integrate, more capacity not to create problems. Yet what I can do without, then, is all the lessons they want to teach me. Because I would like to remind you that they come from horrible under-development, their system does not work. The least they can do when they come here is respect the rules and adapt, as we all do after all.’

6.3. The stages First of all, it should be noted that the interlocutors were in the confrontation stage. The journalist shares his opinion on the nature of the jobs that we o¤er immigrants, as the question allows us to infer: Our immigrants do not have worthy jobs, especially through his choice of the word ‘‘truly’’. The guest, in turn, starts his speech with an opposing opinion: Jo crec que tots els treballs so´n dignes ‘I think that all jobs are worthy’. Therefore, a ‘‘space of disagreement’’ has been established, using the terminology of pragma-dialectics, as the journalist’s indirect speech act generates a series of associated speech acts related to his beliefs (I don’t think they have worthy jobs), his desires (I would like them to have worthy jobs) and his intentions (I sense that you believe that their jobs are worthy, so I want you to argue this). The majority of argumentative dialogues are like the ones mentioned by Walton: based on personal loyalties, convictions that are only endorsed by one’s own experience more than on overarching theories laden with abstract, complex reasons.

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This is perfectly corroborated by the egocentrism of the arguments: Jo crec que. . . ‘I think that. . .’, Jo el que no faria mai e´s. . . ‘What I would never do. . .’, Jo trobo a faltar. . . ‘What I find missing. . .’, Sempre dic. . . ‘I always say. . .’, Em sobren. . . ‘What I can do without. . .’, Jo vull recordar. . . ‘I would like to remind you. . .’. Among all the resources that the guest speaker has at his disposal to argue that immigrants’ jobs are worthy, he chooses arguments derived from his own experience. Right from the start, the speaker grounds his opinion on a belief, I believe, and a generalisation, all jobs are worthy, in which he places immigrants and locals into the same pool, erasing any di¤erences. Furthermore, he ensconces himself as an authority capable of assessing the worthiness of all jobs, even those he has never performed. The host’s ‘‘have’’, have worthy jobs, shifts to the guest speaker’s ‘‘be’’, all jobs are worthy; and the host’s ‘‘immigrants’’ shifts to the guest speaker’s ‘‘everyone’’. It is clear that what the speaker is trying to do is be e¤ective more than reasonable; his objective is totally rhetorical. Once the points of view have been laid out, the speakers enter the argumentation stage. The host journalist has no authority to defend his opinion according to his assigned role in a programme of this kind. Therefore, he cannot follow the rule of the obligatoriness of defence. However, the guest speaker is required to do so. Therefore, the argumentation stage then begins. After all, that is why he was asked to the television studio. In this stage, the guest speaker is obligated to justify arguments pertaining to the opinion he expressed, all jobs are worthy, which he himself acknowledges is a personal belief but which echoes the proposition ‘‘work makes one worthy’’, which is not exactly the same14 but serves to draw him closer to the viewers’ shared knowledge. In the first stage of his argumentation, he talks about the kind of jobs, while in the second he talks about immigrants’ attitudes; yet he immediately prompts a contradiction between what is said and what is inferred. While from the statement Tots els treballs so´n dignes ‘All jobs are worthy’ we can logically glean that immigrants’ jobs are worthy too, the statement Als seus paı¨sos tenen unes condicions molt me´s indignes ‘In their countries the conditions are much less worthy’ leads listeners to infer that the ones here are unworthy, too. From the logical standpoint, then, his reasoning is based on two opposing ideas. 14. One thing is if the person working is worthy solely through the fact of subjecting themselves to the discipline and e¤ort that all jobs entail, and another is that the job which they must perform at times is worthy.

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6.4. The arguments Within the battery of arguments deployed by the guest speaker, we can find factual ones applied to immigrants and sentimental ones applied to himself. The former include: (i) (ii) (iii) (iv) (v) (vi)

Immigrants come to Catalonia to live. They have much less worthy conditions in their countries. Here they have the possibility to work. Here they have the possibility to earn a living. They come from horrible under-development. The (political and economic) system in their countries does not work.15

And the latter include: (i) (ii) (iii) (iv)

What What What What

I I I I

find missing is more appreciation from them. find missing is more desire to integrate. find missing is more capacity not to create problems. can do without is the lessons they want to teach me.

This last set of arguments introduces a series of assumptions about immigrants which are laden with negative axiology: X X X X X X

They are not appreciative. They do not integrate. They create problems. They want to teach lessons to those of us who are from here.16 They do not respect our rules. They do not adapt.

The use of ‘‘never’’ in Jo el que no faria mai e´s ‘What I would never do’ and ‘‘always’’ in Com sempre dic ‘As I always say’ provides the arguments with maximal assertive force. What is more, thanks to the rhetorical resource of the narrative, the speaker once again situates himself as a source of authority derived from his experience: Jo el que no faria mai e´s anar a casa d’una altra persona, en plan individual, ni en plan col  lectiu, anar a casa d’una altra persona i a sobre queixar-me del sopar que em donen

15. As if they were autonomous and independent of the systems in the host countries. 16. Here once again as a highly symbolic, identifying deictic space, as we saw in (1).

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‘What I would never do is go to someone else’s home, either individually or collectively, to go to someone else’s home and on top of it complain about the dinner they serve me’. The implication which can be gleaned through the maxim of relevance is quite clear: þ> immigrants complain (about their situation in Catalonia) He supports this, however, on a false parallelism between a dinner guest and immigration forced by need in another country, and on a fallacious generalisation. The final conclusion that he proposes based on all these arguments and resources is that Els immigrants haurien de respectar les normes d’aquı´ i adaptar-s’hi ‘Immigrants have to respect the rules here and adapt to them’, which he drives home with the fact that everyone else, meaning everyone from here, do the same.17 Therefore, it is clear that the host wanted to talk about the jobs that people from here o¤er immigrants from elsewhere, while the guest speaker ended up speaking about how immigrants live their experience here. Furthermore, he did not demonstrate that All jobs are worthy, yet he did present the conclusion that Immigrants have to adapt to our rules,18 with the more or less automatic implication that claims that the kind of jobs they are being o¤ered fall within ‘‘our’’ rules. In short, the guest speaker aimed to change the opinions of his audience and opponent by countering the argument expressed implicitly by the host and by evoking the indignation triggered in locals when foreigners complain. In his argumentative momentum, the guest speaker followed the rules of freedom, of the obligatoriness of defence and of the linguistic use of reasonable arguers, but he ignored the rules of point of view and nonexpressed argument because he argued against things that were not contained in the host’s statement, such as immigrants’ attitudes, and he dismissed the rule of validity by constructing an argument that contained little logic which tends toward contradiction. Nevertheless, we can say that although his argument was not ‘‘reasonable’’, it was indeed highly e¤ective. 17. Once again, a false analogy. We do not have to adapt to the norms that ‘‘we’’ ourselves have imposed on ourselves. We do have the follow them, but not adapt to them. 18. Therefore, they cannot complain, for example, of unworthy jobs which are o¤ered them either inside ‘‘our’’ rules or outside.

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7. Conclusions The arguments in Catalan are certainly not original if we compare them to those of speakers of other languages used in their own milieu. However, they are propped up on a series of assumptions that are shared by the social group living here for some time, assumptions that often are not part of the knowledge of the newly-arrived population. This can be a clear and demonstrable reason behind the di‰culties when resolving discussions and debates. Perhaps the rules and strategies are more or less shared, but premises, assumptions and presumptions are not. We have seen that the speakers of Catalan identify with a ‘‘here’’ and a ‘‘country’’ with quite precise boundaries, made up of primarily the land called Catalonia, represented by the city of Barcelona and symbolised by Futbol Club Barcelona first and foremost, and secondarily of all Catalanspeaking lands.19 However, we have also seen that this is not made explicit; rather it is conveyed implicitly. The ambiguity sought in the advertisement, for example, can easily be explained by the brand’s commercial dynamics, as it wants to extend the contents restricted by the two words with the purpose of being able to embrace more potential consumers. In fact, what Damm is trying to do is trigger a twofold interpretation: the first targeted at group members (locals) and the second targeted at others (other consumers from Spain).20 In addition to this intentional ambiguity, we can also detect a certain degree of implicitness and indirectness, such as with som molt me´s que un club ‘we are much more than a club’, which shows that we are something that cannot be directly expressed,21 and in aquı´ un tovallo´ pot ser molt me´s que un tovallo´ ‘here a napkin can be much more than a napkin’22 or hi ha coses aquı´ que so´n molt me´s del que semblen ‘there are things here that are much more than they appear’. Implicitness might be a persuasive resource,

19. By the term ‘‘Catalan-speaking lands’’ we mean all the areas where Catalan has historically been spoken, an area which is considerably larger than the strict boundaries of Catalonia today which encompasses the region of Valencia, the Balearic Islands, a small strip in Aragon, Carxe in Murcia, French Catalonia, Andorra and the town of Alghero in Sardinia. This concept has a relatively important weight in the collective consciousness of the socalled ‘‘nationalist’’ parties. 20. This is quite common in Catalan advertising or Catalan products. 21. Many speakers infer ‘‘a nation’’. 22. In fact, it is a contract in the case of Messi.

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or it might reflect a consolidated strategy within a group to avoid exogenous criticism. In the first example, the group’s agreed upon assumption is that the speakers are characterised by a shared life system, the ‘‘Mediterranean’’,23 where knowing how to live and making deals based on trust and respect are basic features. We make deals on paper and respect them. What unites the members is a way of life, more than a language, ethnicity or religion, a life system in which the family is the basic nucleus of socialisation. The advertisement does not merely mention Leo Messi, rather it mentions the Messi family, the paradigm of an emigrant family that is surprised by the Catalans’ way of doing things. In the second example, however, the assumption is that independence will be favourable for the group, even though, in order to encourage the listeners to go vote in the consultation, the speaker does not appeal to its advantages, but rather to the need to overcome old fears. Finally, in the third example, the assumption has to do with the somewhat inflexible behaviour of immigrants, who seem not to be adapting to ‘‘our’’ rules. Shared emotions as a persuasive resource are highly prominent. They are, therefore, part of ad personam arguments. This can be clearly seen in the Damm advertisement, which declares and shows the pleasure of Barc¸a’s sports triumphs, which are shared by the majority of people in an almost visceral way, of the sun and climate, of outdoor sports, of falling in love, of feeling youthful. . . in short, of the possibility of drinking a beer. Yet shared emotions are also evoked at the rally, namely Franco-era fear and despair, and invoked, namely indi¤erence to provocations and hope. Democratic values still act as a firewall to memories of the dictatorship, and they are implicitly appealed to in certain realms such as politics. In the televised debate, in turn, the speaker aims to trigger a feeling of rejection towards immigrants who complain, who try to teach lessons and who are unappreciative. The feeling of ingratitude among ‘‘the others’’ can serve to justify ‘‘our’’ annoyance, as television viewers. Therefore, we can see in all three discourses that emotional logic is used with the utmost persuasive e‰cacy. Demagogic discourse is amply present in television debates, which are based on hyperbole and generalisations. The debaters and their personal experience are unabashedly wielded in authoritative arguments, thus 23. Mediterranean but European. For this reason, the points of contact with the other shore of the Mediterranean are quite far away, to such an extent that a Catalan can feel greater a‰nity with a Belgian than with a Moroccan.

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breaking the rules of reasonable arguers for the sake of argumentative e‰ciency. Thus, on of the participants in the discussion (extract 3) argues against supposed complaints by immigrants that are not real, and further uses these supposed complaints to talk about the worthiness of all jobs, which breaks the rule of relevancy to a certain extent. The explanatory narrative (Kvernbekk 2003: 272) is highly productive in the first and third cases, in the first by evoking the biographical facts of the Messi family, and in the third thanks to a hypothetical narration in which the journalist would be the main character, taken as a prototype of all the other group members. With regard to the speech acts, representative acts are present in all three cases, while directive acts appear in (2) and expressive acts in (3). Furthermore, two of them point to an implicit conclusion: Drink Damm beer in (1) and Vote in favour of independence in (2). However (3), which should answer the question asked on the programme, reaches a contradiction and a conclusion that is not wholly relevant, Immigrants should adapt to our rules and stop complaining. In all three discourses, however, the conclusion is expressed with a directive speech act. Therefore, shared assumptions, emotions and feelings both evoked and invoked, intentional ambiguity, implicitness and breaking the rules of reasonable arguers are the cornerstones of the arguments in Catalan that were analysed.

References Adam, Jean-Michel, and Marc Bonhomme´ 1997 L’argumentation publicitaire. Rhe´torique de l’e´loge et de la persuasion. Paris: Nathan. Anscombre, Jean Claude 1995 The´orie des topoı¨. Paris: Kime´. Anscombre, Jean Claude, and Oswald Ducrot 1983 L’argumentation dans la langue. Bruxelles: Madarga. Bassols, Margarida 2004 Pragma`tica de la publicitat i la propaganda. In Els anuncis de la premsa. El mo´n de la publicitat i la propaganda, Anna M. Torrent (ed.), 91–119. Vic: Eumo. Eemeren, Frans H. van, and Rob Grootendorst 1983 Speech Acts in Argumentative Discussions. Dordrecht: Foris Publications. Eemeren, Frans H. van, and Rob Grootendorst 1992 Argumentation, Communication and Fallacies. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum.

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Eemeren, Frans H. van, and Rob Grootendorst 2003 A Pragma-dialectical Procedure for Critical Discussion. Argumentation 17, 365–387. Eemeren, Frans H. van, and Rob Grootendorst 2004 A systematic theory of argumentation: The pragma-dialectical approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Eemeren, Frans H. van, Scott Jacobs, and Sally Jackson 1993 Reconstructing Argumentative Discourse. London: The University of Alabama Press. Eemeren, Frans H. van, and Peter Houtlosser 2000 Rhetoric in pragma-dialectics. Argumentation, Interpretation, Rhetoric 1(1). [Electronic journal, University of St. Petersburg and University of Amsterdam. Retrievable from http://argumentation.ru/2000_1/papers/1_2000p1.htm] Eemeren, Frans H. van, and Peter Houtlosser 2001 Managing disagreement: Rhetorial analysis within a dialectical framework. Argumentation and Advocacy 37(3), 150–157. Eemeren, Frans H. van, and Peter Houtlosser 2002 Strategic Manoeuvring in Argumentative Discourse. A Delicate Balance. In Dialectic and Rhetoric: The Warp and Woof of Argumentation Analysis, Frans H. van Eemeren, and Peter Houtlosser (eds.), 131–159. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic. Eemeren, Frans H. van, and Peter Houtlosser 2003 The development of the pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation. Argumentation 17, 387–403. Eemeren, Frans H. van, J. Anthony Blair, Charles A. Willard, and A. Francisca Snoeck Henkemans (eds.) 2003 Anyone who has a view. Theoretical Contributions to the Study of Argumentation. London: Kluwer Academic Press. Gilbert, Michel A. 1997 Coalescent Argumentation. Mahwah: Earlbaum. Grice, Herbert Paul 1975 Logic and conversation. In Syntax and semantics 3: Speech Acts, Peter Cole, and Jerry L. Morgan (eds.), 41–58. New York: Academic Press. Grice, Herbert Paul 1981 Pressuposition and Conversational Implicature. In Radical Pragmatics, Peter Cole (ed.), 183–198. New York: Academic Press. Innocenti, Beth 2006 A Normative Pragmatic Perspective on Appealing to Emotions in Argumentation. In Argumentation 20: 327–343. Kvernbekk, Tone 2003 On the argumentative quality of explanatory narratives. In Anyone who has a view. Theoretical Contributions to the Study of Argumentation, Frans H. Eemeren et al. (eds.), 269–282. London: Kluwer Academic Press.

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Perelman, Chaı¨m 1982 The Realm of Rhetoric. Noˆtre Dame: Notre Dame University Press. Perelman, Chaı¨m, and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca 1988 [1958] Traite´ de l’argumentation. La nouvelle re´thorique. 5th ed. Bruxelles: Editions de l’Universite´ de Bruxelles. Original edition, Paris: Presses de l’Universite´ de France. Pinto, Robert C. 2003 Reasons. In Anyone who has a view. Theoretical Contributions to the Study of Argumentation, Frans H. Eemeren et al. (eds.), 3– 15. London: Kluwer Academic Press. Searle, John 1969 Speech Acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Searle, John 1975 Indirect Speech Acts. In Syntax and Semantics, 3: Speech Acts, Peter Cole, and Jerry L. Morgan (eds.), 59–82. New York: Academic Press. Van Laar, Jan Albert 2006 Don’t say that! In Argumentation 20: 495–510. Walton, Douglas N. 1992a Plausible argument in everyday conversation. New York: State University of New York Press. Walton, Douglas N. 1992b The place of emotion in argument. Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press.

Politeness and cultural styles of speaking in Catalan Horte`nsia Curell 1. Introduction The literature on politeness and face is vast, but this is clearly not the place for a thorough review. For that, the reader can refer to BargielaChiappini (2003), Xie, He, and Lin (2005), Dı´az Pe´rez (2003), Elen (2001), Fraser (1990), Haugh, and Bargiela-Chiappini (2010), Haverkate (1994), Payrato´ ([2003] 2010), and Spencer-Oatey and Ruhi (2007), to mention but a few. Several theories on politeness and face have also been proposed recently.1 However, in this chapter, we will concentrate on Brown and Levinson’s (1987) and Arundale’s (2006, 2010) proposals, in order to analyse in detail the speech acts of requesting, apologizing and complaining in Catalan, and, by so doing shed some light on the Catalan cultural style of speaking. The approach adopted in this chapter is directly derived from interlanguage pragmatics, ‘‘the study of non-native speaker’s use and acquisition of L2 pragmatic knowledge’’ (Kasper 1996: 145), and cross-linguistic pragmatics, whose aim is to compare the pragmatics of di¤erent languages (Oleksy (ed.) 1989). The data used come mainly from the corpora gathered for several studies on the interlanguage pragmatics of Catalan learners of English (Curell and Sabate´ 2007, and Sabate´ and Curell 2007, on apologies; Pe´rez-Parent 1999, on requests; and Sabate´ 2006, in press, on complaints). In all of them data were collected by means of discourse completion tasks (DCTs)2 with no hearer response, which were completed by native speakers of English, native speakers of Catalan, and Catalan learners of English (at di¤erent levels of proficiency). The situations for apologies were from the Cross-cultural speech act realisation project 1. Only a few will be mentioned here: Arundale (2006, 2010), Christie (2007), Haugh (2007), Ruhi (2010), Spencer-Oatey (2007), Watts (2003). 2. For a critique of DCTs as a method of data collection, see Bergman and Kasper (1993), Kasper and Dahl (1991), Mey (2004), Rintell and Mitchell (1989), and Wolfson, Marmor, and Jones (1989).

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(CCSARP) (Blum-Kulka, House and Kasper (1898); those for requests from the CCSARP, Gibbs (1985) and Fraser, Rintell and Walters (1980); and those from apologies from a variety of studies, including House and Kasper (1981), Trosborg (1995) and Geluykens and Kraft (2003).3 All the situations were classified along two parameters: social distance (SD) (þSD, SD), and social power (speaker-dominant, hearer-dominant, equal power). This method allows the gathering of large amounts of data relatively easily and quickly, which are comparable cross-linguistically because the situations are the same in all cases. The Catalan interactional style seems to be based on appealing for common ground and on establishing commonality, that is, it reflects a positive-face based politeness system (Brown and Levinson 1987), or, in Arundale’s (2006, 2010) terms, a culture where connectedness is more valued than separateness. Catalan speakers rely on mutual trust, openness, sharing, solidarity, explicitness and sincerity when performing the speech acts of apologising, requesting and complaining, as will be seen later in the chapter. The organisation of this chapter is the following. Section 2 is devoted to a revision of Brown and Levinson’s (1987) and Arundale’s (2006, 2010) theories of politeness and face. Section 3 starts with a brief summary of face-threatening acts, to then move to a detailed description and analysis of apologies, requests and complaints in Catalan. Section 4 presents a summary of the most important findings and indicates possible future research in the field of politeness and cultural styles of speaking in Catalan.

2. Studies on politeness and face Brown and Levinson’s approach (1987) is, no doubt, still now, the most influential model of politeness, in spite of the ( justified) criticisms that it has received (see the authors mentioned above). According to them, politeness is closely related to the notion of face, defined by Go¤man (1967: 5) as ‘‘the positive social value a person e¤ectively claims for himself by the line others assume he has taken during a particular contact. Face is an image of self delineated in terms of approved social attributes’’. Face can be lost, maintained, increased, and is always taken into account

3. For a full list see Sabate´ (1996: 58).

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in interaction. It is in the interlocutors’ best interest to make sure that neither speaker nor hearer sees their face threatened. Brown and Levinson (1987: 62) distinguish between two notions of face: negative face (‘‘the want of every ‘competent adult member’ that his actions be unimpeded by others’’, and positive face (‘‘the want of every member that his wants be desirable to at least some others’’). A negative-face based politeness system focuses on avoiding conflict and social disharmony. It aims at not impinging on the other’s freedom of action, at not imposing on individual rights, by using a variety of avoidance rituals (Arundale 2006). British English is commonly considered to reflect such a politeness system (Dı´az Pe´rez 2003), characterised by the acknowledgment of one’s debts to others, by a high emphasis on the other’s relative power and on etiquette (Ma´rquez Reiter 2000). A positive-face based politeness system, on the other hand, has the aim to satisfy the individual’s need for group membership and approval. It is important to have one’s wants approved by others, by means, for example, of showing ‘‘agreement’’ or ‘‘exaggerated interest and sympathy’’ (Ma´rquez Reiter 2000: 15). Several varieties of Spanish – Peninsular (Dı´az Pe´rez 2003), Uruguayan (Ma´rquez Reiter 2000), Mexican (Fe´lix-Brasdefer 2005) – have been seen to reflect a positive-based politeness system, characterised by appealing for common ground and forgiveness. Arundale (2006: 193) considers that face is relational and interactional, rather than individual; it emerges from relationships between people in face-to-face interactions. Hence, it is not individual wants that drive language choices when performing di¤erent kinds of acts, but rather the dynamics of the ongoing communicative act. Face is ‘a participant’s interpreting of ‘‘persons as both connected with and separate from other persons’’ (Arundale 2006: 204). In his approach, ‘‘positive and negative face are re-conceptualized in terms of the dialectical opposition between connections with others and separation from them’’ (Arundale 2006: 203). In the course of interactions, partners co-constitute connectedness with the others or separateness from them (Arundale 2010: 2085). Connectedness includes ‘‘unity, interdependence, solidarity, association, congruence’’ (related to positive face), and separateness, ‘‘di¤erentiation, independence, autonomy, dissociation, divergence’’ (related to negative face) (Arundale 2006: 204). In all interactions there is always a tension between the two. Connection face and separation face are ‘‘linked dialectically’’ (Arundale 2010: 2089); they do not form a dualism, as Brown and Levinson’s negative and positive face do.

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3. Politeness and face-threatening acts According to Brown and Levinson (1987: 65–68), some acts intrinsically threaten face, either positive or negative, by a¤ecting the face wants of the speaker and/or the addressee. They classify face-threatening acts in two di¤erent ways, by the kind of face threatened, and by whose face is threatened: the speaker’s and/or the hearer’s positive and/or negative face. In the speech acts under study here, apologies a¤ect the speaker’s positive face (by accepting that s/he did something that the hearer does not approve of ); requests impinge on the hearer’s negative face (s/he is asked to do – or not do – something which might be against his/her wishes), and complaints threaten the hearer’s positive face (in that the speaker disapproves of the hearer’s acts). There are di¤erent ways in which face-threatening acts can be carried out (see Figure 1). That is, in a situation in which s/he has o¤ended someone (apologies), s/he wants the hearer to do something (requests) or s/he is unhappy about a situation brought about by the hearer (complaint), the speaker has di¤erent options. In the first place, the speaker may decide not to do anything, not to say anything (opt out altogether). If s/he decides to carry out the act, s/he can do it o¤ record (indirectly) or on record (directly). If on record, it can be baldly, without redressive action, or with redressive action. Redressive action, in turn, can involve positive politeness or negative politeness strategies. Positive politeness strategies include, among others: i) show interest or concern for the hearer; ii) use in-group identity markers; iii) praise the hearer; iv) give reasons. Within negative politeness devices we can find, for example, i) minimisation of the imposition; ii) politeness

Figure 1. Types of politeness strategies (Brown & Levinson, 1987: 69).

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markers; iii) impersonal constructions; iv) hedges (Brown and Levinson 1987: 101–227, Payrato´ [2003] 2010: 102–103)4. (1) Request, bald on record. Fes-te el llit. make yourself the bed ‘Make up your bed.’ (2) Apology, positive politeness. Em sap molt de greu. Fa molt que t’esperes? me regret very much ago much you wait ‘I’m really sorry. Have you been waiting long?’ (3) Request, o¤ record. Tinc gana. I-have hunger ‘I’m hungry.’ (4) Complaint, negative politeness. Potser esteu fent una mica de soroll. perhaps you-PL are making a little noise ‘Perhaps you’re being a little noisy.’ 3.1. Apologies Apologies, together with congratulations, excuses, thanks, complaints, etc., belong to Searle’s class of expressives (Searle 1976), whose aim is ‘‘to express mental states of the speaker (. . .) which are important in our social forms of behaviour’’ (Vanderveken 1990: 213). When apologizing, the speaker expresses ‘‘sorrow or regret (sincerity condition) for something judged bad that the speaker is responsible for (preparatory condition)’’ (Vanderveken 1990: 219). They are typically post-event acts. Apologies are face-threatening for the o¤ender (the speaker), since by uttering an apology s/he is accepting that s/he did something wrong, and face-saving for the o¤ended (the hearer), because it is made explicit that s/he has su¤ered some harm from the speaker’s action(s). They are redressive, i.e. they refer back to an event that has caused some kind of breach of social contract or social infringement (Bergman and Kasper 4. Examples (1) to (4) are made-up.

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1993), and their aim is to compensate the hearer for an o¤ence (real or virtual) carried out by the speaker. According to Go¤man (1967), apologies constitute ‘‘remedial work’’, while Leech (1987) considers them convivial speech acts. An apology typically includes an illocutionary force indicating device (IFID)5 and one or more of the following strategies (adapted from BlumKulka, House, and Kasper 1989: 289–294): taking on responsibility, explanation or account, o¤er of repair and promise of forbearance, as can be seen in example (5).6 According to Olshtain (1989) and Olshtain and Cohen (1989), some kind of acknowledgement of responsibility is also necessary. (5) Em sap greu pero` no m’he recordat de tornar-te el llibre. me regret but not I-remember return the book Te’ l porto dema` sense falta. you it I- bring tomorrow without fail. ‘I’m sorry (IFID), but I didn’t remember to return your book (responsibility). I’ll bring it back tomorrow without fail (forbearance).’ IFIDs are linguistic elements that indicate the illocutionary force of an utterance, that is, formulaic linguistic expressions used to make the apology explicit. The Catalan IFIDs are listed below, in order of frequency (Curell and Sabate´ 2007): 1. Ho sento7 (‘I’m sorry’), which expresses regret, and is the form preferred in informal situations. 2. Em sap greu (‘I regret’), which also expresses regret, can be used in formal and informal situations, and shows explicit concern. 3. Perdona / perdoni / perdoneu 8 (‘Forgive me’), which request forgiveness. 5. This term, although it has its origins in Austin (1962) and Searle (1976), is not systematically used until Blum-Kulka, House and Kasper (1989). 6. All the examples for apologies are from the corpus gathered for Curell and Sabate´ (2007), except for (10), which is from http://www.avui.cat/noticia/ article/8-esports/57-opinio-esports/37315-demano-perdo.html; and (22), which is made-up. 7. Ho sento with this meaning seems to come from Spanish (Alcover Moll 1968– 69). Originally, this verb did not have the meaning of regret in Catalan. 8. These three forms represent, respectively, tu (used to address relatives, friends and people younger or the same age as the speaker; it involves closeness, familiarity, informality), voste` (showing formality and respect; it involves distance, hierarchy, formality) (Bassols 2001; Payrato´ [2003] 2010: 74), and vo´s

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4. Disculpa / disculpi / disculpeu 9 (‘Forgive me’), which also request forgiveness, but is less frequent than perdona / perdoni / perdoneu. 5. Perdo´ (‘Sorry’), also asking for forgiveness. 6. Demano disculpes (‘I beg your forgiveness’), asking for apology acceptance. 7. Accepti les meves disculpes (‘Accept my apologies’), also asking for apology acceptance. 8. Em temo (‘I’m afraid’), which prefaces bad news and is informative rather than apologetic. The three basic (and most frequent forms) are ho sento, em sap greu and perdona / perdoni / perdoneu. In socially distant situations, the three forms are used interchangeably, whereas in non-distant situations, ho sento is the preferred choice. It ‘‘is considered respectful enough to fulfil the speech act of apologising, but not very polite, just used to accomplish the social contract in general situations’’ (Curell and Sabate´ 2007: 83). Em sap greu, on the other hand, is viewed as adequate in formal and informal situations, as expressing concern and as denoting explicit regret. Both of them can also be used even when the speaker is not responsible for the event(s) that caused the hearer’s distress, for example, to o¤er one’s condolences. Perdona / perdoni / perdoneu, on the contrary, can only be used to apologise, since they specifically and explicitly ask for forgiveness. In socially non-distant situations, they are less frequent than the other two forms. It is quite often the case that these three forms are followed by the conjunction pero` (‘but’), usually introducing an explanation for the act the speaker is apologising for or an acknowledgement of responsibility: (6) Ho sento pero` una altra vegada hi havia molt de tra`nsit. I’m sorry but again there was a lot of tra‰c ‘I’m sorry (IFID) but there was a lot of tra‰c again (explanation).’

(neither distant nor close; used with older people or among mates) (Payrato´ [2003] 2010: 74). This di¤erence is the similar to the one found in other languages such as Spanish, French, Italian or German (Brown and Gilman 1960; Brown and Levinson 1987). It is out of the scope of this chapter to determine the exact contexts of use of each of these two forms. For a study of terms of address in Catalan, see Robinson (1980). 9. See note 8.

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All the other forms are used much less frequently. Disculpa / disculpi / disculpeu are restricted to highly formal interactions between strangers. Perdo´ usually appears in closures that mark the end of an exchange. The other three IFIDs, em temo, accepti les meves disculpes and demano disculpes are used even more rarely. Blum-Kulka, House and Kasper (1989) and Ma´rquez Reiter (2000) claim that, in order for there to be an apology, an IFID must necessarily be present. However, it is not so. Although rare, there are indeed apologies that use other strategies, but no IFID. (7) Miquel, escolta, que no he tingut temps d’acabar-me de Miquel listen not I-have had time to finish llegir el teu treball, pero` suposo que d’aquı´ a pocs dies, reading your paper but I-suppose that in a few days cap al final de la setmana, te’l tindre´ llegit, d’acord? towards the end of the week it I-will have read, OK? ‘Miquel (alerter and vocative), listen (alerter), I haven’t had time to finish reading your paper (admission of fault but not responsibility), but I suppose that in a few days, towards the end of the week I will have read it (o¤er of repair), ok (appealer)? In taking on responsibility, the speaker accepts the responsibility of the o¤ence that created the need for the apology. Recognising one’s fault, which is face- threatening for the speaker, has the aim of appeasing the hearer. Within this category, there are various subtypes, in a continuum that goes from self-abasing to a total denial of fault. Here is the scale: 1. Explicit self-blame: the speaker positively accepts that it has been his/her fault. (8) M’he equivocat de plat. me have made mistake dish ‘I got the wrong dish.’ (9) Ha estat culpa meva. has been fault my ‘It was my fault.’ 2. Justify hearer: the speaker tells the hearer that s/he totally understands how the hearer is feeling after the o¤ence. It is not very frequent, and, actually, no example was found in the corpus.

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(10) Per tant demano perdo´ tambe´ als que es van sentir ferits amb so I-ask sorry also to those who felt hurt with la xiulada que les aficions catalana i basca van fer a the whistles that the fans Catalan and Basque made to the l’himne i als reis. hymn and to the kings espanyols Ja entenc que fins i tot a aquests nous i improvisats Spanish already I-understand that even to these new and improvised seguidors de l’Athletic de Bilbao els molesti. followers of Athletic of Bilbao them bothers-SUBJ ‘So I apologize to those who felt hurt by the whistles of the Catalan and Basque fans against the hymn and the Spanish king and queen. I understand that this bothered even those new and improvised Athletic de Bilbao followers.’ 3. Acknowledgement of responsibility: the speaker accepts that the o¤ence was caused by him/her. (11) Feia marxa enrere i no he calculat be´ les dista`ncies. I-did gear reverse and not have calculated well the distances ‘I was driving on reverse and didn’t calculate the distance well.’ (12) M’he deixat el teu llibre a casa. me I-have left your book at home. ‘I left your book at home.’ 4. Expression of embarrassment: the speaker makes explicit how embarrassed s/he feels about the o¤ence. (13) M’avergonyeixo de l’error. I-shame myself of the error. ‘I’m embarrassed about my error.’ (14) No se´ com he pogut dir aixo`. not I-know how I-have been able say that. ‘I don’t know how I could say that.’ 5. Admission of facts but not of responsibility: the speaker accepts his/ her involvement in the o¤ence, but clearly refuses to accept responsibility.

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(15) M’ha estat impossible corregir el teu projecte. me it-has been impossible correct your project ‘It was impossible for me to correct your paper.’ (16) Em sap greu, pero` no he pogut fer-hi res. me regret but no I-have been able do anything ‘I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I could do about it.’ 6. Lack of intent: the speaker clearly indicates that it was not his/her intention to hurt the hearer’s feelings by the o¤ence. (17) No ho he fet expressament. not it I-have done on purpose ‘I didn’t do it on purpose.’ (18) No tenia intencio´ d’ofendre’t. no I-had intention o¤end you ‘I had no intention to o¤end you.’ 7. Refusal to acknowledge guilt: the speaker completely and explicitly rejects any responsibility for the o¤ence, in di¤erent ways: denial of responsibility (19), blaming the hearer (20) or someone else (21), or pretending to be o¤ended (22). All these strategies are quite rare. (19) He posat la bossa a dalt ben posada, pero` amb aquesta I-have put the bag up well put but with this frenada. . . sudden braking ‘I put up the bag properly, but when the driver jammed on the brakes. . .’ (20) M’has posat realment nerviosa. me you-have put really nervous ‘You really got on my nerves.’ (21) La culpa ha sigut del cuiner. the fault has been of the cook ‘It was the cook’s fault.’ (22) De fet, so´c jo qui esta` ofe`s! in fact am I who is o¤ended ‘As a matter of fact, I’m the one to be o¤ended!’

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In spite of Olshtain (1989) and Olshtain and Cohen’s (1989) claim that all apologies include an IFID and taking of responsibility, it is possible to find apologies with an IFID and an explanation (23) and with an IFID and an o¤er of repair (24). The latter sounds adequate, but the former sounds somewhat unapologetic. (23) Ho sento, he tingut un imprevist. I’m sorry I’ve had an unexpected event ‘I’m sorry (IFID), something unexpected came up (explanation).’ (24) Em sap molt de greu, senyor. Immediatament li porto el me regret very much sir immediately you I-bring what que havia demanat. you had ordered ‘I’m really sorry (intensified IFID), sir (vocative). I’ll bring you what you had ordered immediately (intensified o¤er of repair).’ In explanation or account, the speaker, as a way to self-justification, explains away the source of the o¤ence as something out of his/her control. It includes all external circumstances which may mitigate the o¤ence. As mentioned earlier, most of these explanations are introduced by the conjunction pero` (‘but’). (25) Ei, ho sento molt! Ja se´ que sona a excusa, pero` e´s que no hey, I am sorry very already I-know that it-sounds to excuse but not m’ ha sonat el despertador. T’ho juro que la pro´xima vegada sere´. me it-has rung the alarm-clock you it swear that the next time I-will-be puntual punctual ‘Hey, I’m really sorry. I know it sounds like an excuse, but my alarm-clock didn’t go o¤. I swear that I’ll be punctual next time.’ (26) Hola, perdona, pero` e´s que no podia faltar a la reunio´. hello forgive but not I-could miss the meeting ‘Hello, excuse me, but I couldn’t miss the meeting.’ The speaker can also make an o¤er of repair, as a way to appease the hearer. (27) Em sap greu, pero` m’he deixat el teu llibre a casa. me regret but I-have left your book at home Ho sento. Dema` te’ l torno. I’m sorry tomorrow you it I-give back

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‘I’m sorry, but I left your book at home. I’m sorry. I’ll give it back to you tomorrow.’ (28) Em sap molt de greu. E´s que no l’ he vist. Aquı´ te´ els me regret a lot not you I-have seen here you-have the papers de l’ asseguranc¸a. papers of the insurance ‘I’m really sorry. I didn’t see you. Here are my insurance details.’ It is also possible for the speaker to make a promise of forbearance, that is, that the o¤ence will not happen again. This tends to occur when the feeling of responsibility is very strong. (29) No tornara` a passar, de debo`! not again-FUT happen really ‘It won’t happen again, I mean it!’ (30) T’ho juro que la pro´xima vegada sere´ puntual. you it I-swear that the next time I-will be punctual ‘I swear that I’ll be punctual next time.’ Apart from these strategies, there are other elements that appear in apologies with the function of either intensifying or downgrading the illocutionary force (some of which also appear in requests and complaints; see Sections 3.2 and 3.3). As for intensification, it can be carried out in di¤erent ways: a) IFID-internally, by means of an intensifying expression within the IFID; b) IFID-externally, by expressing concern for the hearer, or by means of other intensifying expressions; c) by the use of multiple strategies or multiple IFIDs (either the same or di¤erent). With intensification, the speaker achieves more self-humbling and more support for the hearer. Within IFID-internal intensification, we find adverbials (the most frequent being molt ‘very much’, moltı´ssim ‘very very much’, de veritat ‘really’) (31), (32) and (33); emotional expressions (such as ostres, ei, eh, vaja, ui, oooooh!) (34) and (35); and politeness markers such as si us plau (also spelt sisplau)10 (36). Such intensification is found in about 50% of the apologies (Curell and Sabate´ 2007).

10. For the di¤erent forms and functions of sisplau, see Alturo and ChodorowskaPilch (2005).

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(31) Em sap molt de greu. me regret a lot ‘I’m really sorry.’ (32) Ho sento moltı´ssim. I am sorry very very much. ‘I’m very very sorry.’ (33) Ho sento de veritat. I am sorry really ‘I’m really sorry.’ (34) Ostres, ho sento! oh God I’m sorry ‘Oh God, I’m sorry!’ (35) Ui, ho sento! oops I’m sorry ‘Oops, I’m sorry!’ (36) Disculpa’m un altre cop si et plau. forgive me another time please ‘Forgive me again, please.’ As IFID-external intensification, we find expressing concern for the hearer (37), (38), and other intensifying expressions (39), (40) also serve the purpose of making the hearer feel better about the o¤ence. (37) Que fa molt que t’esperes? a lot you wait ‘Have you been waiting long? (38) S’ha fet mal? you yourself hurt ‘Are you hurt?’ (39) Dema` al matı´ ho tindre´ enllestit, segur. tomorrow morning it I-will have ready sure ‘I’ll have it ready by tomorrow morning, for sure.’

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(40) Et faria res que te’l porte´s dema` would you mind that you it I-bring-SUBJ tomorrow a primera hora del matı´? first hour in the morning ‘Would you mind if I brought it to you tomorrow morning, first thing?’ Combinations of all these elements are possible: two IFIDs (41), two IFIDs, one of them with internal modification (42), an emotional expression and some intensification (43). (41) Em sap greu, pero` m’ he deixat el teu llibre a casa. Ho sento. me regret but me I- have left your book at home I’m sorry ‘I’m sorry (IFID), but I left your book at home. I’m sorry (IFID).’ (42) Em sap molt de greu haver-te fet esperar tant, me regret very much have you kept waiting so long, pero` m’ha sorgit una reunio´ imprevista i no he but me it-came up a meeting unexpected and not I-have pogut dir que no. Ho sento. been able say that no I’m sorry ‘I’m very sorry (intensified IFID) to have kept you waiting for so long, but an unexpected meeting came up and I couldn’t say no. I’m sorry (IFID).’ (43) Ostres! Em sap molt de greu, pero` la meva companyia God me regret very much but my company asseguradora ja li pagara`. insurance you it-will pay ‘God! (emotional expression) I am really sorry (intensified IFID), but my insurance company will pay you (o¤er of repair). The speech act of apologising can also be minimised (as can requests and complaints; see Sections 3.2 and 3.3), that is, the o¤ence or the harm that may have been done to the hearer may be downgraded in di¤erent ways, for example with a future task-oriented remark (44) or an appeaser (an attempt to compensate the hearer, not directly related to the speaker’s o¤ence) (45):

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(44) Em sap molt de greu, pero` he hagut d’anar a una reunio´ me regret very much but I-have had to go to a meeting d’u´ltima hora. last hour Entra i comenc¸arem l’entrevista ara mateix. Come in and we-will start the interview now right ‘I’m awfully sorry, but I had to go to a last-minute meeting. Come in and we’ll start the interview right now.’ (45) Li demano disculpes. Ara mateix li sera` servit el you I-ask apology right now you it-will-be served the compensat per aquest error. boeuf a` la maison. Sera` boeuf a` la maison you-will-be compensated for this error ‘I do apologise. You’ll be brought your boeuf a` la maison straight away. You’ll be compensated for this mistake.’ There are other phrasal and lexical expressions typically used to downgrade requests (see section 3.2) that can also be used to modify apologies, the most important of which (for Catalan apologies) are cajolers and appealers. With cajolers (expressions whose aim is to establish harmony between the interlocutors, e.g. ja saps ‘you know’) the speaker tries to persuade the hearer that the o¤ence was not to serious (46); with appealers, the speaker tries to get the hearer to agree with him/her, typically with o¤ers of repair (47) and with o¤ence downgraders (48). (46) (. . .) i mira. . . m’ha sortit aixı´. . . au, ho sento. and look me it-has come out like this well, I’m sorry ‘(. . .) and look, it came out like this. . . well, I’m sorry.’ (47) (. . .) el proper dia te’ l porto, d’acord? next day you it I-bring, ok ‘(. . .) I’ll bring it back to you next day, ok?’ (48) Em sembla que no ha estat gaire res, oi? me seems not it-has been much right ‘I think it was nothing much, right?’ Finally, we need to mention vocatives (and other alerters), which, according to Brown and Levinson (1987), among others, express in-group status, politeness, and are used as redressive action for face-threatening

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acts (also requests and complaints; see sections 3.2 and 3.3). For more details about vocatives in Catalan, see Payrato´ ([2003] 2010: 58, 75). (49) Miquel, escolta, que no he tingut temps d’acabar-me Miquel listen that not I-have had time finish de llegir el teu treball (. . .) to read your paper (. . .) ‘Miquel, listen, I haven’t had time to finish reading your paper (. . .)’ A combination of various strategies, together with intensification of any of the kinds just mentioned makes the apology even stronger. In Curell and Sabate´ (2007) it was found that Catalan speakers use an average of four strategies per apology. The longest apologies, though, can include up to nine: (50) Ostres Joan, perdona, e´s que ja he sortit tard de casa, i God Joan forgive already I-have left late home and he perdut el tren i despre´s m’he trobat un amic que I-have missed the train and then I- have found a friend that feia segles que no veia. . . ostres ho sento, for centuries that not I- saw God I’m sorry no tornara` a passar, de debo`! not it-will happen again really ‘God (emotional expression) Joan (vocative), forgive me (IFID), I left home late (acknowledgement of responsibility), and I missed the train (admission of fault but not responsibility) and then I ran into a friend I hadn’t seen for ages (explanation). . . God (emotional expression), I’m sorry (IFID), it won’t happen again, really! (promise of forbearance with intensifier). According to the results in Curell and Sabate´ (2007), the Catalan interactional system is based on appealing for common ground and forgiveness (connectedness), which is reflected in a high number of strategies per situation (four), in an average of more than one IFID per situation, and in a frequent use of appealers and appeasers (positive politeness strategies). This is in line with what was found for various varieties of Spanish (Hickey and Va´zquez Orta 1996; Dı´az Pe´rez 2003; Ma´rquez Reiter 2000, 2001; Reynolds 1983). Besides, British speakers (from a negative-face based culture) were asked to rate apologies produced by Catalan speakers of English (which were seen to show transfer from Catalan (Curell and

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Sabate´ 2007)). They found the apologies inadequate in the following aspects: over-apologetic, too long, the use of cajolers and emotional expressions (positive politeness strategies; connectedness), and not enough apology intensification and no admission of fault (negative politeness strategies; separateness) (Curell and Sabate´ 2008). 3.2. Requests Requests belong to the class of directives, together with commands, suggestions, instructions, etc. Directives are those speech acts which try to get the hearer to do something, and, hence, are pre-event acts. According to Vanderveken (1990: 189), requests, unlike commands for example, allow ‘‘the option of refusal’’, and have the degree of politeness usually related to please. Since the aim of requests is to a¤ect the hearer’s behaviour, they are essentially face-threatening acts for the hearer; specifically they a¤ect the hearer’s negative-face want (Brown and Levinson 1987: 65). The speaker has the option of making the request less imposing, by making it less direct (Searle 1976), or by mitigating it in di¤erent ways. For apologies (see section 3.1), there is a closed set of IFIDs that specifically and unambiguously perform the speech act of apologising. With requests, on the other hand, we find a series of strategies with a varying degree of directness, understood as ‘‘the degree to which the speaker’s illocutionary intent is apparent from the locution’’ (Pe´rez-Parent 1999). (In)directness is related to politeness, but by no means is there a straightforward correspondence indirect-polite, direct-impolite. For example, if there is an urgent situation, the most adequate request would be a baldon-record imperative, (51).11 In such cases what really matters is speed of processing, that is, maximum e‰ciency, and so there is no need for face redress (Brown and Levinson 1987: 95-96). Another example would be one in which what the speaker asks the hearer to do is in the hearer’s best interest (52). 11. Examples for requests are basically from Pe´rez-Parent (1999), except the following: (51) and (73) are made-up; (52), (64) and (74) are from Coquard (1995); (54) and (63) are from Alte´s (1998); (55) and (56) are from Baulenas (1992); (57) is from Bernat (2004); (58) is from http://debates.motos.coches. net/archive/index.php?t-173751.html; (61) and (62) is from Payrato´ ([1988] 1996); (66) is from Abellan (1986); (67) is from http://www.crearmundos.net/ primeros/artigo%20felix%20discutim_o_dialoguem.htm; (69) is from Cots et al. (1989); and (75) is from http://foro.kpujo.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=136.

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(51) Vigila! ‘Watch out!’ (52) Passa, Francina, passa. Ara mateix et dono la sal. come in Francina come in now right you I-give the salt ‘Come in, Francina, come in. I’ll give you the salt straight away.’ According to Blum-Kulka and House (1989), there are three general degrees of indirectness for the head acts expressing requests: direct (on record), conventionally indirect (o¤ record) and non-conventionally indirect (o¤ record). Direct requests are expressed with specific linguistic items, e.g. imperatives. Conventionally indirect requests are expressed by means of fixed linguistic conventions. With non-conventionally indirect requests the hearer needs to interpret the locution against the context in order to get to the illocutionary force. Blum-Kulka, Kasper, and House (1989) establish nine strategies for the head act, in a scale from most direct to least direct, which they used in their cross-cultural study on requests and apologies (CCSARP). These strategies, unlike the ones for apologies, are mutually exclusive. Strategies 1 to 5 are direct, 6 and 7 are conventionally indirect and 8 and 9, non-conventionally indirect. 1. Mood derivable: the illocutionary force of the utterance is determined by its grammatical mood. The various forms are the following: the imperative (53) (the present subjunctive in negative sentences (54)), incomplete sentences (55), and the infinitive preceded by the preposition a (‘to’) (56). It is not possible for the hearer not to interpret any of these as requests. (53) No se li acut res millor per fer? Deixi de molestar-me. not you it-occur anything better to do stop bother me ‘You have nothing better to do? Stop bothering me’. malament. (54) Marta, no t’ho prenguis marta not you it-take-SUBJ. badly ‘Marta, don’t take it the hard way.’ (55) La clau! ‘The key!’ (56) A callar! to shut up ‘Shut up!’

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2. Explicit performative: the utterance contains a verb that unequivocally expresses the illocutionary force. (57) T’estic demanant que et casis amb mi. you am asking that you marry-SUBJ with me ‘I’m asking you to marry me.’ que facis el que vulguis (. . .) (58) Que t’ estic dient that you am saying that you-do-SUBJ what you-want-SUBJ ‘I’m telling you to do as you wish (. . .).’ 3. Hedged performative: the illocutionary requesting verb is modified, for example by appearing in the conditional mood (59) or by being preceded by verbs expressing intention (60). (59) Li pregaria que em deixe´s tranquil  la. No m’agrada you I-beg-COND that me you-leave-SUBJ alone not me like la seva companyia. your company ‘I’d beg you to leave me alone. I don’t like your company.’ preguntar si li puc entregar el treball me´s tard, (60) Li volia you I-wanted ask if you I-can hand in the paper later perque` m ’ha sigut impossible. because me it-has been impossible ‘I wanted to ask you if I can hand in the paper later, because I couldn’t.’ In these two examples, although the requests are clearly direct, there is syntactic mitigation (Dı´az Pe´rez 2003: 275), by means of the conditional ( pregaria ‘would beg’) and the use of the past tense (volia ‘wanted’). As stated by Dı´az Pe´rez (2003: 276), distancing the request from the deictic centre reduces the expectations that the request will be fulfilled, thus saving the speaker’s face if it is refused and the hearer’s face by making it easier not to comply. So, they are examples of negative politeness strategies (Payrato´ [2003] 2010: 103). 4. Locution derivable: the illocutionary force of the utterance is derived by the hearer from its grammatical structure and from its semantic meaning, not from the mood or from illocutionary verbs present in it. They can be mitigated by making the sentence impersonal, as in (62) (Payrato´ [2003] 2010: 103).

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(61) Dilluns has de portar la cadena. Monday you-PL have to bring the chain ‘On Monday you’ll have to bring the chain.’ (62) S’hauria d’acabar la feina avui. have-IMP-COND finish the job today ‘This job should be finished today.’ (63) Pero` tu servira`s el sopar. but you will serve the dinner ‘But you’ll serve dinner.’ (64) Em deixes els apunts de la setmana passada? E´s que vaig estar malalt me you-lend the notes from week last was ill i m’ho vaig perdre. and it I-missed ‘Can you lend me your notes from last week? I was ill and I missed it.’ 5. Want statement: the speaker explicitly expresses his/her desire that the event expressed in the utterance is carried out. que avancessis la teva (65) Marta, m’agradaria Marta me it-like-COND that you-move forward-SUBJ your presentacio´ una semana perque` va be´ per completar les presentation a week because it-goes well to finish meves classes, et faria res? my classes would you mind ‘Marta, I’d like you to give your presentation a week earlier, because it would be better for me to finish my classes, would you mind?’ (66) Vull que sentis una conversa. . . I-want that you-hear a conversation ‘I want you to hear a conversation.’ We find once more a di¤erence between these two examples: (65) is mitigated by the use of the conditional m’agradaria ‘I would like’. 6. Suggestory formula: the request is expressed as a suggestion, using a routinised formula.

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(67) Que` tal si proves de ser me´s amable amb mi? how about if you-try to be nicer with me ‘Why don’t you try to be nicer to me?’ (68) Pau, per que` no t’acostes a la barra i demanes pau, why not you-approach the bar and you-order dues cerveses? Pago jo. two beers pay I ‘Pau, why don’t you go up to the bar and order two beers? I’m paying.’ 7. Query preparatory: the speaker asks about a preparatory condition for the feasibility of the request, that is, s/he wants to know about the hearer’s ability or willingness, or about the possibility of the requested event to take place. (69) A: Voldria demanar-te una cosa que no se´ si la necessites. . . I-would-like ask you one thing tht not I-know if it you-need B: Digues. say A: E´s que vaig a un casament. . . I-go to a wedding B: Ah sı´ ? Qui es casa? oh yes who marries A: El fill de l’ amo. the son of the boss B: Quin pal aixo` d’un casament! what stick this of a wedding A: Sı´, i a sobre hi haig d’anar ben vestida, per aixo` si em yes and on top there I-have to go well dressed so if me deixessis la jaqueta aquella negra brillant, e´s el dissabte. . . you-lend-SUBJ the jacket that black shiny, it-is the Saturday A: I tant! Jo no vaig enlloc. of course I not go anywhere A: ‘I’d like to borrow something that I don’t know if you need. . .’ B: ‘What is it?’

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A: ‘Well, I’m going to a wedding. . .’ B: ‘Really? Who’s getting married?’ A: ‘The boss’s son.’ B: ‘Weddings suck!’ A: ‘Yes, and to make things worse I have to dress up, so if I could borrow that black shiny jacket, it’s on Saturday.’ B: ‘Of course! I’m not going anywhere.’ (70) Que vas anar a classe ahir? Em pots deixar els apunts? Ara te’ls, you-went to class yesterday me you-can lend the notes now you them torno vaig a fer fotoco`pies, gra`cies. I-return I-go to make photocopies thanks ‘Did you go to class yesterday? Can you lend me your notes? I’ll give them back to you straight away, I’ll go copy them, thanks.’ Here, again, we find syntactic mitigation in example (69): this request is less imposing than the one in (70), since the conditional mood distances the request from reality (Dı´az Pe´rez 2003: 279). 8. Strong hint: it is not possible to directly derive the illocutionary force from the utterance, but it does refer to relevant elements of the act, which are often related to preconditions of the practicability of the request. Strong hints are not conventionalised, so the hearer needs to do more inferring. On the other hand, they clearly give the hearer a way out, since s/he can claim not having understood the illocutionary force, and hence not fulfil the request. (71) [A student asks another student to lend him some class notes.] La setmana passada no vaig poder venir a classe. No tens pas els apunts aquı´? week last not I-could come to class not you-have the notes here ‘Last week I couldn’t come to class. You don’t happen to have your notes here, do you?’ (72) [A student asking his roommate to clean up the kitchen the latter had left in a mess the night before.] La cuina esta` brutı´ssima. ‘The kitchen is really dirty.’

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9. Mild hint: it requires a higher level of inference, since the utterance contains no elements directly related to the intended illocution. It gives the hearer an even bigger way out, since s/he can more easily pretend not to have understood the request. (73) [The speaker would like a piece of the chocolate cake that the hearer is eating.] Quina bona pinta, no? what a good aspect no ‘It sure looks delicious!’ The imposing force of a request can be mitigated using di¤erent devices12; the syntactic ones have already been commented upon while dealing with the di¤erent strategies used to perform the head act. Within the head act, it is also possible to find lexical and phrasal downgraders13, the most important of which14 are politeness markers such as si us plau ‘please’, minimisers such as una mica ‘a little’, un minut ‘a minute’, and so on; adverbs such as potser ‘perhaps’, nome´s ‘only/just’; appealers, such as d’acord ‘OK’; consultive devices et faria res ‘would you mind’, t’importaria ‘would you mind’. (74) No em deixis, si et plau! not me you-leave-SUBJ please ‘Don’t leave me, please!’ enviar-m’ho per mail? (75) Et faria res you-would mind send me it by mail ‘Would you mind sending it to me by mail?’ It is often the case that several mitigating devices co-occur in the same head act. Outside the head act there are other mitigating devices, supportive moves, which can occur before or after it. Among these moves we find preparators, in which the speaker asks the hearer whether s/he is able to perform the requested act; reasons, which explain why the speaker is 12. For a more complete list of mitigating devices in Catalan requests, see Payrato´ ([2003] 2010: 197–200). 13. For an exhaustive list, see Blum-Kulka, House, and Kasper (eds.) (1989: Appendix) and Dı´az Pe´rez (2003: 275–306). 14. As mentioned in Section 3.1, these lexical and phrasal downgraders are shared by the three speech acts studied here: apologies, requests and complaints.

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making the request; disarmers, using which the speaker ‘‘provides reasons to ‘disarm’ the addressee from the possibility of refusal’’ (Ma´rquez Reiter 2000: 93); and alerters, to catch the hearer’s attention (vocatives, greetings). Requests can also be mitigated by means of di¤erent intonations. (Prieto and Rigau 2007, this volume). Needless to say that it is also possible to combine several of these strategies. (76) Perdoni, senyora. Pero` hauria de moure el cotxe d’aquı´, excuse madam but you-have-COND move the car from here no e´s perme`s aparcar. not it-is allowed park ‘Excuse me (disarmer), madam (alerter/vocative). But you should move your car (head act); it is not allowed to park here (reason).’ (77) Hola, em sembla que viviu al mateix carrer que jo. Hello, I- think that you-PL-live at the same street as me No tindrı´eu un lloc per a mi al cotxe not you-PL-have-COND a place for me in the car quan torneu? when you-PL- go back ‘Hello (alerter/greeting), I think you live on my street (preparator). Would you have a place for me in your car when you go back (head act)?’ The most frequently used strategy in requests in Catalan involves conventionally indirect head acts (Pe´rez-Parent 1999), although the percentage of direct requests is much higher in situations where the two interlocutors have equal social status. The same was found in other cultures with positive-faced politeness systems (connectedness) (Blum-Kulka, House, and Kasper 1989 (eds.); Dı´az Pe´rez 2003; Fe´lix-Brasdefer 2005; Ma´rquez Reiter 2000). Being blunt about one’s wants with socially equal people is a feature of positive-faced systems. Other positive-faced politeness strategies found in Catalan are the following: syntactic mitigators, request downgraders, and di¤erent types of supportive moves, such as preparators, reasons, disarmers or alerters. 3.3. Complaints Complaints, like apologies, belong to the group of expressives, and their function is to convey the speaker’s discontent about a situation which is bad for him/her. Complaints are much harder to define than apologies

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or requests, since there is not a specific list of IFIDs or head acts that perform them. According to Vanderveken (1990), the hearer is not necessarily responsible for the state of a¤airs that the speaker is complaining about. Other authors, however, claim that complaints are directed to o¤ences brought about by the speaker (Sabate´ 2006; Geluykens and Kraft 2003; House and Kasper 1981), and this is the view taken here. Complaints are, like apologies, post-event speech acts. They are facethreatening for the hearer in that the speaker negatively assesses at least some part of the hearer’s positive face (Brown and Levinson 1987). According to Leech (1983), complaints are intrinsically impolite because it is impossible to criticise or reproach someone politely. However, other studies (Watts 2003; Locher and Watts 2005) claim that lack of mitigation might be precisely the adequate way of complaining in certain circumstances. There is lack of agreement on the list of complaint strategies, on their labels and on which utterances are to be classified under each category.15 The strategies considered here are the ones established by Olshtain and Weinback (1993), ordered in a continuum according to the degree of face threat to the speaker (not as a politeness scale) (Sabate´ 2005: 42): below the level of reproach, expression of annoyance or disapproval, explicit complaint, accusation and warning, and immediate threat. 1. Below the level or reproach: the speaker abstains from mentioning the o¤ence directly. The hearer is left with the task of interpreting the speaker’s utterance as a complaint, and thus, does not necessarily feel reprimanded.16 (78) No passa res. not it- happen anything ‘It’s OK.’ (79) No et preocupis. not you worry ‘Don’t worry.’ 2. Expression of annoyance or disapproval: this category includes vague and indirect expressions that do not mention the o¤ence or the hearer; they do not explicitly say what is considered wrong and who is considered responsible. A general expression of annoyance is present, but 15. For a thorough revision of this issue, see Sabate´ (2006: 37–42). 16. All the examples for complaints are from the corpus gathered for Sabate´ (2006), except for (86) and (87), which are from Payrato´ ([2003] 2010).

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open confrontation is avoided. Again, the hearer can interpret the utterance as a complaint or else ignore its illocutionary force. (80) Les coses es demanen. the things are asked-IMPERSONAL for ‘If you need something, ask for it.’ (81) M’ e´s impossible concentrar-me me it-is impossible concentrate myself ‘I can’t concentrate.’ 3. Explicit complaint: the speaker unambiguously blames the hearer, without asking for sanctions. It can include explicit mention of the hearer (82) or of the o¤ence (83). In this case, the hearer cannot (pretend to) fail to understand the illocutionary force of the utterance. (82) T’ has equivocat. you have erred ‘You have made a mistake.’ (83) [Addressed to the doctor who prescribed the medication.] Aquesta erupcio´ me l’ha causat aquest medicament. this rash me it has caused this medicine ‘This rash was caused by this medicine.’ 4. Accusation and warning: the speaker performs an open face threat (on record) to the hearer by accusing him/her of the o¤ence (84), and/or announces potential sanctions (85). (84) Ens esta`s donant massa feina. us you-are giving too much work ‘You are giving us too much work.’ (85) Aquesta tarda tornare´. this afternoon I-will be back ‘I’ll be back this afternoon.’ 5. Immediate threat: the speaker directly attacks the hearer. (86) Joder, tio! E´s que ets la ho`stia! fuck man you-are the sacred host ‘Fuck, man! You’re so fucked up!’

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(87) Tambe´ sou tontos, eh, vosaltres! also you-PL-are idiots huh you guys ‘You’re such idiots!’ As with apologies, and di¤erently from requests, these strategies can be combined in di¤erent ways in one speech act of complaining. The average number of strategies per complaint is almost three, and the range goes from one to nine (Sabate´ 2006). (88) No m’importa que es facin festes, pero` necessito not me mind that do-IMPERS parties but I-need concentrar-me i amb aquest soroll e´s impossible. concentrate and with this noise is impossible ‘I don’t mind parties (below level of reproach), but I need to concentrate (annoyance), and with this noise it’s impossible (complaint). (89) No crec que sigui la millor manera de conviure, cansa fer-ho not I-think it-be-SUB the best way to live together it-tires do it tot sol. Fa dos mesos que no fas res, sempre all alone ago two months that not you-do anything always queda la teva feina o so´c jo qui la fa. No puc continuar aixı´. remains your work or am I who it does not I-can go on like this ‘I don’t think this is the best way of sharing a flat (annoyance), it’s tiresome for me to do it all alone (annoyance). You haven’t done anything for two months (complaint); your part is always left undone (complaint) or I have to do it (complaint). I can’t go on like this (immediate threat).’ As with the other two speech acts discussed so far (apologies and requests), it is possible both to downgrade the complaint and to upgrade it. Downgraders mitigate the circumstances around the o¤ence, and so reduce the blame on the hearer. The list would include the following lexical and phrasal items, which occur within the main strategy:17 politeness markers (si us plau ‘please’); downtoners (nome´s ‘only/just’, potser ‘perhaps’); minimisers (no gaire ‘not much’; subjectivisers (suposo ‘I suppose’); cajolers (mira ‘look’); appealers (d’acord? ‘ok?’); alerters (escolta ‘listen’) 17. See note 14.

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and greetings (hola ‘hello’). According to Sabate´ (2005: 86) the downgraders most frequently used in Catalan are downtoners, alerters, subjectivisers, appealers and greetings. (90) Bon dia, m’ha sortit aquesta erupcio´ amb el medicament good day, me has come this rash with the medicine que em va receptar. No se´, voste` creu que em marxara`? that me you-prescribed not I-know, you think that me it-go away ‘Good morning (greeting), I’ve developed this rash with the medicine that you prescribed. I don’t know (cajoler), do you think (appealer) it’ll go away?’ (91) Amb aquest esca`ndol no hi ha qui treballi. Podries with this racket no there is who works you-can- COND baixar una mica la mu´sica, si us plau? turn down a little the music, please ‘It’s imposible to work with this racket. Could you turn down the music a little bit (minimiser), please (politeness marker)?’ Another way to mitigate the complaint is by the use of supportive moves in the form of justifications (92), preparators (93), disarmers (94), thanking, introducing oneself, vocatives, etc. (Dı´az Pe´rez 2003: 415), some of which were already mentioned for requests (section 3.2). These moves occur either after or before the complaining strategy itself. (92) Vaig fer tot el que havia de fer. I-did everyting that I-had to do ‘I did everything I had to do.’ (93) N’ hem parlat moltes vegades. about it we-have talked many times ‘We have talked about it many times. (94) Em veig amb l’obligacio´ de comentar (. . .) myself I-see with the obligation to comment ‘I find myself compelled to mention (. . .)’ Finally, we also find syntactic downgraders (also mentioned in section 3.2), including past tense, durative aspect, modal verbs, conditionals, negation, interrogatives, and so on.

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On the other hand, it is also possible to intensify the complaint,18 hence making it even more aggravating and face-threatening for the speaker, by means of upgraders,19 the most frequent of which are, in Catalan, intensifiers (adverb phrases such as ben clarament ‘very clearly’, totalment ‘totally’ or molt important ‘very important’) and time intensifiers ( ja ‘immediately’, ara mateix ‘straight away’, urgent ‘urgent’, sempre ‘always’). Other intensifying strategies would be expletives, expressing a negative attitude towards the hearer or the o¤ence (no m’ho puc creure! ‘I can’t believe it!’, n’estic farta ‘I’m fed up with it’, aixo` e´s un fa`stic ‘this is disgusting’), including swearwords; repetition of any main strategy; emotional expressions, etc. The results arrived at by Sabate´ (2006) for complaints are in line with what was found for apologies (Curell 2005; Curell and Sabate´ 2007) and requests (Pe´rez-Parent 1999), and all belonging to a positive-faced politeness system. In the first place, Catalan speakers use a relatively high number of strategies (almost three in average, compared to one and half for British speakers). Catalans are also more direct in their complaints; the two most frequently used strategies being annoyance and explicit complaints. The di¤erence in the use of explicit complaints between the Catalan and British speakers is statistically significant (Sabate´ 2006: 76). As with requests, being direct about one’s wants is perfectly adequate in a society whose interactional style is based on connectedness. Other positive politeness features encountered include: external modifiers, complaint minimisation and supportive moves, also present in Spanish (Dı´az Pe´rez 2003).

4. Conclusion The three face-threatening speech acts studied here are expressed by a series of strategies, and can be intensified or mitigated. The strategies used in apologies are the following: IFID (the most frequent of which are em sap greu ‘I regret’, ho sento ‘I’m sorry’ and perdona / perdoni / perdoneu ‘forgive me’), accepting responsibility (which includes eight subtypes), explanation, o¤er of repair and promise of forbearance. These strategies can be combined in di¤erent ways. The vast majority of apologies include an IFID, and often some kind of acknowledgement of responsibility. The 18. Just as it is possible to intensify an apology (see Section 3.1). 19. For a full list, see Sabate´ (2006: 46–47).

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shortest ones would have only one strategy (typically an IFID), and the longest can include up to nine (including intensifiers and mitigators), the average for Catalan being four strategies per speech act (Curell and Sabate´ 2007). Requests are expressed by means of a head act, which can be accompanied by a number of supporting moves (to intensify or mitigate the request). The head acts (mutually exclusive) can be divided into three groups, in descending order of directness: direct - mood derivable, explicit performative, hedged performative, locution derivable and want statement; conventionally indirect - suggestory formula and query preparatory; and non-conventionally indirect - strong hint and mild hint. The most frequent strategies in Catalan are the direct ones (in all its forms), especially between interlocutors with equal power (Pe´rez-Parent 1999). As for complaints, the strategies considered in this chapter are the following, in a continuum of face threat to the speaker: below the level of reproach, expression of annoyance and disapproval, explicit complaint, accusation and warning, and immediate threat. As with apologies, these strategies can be combined in the same speech act. In Catalan, the average number of strategies per complaint (including downgraders and upgraders) is almost three, and it can range from one to nine. Similarly to what happens with requests, the most frequently used forms are direct strategies: expression of annoyance and explicit complaint (Sabate´ 2006). The three speech acts co-occur with lexical and phrasal downgraders that typically appeal to the hearer’s positive face, including downtoners (nome´s ‘only), minimisers (una mica ‘a little’), cajolers (mira ‘look’), appealers (d’acord ‘ok’), alerters (escolta ‘listen’), vocatives, etc. In apologies, face-threatening for the speaker, these downgraders minimise the o¤ence, and hence save the speaker’s face, rather than the hearer’s. With apologies, these expressions seem to be more usual in cultures with a positive politeness system, such as Catalan, and more accepted by their speakers, since showing connectedness and solidarity is especially important in such cultures. In the case of requests and complaints, facethreatening for the hearer, these expressions make the speech acts less imposing, less threatening for the hearer. In this case, these expressions are more frequent in cultures with a negative politeness system (not impinging on the hearer’s face) than in positive politeness based cultures, where stating one’s wants and feelings directly is perfectly adequate. Syntactic downgraders, such as conditionals, past tense and impersonal constructions, among others, which are examples of negative politeness, are found with requests and complaints, but not with apologies. Down-

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grading a speech act with negative-politeness strategies is more adequate with speech acts which threaten the hearer’s face than with those which threaten the speaker’s face. When apologies are intensified (IFID-internally or -externally), they serve the purpose of increasing the speaker’s self-humbling, and, at the same time providing more support for the hearer. This would be typical of a negative politeness based system, and so it is found less frequently in Catalan than in British English (Curell and Sabate´ 2007). On the other hand, when complaints and requests are intensified (with intensifiers, expletives or emotional expressions), they become stronger, and, hence, more imposing on the hearer. In line with what was found to be the case with lexical and phrasal downtoners, more intensification is found with complaints in Catalan (connectedness system) than in English (separateness system). While this chapter has provided a detailed analysis of the realisations of the speech acts of apologising, requesting and complaining, there is still much research to be done. To start with, it would be important to include other speech acts, such as thanking or complimenting. Secondly, more naturally occurring data need to be studied, with the whole event of the speech act (the various turns), and not just the one utterance. Finally, in regards to politeness, research in line with the one proposed by Arundale (2010) and Watts (2003), which involves a detailed study of spontaneous conversation, would also be most interesting.

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Metaphor and style in Catalan Vicent Salvador Abstract Metaphor and metonymy are important devices in cognitive and argumentative processes. Cognitive semantics and theories of argumentation have accounted for the functions of metaphor. Grammatical metaphors (especially semantic nominalization and its role in entification and anaphorization) also play an important role in these fields. Beyond the innovative uses of metaphor in poetry, metaphoric mapping has been responsible for many semantic changes throughout the history of Catalan. The meaning of many words and phraseological units (idioms, collocations, etc.) changes diachronically through metaphorical processes which are socially conditioned by the dynamics of genres and the circles of society within which they are applied. From a synchronic point of view, the use of metaphor constitutes a stylistic tool, a mechanism of choice within the framework of functional variation. Lexical and syntactic synonymy (including issues involving metaphor) is a matter of both free and conditioned choices. Thus, on the one hand, metaphor functions in the field of the free variation allowed by the Catalan language while on the other, it is limited by constraints established by pragmatic conventions. Such conventions have a social dimension and are historically constituted, conveyed and transformed through discourse usage. In Catalan discourse analysis, metaphor has been studied as a useful stylistic device in, for instance, translation, advertising, journalism (especially in headlines), gra‰ti, scientific discourse, and literature. It has also been studied as a mechanism for conveying ideology. In this chapter, we will study the relations of metaphor with literary discourse, some concepts of stylistics related to metaphorical meaning (lexical metaphor, grammatical metaphor, and metonymy) and the role of metaphor in mechanisms of linguistic change and the configuration of social discourses, with special attention to the research carried out by Catalan linguists into these subjects.

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1. Metaphor, linguistics and literary analysis Cognitive linguistics – in particular the work on metaphor undertaken by George Lako¤ and others since the early 1980s – has exerted a strong influence on Catalan language studies, as has been the case in other academic fields (Lako¤ and Johnson 1981; Lako¤ 1993; Geeraerts and Cuyckens (eds.) 2007; Evans 2007). The interest in this research has had two main consequences: a) a modification of the dominant paradigms in the study of metaphor as a literary resource (stylistics, Jakobsonian poetics, etc.); and b) the extension of the focus of these studies to non-literary discourse, particularly the consideration of metaphor (and other related constructs) as a basic tool for human cognition. The first of these consequences a¤ected approaches to the study of literary theory and the analysis of poetic texts. It stressed the role of metaphor as a knowledge mechanism that has more than a mere ornamental function, and the value of metaphor as a detour or transgression with regard to ordinary speech patterns. The second consequence was even more important, since it enhanced the interdisciplinary work on linguistics and literary theory, and highlighted the need for a link between the two disciplines. In fact, there were many cases of researchers who reconciled their interest in the two fields within the tradition of Romance Philology. Furthermore, within contemporary Catalan linguistics, already in the 1970s Sebastia` Serrano had published Literatura i teoria del coneixement (Serrano 1978). However, it was the emergence of cognitive linguistics and other Anglo-Saxon trends that enhanced interdisciplinary research into themes such as: the literary text as a very special kind of speech act; the comparison of literary narratives with conversational storytelling; or metaphor as a tool for human cognition, which is as apparent in conversation and scientific discourse as it is in literary discourse (Salvador and Sa´nchez Macarro 1991). All this dramatically changed the conception of literary language as a separate and peculiar system of expression, and encouraged the consideration of literary discourse as one more use within wider language. Thus, literary discourse could be seen as a communicative activity that takes place within a given linguistic community. Whereas (post)structuralist studies had placed emphasis on the specific nature of the language used in literature (including its deviant sense), discourse analysis enhanced the study of dimensions that literature shares with other social discourses, and in this way neutralized the fallacy of thinking of literary discourse as a di¤erent sort of linguistic system.

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We can now clarify some conceptual points regarding the cognitive theory of metaphor (Evans 2007; Geeraerts and Cuyckens (eds.) 2007). First, it must be said that for Lako¤ there is one type of metaphor that is simpler than all others, the image metaphor, which corresponds to straightforward mapping. It quite simply preys on a similarity in shape between two entities, as in the boot of Italy. In Catalan we find numerous cases of this type of metaphor in di¤erent kinds of discourse, from conversation to scientific or technological discourse, which uses a similarity in shape as a descriptive terminological resource: peix martell, peu de balancı´, ungla de vidre de rellotge, etc. (‘hammer fish’, ‘the foot of a rocking chair’, ‘the fingernail in a watch glass’). From the point of view of cognition, metaphorical expressions that systematically correspond to patterns of some conceptual metaphor are of particular interest, because they may make a very important contribution to our categorization of the world and our experiences. For example, there are conceptual patterns that portray life as a journey, love as war, or values as arranged on a vertical scale where increased quality is equivalent to greater height. These conceptual metaphors are usually interlinguistic but often vary across time, ideologies, cultures and discursive styles. One example of this is navigatio amoris in medieval European culture, which often appeared in Catalan poetry. In this conceptual scheme, the male lover ventures out to sea (love invites risk) and steers his ship against the adversities of weather (hazards, hardship and uncertainty that make it di‰cult to achieve the desired love) in order to reach port safely (receive the love of the woman he loves). This conceptual metaphor, which is a modality of the more general LOVE IS A JOURNEY, was operative in medieval culture and helped to naturalize a particular conception of the love relationship, but without a doubt today it has lost much of its force and is perceived as rather artificial. However, another conceptual metaphor, debate is a battle, is shared by many social groups across di¤erent languages, and therefore has a greater influence on the reproduction of a conservative ideology. One aspect of cognitive theorizing about metaphor that deserves to be emphasized is that Lako¤ sees the mechanism of metaphor as a one-way mapping, where a source domain is projected onto a target domain and thereby transfers part of its own conceptual organization. This unidirectional model is fully consistent with the idea that metaphor enhances cognitive value: the structure of a well-known, familiar and concrete domain contributes to the configuration of an unfamiliar or more abstract domain. The model explains much of the didactic function that many metaphors play in the expansion and integration of knowledge, and in the construc-

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tion of the human experience. In this way, corporeality is a key factor in metaphorical mapping, as the body and its location in the world is a very basic experience for human beings from which more abstract and general knowledge can develop. Book titles such as The body in the mind or Philosophy in the flesh are very symptomatic. Let us now examine some examples of this kind in Catalan. The mapping of the structure of the human body – the most immediate experience of all speakers – onto mountains, trees, buildings or other physical entities as well as onto abstract concepts, is a common practice in di¤erent types of discourse. The following expressions correspond to this scheme: el cor de la selva, el cap de l’Estat, a les espatlles de la casa, girar a ma` dreta, una teoria sense cap ni peus, l’entranya del problema or enamorat fins al moll dels ossos (‘the heart of the forest’, ‘the head of State’, ‘at the back of the house’, ‘to take a right-hand turn’, ‘a theory without head nor feet’ ¼ ‘a wrongheaded idea’, ‘the guts of the problem’, ‘to be in love down to the bone’). All of them are habitual and conventional metaphorical expressions that respond, in Catalan, to an embodied categorization of the outer or inner worlds, i.e., structured according to our knowledge of our bodies. They can even become catachreses or fossilized metaphors that are essential in order to talk about an entity and have become standard designations: el peu de la muntanya, l’ull de l’huraca` or el coll de la botella (‘the foot of the mountain’, ‘the eye of the hurricane’, ‘the neck of the bottle’). Obviously, the use of these expressions does not entail any type of stylistic choice, since there are no alternatives for talking about these contents. Lako¤’s insistence on the unidirectionality of the mapping process makes it di‰cult to take advantage of any interactive approach; consider for example the reflections of Max Black (Black 1962; Salvador 1984) on the interaction between the focus and the frame of a metaphor. For Black, an expression such as homo homini lupus not only presents man as a wild animal, but at the same time makes hearers perceive the wolf as a sort of human being. The recent analysis of the cognitive model of metaphor as blending recovers some aspects of such interactive theories, but it does not deal satisfactorily with socio-pragmatic aspects of metaphor. However we choose to analyse it, metaphor has became and continues to be an important interdisciplinary subject in Catalan studies since the late 1980s, partly due to the influence of cognitive linguistics (Meseguer (ed.) 1994; Cuenca and Hilferty 1999; Tuson 2008). In addition, by aiding a return to a more complete and multidimensional understanding of the old rhetoric, seen as the art of persuasion and not limited to the study of

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elocutio in literary texts, the metaphor has taken centre stage. Research has not focused exclusively on the cognitive function of metaphor; it has also been concerned with the pragmatic facets of metaphor, such as the persuasive and socio-discursive dimensions of this rhetorical resource. 2. Central concepts 2.1. Lexical metaphor The most suitable field for the study of metaphor is the lexicon. The vast majority of classic examples of metaphorical mechanisms are found in lexical units that undergo changes of meaning, either through diachronic processes or by their presence in a co-text or a communicative context that does not seem appropriate to the ordinary use of the item (contextual abnormality). There are well-known examples of diachronic changes produced through metaphors in Catalan, such as testa (‘head’, from the Latin testum, ‘pot’) or casola` (‘homely’, ‘home-loving’, from the Latin casula, ‘hut’). I will deal later with this involvement of metaphor in semantic change throughout the history of language. With respect to contextual changes, we can consider, for example, the case of disparar improperis (‘to shoot insults’) where the verb disparar does not correspond to the action of sending projectiles with the help of a weapon, but it stands in a syntagmatic relation to improperis, consisting of verbal actions and the result of these. As a consequence of this atypical combination, the word disparar demands a metaphorical interpretation that corresponds to hurling o¤ensive verbal expressions. There is, therefore, a metaphorical e¤ect produced by the apparition of the word in an unexpected co-text. On other occasions, the lexical unit does not clash with its co-text but with some factor of the communicative context, as for example in the statement venim afamats a buscar aliment (‘we come hungry, looking for nourishment’) said by the disciples who go to listen to the teacher or by the faithful eager to hear the preaching of a religious leader: in a context in which these words will not normally be interpreted in a literal sense. Lexical units that are metaphorized do not always consist of a single word: they can also be phrases. In fact, units such as idioms or proverbs often have a metaphorical component that has been conventionalized in its figurative use (although this is not a necessary characteristic of every phraseological unit). Thus, for example: ploure a bots i barrals (‘raining

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as from wineskins and jars’ ¼ ‘raining heavily’), fer volar coloms (‘to make pigeons fly’ ¼ ‘to be overly optimistic’), mancar-li (a algu´) un bull (‘someone needs to boil more’ ¼ ‘someone is mad’), una altra volta de rosca (‘another turn of the screw’) or canteret nou fa l’aigua fresca (‘a new pitcher makes the water fresher’ ¼ ‘novelties are welcome’). I will return below to this metaphorical dimension that is frequent in phraseology; for now, however, I will simply note that it is a way to study metaphorical mechanisms that have become conventionalized. Many researchers have insisted that metaphors can be situated on a scale of originality that ranges from the most lively and surprising ones to the most conventional; the latter may constitute recognizable and routine cliche´s and often form part of the lexicon. The field of poetry is an excellent laboratory in which to observe how innovative metaphors work; but it is not the only one, since other kinds of discourses (such as advertising, conversation or even philosophical discourse) contain very interesting examples of highly surprising metaphors. We must be aware that there is a considerable range of originality from dead or frozen metaphors to those that leap like a March hare within the lines of a poem. Among the most conventional metaphors (some of which are mere image metaphors, in Lako¤’s sense) we can cite the following: pantalons acampanats, cintura de vespa, graella de programacio´ televisiva, or fer cara de pomes agres (‘bell-bottoms’, ‘wasp waist’ ¼ ‘a very narrow waist’, ‘grill of television programming’ ¼ ‘a listing of planned television programmes’, ‘to put on a bitter-apple face’ ¼ ‘to show annoyance in one’s facial expression’). On other occasions we come across poetic metaphors, with a higher degree of originality: ‘‘Tota la meva vida es lliga a tu / com en la nit les flames a la fosca’’ [B. Rossello´-Po`rcel] (‘my entire life is bound to you, as flames in the night are bound to the darkness’); ‘‘El mo´n e´s nou, tot just rentat’’ [J. M. Llompart] (‘the world is new, freshly washed’); ‘‘Jo t’intentava noms i altres carı´cies’’ [J. Fuster] (‘I tried names and other caresses on you’); ‘‘on et perdo i et trobo, pels forats del meu mal’’ [M. M. Marc¸al] (‘Where I lose and find you, through the holes of my hurt); ‘‘color d’olor de poma’’ (‘colour of apple scent’) [G. Ferrater]. Through a series of this kind of poetic examples we can find di¤erent metaphorical structures: explicit comparison (A is as B), metaphor in praesentia (A is B; A, B; A and other Bs) and metaphor in absentia (B). We could exemplify still another type of structure that corresponds to the XYZ scheme, as it is analysed in the theory of blending: a grammatical construction that combines three noun phrases. This pattern illustrates

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the vision of metaphor as a mechanism of conceptual integration perfectly: through an intermediary term, a semantic tension is generated between the literal level and the figurative one, and it produces a creative blending as in the following aphorisms by Joan Fuster: ‘‘La produccio´ [X] e´s la creacio´ [Y] del pobre [Z]’’ (‘manufacture is the creation of the pauper’); ‘‘L’ordre alfabe`tic [X] no e´s sino´ una variant [Z] de l’ordre public [Y]’’ (‘alphabetical order is nothing other than a variation of public order’). This metaphorical construction is particularly frequent in aphorisms and in any sample of sententious style. It consists of a sort of metaphorical definition that strikes the reader as a surprising analogy that invites imaginative reflections. Besides the XYZ formula, there is another grammatical construction in Catalan (that is also found in Spanish and French) that often contains metaphors and that adopts the following form: (Det1) þ N1 þ of þ (Det2) þ N2. This construction, which can be either an exclamation or a judgement in which N1 often has a metaphorical meaning, would be equivalent to: N2 is an N1, where N1 is usually a negative quality, or even an insult: aquest cabro´ de l’amo, l’ase del capella`, aquest merda de policia, quin dimoni de xiquet. (‘that bastard of a boss’, ‘ass of a priest’, ‘that twat of a policeman’, ‘what a devil of a child!’). The o¤ensive appraisal is mitigated by this non-propositional presentation within a noun phrase (a presupposition carried out by the noun phrase (that) A of a B). The construction can have a neutral or even a positive tone, instead of a negative one, but its interpretation usually reverses this tone by means of irony, as in el geni del teu germa` (‘that absolute genius of a brother of yours’). On other occasions, lexical metaphors are euphemisms that are used to avoid or mitigate a criticism or smear: X e´s una mica estirat (‘X is a bit sti¤’ ¼ ‘X is conceited’), X e´s un cagadubtes (literally ‘X is someone who defecates doubts’ ¼ ‘X is so worried by doubts, incapable of making a decision’), X mira contra el govern (‘X doesn’t look in the same direction as the government’ ¼ ‘X is cross-eyed’). 2.2. Grammatical metaphor The term grammatical metaphor concerns another academic tradition: the systemic functional linguistics (SFL) of M. A. K. Halliday and colleagues (Halliday and Matthiessen 2004). Grammatical metaphor is understood by Halliday as a marked morphosyntactic realization of a given semantic configuration. Within the framework of SFL, grammatical metaphors

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bring about a change in the functions of transitivity and constitute genuine metaphorical mechanisms insofar as they change our representations of the world. One of the most prominent types of grammatical metaphor is semantic nominalization, by means of which the speaker opts for a procedure that is not common in ordinary language: to represent not only entities (which are usually referred to by noun phrases: taula, ‘table’; cel, ‘heaven’; a`nima, ‘soul’), but also qualities (normally expressed by attributive sentences containing an adjective: la paret e´s blanca, ‘the wall is white’; estic sol, ‘I am alone’) as well as actions and other processes (usually expressed by sentences containing a predicative verb: plou, ‘it is raining’; vam construir una casa, ‘we built a house’) all by means of noun phrases. Thus, semantic nominalization means that qualities and processes become mentally figured as entities: la blancor de la paret, ‘the whiteness of the wall’; la meva solitud, ‘my loneliness’; la pluja, ‘rain’; la construccio´ de la casa, ‘the house’s construction’. So, we can say that the domain of entities is mapped metaphorically onto the domain of qualities and processes and thus brings about a metaphorical entification. In this way discourse can invoke felicitat (‘happiness’), vida (‘life’) or inflacio´ (‘inflation’) as if they were entities instead of being qualities or processes. For Halliday, this strategy, which is more usual in written texts, developed via linguistic phylogenesis as a resource that facilitated the elaboration of scientific and philosophical discourses. Thus, Chaucer, in his Treatise on the Astrolabe, made an important step forward in the history of English by coining a series of nominal terms that are apt for the expression of abstract thought. A parallel case in the history of Catalan was the contribution made by Ramon Llull (14th century), who also used semantic nominalization to coin numerous abstract terms (qualitat, quantitat, etc.) whose meanings could only have been expressed in Latin before. With the creation of a vocabulary of this type, Catalan became a more appropriate language for the expression of abstract thought and for sorting or cataloguing concepts. It enabled the creation of complex noun phrases which condense a great deal of information, as for example in the noun phrases moviment uniformement accelerat (‘uniformly accelerated movement’), or la progressiva concentracio´ industrial (‘progressive industrial concentration’), that include more than one nominalization. We can therefore say that formal written text tends to display a highly nominalized style (Salvador 2000). It is not only in the phylogenesis of Catalan that semantic nominalization develops; there is a comparable phenomenon in the ontogenesis or progressive acquisition of linguistic abilities of an individual. From this

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point of view, training students in the use of an elaborate code (in the terms of Basil Bernstein) becomes an educational challenge. Similarly, this occurs in logogenesis or textual development by means of the articulation of anaphoric chains, where certain anaphoric terms nominalize an antecedent that is not a noun phrase but one, or several, sentences. Thus, if the antecedent were, for example, ‘‘Ahir una senyora va caure del tren i es va lesionar greument’’ (‘Yesterday a woman fell from a train and was seriously injured’), the corresponding anaphoric nominalization could be the noun phrase accident as in ‘‘L’accident es va produir a les 8 h a l’estacio´ central’’ (‘The accident happened at 8 am in the central station’) Obviously, as in other cases of lexical anaphora, the anaphoric term is not as neutral as it may seem; rather, as a means of recovering previously given information, it can recategorize that information in di¤erent ways. In the example, instead of accident, we could come across other words such as incident (mitigating expression), desgra`cia (‘misfortune’) or some other alternative with a di¤erent interpretative bias. This kind of anaphora can also categorize the previous co-text in a metalinguistic manner, carrying out some pragmatically relevant interpretation: aquesta premissa, tal conclusio´, la teva disculpa, aquesta fal  la`cia. (‘this premise’, ‘such a conclusion’, ‘your apology’, ‘this fallacy’). 2.3. Metonymy Metonymy was situated by Jakobson at one of the two poles of his twodimensional conception of language, in opposition to metaphor. It included another of the classic tropes, synecdoche (where a part represents the whole, or vice versa), and was identified within the relations of contiguity between referents that co-exist in the real world and also between linguistic units, on the syntagmatic axis. With this enlargement of its territory, metonymy became a notion that was not limited to the domain of tropes, but moved into the terrain of any type of syntagmatic relation in discourse. At first, metonymy did not seem to be of interest within cognitive semantics, as it was considered a sidekick of metaphor; but its place in the theory progressively increased. Thus, metonymy is seen as operating by means of mapping between parts of a single domain, while metaphorical mapping concerns two di¤erent domains. Hence, the author is mapped onto his work, as in he comprat un Ta`pies (‘I bought a Ta`pies’) for I bought a picture by Ta`pies; the place of production maps onto the product (un Priorat or un cava for a wine from the Priorat region or produced in a cellar); the part stands for the whole, or vice versa, etc. For

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example, tenir bon ull or tenir bona orella (‘to have a good eye’ or ‘to have a good ear’) stand for ‘having good sight’ or ‘having a fine auditory sense’: cases in which the organ maps onto the sensory perception. We can also say les mates tenen ulls or les parets tenen orelles (‘the bushes have eyes’, or ‘the walls have ears’) to warn someone about possible spies or being overheard. Here, ulls and orelles stand for ‘the possibility of someone watching or listening behind them’. Recent contributions to cognitive linguistics in this field establish a synapse between the two concepts polarized by Jakobson that even acquire a compound name: metaphtonymy (Goosens 2002). In fact, the phenomena of metaphor and metonymy often overlap and so it is di‰cult to di¤erentiate them clearly. For example, when Josep Maria Llompart writes, in a poem, ‘‘m’ajec en el tau¨t o en el silenci’’ (‘I lie down in the co‰n or in the silence’), the relation established between the two locations by the conjunction or, is not a relation of similarity but of closeness, that is to say, a metonymic one. However, to lie down in a co‰n is a possible although strange action, but to do so in the silence has without a doubt a metaphorical value. As a result, the metaphor and the metonymy overlap and cause a poetic e¤ect of fusion, or conceptual integration, between co‰n and silence. There are even more complex combinations of metaphors and metonymies in poetic discourse, as we can see from the next example, taken from another poem by the same author: ‘‘Les set del capvespre, les set de la mort. Set i mig a les cartes marcades. Els jocs so´n fets, no va me´s.’’ (‘Seven of the eve, seven of death. Seven and a half with marked cards. The games are played, no more bets’). Here the poet combines resemblances and contiguities: the Cabalistic number seven; the assimilation of twilight to death (and of death to twilight, interactively); the card game called seven and half; the suspicion of being tricked (les cartes marcades); and the expression no va me´s which, in betting games, announces the end of the possibility to place bets. 3. Diachronic approach Semantic innovation tends to take place throughout the history of a language by the adaptation of existing words to new meanings and uses, either via similarity (metaphor) or by means of contiguity and association (metonymy). Traditional studies of historical semantics have assigned a major role to metaphor as a mechanism of change in languages. Today, however, it is generally considered that metaphorization can explain the

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final result of changes, but the development of the processes is better explained by the concept of metonymy. One approach to the study of these changes, within the framework of historical pragmatics, is pragma-philology (Hiltunen and Ska¤ari (eds.) 2003); it examines the historical evolution of texts in di¤erent environments (legal, religious, literary) and the kinds of discourse and discursive traditions. One example is the appearance in the history of Catalan of a periphrastic past like va venir (‘he/she goes come’ ¼ ‘he/she came’), vam decidir (‘we go decide’ ¼ ‘‘we decided’’), etc. This form appears first in medieval narratives such as chronicles and epic poems (Colo´n 1978; Pe´rez Saldanya 1996). Nevertheless, in this chapter we will limit ourselves to discussing some cases of metaphorization/metonymization in the scope of diachronic pragmatics, and focus on the changes in the interface between linguistic structures and their use. Some basic concepts from the study of grammaticalization are useful for the presentation of this point. One of these concepts is that of ‘invited inferences’ which refers to the inferences needed for the interpretation of an expression in its context. Insofar as such inferences induced by conversational implicatures are conventionalized and are fixed within grammar structure, inferences become references and the corresponding grammatical constructions are automatically recognized by the speakers without the need to resort to information derived from the context. The concept of processes of subjectivization is prominent here also; it is intimately related with that of metonymy, and corresponds to the development of progressively less truth-conditional and less referential meanings to more pragmatic and discursive meanings in the framework of communication (Traugott and Dasher 2002: 89–99). We can consider the example of the polysemous word cap (‘head’), that can change its meaning to refer to the upper part of something (physically upper most; the first in a series; or superior in degree of control): cap de llista, cap d’any, cap de colla, al capdamunt (‘first on the list’, ‘first day of the year’, ‘leader of a group’, ‘at the top’). In such examples, the metaphor mapping is enough to explain the semantic change by means of the conceptual metaphor UP IS MORE (the head is the highest part of the human body). However, the lexical item cap appears also as a part of the preposition of direction cap a (‘heading for’), and then the process of grammaticalization must be explained as a metonymic association of the advanced position of the head when someone walks and the idea of approaching a place, a time or an abstract situation: anem cap a la mar; anem cap a l’hivern; anem cap al desastre (‘we are heading for the sea’, ‘we are heading for winter’, ‘we are heading for disaster’). In addition,

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cap a can adopt the value of an approximation (vaig arribar cap a les 4 de la tarda: ‘I arrived at about 4 pm’) and not necessarily previous in a spatial or temporary process of approach. In this case the association between ‘to approach’ and ‘to be close to’ seems to be more metonymic than metaphoric. On the other hand, cap evolved in another very di¤erent sense, that of negation (‘not any’), by a syntagmatic association between this word (after previously undergoing a process of semantic bleaching to mean ‘individual entity’ as a pronoun) and the grammatical expression of the negation. In this process, the negative particle no, frequently included in the co-text of the pronoun cap, is elided but it semantically contaminates the pronoun, as also happens with res, gens, pas (originally ‘thing’, ‘genre’, ‘step’) etc., which also became negative particles in Catalan. As these particles have been fixed in the grammatical structure of Catalan, their negative meaning has become independent of the co-text or context. For example, speakers can answer the question que` vols? (‘what do you want?’) by saying res (‘nothing’). Furthermore, expressions such as res t’importa (‘it is no concern of yours’), with a negative value, can appear without any negative particle. Another illustration of the importance of diachronic metonymization is the constitution of concessive connectives from other connectives or expressions with di¤erent meanings: temporal as in encara que or mentre que (‘still that’ ¼ ‘while’); a sense of approval as in be´ que (‘well what’ ¼ ‘accepting that’) or displeasure as in malgrat que, a despit de (‘despite’, ‘in spite of ’); or resumptives alluding anaphorically to the previous co-text as in tot i que, amb tot. (‘assuming all that’). In all these cases, metonymization is needed to explain how the process of (re)grammaticalization works. In the case of encara que, the most frequent concessive conjunction in Catalan, metaphor helps to explain the change from an imperfect tempo-aspectual meaning to a concessive value, but it would be inexplicable without considering the subjective value of counter expectative (Pe´rez Saldanya and Salvador 1995). However, the construction has become fixed and a connective is established as a context-independent concessive conjunction and hence the process of grammaticalization has been completed. Such diachronic processes of grammaticalization do not always reach their logical conclusion, but they often stop at intermediate stages, in a state of dialectal and/or stylistic variation, where rhetorical concessio (i.e., ‘yes, I accept that, but. . .’) can be expressed by means of semi-grammaticalized constructions and phraseological units that sometimes are very e¤ective as literary resources (Salvador 2010).

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4. Synchronic approach 4.1. Synonymy and style: free variation and pragmatic constraints Except in the case of catachresis, there are usually alternative ways of stating the content of metaphorical expressions, and therefore metaphor is strictly related to synonymy in the domain of functional linguistic variation. The concept of synonymy corresponds to a logico-referential vision of language, where it is presumed that two statements can be semantically equivalent. As opposed to the tendency for logico-symbolic languages to eliminate synonymy (as well as polysemy) in order to establish biunivocal correspondence between the lexical forms and their meaning, natural languages tend to produce several ways to express the same content. Moreover, words in a natural language usually have positive or negative connotations, that is, they can become euphoric or dysphoric due to their history of usage. Thus, a word like flexible (applied to a person) is today a euphoric adjective, while encolomar (‘to give someone an undesired thing, assignment or responsibility’) is a dysphoric verb, which etymologically comes from colom (‘pigeon’) because, according to Joan Coromines (1980–2001), pigeons used to lurk in holes in lofts, which was most troublesome for pigeon breeders. As a result of such heterogeneous value connotations of the available lexical items, synonymic options can be conventionally marked as euphoric or dysphoric. As a result of a semantic domain arousing a high degree of psychosocial interest, the relevant language develops and multiplies the semantically equivalent ways of talking about related entities, qualities or processes. This is often the case of subjects related to sexuality or death, where hyperlexicalization or an overabundance of lexical variation appears. The speaker can thus choose from a repertoire of lexical forms that di¤er in their contextual suitability (degree of formality, communicative purposes, intended degree of clarity – as in popularization or volition of opacity in slang – political correctness and so on). Euphemism has a socially modulated pragmatic dimension that varies across history and cultural environment. For example, today it is becoming less usual in sexual topics and more usual in connection with death and other topics of social communication. That is to say that most contemporary cultural communities tend today to reduce sexual taboos, but taboos about death develop in discursive practices.

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Indeed, direct references to sexual organs and sexual acts are today more permitted in di¤erent environments and genres of discourse, even in poetry, traditionally the reserve of a higher register. Thus, for example, the references to the masculine sexual organ as membre, perpal, ma`nec (‘member’, ‘hard rod’, ‘handle’) or many other more or less metaphorical but fully colloquial and explicit forms can be found in the poems of Vicent Andre´s Estelle´s, a Catalan poet from the second half of the 20th century. Nevertheless, the same author also mentions sexual referents in a more literary way, by means of metaphors like anagrames del semen (‘anagrams of semen’) or el grapat de safra` negre del sexe (‘handful of sexual black sa¤ron’) which suggest, respectively, the drawing of the drops of semen spilled on the skin and the pubic hair of a woman. In the same way, to speak of the event of dying as traspassar, deixar-nos, passar a millor vida or estirar la pota (‘to cross over’, ‘to leave us’, ‘to pass to a better life’, ‘to stretch a leg’ ¼ ‘to kick the bucket’) shows the scale of variation from the euphemism to the assumed dysphemism, with metaphorical modulations that colour the style in each case. Leaving aside the dialectal variation (geographical and social) related to synonymy, which we will not deal with here, there is functional language variation that mainly depends on context, in a broad sense of the term. In fact, we could speak stricto sensu of synonymy between two or more words (or between two or more utterances) only if these were fully interchangeable in all contexts. In the meaning of the term context I include here the linguistic co-text as much as the specific communicative situation and also the encyclopaedic, cultural and institutional framework of a discourse. From a pragmatic point of view, it is not possible to separate style and context, since each stylistic option in the repertoire of possibilities that a language o¤ers has di¤erent pragmatic constrictions (Maingueneau and Salvador 1995; Black 2006). Thus, for example, the co-textual and contextual distributions of the Catalan near-synonymous words risc and perill (‘risk/danger’) are different. After a study of the definitions and exemplifications found in dictionaries and after an examination of the corpus, we can a‰rm that perill is clearly dysphoric, while risc is ambiguous, since it presents some positive connotations, especially in domains like the ‘‘theology of risk’’ or business. While perill often appears syntagmatically associated with death ( perill de mort, ‘risk/danger of death’) and is understood as something unexpected coming from the outside, risc is mainly associated with less severe harm, and appears in proverbs where the risk is positively valued (qui no s’arrisca no pispa, ‘without risk there is no gain’). Nevertheless,

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nowadays, due to euphemism, the word risc tends to displace perill in many contexts. Thus, for example, the placard that announced perill de mort (‘risk/danger of death’) next to electrical posts has now often been substituted for the lighter expression risc ele`ctric (‘electrical risk/danger’). The ideas presented in this section do not only refer to the lexical variation and possibilities of metaphor, but to all the linguistic mechanisms and organization of a text. We can mention the following examples: the use of the diminutive; the definiteness of noun phrases (el/un/aquest/aquell, etc., ‘the/a/this/that’); the stylistic alternatives to nominalization; the choice of verbal aspectual forms to express past time, like imperfect (anava, ‘imperfect went/was going’), simple past (ana`, ‘he/she went’), periphrastic past (va anar, ‘he/she goes go’ ¼ ‘he/she went’), present perfect (ha anat, ‘he/she went/has gone’); the meaning of adjectives and their syntactic position (in Catalan adjectives can be placed before or after the noun, but the former option is more restricted than in other languages, such as Spanish); the various strategies of sentence structure and textuality (text connectives and other discourse markers: asyndetic versus syndetic style, anaphoric chains, etc.); the reproduction of voices by means of a direct, indirect or free indirect style; etc. Some of these aspects are dealt with in a monographic journal issue on pragma-stylistics (Pe´rez Saldanya and Salvador (eds.) 2000). 4.2. Metaphor and kinds of discourse The use of metaphor is conditioned, as are other stylistic resources, by contextual factors such as the kind of discourse where the metaphor may appear (thematic and communicative domains, genre of text, etc.). Certain types of innovative metaphors are more frequent in poetry than in other kinds of discourses that also display metaphoricity, as seen above. However, in scientific discourse there are usually more grammatical metaphors of nominalization than in poetry (and also many more cases of passivization, although in Catalan the use of this resource is more restricted than in some languages, such as English). This is because scientific discourse tends to have greater conceptual abstraction, taxonomization and the elimination of subjectivity: e¤ects associated with semantic nominalization. A sentence such as, for example, la saturacio´ demogra`fica ha estat determinada per la immigracio´ massiva (‘demographic saturation has been determined by mass immigration’) which is typical of a formal register, concentrates both nominalization and passivization.

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Elvira Teruel (1997) reports the metaphoricity of Catalan in news headlines and other journalistic texts. For her, headlines can be characterized as a type of speech act that combines an informative and an aesthetic dimension, in which metaphor (often a personification) and metonymy play a prominent role. Furthermore, in this discursive (sub)genre we find many phraseological units and intertextual references that recall social stereotypes and are an e‰cient communication tool. All this stylistic elaboration has an evident function of seducing readers and capturing their attention. Headlines combine puns and original metaphors that lend them a tone of expressive virginity that seeks to amaze the reader while at the same time o¤ering a wink of complicity that makes readers feel like members of a discourse community within the framework of a modern journalistic culture. The use of phraseologic units (collocations, proverbs, formulaic expressions or cliche´s) reinforces this socio-semiotic function of empathy and also contributes to making the reading routine, thereby facilitating the process of interpretation of a genre of texts aimed at a hurried reading that often takes place simultaneously with other activities. The following examples are taken from the work of Teruel: ‘‘El Espan˜ol entra en coma’’ (‘The football club Espan˜ol goes into a coma’); ‘‘Fraga guiara` el nou PP amb ma` de ferro dins d’un guant de seda’’ (‘Fraga will guide the new PP with an iron fist in a kid glove’); Ruiz Mateo te´ la paella pel ma`nec per suspendre el seu judici’’ (‘Ruiz Mateo seizes the frying-pan by the handle in order to suspend his trial’ ¼ ‘he holds all the cards’); ‘‘Apareixen les primeres esquerdes al mur’’ (‘the first cracks appear in the wall’ ¼ ‘things begin to get problematic’); ‘‘L’indult d’Armada passa l’examen al Suprem’’ (Armada’s pardon passes the Supreme Court examination’); ‘‘Felipe Gonza´lez i Alfonso Guerra continuen jugant al bo i al dolent’’ (‘Felipe Gonza´lez and Alfonso Guerra continue playing good cop and bad cop’). Some of these metaphors appear in phraseological units that are genuine stereotypes used in social communication practices with conventionalized pragmatic values: ma` de ferro en guant de seda, tenir la paella pel ma`nec, jugar al bo i al dolent. Phraseological units are often used in a special way that takes advantage of an existing stereotype to break or displace it, thanks to small changes in the form of these units or by means of placing them in an unexpected context. This pragmatic strategy combines the e¤ect of the well-known cliche´ and that of surprise: ‘‘Amazo`nia: el ca`ncer al pulmo´’’ (‘Amazonia: cancer in the lung [lung cancer]’); ‘‘Polo`nia, en peu de vaga’’ (‘Poland: on a strike [war] footing’); ‘‘A tot jazz’’ (‘at full jazz [speed]’).

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Phraseological units often have a metaphorical character (Sancho 2000), although cognitive linguistics has not paid much attention to this relationship (Glucksberg 2001; Billing and Macmillan 2005). Many such phraseologisms become common currency within the mass-media, go in and out of fashion, spread beyond the borders of a single language in this globalized world and are often indexed to a topic or to particular social setting (Salvador 2006). Political journalism has generated many (semi)metaphorical expressions that have become stereotypes in social communication. Some examples of this kind were coined in English in recent decades, usually in historical circumstances that are easy to recognize, and their use has become common in Catalan, either in a literal version or in an adapted one: friendly fire (in Catalan: foc amic); deep throat (gola pregona); smoking gun (literally pistola fumejant, or adapted amb les mans a la pasta: ‘to find someone with his/her hands in the dough’) to turn a blind eye ( fer l’ull gros, fer la vista grossa), witch-hunt (cac¸a de bruixes), etc. Expressions of this type have also been coined in Spanish and later used in Catalan, as is the case with quinta columna, for example. Created during the Spanish civil war, the term refers to the generals who rose against the Republic; Madrid was conquered thanks to four military columns that marched on the city but especially thanks to the ‘fifth column’ that worked from inside the capital to oust the legitimate Republican authorities. The expression, used in broadcasting harangues, was immediately adopted in other languages and it is still used today: fifth column, cinquie`me colonne, and cinquena columna in Catalan, as a metaphor for a resistance movement (euphoric) or organized sabotage (dysphoric). In recent Spanish politics, there is another metaphorical expression which has experienced great journalistic acceptance, that of geometria variable which is also used in Catalan journalism. The Spanish Socialist Party minority government that took o‰ce after the 2008 general election had to resort to alliances with di¤erent parties for each occasion, so that the arithmetic of a parliamentary majority corresponded to a di¤erent geometric distribution according to the alliances struck at specific moments. There are also expressions that have been coined in Catalan, such as aixo` no toca avui (‘it’s not time for that today’), that the ex-leader of the Catalan government Jordi Pujol popularized as a conversational and euphemistic way to refuse to answer some annoying questions asked by journalists. Another example is the proverb Diu el mort al degollat: qui t’ha fet eixe forat? (‘The dead man asks of the decapitated one: who left you with that gaping hole?’) as a way of disqualifying the adversary, who

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is portrayed as being worse than the speaker. These phenomena are particularly interesting for studies of discourse semiosis, since they mobilize expressions that are associated with certain social representations and which are index-linked to the scope of the public opinion of politics. On other occasions, phraseological units have a metadiscursive function, since they make explicit particular conversational behaviour, as in the case of ficar cullerada (‘to put the spoon in’), in reference to someone making an untimely contribution to a conversation between others; embolicar la troca (‘to tangle the thread’), when someone speaks in a confusing and uncooperative way; pixar fora de test (‘to piss out of the chamber pot’), when somebody makes an untimely intervention; no treure l’aigua clara (‘not to draw clear water’), if the result of a conversation or an explanation does not clarify the matter. I will finally make a brief reference to the problems raised by metaphorical expressions and other stylistic mechanisms in the activity of literary translation from other languages into Catalan. Josep Marco (2002) has studied questions of style, metaphor, nominalization and phraseology from the point of view of translation and he has applied them to the poetry of Auden. Heike van Lawick (2006) concentrated on the work of Brecht in her analysis of the questions posed by translation from German to Catalan, especially in the domain of phraseology and metaphor, and she produced an index of phraseological units, often with a somatic meaning, that are examined in her work.

5. Conclusion The contrastive study of metaphor and other stylistic devices in the scope of translation as a discursive activity is a key aspect in the study of pragmatics in Catalan. The use of metaphor is a pragmatic strategy in all languages and many metaphors move from one language to another by means of cultural relations and political influences (English and Spanish are often a source of metaphors for Catalan for socio-linguistic reasons). In Catalan, as in many other languages, metaphorical expressions often become conventionalized as phraseological units or cliche´s. They can even be grammaticalized through historical processes and produce structural linguistic elements at the levels of lexicon and grammar, as we have seen in this chapter. Furthermore, lexical metaphors, as well as metonymies and grammatical metaphors, are stylistic factors when we consider functional linguistic

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variation. The use of metaphor can be seen as the result of individual choices, as can be seen to happen in original metaphors in poetry. Metaphor and metonymy are also powerful tools for argumentation and persuasion. Nevertheless, we have to bear in mind that all stylistic resources are conditioned by pragmatic constraints through registers, genres and discursive patterns that restrict the freedom of the speakers with regard to their linguistic choices. This chapter has examined some of these patterns of use in several kinds of Catalan discourse as well as considering the most important studies carried out by Catalan researchers into pragmatics. Bibliographic references Billing, Michael, and Katie Macmillan 2005 Metaphor, idiom and ideology: the search for ‘no smoking guns’ across time. Discourse & Society 16 (4): 459–480. Black, Elisabeth 2006 Pragmatic stylistics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Black, Max 1962 Models and metaphors: Studies in language and philosophy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Colo´n, Germa` 1978 La llengua catalana en els seus textos II. Barcelona: Curial. Coromines, Joan 1980–2001 Diccionari etimolo`gic i complementari de la llengua catalana. Barcelona: Curial. Cuenca, Maria Josep, and Joseph Hilferty 1999 Introduccio´n a la lingu¨´ıstica cognitiva. Barcelona: Ariel. Evans, Vyvyan 2007 A glossary of Cognitive Linguistics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Geeraerts, Dirk, and Hubert Cuykens (eds.) 2007 The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics. Oxford / New York: Oxford University Press. Glucksberg, Sam 2001 Understanding figurative language. From metaphors to idioms. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Goosens, Louis 2002 Metaphtonymy: The interaction of metaphor and metonymy in expressions for linguistic actions. In Metaphor and metonymy in comparison and contrast, Rene´ Dirven, and Ralph Po¨rings (eds.), 349–377. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter. Halliday, Michael, and Christian Matthiessen 2004 An Introduction to Functional Grammar. 3d ed. London: Arnold.

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Hiltunen, Risto, and Janne Ska¤ari (eds.) 2003 Discourse Perspectives on English: Medieval to Modern. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Lako¤, George 1993 The contemporary theory of metaphor. In Metaphor and Thought, Andrew Ortony (ed.), 202–251, 2d ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lako¤, George, and Mark Johnson 1980 Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Maingueneau, Dominique, and Vicent Salvador 1995 Elements de lingu¨´ıstica per al discurs literari. Vale`ncia: Ta`ndem edicions. Marco, Josep 2002 El fil d’Ariadna. Ana`lisi estilı´stica i traduccio´ litera`ria. Vic: Eumo editorial. Meseguer, Lluı´s (ed.) 1994 Meta´fora i creativitat. Castello´: Publicacions de la Universitat Jaume I. Pe´rez Saldanya, Manuel 1996 Gramaticalitzacio´ i reana`lisi: el cas del perfet perifra`stic en catala`. In Actes del Dese` Col  loqui Internacional de Llengua i Literatura Catalanes. Vol. 3, 71–110. Barcelona: Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat. Pe´rez Saldanya, Manuel, and Vicent Salvador 1995 Fraseologia de l’encara i processos de gramaticalitzacio´. Caplletra 18: 85–108. Pe´rez Saldanya, Manuel, and Vicent Salvador (eds.) 2000 Monographic volume on ‘‘Pragmaestilı´stica’’. Caplletra 29. Salvador, Vicent 1984 El gest poe´tic. Cap a una teoria del poema, Barcelona: Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat / Institut Interuniversitari de Filologia Valenciana. Salvador, Vicent 2000 L’estil nominalitzat. Caplletra 29: 69–82. Salvador, Vicent 2006 Engegueu el ventilador amb les mans ben netes: Fraseologia, meta`fora i interdiscurs en la comunicacio´ polı´tica. In El discurs prefabricat II. Fraseologia i comunicacio´ social, Vicent Salvador, and Laia Climent (eds.), 23–51. Castello´: Publicacions de la Universitat Jaume I. Salvador, Vicent 2008 Rhetoric and stylistics in Spain and Portugal in the 20th and 21st centuries. In Rhetoric and Stylistics. An International Handbook of Historical and Systematic Research, Ulla Fix, Andreas Gardt, and Joachim Knape (eds.), I, 226–244. Berlin / New York: Walter De Gruyter.

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Salvador, Vicent 2010 Entre la reto`rica i la grama`tica: estructures de la concessivitat en catala`. In Actes del Catorze` Congre´s Internacional de Llengua i Literatura Catalanes, Vol. 3, 17–42. Barcelona: Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat. Salvador, Vicent, and Antonia Sa´nchez Macarro 1991 From Linguistics to Literary theory: some American contributions. In: Studies in American Literature, Antonia Sa´nchez Macarro (ed.), Vale`ncia: Publicacions de la Universitat de Vale`ncia. Sancho, Pelegrı´ 2000 Introduccio´ a la fraseologia. Aplicacio´ al valencia` col  loquial. Vale`ncia: Editorial Denes. Serrano, Sebastia` 1978 Literatura i teoria del coneixement. Barcelona: Laia. Teruel, M. Elvira 1997 Reto`rica, informacio´ i meta`fora. Ana`lisi aplicada als mitjans de comunicacio´ de massa. Barcelona: Universitat Auto`noma de Barcelona / Universitat de Vale`ncia / Universitat Jaume I. Traugott, Elizabeth, and Richard Dasher 2002 Regularity in semantic change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tuson, Jesu´s 2008 Aixo` e´s (i no e´s) allo`. La invasio´ de la meta`fora? Badalona: Ara Llibres. Van Lawick, Heike 2006 Meta`fora, fraseologia i traduccio´. Aplicacio´ als somatismes en una obra de Bertolt Brecht. Aache: Shaker Verlag.

Doing learning languages in a multilingual context: Pragmatic aspects of classroom discourse in Catalonia Luci Nussbaum and Josep M. Cots 1. Introduction The study of classroom interaction is a common topic in pragmatics, included within the more general aim of understanding institutionally situated language use. In this sense, the classroom can be seen as a privileged site to observe how a group of individuals are expected to engage in simultaneously constructing knowledge and social relationships. The complexity of the enterprise of ‘doing learning’ and ‘doing community’ at the same time becomes even more salient in a multilingual context such as a Catalan school, in which the three curricular languages (Catalan, Spanish and English or another foreign language) are taught to pupils, some of whom speak other languages at home. Compulsory education in Catalonia can be considered as ‘‘Catalan’’. Indeed, policy documents establish that Catalan is the o‰cial language for the relationships with families, between teachers and between teachers and pupils. Catalan is not only a curricular subject and a medium of instruction for the vast majority of subjects, but it is also considered a tool for guaranteeing social cohesion. Spanish and English (and other languages as a second option) are also taught as a subject matter and they can be used as languages of instruction. Educational language policies are based on a one-language-at-a-time rule, according to which languages should be clearly separated. This is consistent with the belief, which is shared by many language and non-language teachers, that mixing and switching languages represents an obstacle for learning languages. Nevertheless, our data show that monolingualism is an exception and multilingual practices, which are frequent outside schools, are also present in educational settings. Our hypothesis is that these kinds of hybrid and plural practices sca¤old the pupil’s language learning and socialisation processes. This contribution aims to focus on talk-in-interaction in classrooms in Catalonia, taking into account its pragmatic dimension –i.e. how people deal with their linguistic resources– to make links among three main

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issues: a) language acquisition, b) multilingual uses, and c) the way participants implement/understand institutional policies in their day-to-day practices. Section 2 consists of a review of the main elements of the educational language policy in Catalonia and the research that has been carried out in relation to it. The pragmatic interactionist perspective adopted in the study is presented in section 3, in which we connect pragmatics with the study of multilingualism as an interactional resource for the development of particular social/institutional practices. Section 4 presents the context for the data employed for this study as well as the research programme within which the data was collected. Section 5 constitutes the core of the chapter, since it involves the analysis of several extracts from the data through which language switch is presented essentially as a resource to shape classroom activity and to construct particular identities. The chapter closes with section 6, in which an argument is made for the adoption of an interactionist perspective in the analysis of multilingualism in education.

2. Language policy and practices at school in Catalonia Catalonia is, within the Spanish State, an autonomous community with two co-o‰cial languages: Spanish –also known as Castilian– and Catalan. To ensure the transmission of Catalan among the population who did not acquire it in the family and in order to balance the social use of the two languages, Catalan is ‘the language’ of compulsory education. In policy documents, Catalan is considered both as a subject and as a language of instruction for most of the academic subjects. Catalan also tends to be the language of social relations between teachers, between students and between the institution and families. In the areas of Catalonia where the population mainly speaks Spanish, the schools apply bilingual programmes based on immersion in order to ensure the rapid learning of Catalan. Spanish and foreign languages are also taught as a subject or as a language of instruction, or both. The educational policy establishes that at the end of compulsory education, all students should master both Catalan and Spanish and must have acquired some skills in (at least) one foreign language. This legislative landscape adopts, in practice, variable geometries depending on the geographical areas and the ordinary language uses among the population. Thus in areas where people use mostly Catalan, there is a certain continuity between linguistic practices at school and outside school. On the contrary, in areas where people speak mostly Spanish or

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other languages, the breakdown between neighbourhood language and school language seems more evident. Nevertheless, multilingual practices in Catalan-Spanish or in other languages are always possible in, for instance, face-to-face communicative encounters, through the mass media, or simply through street signs. 2.1. Between monolingual and multilingual language policy at school The linguistic heterogeneity in the school is recognized by the educational authorities in their requirement for every school to develop its own ‘school language project’ (Projecte Lingu¨´ıstic de Centre, PLC), which is seen as a means to adapt language teaching and use to the linguistic diversity of students and their learning needs. In 2004, the educational authorities in Catalonia established a new structure aimed at both promoting Catalan learning and teaching and, in doing this, integrating the pupils of immigrant origin. This structure is defined as a ‘project for language and social cohesion’ (Pla per a la llengua i la cohesio´ social, LIC: Generalitat de Catalunya, 2004). The LIC establishes that Catalan, intercultural education, and social cohesion should be the basis for any educational action. The relationship between social cohesion and the Catalan language is based on a double goal: (i) guaranteeing the right of the population to use Catalan in all circumstances of daily life, and (ii) avoiding the creation of two linguistic communities (a bilingual Catalan/Spanish speaking community and a monolingual Spanish speaking community). The LIC project takes into account the multilingual competences of students (in Spanish as well as other languages spoken by the pupils of immigrant origin), and it aims to improve skills in Spanish and in foreign languages. However, the main aim of the LIC project is to make it possible for students to acquire academic and conversational skills to participate in monolingual practices –oral or written– in Catalan. For this reason, the document insists on the importance of the use of Catalan in every instance of the school life. This ‘o‰cial landscape’ contrasts with practices in schools and classrooms, which are often multilingual. Before analysing these practices, we will briefly review some studies that have explored multilingualism in classrooms in Catalonia. 2.2. Researching multilingualism in the classroom in Catalonia Perhaps the most direct origins of the Catalan tradition in researching multilingualism can be found in the studies of Catalan-Spanish language

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contact that began to appear during the first half of the 1980s (Arnau 1980; Calsamiglia and Tuso´n 1980; Payrato´ 1985). However, it is not until the second half of that decade and well into the 1990s that we find research on this topic adopting a pragmatic perspective, even if the word ‘pragmatic(s)’ is hard to find in the titles of research which at the time would be classified within the field of sociolinguistics or applied linguistics. In the former field, the pioneering work of Tuso´n (1985), based on interactional sociolinguistics to study language contact in the schools of the city of Barcelona, was followed by other research such as that by Boix (1993) or Pujolar (1997), both of which focus on language contact among youngsters in the Barcelona metropolitan area. The second impulse for a pragmatic perspective in the study of language contact during that period came from the field of foreign language teaching and it is exemplified in the work of Nussbaum (1990) and Cambra (1991). The specific foreign language context in which the work of these authors was developed places them in the privileged position of being the first research attempts in Catalonia to study the pragmatic dynamics of a situation involving the interplay of more than two languages, the foreign language plus Catalan and Spanish. Nevertheless, it is with the arrival of significant numbers of immigrants to Catalonia during the 1990s that schools began to be looked at as sites of multilingual practices and investigated as such. Some research focusing on immigrant students has been approached from what could be defined as a monolingual perspective, since it has concentrated on the success/failure of the process of learning Catalan or Spanish. However, one of the most systematic attempts to consider the multilingual repertoire of immigrant students in Catalonia as a whole is represented by Nussbaum and other members of her research group (e.g. Nussbaum 2005; Nussbaum and Unamuno (eds.) 2006; Codo´ and Nussbaum 2007; Unamuno 2008; Cots and Nussbaum 2008), the main feature of this work being its focus on the role of code-switching for language learning and identity construction. The latest development in education that has brought research on multilingualism to the fore in the last decade in Catalonia has been the generalisation of the educational approach known as Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) at all educational levels. As in the case of the foreign language classroom, the CLIL classroom in Catalonia constitutes an exciting context for the observation of multilingual practices since there is a minimum of three languages at play: the ‘o‰cial’ language in which the subject is taught plus the two other languages of the com-

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munity. Research based on the detailed analysis of the interaction that takes place in the CLIL classroom has only recently started (Dooly & Moore 2009; Moore 2010; Moore & Nussbaum, 2011). 3. The social construction of multilingualism: a pragmatic interactionist approach Following the classic work of Leech (1983: 10–11), it could be said that the link between pragmatics and multilingualism falls within the ‘‘less abstract field of socio-pragmatics’’, which, in contrast with the field of general pragmatics, does not exclude ‘‘more specific ‘local’ conditions’’ in ‘‘the study of the general conditions of the communicative use of language’’. Furthermore, Leech establishes another distinction between pragmalinguistics and socio-pragmatics. He considers the former as ‘‘language specific’’, in the sense that the focus of the analysis is the set of resources available in a particular language to construct and negotiate specific meanings. Socio-pragmatics, on the other hand, is considered as ‘‘culturespecific’’ and the ‘‘sociological interface of pragmatics’’. From the point of view of the study of multilingual/multicultural speakers’ verbal behaviour, the definitions Leech gives are problematic because they seem to be based on a monolingual/monocultural view of language use, according to which the description of the verbal resources adopted by a speaker in a particular situation must be ascribed to a particular language or a particular culture. In this sense, it is interesting to point out that around the same time that Leech published his work, sociolinguists such as Gumperz (1982), Myers-Scotton (1983), or Auer (1984, 1998, 1999), were setting up the main premises for the study of bilingual/ multilingual conversation (Cashman 2008: 275–6): 1. Code-switching should be seen as an ordinary communicative practice for multilingual speakers and should not be assessed in terms of correctness or incorrectness. 2. A speaker’s bilingual/multilingual repertoire is not qualitatively di¤erent from a monolingual speaker’s multi-variety repertoire. Both repertoires are constantly available to the speakers and they may make use of them for communicative purposes. 3. Research on bilingualism/multilingualism cannot be based on native speaker’s intuitions (as in the case of monolingualism), but on the analysis of empirical data from situated communication.

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The study of multilingualism, as it is approached in this paper, responds to Verschueren’s (1999) pragmatic perspective, according to which pragmatics is understood as a theory of adaptation, which essentially aims to answer the following question: ‘How does language function in the lives of human beings?’ (ibid, 8). From this point of view, language is seen as a resource for adapting to particular cognitive, social and cultural environments, and ‘function’ refers to the speaker’s intent in undertaking a specific goal-oriented linguistic action and the listener’s interpretation of that intent. This chapter may be considered a contribution to pragmatics, as it involves a detailed micro-analysis of talk-in-interaction, focusing on the dynamicity of communication and trying to explain the sequence of linguistic actions and their relationship with the orientations participants make turn-by-turn. This micro-analysis is informed by two complementary approaches to multilingual talk-in-interaction: ethnography and conversation analysis. The ethnography of communication (EC henceforth) explores multilingual interaction as a type of social and cultural practice by resorting to a ‘reflexive’ methodology based on the researcher’s capacity to engage in participant observation and to describe, reflect upon and interpret this observation. Following Heller (2008), the ethnographic approach aims to discover the role that multilingual communicative practices play in the processes of categorization, participation and a‰liation through which symbolic and material resources are distributed and, ultimately, social reality is constructed. Focusing on communicative practices in a particular social institution such as the school allows us to uncover the dialectical relationships between agency and structure, interaction and institutional regimes, and practice and ideology/discourse. Since these communicative practices are characterised by the participants’ multilingual repertoire, this specific research is interested, first, in describing and understanding the nature of this repertoire and, second, analysing how this repertoire comes into play in the particular educational context of Catalonia. For the accomplishment of this objective, the approach of conversation analysis (henceforth CA) is particularly relevant, as it centres on the sequential detail of the interaction (Ten Have 2004) and the place at which the code-switch occurs. One of the best examples of the complementary nature of EC and CA for the study of conversational code-switching in everyday interaction is the work of Gumperz. Although his first studies can be considered as representative of the functionalist tradition (Blom and Gumperz 1972),

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Gumperz (1982) suggests the notion of contextualization cue to explain how speakers attribute sense to language switches during the interaction. For the author, code-switching is a resource for the speaker to index his/ her addressee some alteration in the conversational context. Starting from the concepts of contextualization cue, Auer (1984) considers codeswitching as a speakers’ resource to index what they are doing through the use of di¤erent languages: either to contrast the current activity with the previous one (discourse-related code-switching) or to signal their preference/ competence to choose a language di¤erent from that used by their interlocutor or by themselves in previous turns (participant-related codeswitching). With these two concepts it is possible to explain the language uses in which the participants can resolve, through code-switching, problems related to the organisation of interaction and/or their language competence (Nussbaum 1990). Moreover, language choice could be a resource for categorising the ongoing action or to show a‰liation to a community of practice (Cots and Nussbaum 2008). In this chapter, we also take into account the way participants categorise the resources they use and categorise themselves by selecting a type of resource. Membership Categorization Analysis (Sacks 1992) is complementary to the sequential analysis of interaction (Mondada 2007). In educational settings, people can be described as students, learners, teachers, Catalan speakers, etc.; the question is how participants make such categories accountable. This is sometimes achieved by nominating them, but is primarily achieved by ‘doing being’; that is to say, acting as a member of a category through ‘category-bound activities’ (Sacks 1992, 1992; Hester & Eglin 1997; Garafanga 2001, 2005). Another important influence in this study is the work of the Swiss linguists Lu¨di and Py (see Lu¨di and Py [1986] 2003; Moore and Gajo, 2009, for a general presentation) focusing on the analysis of plurilingual uses in informal and formal second language learning settings. In their framework describing the axes along which any given interaction could be situated, these linguists distinguish between exolingual sequences, in which at least one of the participants displays di‰culties related to the communicative resources for speaking or for understanding, and endolingual sequences, in which no such di‰culties appear. They also di¤erentiate between plurilingual sequences, where more than one language is at play, and unilingual sequences, in which speakers draw on just one language. The combination of the two axes results in four possible types of sequences, which can be linked to Auer’s understanding of code-switching significance (Nussbaum 1990). In endolingual-plurilingual sequences, the use of

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more than one language can constitute a resource employed in order to attain situated goals in the construction of discourse; this being discourserelated code-switching in Auer’s terms, as cited above. In exolingualplurilingual sequences, the use of more than one language can be a resource to prevent or repair problems encountered in communication and, at the same time, may be a cue to cope with di‰culties in expressing or understanding meaning; in this sense, it may be attributable to speaker or listener competence, or participant-related code-switching, in Auer’s terms. The work done by the Swiss linguists questions the native-speaker as a model for understanding the language use of plurilingual people and establishes plurilingualism as a field in its own right. In doing so, this research has naturally considered in the same sphere domains that have usually been studied separately; i.e. code-switching, language contact and second language acquisition.

4. The contexts of data collection The data presented in this chapter have been collected during the development of a series of research projects1 in which the authors have taken part together with several other researchers in the course of the last ten years. These projects have been carried out in primary and secondary education institutions in urban areas where a very high percentage of the population is of immigrant origin, who arrived in Catalonia in two di¤erent migration waves: (i) state internal migration during the 1950s and 1960s, and (ii) state-external migration during the first decade of the 21st century. For the two groups of population Spanish, as their most frequent ordinary means of expression, is the language of primary or secondary socialisation and a sort of lingua franca to communicate with Catalan speakers. The basic goal of the research programme has been twofold: (a) assessing the impact of specific forms of language socialization proposed by the school; (b) exploring, in cooperation with teachers, new formulas for language teaching/learning. The second part of the goal is motivated by our aim, as language teacher trainers, to adapt the teaching practices of future teachers to the educational needs of the population. However, this 1. We acknowledge the support of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation for the following projects: SEJ2004- 06723- C02- 01; SEJ2004-06723-C0202/EDUC; SEJ2007-62147-EDUC; EDU2010-17859-EDUC.

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second objective has also been a fruitful strategy to obtain access to the institutions, presenting the members of the team as collaborators and colleagues, rather than as researchers only interested in gathering data (Nussbaum and Unamuno 2006). Specifically, the research programme has focused on Catalan school contexts in which children are expected to learn/use simultaneously a minimum of three languages (Catalan, Spanish and one foreign language). In this multilingual context the aim is to answer the following questions: (a) How do students articulate new multilingual skills with those they already possess in their original languages or varieties? (b) How do they construct their views regarding the sociolinguistic context where they live? (c) How do they re-construct their multilingual identity? The main source of the data for the projects has been interactional discourse by students and teachers in di¤erent school settings and activities, collected mostly in the form of audio-recordings through participant and non-participant observation, in the mainstream classroom, including both regular events and activities specially suggested by the researchers, and involving either the whole group or pairs of students. Another important source of data has been the reception classroom, which recently-arrived students of immigrant origin must attend for some hours every week to speed up their integration into the school system. Further data has also been collected in ‘informal educational spaces’ such as the playground or school trips. Non participant-observation during sta¤ meetings and individual interviews and focus group sessions with both teachers and students have also been an important source of data. Finally, in the analyses a wide range of ‘o‰cial’ language policy documents issued at di¤erent levels of the educational institution have also been taken into account.

5. Being and doing through interaction Multilingual language use is sensitive to the activities and social context in which it takes place, the expectations of the speakers, and their rights and obligations. Furthermore, code-switching can index values, representations, ideologies, categorisations of languages, and users’ competences and preferences. Nevertheless, as it has been pointed out, the social meaning of code-switching cannot be attributed a priori to any of the conceptualisations mentioned, but needs to be identified in particular local occurrences

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within specific interactional sequences. This is the case even when the speakers have explicitly formulated rules of language usage and general guidelines on how to carry out the activity (Mondada 2007). The meaning or value of code-switching depends on its interactional location: its productivity must be found in (i) the contrast that the adoption of one language represents in relation to the preceding interactional sequences, and (ii) the contextualisation cues available to the addressee to grasp the meaning of the switch. In the same way, it is not always possible to link a priori code-switching with a specific meaning or function, nor to relate a particular use of languages to a specific social identity, unless the speakers orient themselves to making some of elements of their identity interactionally relevant, as several authors mentioned above have pointed out. In this section, these premises will be illustrated by analysing a set of data. In section 5.1, the authors explore an extract in which codeswitching becomes a resource for the teacher to orient and structure the di¤erent micro-activities that constitute a classroom speech event. In the following section (5.2), extracts where code-switching is a participants’ resource to di¤erentiate the two micro-activities which are necessary to accomplish a classroom task (managing it and accomplish the instruction) will be analysed. In the third place (section 5.3), two extracts in which code-switching is being used by speakers in order to take part in an activity avoiding face problems and maintaining the fluency of the activity will be looked at. Finally, section 5.4, explores two extracts in which the speakers orient themselves towards a Catalan learner identity. The described phenomena are not always mutually exclusive, but sometimes complementary. The analysis aims to recover the participants’ perspective, by taking into account their interpretation of what they are doing in each specific local context and how the micro-context that has been created through their participation contributes to shaping the activity. 5.1. Orienting and structuring the activity Extract 1 (see the appendix for the transcription conventions) belongs to a complex interaction not only because the speakers resort to using three languages but also because in a very short period of time they perform several micro-activities. The interaction took place in the course of a geography lesson following a CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) approach, in which the language of instruction is English and the teacher (TEA) is aiming to teach her pupils (aged 11–12; A1, A2. . .) about the use of colour symbols in maps.

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(1) 61. 62. 63. 64. 65.

341

TEA: you can see di¤erent colours\| can you see di¤erent colours/| yes or no/| can you see di¤erent colours here/| A1: yes\| TEA: yes que´/| i can see  – | ‘yes what/| I can see  – |’

66. 67.

A1: {(DC) I can see–| di¤erent colours\}| TEA: ok\|| the colours\| vale/| los colores\| the colours have\| ‘ok\|| the colours\| ok/| the colours\| the colours have\|’

68.

the colours have a meaning\| llevan un significado\| ‘the colours have a meaning\| carry a meaning\|’

sı´/| aixo` ho heu parlat alguna vegada XX\| amb

69.

‘yes/|have you talked about this before XX\| with’

el de socio o no\| sı´ o no/|que´ vol dir  dark browns/|

70.

‘the socio teacher or not\| yes or no/|what does it mean dark browns/|

71.

por ejemplo/| los marrones/| ‘for instance/| the browns/|’

72.

A2:

tierra\| ‘land \|’

73.

TEA: ya\|| co´mo tierra/ eh/|| ‘alright\|| how land/ eh/||’

74. 75. 76. 77.

A2: TEA: A3: TEA:

earth\| no\| it’s the world\|| all the world\|| soil or  – ground\| ground\| yes\| very well\| ground\| a ver\| ‘ground\| yes\| very well\| ground\| let’s see\|’

78.

por que´ son diferents esos colours/|| a ver \| ‘why are these colours di¤erent /|| let’s see\|’

79.

venga nens\ le voy a dar can˜a a la profe de ‘come on kids\ I’m going to have a word with your teacher of ’

80.

sociales\| eh/| a ver\| tu´ \ eh/| a ver\| venga\| vamos \| ‘social sciences\| eh/| let’s see\| you\ eh/| let’s see \| come on\| let’s go\|’

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Luci Nussbaum and Josep M. Cots

A4:

{(DC) el color marron e´s de terra\| el color verd e´s ‘{(DC) the brown colour is for earth\| the green colour is’

82.

de hierba\}| ‘for grass\}|’

83.

TEA: herba\| clar\| {(A) English \| in English\}| ‘grass\| of course\| {(A) English \| in English\}|’

84. 85.

A4: and blue\| river  –| TEA: yes\| river\| and what is this/|

TEA has put up a map on the blackboard and, in an attempt to direct the students’ attention to the contents of the lesson, she asks (line 61) if the they have noticed the di¤erent colours on the map. Student A1 responds a‰rmatively, but the teacher’s expectation for the students to supply a formally correct answer is not fulfilled until line 66. The particle que´ (what) in line 65 is uttered in Spanish by the teacher in order to focus the attention of the student on the form of his response and to request him to reformulate it. This sequence closes with the ok at the beginning of line 67 and TEA returns to the meaning-focused activity on the colour symbols employed in cartography. The teacher carries out this activity by resorting to the contrast between English and Spanish. However, at one point the teacher interrupts the activity again to ask, this time in Catalan, if the students have already become acquainted with the contents of the lesson in another subject (lines 69–70). After this the teacher returns to the main activity by asking students about the meaning of the brown colour, translating her question in English and probably gazing towards A2. The student continues in the same language used by the teacher and answers in Spanish (line 72). TEA accepts his answer but she seems to want to go back to the activity ‘‘class-in-English’’ (or, at least, A2 interprets it this way). TEA does not accept A2’s answer and asks for a more accurate one (73). A3 utters another answer and the teacher accepts it in the first part of line 77. Later on TEA returns to the didactic activity focusing on the content and requests the participation of the students using an appellative form in Catalan (nens, 79). Since she does not obtain an answer, she makes a new comment about the Social Sciences teacher, and repeats the request to the students again, probably addressing A4, who replies in Catalan in line 81. The teacher corrects the word uttered last (hierba), according to her point of view, in Spanish, accepts the answer and immediately switches back to the frame ‘English as the language of instruction’, as can be seen in the following turns.

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From a strictly functional perspective of language use (every language is used to carry out di¤erent activities) it may be said that the teacher uses Spanish to facilitate the students’ understanding and to manage the activity (requesting the students’ production of formulaic expressions in English or encouraging participation) and Catalan to make side comments. However, this approach does not explain why she makes a similar comment about the Social Sciences teacher firstly in Catalan (lines 69–70) and later in Spanish (line 79). Neither could we explain A4’s answer in line 81. It is more plausible to consider these language switches as part of the resources that are available to the teacher to orientate and organise her activity, establishing contrasts and boundaries between di¤erent microactivities located in specific moments of the interaction: demanding formulation in English (line 65); framing her discourse by means of specific markers: vale (67), sı´ (69), etc.; comments about to the Social Sciences teacher; facilitating understanding. Adopting Auer’s terminology, these cases of code-switching can be qualified as discourse-related. The students orient their interactional behaviour towards the teacher’s behaviour either by adopting the language she has used in the last part of her turn (lines 64, 72) or by interpreting what she is demanding (line 74, 76, 81). A4’s behaviour in line 81 is still uncertain to us: it could be due to his preference for using Catalan or to his low competence to participate in English. Nevertheless, the extract illustrates the mutual attribution of bilingual competences in Spanish and Catalan in a context of foreign language learning. In this section we have analysed the role of code-switching in a teachercentred activity. The following section explores two sequences in which students manage the learning task by themselves. 5.2. Changing frames In extract (2), Lluı´s (an 11 year-old local boy) and Patricia (an 11 year-old girl from Ecuador who had been schooled for a year in Catalonia at the moment of the data collection), have been asked to associate the objects drawn on a card and justify their associations in order to play the ‘memory’ game afterwards. (2) 41.

PAT: vale\| la la bicicleta i el taxi so´n iguals perque` so´n ‘ok\| the bicycle and the taxi are equal because they are’

42.

transport\| ‘transport\|’

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Luci Nussbaum and Josep M. Cots

LLU: {(P) vale\} ‘{(P) ok\} ’

44.

PAT: vinga ahora te toca a ti \ ‘come on now it’s your turn \’

45.

LLU: espera\| aixo` i aixo` perque` so´n grocs\| ‘ wait\| this and this because they are yellow\|’

46.

PAT: pero tienes que decir el nombre –| ‘but you have to say the name –|’

47.

LLU: e  les monedes i la gorra perque` so´n grocs\ ‘e  the coins and the cap because they are yellow\’

48.

PAT: la bu_ la bufanda i els guants per_ perque` so´n per_| ‘the sc_ the scarf and the gloves bec_ because they are for’

49.

LLU: fred\| ‘cold\|’

50.

PAT: per abrigar\| ‘to keep warm\|’

51.

LLU: per perque` so´n prendes de roba\| ‘because they’re clothing items\|’

In line 41 Patricia suggests a particular syntactic pattern to carry out the task and Lluı´s accepts it by using a bivalent lexical token employed in both Catalan and Spanish (Woolard 1999; Nussbaum 2006). Patricia responds in Catalan (vinga), but she continues in Spanish with a regulating activity (selecting Lluı´s as the next speaker). Lluı´s suggests an association of objects in Catalan and Patricia (line 46) reminds him, in Spanish, that the researcher, acting as a teacher, has asked them to name the objects. Lluı´s does it in Catalan, and Patricia suggests another association in Catalan. They end up co-producing this association in Catalan (48–51). Depite the bivalency of certain elements, it may be observed that Patricia and Lluı´s use Catalan to deal with the task and Spanish when they regulate it. Code-switching is then a discourse-related resource which is used to contextualize the micro-activities needed to do the task. In extract 3 there appear three boys of immigrant origin. Raul (RAU) and Khawar (KHA) were asked to find di¤erences between two pictures; according to the instructions, the activity must be done in English. Raul talks about an object in both pictures, and Khawar asks him what the matter is with this object. Then, Cecı´lia (CEC), one of the researchers, takes part in the interaction to remind the students about the instruction

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345

to use English (3). The boys name objects in English (lines 6-10) until Jony (JON), a classmate, takes part in the interaction and is greeted by Raul. Jony, grabs the tape-recorder and places it in front of the mouth of Khawar, as if he were introducing Khawar to an imaginary radio audience (12), while Raul continues with the activity. From this moment until line 17, Jony and Raul simulate a sort of radio report in Catalan. In line 18, Khawar returns to the activity, managing it in Spanish, as Patricia did in extract 2. (3) 1.

RAU: el dinero\| ‘the money\|’

2.

KHA: que´ pasa con el dinero/ ‘what’s the matter with the money/ ’

3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

CEC: KHA: RAU: KHA: RAU: KHA:

in english\| only in english\|| yes\| XXX XXX\| with money\| the picture XXX\| XXX apple\|

9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

RAU: KHA: RAU: JON: RAU: JON: RAU:

apple /| apple\| ah\| hello\| XXX| yes\| XXX| hello\| this is a khawar\| banana\| this is khawar\| khawar/| this is khawar\| hello hello my name is Raul i so´c el millor del mo´n\| ‘hello hello my name is Raul I am the best in the world\’

16.

JON: no\| XXX una merda XXX| ets el david bisbal\| ‘no\| XXX a piece of shit XXX| you are David Bisbal \|’

17.

RAU: sı´ \| jo so´c el david bisbal ‘yes\| I am David Bisbal \|’

18.

KHA: tienes que preguntar\| cua´nto valen e –| las las manzanas/| ‘you have to ask \| how much e –| the the apples/|’

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Besides the contrast between task management and task completion, the students in extract 3 use their available resources to radically change the frame. In this particular case, contrary to the previous situation, Catalan cannot be linked to a school activity. Catalan is part of a playful activity, which does not fall within the expectations of the ‘school frame’. This can be further evidence that it is neither possible to attribute a priori specific functions to languages nor to correlate languages with fixed identities. Speakers choose from their available resources to accomplish practical activities and to adopt flexible and situated identities. 5.3. Code-switching as a tool for participation In all the cases studied until now, participants’ code-switching has been considered as a contextualizing procedure, either within the same turn or between turns produced by di¤erent speakers. However, in our corpus there appears a high number of instances in which code-switching is not associated with a shift of activity but rather with the speaker’s language preference/competence (according to Auer’s terminology). In some cases, when students choose a language di¤erent to the one required by the teacher, the student is reminded by the teacher to return to the ‘o‰cial’ language (as we saw in extract 3). However, in the majority of cases, teachers simply reformulate the students’ utterance (as seen in the following extract) or do not react at all to the language-switch. Having the opportunity to use the preferred language, i.e. the one in which the speaker feels more competent, increases the possibility of participation. In extract 4, collected in a secondary school class (14–15 yearold pupils), the boys are discussing a video documentary they have watched, in which a teacher does not allow a female student to enter her class wearing a veil. The girl takes it o¤ after a long conversation with the teacher, but when she enters the class she can see that many students wear other garments on their heads. In the extract, the teacher (TEA) leads the activity in Catalan and Ariadna (ARI) and Alba (ALB) use the same language. However, Pene`lope (PEN), Osvaldo (OSV), Quintin (QUI) and Ramiro (RAM) participate in Spanish. (4) 472. ARI:

jo he posat eh  –| esta` enfadada amb la professora perque` ‘I’ve put eh  –| she’s upset with the teacher because’

473.

tots porten alguna cosa al cap\| ‘they all wear something on their heads’

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347

474. TEA: que tots porten alguna cosa \| eh  alba/| ‘that all of them wear something\| eh  Alba/|’

475. ALB: quan veu que hi ha gent que porta gorres ‘when she sees that there are people who are wearing caps’

476.

mocadors_| i ella no pot portar el seu vel – | ‘headscarves_|and she cannot wear her veil – |’

477. TEA: molt be´ \| eh  pene`lope/| ‘very well \| eh  Pene`lope/|’

478. PEN: eh  que que to –|| que se esta` mirando todos los de la clase\| ‘eh  that that ev –|| that she’s looking at everybody in the classroom\|’

479. TEA: es queda mirant tots els de la classe/| ‘she stops to look at everybody in the classroom’

480. PEN: sı´ \| ‘yes \|’

481. TEA: i que deu pensar/| quan els veu\| ‘and what must she think/| when she sees them\|’

482. OSV:

que´ tontos\| ‘how silly\|’

483. PEN: que cada uno tiene su estilo\| ‘that everyone has their own style \|’

484. TEA: que cadascu´ te´ el seu estil/| i tu ramiro/ ‘that everyone has their own style/| and you Ramiro/’

485. OSV:

el u´ltimo\| ‘the last one\|’

486. TEA: l’u´ltim va que d’aquı´ a l’u´ltim que es- que es‘the last one come on from here to the last one which is-which is-’

487. RAM: lo voy a decir en castellano\| ‘I will say it in Castilian\|’

488. TEA: fes-ho com vulguis\| ‘do it as you want\|’

489. RAM: la chica piensa xxx xxx al entrar en el aula habı´a todo  –| ‘the girl thinks xxx xxx when entering the classroom everything  –|’

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490.

todos los chicos y diferentes vestidos de diferentes ‘all the boys and di¤erent dresses in di¤erent’

491.

formas \| y penso´ no son iguales \| que que son ‘shapes \| and she thought that they are not the same\|that they are’

492.

diferentes y que XXX ‘di¤erent and that XXX ’

493. TEA: molt be´ aixo` \| ho esta`s traduı¨nt/| segur que ho has escrit en ‘very well this\| you’re translating it/| I bet you’ve written it in’

494.

catala` i llavors ho esta`s traduı¨nt al castella` \| ‘Catalan and then you are translating it into Castilian’

495. RAM: sı´ \| ‘yes\|’

496. TEA: veus\| (laughs)\| e´s que el ramiro:\| pero` si ho fas molt be´ ‘see\| (laughs)\| it’s just that Ramiro:\| but you do it very well when you do it in’

499.

quan ho fas en catala` XXX quintı´n\| ‘Catalan XXX Quintı´n\|’

500. QUI:

son todos diferentes \| ‘they are all di¤erent \|’

501. TEA: so´n tots diferents \|si ho fas molt be´ en catala` \| et fa ‘they are all di¤erent \| you do it very well in Catalan\| are you’

500.

vergonya/| ‘ashamed/|’

501. RAM: sı´ \| ‘yes\|’

502. TEA: be´ pues molt be´ \|| ara tornem a- a mirar el- el vı´deo\|| ‘right then very well\|| now let’s watch the video again\||’

It is interesting to underline that until turn 485, there is no languageswitch marker. However, in the turn following the student’s contribution in Spanish, the teacher reformulates in Catalan the statement previously formulated in Spanish. When Ramiro announces, by means of a metadiscursive marker, how he is going to intervene (487), the teacher encourages him to continue. Contrary to what happens with Quintin’s preceding (not

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349

included in the extract) and following (491) contributions, Ramiro’s participation in Spanish is not reformulated by the teacher. This insistence of the students to speak Spanish has traditionally been categorized as a rejection to speak Catalan and/or as a public construction of a Hispanic identity (as in the case of Ramiro, who is from Latin America). Nevertheless, the fact that the boy wrote his opinion about the video in Catalan and utters it in Spanish, by translating it, can suggest an attempt to preserve one’s public face in front of the teacher and classmates. In any case, it seems obvious that the availability of Spanish makes Ramiro’s participation possible. His behaviour is a clear case of participant-related code-switching, and this is how the teacher interprets it. It seems that Ramiro, with his choice to use Spanish, indexes his preference and/or his low oral competence in Catalan. In the next extract, Beatriz, an Argentinean girl who had been living in Catalonia for four months at the moment of the data collection, is assigned the task of explaining a game from her country to a local classmate. (5) e  m’agrada þjugar þ a les cartes_| a  l chincho´n y a la escoba del ‘e  I like þplaying þ cards_| chinchon and la escoba del’

quince-| al xinxon se þjuga þ _| a amb set cartes_| e  i pot þjugarþ ‘quince-| chinchon is þplayed þ _| a with seven cards _| e  and can þ play þ ’

tod_ þel jugador þ que  que vulguis_| e  | y se hace lo siguiente\|| ‘ev_ þthe player þ that  that you want_|e  | and you do the following\||’

quan te´  les set cartes-| tenim que que  juntar-| e  tres_ tres ‘when he has  the seven cards-| we have to to  gather-| e  three_three’

cartes_| de  del mate  ix  -| e  nu´mero_| o del maite- del mait_ ‘cards_| of  of the sa  me  -| e  number_| or the sam- of the sam_’

mateix  _| e  m palo-| o sea copas oros_| bueno etce´tera\| e  las ‘same  _| e  m suit-| that is cups golds_| ok etcetera\| e  the’

otras cuatro_| las otras cuatro cartas que  _| que te sobran_| ‘other four_| the other four cards that  _| that you don’t need_|’

tenim que  hacer lo mateix_| pe  r_| pero` una qu_ que  ‘we have to  do the same_| to  _| but one th_ that  ’

que  que sobra_| con esa puedes  _| puedes cortar_| [XXX] que ‘that  that you don¸t need_| with that one you can  _| you can cut_| [XXX] that’

en la taula hi ha  dos  _| dos mazos me´s de  _| de cartes_| y  uno  ‘on the table there is  two  _| two more piles of  _| of cards_| and  one.’

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e´s per a  -| per agafar\| i el altre e´s  per  _| agafar tambe´ pero` ‘one  is to a  -| to pick\| and the other one is  to  _| pick too but’

a la misma vez per tirar\| e  m  e  m  la gracia {(?) del juego-} ‘at the same time to throw\| e  m  e  m  the good thing {(?) about the game-}’

del joc {(F) e´s-}| que  -| que puedes  - e  juntare  m  las set cartes ‘about the game {(F) is-}| that  -| you can  - e  gather e  m  the seven cards’

de  del mateix  nu´mero  _|| e  como por ejemplo el u el dos el ‘of  of the same  number  _|| e  like for instance the one the two the’

tres i el quatre-| el cinc-| i  el s  _ el sis i el set\| la  la mateix ‘three and the four-| the five-| and  the s  _ the six and the seven\| the  the same’

nu´mero-| i  si tene´s les_| les set cartes iguales-| e  ‘number-| and  if you have the_| the seven cards the same-| e  ’

podı´em cortar-| i ganar el  el  el joc\| ‘we could cut-| and win the  the  the game\|’

Leaving code-mixing aside, we see that the girl’s explanation is full of language switches –sometimes marked by previous pauses or hesitations–, which allow her to maintain a fluent discourse (Nussbaum & Unamuno, 2000). The language in which the student has the highest level of competence sca¤olds the completion of the activity in an e¤ective way. In other words, using another language in a bilingual interactional mode is a way of participating that, in due time, may allow learners to be able to act in a unilingual mode, when the situation demands it or when the speaker wants to orientate towards this mode of participation. In section 5.5, code-switching is a resource that allows students to participate in the ongoing interaction and, at the same time, it indexes learner identities at a certain phase of the process of being multilingual. The two extracts included in this section show how these identities in construction can be negotiated. 5.5. Doing learning Catalan The following extract shows how Patricia and Lluı´s –whom we have encountered in a previous extract– are now carrying out a task in which they must find di¤erences between two pictures (each student has a di¤erent picture). Patricia asks if there are any coloured socks in Lluı´s’ picture. However, she has problems with the term algun and she constructs it by code-mixing. Lluı´s cannot understand what Patricia is saying (line 106)

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and then she translates into Spanish the part of the utterance that poses a problem. Next, Lluı´s switches to Spanish, while keeping the lexical item ‘mitjons’ in Catalan (line 108). However, Patrı´cia is not sure that Lluı´s can understand the word and asks him explicitly, and Lluı´s translates it. (6) 105. PAT: hi ha un hi ha un mitjons de þkwalkaþ de þkwelkaþ color/| ‘there is a there is a socks of þany_ of anyþ colour/|’

106. LLU: que`?| ‘what?|’

107. PAT: hi ha uns mitjons de cualquier color/| ‘there are socks of any colour/|’

108. LLU: de que´ color/| de que´_ no hay no hay mitjons\| ‘of what colour/| of what_ there aren¸t there aren’t socks\|’

109. PAT: {(AC) sabes lo que quiere decir mitjons/|} ‘{(AC) do you know the meaning socks/|}’

110. LLU: calcetines\| ‘socks [LLU uses the Spanish word for socks]’

111. PAT: sı´ \| ‘yes\|’

Leaving aside the fact that the use of Spanish allows the two students to stay on task and solve their communication problems, this fragment can also show a set of moves involving self-attribution of identity of expert (vs. non-expert) or mutual attributions of learner identities. In lines 105– 107, Patricia seems to lack competence by her di‰culties to make herself understood. Once the problem is solved, Patricia attributes to Lluı´s a lack of competence in understanding the word at play (line 109). The next fragment illustrates these interactive processes of learner identity attribution derived from language use. The extract was collected in a class with nine year-old boys and girls, all of whom were of immigrant origin. We can see herein the interactional construction of the description of jobs in the fishermen’s quarter of Barcelona. The students have collected information about the community and now they are sharing what they learnt before presenting it to another group in the same school. Until line 12, Lesly (LES), Maira (MAI), Dani (DAN) and Ramon (RAM) are jointly reconstructing what they have seen. The teacher (TEA) does not participate until Ramon uses a mixed term, rets, made up of a Spanish lexeme (red, ‘net’) and a Catalan plural post-consonant morpheme -s

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(line 14). The teacher corrects it (line 15) o¤ering the word in Catalan. Nobody recasts it, despite the fact that, before, pupils produce many repetitions ( peix, cientı´fics, mariners, farers). In line 17 the teacher insists and then the pupils repeat the word. (7) 1.

LES:

el barri_| el barri de la þfarcelonetaþ \| e  a  | ‘the quarter _| the quarter of the þfarcelonetaþ \| e  a  |’

2.

MAI: hi ha molta gent que pesca_| que  | ‘there are a lot of people that fish_| that  |’

3.

en el barri de la barceloneta hi ha molta gent que pesca ‘in the quarter of the Barceloneta there are many people that fish’

allı´_ |i troba molta_| molt molt molt [peix  \]

4.

‘there_ |and they find lots_| lots lots lots of [fish  \]’

5.

LES:

[molt] peix\| ‘[lots of ] fish\|’

6.

MAI: molt peix molta gamba molta þlangostaþ i molt- i tot allo` \| ‘lots of fish lots of shrimp lots of þlobsterþ and lots- and all that\|’

7.

LES:

[els bulceja]dors\] ‘[the scuba]divers\]’

8.

MAI: [no tambe´-] | ‘[no also-] |’

9.

LES:

[a a els cientı´fics\] ‘[a a the scientists\]’

10.

MAI: [els mariners_| als-] el cientı´fics el  _|| ‘[the sailors_| to the-] the scientists the  _||’

11.

LES:

[farers\] ‘[lighthouse keepers\]’

12.

MAI: [els marine:rs] els fare:rs\| a: moltes coses\ | ‘[the sai:lorsrs] the lighthouse kee:pers\| a: many things\ |’

13.

DAN: busejado  rs\|| e  marine:rs_ || e  a le  s pues_ ‘scuba dive  rs\|| e  sai:lors_ || e  a the  then_’

14.

RAM: arre- e  arreglar barcos_ | i arregla  r i arreglar þles retsþ \|| ‘rep- e  repair ships_ | and repai  r and repair þthe netsþ \||’

15.

TEA: les xarxes\| ‘the nets’

Doing learning languages in a multilingual context

16.

353

RAS: þpescatersþ i_ | pintar els vaixells\| ‘þfishmongersþ and_ | paint the ships\|’

17.

TEA: les xarxes\| ‘the nets\|’

18.

RAM: fer xarxa\| ‘make net\|’

19.

DAN: fer xarxa\| ‘make net\|’

20.

MAI: fer xarxes\| þpescatersþ  peixaters: xxx_ pintar els vaixells ‘make nets\| þfishmongersþ  fishmonger: xxx_ paint the ships |’

| i moltes coses d’allı´ \|

21.

‘and many things from there\|’

22.

LES:

a sı´  i salamanca el salamanca\| alla` els peixos_ | ‘of yes  and Salamanca the Salamanca\| there the fish_ |’

peixos_| el salamanca e´s un un es un þrestauganteþ un

23.

‘fish_| the salamanca is a a is a þrestaugantþ a’

þrestauganteþ \

24.

‘þrestaugantþ\’

25.

MAI: taurant\| (taurant\|) ‘taurant\| (taurant\|)’

26.

LES:

eso un restaurant\| que pesca  t peix:_| em  co´mo se ‘that’s right a restaurant\| that cau  ght fish:_| em  how do you’

27.

llama salada  _| e em eso\| ‘say salted  _| e em that’s right\|’

This is an illustrative example of the classroom processes in which two languages are involved in the construction of the activity, as is usually the case in bilingual classrooms. Our focus is not to make visible the transition from a code-mixing stage towards a target language form (rets > xarxa), but rather the fact that children orientate themselves towards a learner identity, taking up the teacher’s intervention. The same is illustrated by Maira’s self-correction (line 20), Maira’s correction of a part of Lesly’s statement (line 25), Lesly’s self-correction and her petition for help (lines 26–27). The set of examined extracts forms a kaleidoscope of multilingual and exolingual uses in classroom situations in Catalonia. Multilingual practices constitute resources to accomplish various practical purposes; exolingual practices sca¤old the language learning processes.

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6. Discussion and final remarks Early sociolinguistic studies on language contact and social bilingualism attribute linguistic choices to the social status of languages, directly tying language and social structure (Ferguson 1959; Fishman 1967). The pragmatic turn imposes a crucial twist to observe language use, but the first studies are still logo-centred in the sense that they attribute specific functions to each language. This tendency can be observed in the early work of Gumperz (Blom and Gumperz 1972) as well as in part of his later work (Gumperz 1982). Conversationalist perspectives make a qualitative leap in proposing a sequentially situated study of the interaction (Auer 1984) and in observing how people use language as a resource to accomplish practical purposes, thus creating and building the social structure. In this sense, bi-multilingual talk is not only indexical of social categories, but also constitutive of them. The data analysed in this article were collected in social contexts in which Spanish is dominant, but in schools where Catalan is the o‰cial language for social relations. The ethnographic acquaintance with the school setting allows us to say that multilingual-exolingual uses are not infrequent. Catalan and Spanish can coexist as a continuum in the interactions taking place both inside and outside the classroom. In some cases, the researcher could be tempted to say that one extract reflects the social structure and mechanically apply the ethnographic knowledge to the data and say that the use of Catalan or Spanish is predetermined by their status at school. Following this argument, Spanish would be the language that is normally used by boys and girls to communicate among themselves in informal encounters or when learners are not dealing with what they interpret as the academic task (extract 2) and Catalan the language used in the classroom for academic activities. But this is not always so; as seen in extracts 1 and 3, code-switching is used to either accommodate to the teachers’ language choice or to ‘perform’ comically. Therefore, it could be assumed that code-switching is a practical activity that does not reflect the social structure but constructs it through particular interaction. Preference, and hence the use of the language in which someone feels more comfortable, is part of the language learning process (extract 4), and we have seen that learners are able to take part in exchanges thanks to their use of hybrid forms or code-switching (extract 5). Therefore, one could say that the possibility to use multilingual resources sca¤olds the construction of new linguistic competences in a specific language (Masats, Nussbaum, and Unamuno 2007). From this perspective, learners are considered as people who are turning into multi-contextual experts in

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communication, i.e. skilled participants interacting in di¤erent communities of practice (Hall, Cheng, and Carlson 2006: 233). The availability of a multilingual mode of participation is part of a pragmatic resource to take part in the event, while maintaining fluency. It is also a resource to self-facilitate production which is typical of exolingual interactions. Furthermore, the possibility to switch between languages, rather than indexing prefixed identities, may be considered both as a participant’s resource to save face (extract 4), and a resource to attribute and negotiate learner identities. Appendix. Transcription symbols. Meaning

Symbol

Three initial capitals at the beginning of the turn

Speaker’s identification (names have been changed in order to preserve anonymity)

Tone-unit boundary:

falling \ rising / level with preceding syllable –

Pauses:

short | medium || long

Syllabic lengthening (according to length):

 

Overlapping segments

[text speaker A] [text speaker B]

Interruption

text_

Speed

accelerando {(AC) text} rallentando {(DC) text}

Intensity

forte {(F) text} piano {(P) text}

Transcriber’s comments:

comment

Inaudible utterance (according to length)

XXX | XXX XXX | XXX XXX XXX

Use of a language that is di¤erent from that which is dominant in the activity.

Spanish Catalan English

Approximate phonetic pronunciation of mixed Catalan-Spanish utterances

þutteranceþ

Translation

In the line below

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References Arnau, Joaquim 1980 Escola i contacte de llengu¨es. Barcelona: CEAC. Auer, Peter 1984 Bilingual conversation. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Auer, Peter 1998 Introduction: bilingual conversation revisited. In Code-switching in Conversation. Language, interaction and identity, Peter Auer (ed.), 1–24. New York: Routledge. Auer, Peter 1999 From Code-switching via Language Mixing to Fused Lects: Toward a Dynamic Typology of Bilingual Speech. International Journal of Bilingualism 3 (4), 309–332. Blom, Jan-Petter, and John Gumperz 1972 Social meaning in linguistic structures: Code-switching in Northern Norway. In Directions in Sociolinguistics: The Ethnography of Communication, John Gumperz, and Dell Hymes (eds), 407– 434. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. Boix, Emili 1993 Triar no e´s trair. Identitat i llengua en els joves de Barcelona. Barcelona: Edicions 62. Calsamiglia, Helena, and Amparo Tuso´n ´ s i alternanc¸a de llengu¨es en grups de joves d’un barri de 1980 U Barcelona: Sant Andreu de Palomar. Treballs de Sociolingu¨ı´stica Catalana 3: 11–72. Cambra, Margarida 1991 Les changements en classe de langue e´trange`re, re´velateurs d’une certaine organization du discours. In Papers for the symposium on code-switching in bilingual studies: Theory, significance and perspectives. European Science Foundation (ed.), 125–140. Strasbourg: European Science Foundation. Cashman, Holly 2008 Conversation and interaction analysis. In The Blackwell Guide to Research Methods in Bilingualism and Multilingualism, Li Wei, and Melissa Moyer (eds.), 275–95. Oxford, UK: Blackwell. Codo´, Eva, and Luci Nussbaum 2007 Plurilinguisme et promotion d’une langue minoritaire: tensions et contradictions. Langage & Socie´te´ 121/122: 275–288. Cots, Josep M., and Luci Nussbaum 2008 Communicative competence and institutional a‰liation: interactional processes of identity construction by immigrant students in Catalonia. International Journal of Multilingualism 5 (1): 17– 40.

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Dooly, Melinda, and Emilee Moore 2009 Plurilingual talk-in-interaction in an initital teacher training CLIL class. In Bi- and Multilingual Universities: European Perspectives and Beyond, D. Veronesi, and C. Nickenig (eds.), 181–190. Bozen-Bolzano: Bozen-Bolzano University Press. Ferguson, Charles 1959 Diglossia, Word 15: 225–340. Fishman, Joshua A. 1967 Bilingualism with and without diglossia; diglossia with and without bilingualism. Journal of Social Issues 23: 29–38. Gafaranga, Joseph 2001 Linguistic identities in talk-in-interaction. Journal of Pragmatics 33: 1901–1125. Gafaranga, Joseph 2005 Demythologising language alternation studies: conversational structure vs. social structure in bilingual interaction. Journal of Pragmatics 37: 281–300. Generalitat de Catalunya 2004 Pla per a la llengua i la cohesio´ social. Barcelona: Departament d’Educacio´, Generalitat de Catalunya. Gumperz, John 1982 Discourse Strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hall, Joan Kelly, An Cheng, and Mattew T. Carlson 2006 Reconceptualising multicompetence as a theory of language knowledge. Applied Linguistics 27 (2), 220–240. Heller, Monica 2008 Doing ethnography. In The Blackwell Guide to Research Methods in Bilingualism and Multilingualism, L. Wei, and Melissa Moyer (eds.), 249–262. Oxford: Blackwell. Hester, Stephen, and Peter Eglin 1997 Membership categorization analysis: An introduction. In Culture in action, Stephen Hester, and Peter Eglin (eds.), 1–23. Washington, DC: International Institute for Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis and University Press of America. Leech, Geo¤rey 1983 Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman. Lu¨di, Georges, and Bernard Py 2003 [1986] Eˆtre bilingue. Berne: Peter Lang. Masats, Dolors, Luci Nussbaum, and Virginia Unamuno 2007 When activity shapes the repertoire of second language learners. EUROSLA Yearbook, 7, 121–147. Mondada, Lorenza 2007 Le code-switching comme resource pour l’organisation de la parole-interaction. Journal of language contact. THEMA 1, 168– 197.

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Moore, Emilee 2010

Exploring plurilingualism as a teaching/learning resourcein higher education English-medium classrooms. In L’Educacio´ Lingu¨´ıstica i Litera`ria en Entorns Multilingu¨es. Recerca per a Nous Contextos, Oriol Guasch, and Marta Milian (eds.), 221–236. Bellaterra: Servei de Publicacions de la UAB. Moore, Emilee, and Luci Nussbaum 2011 Que` aporta l’ana`lisi conversacional a la comprensio´ de les situacions d’AICLE. In Aprendre en una altra llengua, Cristina Escobar, and Luci Nussbaum. Bellaterra: Servei de Publicacions de la UAB. Moore, Danie`le, and Laurent Gajo 2009 Introduction – French voices on plurilingualism and pluriculturalism: theory, significance and perspectives. International Journal of Multilingualism 6 (2): 137–153. Myers-Scotton, Carol 1983 The negotiation of identities in conversation: A theory of markedness and code choice. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 44: 115–136. Nussbaum, Luci 1990 Plurilingualism in the foreign language classroom in Catalonia. In Papers for the Workshop on Impact and Consequences: Broader Considerations; Network On Code-Switching and Language Contact, European Science Foundation (ed.), 141–165. Strasbourg: European Science Foundation. Nussbaum, Luci 2005 Monolinguisme et polyglossie dans la Barcelone d’aujourd’hui. Bulletin Suisse de Linguistique Applique´e, 82, 5–24. Nussbaum, Luci 2006 Les defis de l’e´cole por le maintien et la transmission du catalan en Catalogne. In Langues, minore´es, langues d’enseignement?, Henry Boyer (coord.), Revue de didactologie des langues-cultures et de lexiculturologie. Bulletin Suisse de Linguistique Applique´e 143: 355–369. Nussbaum, Luci, and Virgina Unamuno (eds.) 2006 Usos i compete`ncies multilingu¨es entre escolars d’origen immigrant. Bellaterra, Spain: Servei de Publicacions de la Universitat Auto`noma de Barcelona. Payrato´, Lluı´s 1985 La interfere`ncia lingu¨´ıstica: Comentaris i exemples catala` – castella`. Barcelona: Curial Edicions Catalanes / Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat. Pujolar, Joan 1997 De que` vas, tio? Barcelona: Empu´ries.

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Lectures on Conversation. Edited by Gail Je¤erson, 2 vols. Oxford: Blackwell.

Ten Have, Paul 2004 Understanding Qualitative Research and Ethnomethodology. London: Sage. Tuso´n, Amparo 1985 Language, Community and School in Barcelona. Ph.D. thesis. Berkeley: University of California. Unamuno, Virginia 2008 Multilingual switch in peer classroom interaction. Linguistics and Education 19: 1–19. Verschueren, Je¤ 1999 Understanding Pragmatics. London: Arnold. Woolard, Kathyn A. 1999 Simultaneity anb Bivalency as Stategies in Bilingualism. Journal of Lingu¨istic Antropology, 8 (1): 3–29.

Catalan-Spanish language contact in social interaction Joan Pujolar The social use of the Catalan language, like that of any language, has been for centuries characterized by translinguistic practices, that is, the mobilization of resources in speech and writing from what nowadays would be seen as separate languages by both linguists and speakers. Close contact with Spanish at many levels has been so far the most important, as compared with other languages (such as French and Italian and, more recently, English) since the 16th century, when books printed in Spanish were already superior in number in the Catalan-speaking territories (Segarra 1997). A history of Catalan translinguistic practices remains yet to be written, as happens with virtually all language communities. In this chapter, I will focus on oral aspects of language contact in contemporary Catalonia. However, I will provide a brief historical account of what we now know about Catalan-speaking social groups who have used other languages in order to provide a summarized historical perspective that helps to understand why Catalan and Spanish have acquired some of the social meanings that still dominate the local linguistic market. A brief theoretical overview of sociolinguistic approaches to bilingual and multilingual practices in social interaction will also be given, not so much to engage in a theoretical discussion, but to clarify the concepts used in the description. The intention is to provide a general account of the ways in which Catalan bilinguals draw from Catalan and Spanish, including the language contrast itself, as a pragmatic resource in face-toface interaction. This should not be understood in a restrictive sense here as implying rather localized rhetorical e¤ects, such as jokes, quotations or special voices. As I will show, there are aspects of language choice in Catalonia that encapsulate enduring strategies of social positioning by speakers; and these aspects are only partially amenable to detailed contextualized ‘‘micro’’ analyses. 1. A brief historical outlook: Spanish and other languages Since something like the ‘‘Catalan language’’ is a meaningful category for its speakers (although not always with this name), significant social groups have used resources from other languages or even used these languages

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extensively. The very birth of Catalan as a distinctly identifiable language was triggered by a profound linguistic-ideological change in medieval Europe that set apart Latin from what had been its colloquial varieties (Auerbach 1958; Wright 2002). During this process, for those who spoke what was generally called ‘‘Romance’’, Latin gradually ceased to be what we would now call a register with a relatively flexible relationship with its colloquial counterparts. It is from this very first moment that we find Catalan speakers (writers, to be more precise) reaching out to other languages to accomplish their purposes in many contexts. Thus, from the 12th to the 14th centuries, Catalan trobadors used Occitan varieties to write their compositions and even wrote manuals where they warned their contemporaries not to draw from their own vernacular, but that of the Limoges and Languedoc (de Riquer 1964; Nadal and Prats 1982). Catalan joglars most certainly switched between Occitan and Catalan in their performances, though no records are extant. At the same time, court o‰cials, religious men and other literate sectors were beginning to translate or newly write legal texts, chronicles, treatises, correspondence and literary prose in Catalan Romance. However, they were well aware that they could hardly produce any text without borrowing from Latin or Greek. The philosopher Ramon Llull/Raimundus Lullius (whose production came out also in Latin and Arabic) adapted 18% of his vocabulary directly from Latin in the Catalan texts. And this happened before the Renaissance, where aristocrats and court o‰cials took it as their duty to fit the vulgar language into a Latin grammatical, stylistic and lexical mould as much as possible (Nadal and Prats 1982). There are only a few records of oral code-switching practices from this period: the first is in popular songs of the Jewish community, in which some Hebrew expressions were added to Catalan. The texts have been preserved in Aljamiat writing, that is, Catalan written in Hebrew script; and the examples suggest that Jews spoke Catalan as an everyday language but retained Hebrew expressions connected to various religious and cultural practices (Argenter 2001). King James I wrote or had his own chronicle written (in Catalan) in which he provided rare details of his everyday life, and quotes himself switching to Provenc¸al and Aragonese when he visited his subjects in their corresponding territories (Argenter 2006). The first important contacts between Catalan and Spanish were in the 15th century, when a Spanish-speaking dynasty was established in the crown of Aragon. This seems to have caused some antagonism early on, as when Alphonse IV used Castilian in the crowning ceremony in Barcelona, which was reportedly not well received (Segarra 1997). How-

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ever, Catalans at the court in Naples and accompanying the Borgias in Rome are known to have written works in Catalan, Spanish, Latin and Italian (Nadal and Prats 1996). But even as Spanish gradually became the dominant choice in the local print market, political antagonism over language seems to have grown. During the 16th and 17th centuries, in the high tide of the Spanish empire, the aristocracy and bourgeoisie became (probably) bilingual and adopted Spanish to deal with the court administration and to produce the most prestigious literary genres. Spanish came to play a role similar to Latin and Occitan in former periods as a grammatical and stylistic model and also as a source of much lexical borrowing, including Latin and Greek neologisms adopted into Catalan through Spanish (as happens increasingly through English today). However, to the initial local interest in Spanish, we must add the policies and actions of the crown and its associates, which were increasingly felt as encroachments in Catalan quarters. Ferrando and Nicola´s (2000) show how top Spanish writers like Quevedo, Caldero´n de la Barca and Tirso de Molina took to disseminating texts about the inferiority of Catalan which were at the basis of a confrontation in the 1636 Concilium of the Tarraconense Province about the language of religious preaching. The writers’ ‘‘game’’ was consistent with imperial policies aiming at eroding the political institutions of the crown of Aragon, filling ecclesiastical posts with Castilians and using the Inquisition for political purposes. In this context, language contact became openly political and often confrontational. The proSpanish Alexandre de Ros, for instance, argued that religious preachers had to attend ‘‘to the di¤erence in the audience, speaking to the learned as such [in Spanish] and to the populace in its language [in Catalan]1’’ (Segarra 1997: 179; Prats 1995). The need to code-switch is suggested here, both to ensure the understanding of the populace and to assert the higher status of Spanish. The period abounds with works focusing substantially on the virtues and vices of the Catalan language and with much soul-searching on the motivations for using it in public contexts and in print. This period also saw the emergence of ‘‘ambilingual’’ or ‘‘bivalent’’ compositions, mostly poems that could be read in two languages (CatalanLatin, Catalan-Spanish, Spanish-Latin and so on) arguably –at least sometimes– with the intention of making a statement within the current controversies (Rossich 1996; Figueras 2006; Woolard 2007). After the Spanish War of Succession, Catalan was formally banned from public and 1. Original version provided in the source: ‘‘A esto ha de atender el predicador, a la desigualdad del auditorio, hablando al docto com a tal [en castellano] i al vulgo en su lengua [el catala`]’’

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administrative uses, including teaching, although prohibitions were not always heeded (Ferrer 1985) and the use of Catalan in private correspondence, commerce, book-keeping and notary documents survived until the beginning of the 19th century; even as the eminent historian and politican Antoni de Capmany declared that Catalan was ‘‘un idioma provincial muerto hoy para la repu´blica de las letras’’, ‘a regional language now dead for the republic of letters’’ (GEC 1986: 224, Marfany 2008). The mid 19th century saw a ‘‘Renaixenc¸a’’ of Catalan, a ‘rebirth’ of prestigious literary genres inspired by Romantic ideas about popular culture. This became gradually implicated in the emergence of a Catalan nationalism that constructed language as an essential emblem of identity and eventually led to a process of sociolinguistic ‘‘reconstruction’’ during the 20th century as a new standard was established that was adopted in formal uses. It was in this last period when the Catalan-Spanish linguistic antagonism was ‘‘popularized’’, even as all social classes became gradually bilingual and actively participated in political processes. It was also a period of rapid economic expansion. Industrial development fuelled national pride and many of the socioeconomic changes that further distanced Catalan society from the rest of Spain and even from the other Catalan-speaking regions; and it also triggered immigration, which made Spanish gradually more present as an oral language throughout the traditional Catalan-speaking territories. This chapter focuses primarily in the region traditionally called the Principat de Catalunya, where the policies and public adherence to linguistic ‘‘normalization’’ have been more forceful. Both languages have come to be spoken and written at all levels, although the relatively long periods of dictatorship under Primo de Rivera and Franco (1922–1932 and 1939–1975) created serious di‰culties for the recovery of Catalan. One important feature of Catalan bilingualism is that it does not have a tradition of ‘‘equal and separate’’ uses that are common in other contexts. This is probably a consequence of the lack of consensus at state level about linguistic diversity, compounded by the two periods of obsessive linguistic and political repression by dictators, still fresh in Catalan memory after 35 years. Thus bilingual public signage (with the same text in the two languages) has been exceptional, although it is now common in transport facilities. Separate provision of schooling, healthcare, administrative services and universities has never existed.2 The availability of separate print and 2. The text simplifies many issues for economy of argument. There is, for instance, a tradition of a separate ‘‘Catalan’’ schooling in periods when public education was in Spanish only. A short-lived Catalan ‘‘Autonomous University’’ was also created for the same reasons in 1933.

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visual media may be the exception, and some newspapers are now issued in two versions or with some bilingual sections. Rather, the predominant public uses of the two languages have traditionally depended on the sources of political control bearing on each particular context: whether it is local, regional or state and, in some circumstances, following class divides (Spanish more present in working-class milieus, Catalan in middleclass ones). Thus, present-day municipalities and the autonomous government operate almost exclusively in Catalan; but it is not easy to use Catalan in courts. Spanish was the dominant language for the police until it was transferred to Catalan jurisdiction, while the army uses no language other than Spanish (except English in connection to NATO operations). This historical trajectory is important to understand the functioning of the Catalan linguistic market and provides the backdrop to interpret contextualized linguistic practice. It is clearly a bilingual market where the two languages occupy di¤erent positions that can be described as a result of –and as reproducing– political and socioeconomic divides; but which do not unambiguously establish clear di¤erences of status. The political divide is that which defines Catalonia as a distinct national community within Spain and legitimizes claims for autonomy or independence. Language has been traditionally seen as the main emblem of identity embodied in its speakers. This is why most native-speakers of Catalan identify themselves as such and very rarely as ‘‘bilingual’’ despite the fact that they have been proficient in Spanish for generations. The socioeconomic divide results from immigration and bespeaks the fact that most speakers of Spanish have traditionally predominated in the low and mid-skilled sections of the labor market. The existence of a significant section of ‘‘locally-grown’’ Spanish-speakers amongst the Catalan aristocracy and upper bourgeoisie is often treated (not quite rightly) as unimportant (see McDonogh 1989). This was the situation that Woolard (1989) found in her fieldwork in the late 1970s. However, the situation has changed and is still changing. Firstly, native-speakers of Spanish were generally monolingual then and are generally bilingual now after they have had access to Catalan schooling and media. They are also increasingly present in skilled and managerial positions and this is also changing, as I will show below, the identificatory components of language choice. Secondly, the sources of migrant labor have greatly diversified as workers come now from Africa, Europe, Asia and Latin-America. In this context, Spanish is also taking up the role of a lingua franca in immigrant contexts (Pujolar 2010).

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2. Bilingual practices and sociolinguistics Catalonia provides therefore a context of virtually universalized bilingualism in which people can draw from two languages that have di¤erent trajectories both at the social and individual level. How do people use them in their daily meaning-making acts? Leaving apart the case of variation studies, sociolinguistics as a discipline emerged very much with a focus on bilingual contexts and was from the start met with interest by many linguists working in linguistic minority contexts, not the least because the conceptual apparatus of formal linguistics simply excluded the possibility of studying the processes of language shift or providing support to policies of linguistic revitalization. The concept of ‘‘diglossia’’ as developed by Fishman (1967) provided a framework to study how di¤erent languages and language varieties were distributed across di¤erent domains of life in bilingual societies. On the other hand, a substantive section of the field became during the 1980s interested in the so-called ‘‘micro’’ aspects of bilingualism, particularly in the study of bilingual practices as an aspect of ‘‘communicative competence’’ (Gumperz and Hymes 1964). This strand of sociolinguistics was particularly interested in how di¤erent linguistic varieties acquired meanings and connotations in linguistically-diverse contexts. After Blom and Gumperz (1972) proposed their distinction between ‘‘situational’’ and ‘‘metaphorical’’ code-switching and Gumperz (1982) focused on bilingual practices as ‘‘discourse strategies’’, there was a surge of studies on bilingualism from a grammatical, pragmatic or a conversational-analytic perspective. Gumperz proposed to interpret code-switching as a ‘‘contextualization cue’’, a conversational resource that oriented interactants as to how an utterance –or a part of it– had to be interpreted. Auer (1984) sought to refine Gumperz’ idea by studying code-switching from a conversational-analytic perspective: basically as a feature of speech that contributed to the sequential organization of talk. He proposed the basic distinction between ‘‘participant-related’’ and ‘‘discourse-related’’ code-switching. Catalan bilingualism can be studied and has been studied from all these perspectives, as they provide di¤erent angles from which the local linguistic situation can be described. Maybe the application of the ‘‘diglossia framework’’ has been the most criticized by researchers because it presupposed a certain stability and social consensus that was clearly not adequate for the Catalan context (see Aracil 1982; Vallverdu´ 1979; Martin-Jones 1989). But there is a case to make for the existence of ‘‘domains’’ where one language or the other predominates: Catalan in the

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local administration and schooling, Spanish in state-wide services, Catalan in managerial and skilled professions, Spanish in the shop-floor or in the tourist sector, Spanish in the mass media and the telecommunications industry, and so on. The distribution is however not categorical at all, and least of all in the private sphere, where language depends basically on family trajectories. But rather than the neat distribution assumed by Fishman in his earlier works, both languages can be seen as having a given ‘‘market share’’ or often as competing for hegemony in all domains. In this context, it is perfectly possible to find examples of ‘‘situational’’ codeswitching, as when teachers or students (in some areas) reportedly speak Catalan in the classroom and Spanish in the playground with students or with colleagues (Vila 1996; Galindo 2008). And it is also possible to find more pragmatic-oriented ‘‘metaphorical’’ switches of any of the types described by Gumperz (1982) or Auer (1984, 1998), whether these tend to produce some momentary stylistic e¤ect or cue some shift in the speech situation. Extract 1, for instance, shows a conventional quotation in Spanish Extract 1: Pepe is a young interviewee of a Spanish-speaking family and reports on the reactions of the public to a speech held during the celebrations of the Olympic games in 1992. Pepe: surt un pavo surt un pavo dient gracias  barcelona tothom callat  gracias catalun˜a  diu gracias espan˜a i la penya comenc¸a eee [aplaudiments, veu multitud cridant] bravooo iepa Joan: [riu] Pepe: Mu bien disho ( ) Joan: [riu] Pepe:  horrible   gracias espan˜a

Pepe: this guy comes out this guy comes out saying: ‘‘Thank you, Barcelona’’. Everybody silent. ‘‘Thank you, Catalonia’’. He says: ‘‘Thank you, Spain’’. And all the lot goes ‘‘Yeeah [clapping]. Bravo! Yuppie.’’ Joan: [laughs] Pepe: Very well put Joan: [laughs] Pepe: Horrible. ‘‘Thank you, Spain’’

In this example, Pepe reports a real life situation as experienced and remembered. He is using Catalan as the ‘‘base language’’ or ‘‘medium’’ (Auer 1998; Gafaranga and Torras 2001) and quotes someone delivering

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a speech and the reactions of the audience in Spanish. It is a very typical type of code-switching although the interpretation is only deceptively simple. Beyond the fact that the original speech need not have really been in Spanish, the phrase in line 10 attributed to the public may well be invented as a literary device to express both the public adherence to Spain and the teller’s non-adherence to the stance of the audience, as lines 12–13 make later evident. Line 10 is not only in Spanish but ‘‘Stylized Spanish’’, a particular variety that Pepe and his friends used to distance themselves from some working-class cultural expressions (Pujolar 2001). Extract 2, on the other hand, presents ‘‘discourse-related’’ switches that index momentary changes on the tasks attended to by participants: Extract 2 This example from Tuso´n (1991) shows three students of an education school doing collaborative work. They are trying to work out how to design a classroom. Remei: zona d’arxiu i documentacio´  se’n diu > d’aixo`

Remei: Area for archive and documentation. This i show it is called.

` ngels: