Evidentiality, intersubjectivity and salience in Spanish and Catalan markers claro/clar and la verdad/veritat

Abstract

From an interactional perspective, this paper explores the evidential and salient meanings of Spanish and Catalan pragmatic markers claro/clar and la verdad/veritat, focusing on their intersubjective nature. Salience is the prominence that speakers give to certain meanings of lexemes based on prior experience, familiarity or convention (Giora, 2003; Kecskes 2013). Intersubjectivity involves the sharing of responsibility and commitment to the validity of the information provided (Nuyts 2001). The working hypothesis is that these markers adopt a twofold cognitive-functional role depending on: (i) the nature of the interactional communicative context; (ii) the newness or givenness of the information. In a monologic segment, the speaker makes use of the evidentials to argue and share with the interlocutor his/her epistemological stance and perspective through an inferential reasoning process; the aim is persuasive and evaluative. In a dialogic segment, their role is that of truth-attesting and the negotiation of salient meaning.