Abstract

In the last decades, the literature on discourse markers has seen a rapid growth, both in Spanish and other languages (Portolés 1998; Martín Zorraquino y Portolés 1999; Placencia y Fuentes 2019; Messias et al. 2020). Discourse markers (linguistic units such as sin embargo, es más, con todo, mira, pues, al fin y al cabo, bueno) had been ignored in linguistic descriptions, mainly on the grounds that they do not participate in the syntactic construction of the clause, nor do they contribute propositional meaning to the sentence. Intuitively, these expressions were associated with discourse or interactional values which, until some decades ago, were not supported by rigorous theoretical frameworks in linguistic studies. As suitable theoretical tools to approach the meanings and functions of this group of linguistic units developed, the wave of literature on discourse markers took off. This chapter offers an overview of Spanish discourse markers, the meanings that they contribute to the discourse and their main classes, and introduces some of the current approaches to discourse markers, which have become a critical object of study in the interface between grammar, pragmatics, discourse and cognition.

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