Speaker’s stance and subjectivity in the epistemic modal and evidential use of the Spanish imperfecto in journalistic texts

Verónica Böhm

doi:10.1075/dujal.19012.boh

Abstract

Abstract This study contributes to the analysis of the epistemic modal and evidential use of the Spanish imperfecto with regard to the speaker’s stance and subjectively (rather than grammatically) motivated decision to use the Spanish imperfecto as an evidential strategy in journalistic texts: The speaker uses the Spanish imperfecto to express or tell a state of affairs from his perspective as a ‘narrator’, implying that he is not the author of such information and referring to third sources without mentioning it. The corpus data were obtained from the Corpus de la Real Academia Española (CREA) from the section ‘written journalistic texts’ of the standard Iberian Spanish to guarantee the authenticity of examples and avoid any case of misunderstanding it as a variety of Spanish.

Highlights

It has been shown that the secondary values1 of the Spanish imperfecto are linked to epistemic modality and evidentiality
Since the imperfective aspectuality of the Spanish imperfecto presents the state of affairs as non-concluded, undetermined and backgrounded with the possibility to be continued up to the present, the content of the state of affairs cannot be validated, which leads to modality
There is a relationship between the imperfective aspectuality and the speaker’s subjectivity to choose the Spanish imperfecto to express punctual and perfective situations

Summary

Introduction

It has been shown that the secondary values of the Spanish imperfecto are linked to epistemic modality and evidentiality. The Spanish imperfecto is used in some contexts to mark the speaker’s belief, supposition or lack of knowledge towards what he says (epistemic modality) and to refer to an external source of information (indirect evidentiality):. There are some studies (García Fernández, 2004; Reyes, 1990b) which refer to the narrative use of the Spanish imperfecto when it is used instead of the perfective form, i.e., pretérito perfecto simple, with specific dates or temporally limited adverbs:. The previous utterances (2–3) point to the narrative function of the Spanish imperfecto because it is used instead of the pretérito perfecto simple with perfective meaning, the speaker‘s stance in respect to his knowledge of the states of affairs and how he presents the situation described in the utterances (2–3) should not be ignored. Starting point for the epistemic modal and evidential use of the Spanish imperfecto

Aspectual indeterminancy

Past tenses developed into evidentials

Methodology

The Spanish imperfecto with ‘verbs of saying’

Conclusion