The Spanish pragmatic marker pues and its English equivalents

Abstract

The descriptions of the various functions of the Spanish marker pues by Briz & Hidalgo (1988), Porroche Ballesteros (1996), and Briz (2001) serve as a starting-point for the present study, which compares the functions of pues with its nearest correspondences in English, notably cos and well. The various functions are illustrated and discussed under three main, sometimes overlapping headings: the syntactic, discursive and pragmatic levels. The study shows that well corresponds to pues in most of its functions, except on the syntactic level, where cos is the only equivalent. Like pues, well and cos have been grammaticalized, but cos less so than well, which at least partly explains its fairly restricted use.