Cover not available

Article published In: Current Visions of TAML2: Tense, Aspect and Modality in Second Languages
Edited by Paz González and Tim Diaubalick
[Dutch Journal of Applied Linguistics 8:1] 2019
► pp. 84–99

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF

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

 | Universität Potsdam
Open Access logo
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Published online: 11 March 2020
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/dujal.19012.boh
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.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Starting point for the epistemic modal and evidential use of the Spanish imperfecto
    • 2.1Aspectual indeterminancy
    • 2.2Past tenses developed into evidentials
  • 3.Methodology
  • 4.Analysis and results of the epistemic modal and evidential use of the Spanish imperfecto under the speaker’s subjective perspective to mark implicitly an external source of information
    • 4.1The Spanish imperfecto with the verbs morir (‘to die’), estallar (‘to explode’), ascender (‘to rise’) and pagar (‘to pay’)
    • 4.2The Spanish imperfecto with ‘verbs of saying’
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (30)
References
Aikhenvald, A. (2004). Evidentiality. Oxford: University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bazzanella, C. (1990). Modal uses of the Italian Indicativo Imperfetto in a pragmatic perspective. Journal of Pragmatics, 141, 439–457. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bertinetto, P. M. (1986). Tiempo, aspetto e azione nel verbo italiano: Il sistema dell’indicativo. Florenz: Presso L’Academia della Crusca.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Böhm, V. (2013). Evidentielle Markierung von fremden Äußerungen. Eine Analyse des spanischen Imperfekts in journalistischen Texten. In A. Hennemann, & C. Schlaak (Eds.), Korpuslinguistische Untersuchungen. Analysen einzelsprachlicher Phänomene (pp. 119–130). Berlin: Frank & Timme GmbH.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2016). La imperfectividad en la prensa española y su relación con las categorías semánticas de modalidad y evidencialidad. Peter Lang: Frankfurt am Main. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Böhm, V., & Hennemann, A. (2014). The evidential use of the Spanish imperfect and the conditional in journalistic contexts. Studia Neophilologica, 861, 1–18. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(in press). La codificación de la evidencialidad en el quechua y guaraní: Su transferencia en algunas variedades del español americano y su interconexión con la temporalidad, aspectualidad y modalidad. In V. Böhm, & A. Hennemann (Eds.), La interconexión y el solapamiento de la temporalidad, aspectualidad, modalidad y evidencialidad en las diversas variedades del español. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
Bres, J. (2005). L’imparfait dit narratif. CNRS Èditions: Paris.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bybee, J., & Fleischmann, S. (1995). Modality in grammar and discourse. An introductory essay. In J. Bybee, & S. Fleischmann (Eds.), Modality in grammar and discourse (pp. 1–14). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cappon, R. J. (2005). Journalistisches Schreiben. Berlin: Autorenhaus Verlag.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dessì, S. (2010). Modal uses of the Italian imperfetto and the Spanish imperfecto: A comparison. In M. G. Becker, & E.-M. Remberger (Eds.), Modality and mood in Romance. Modal interpretation, mood selection, and mood alternation (pp. 39–66). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Díaz Salgado, L. C. (2000). La decoración del drama. Venezuela Analítica, Núm. Nov. 2000, 1–1.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fernández Ramírez, S. (1986). Gramática Española. El verbo y la oración. Madrid: Arco/Libros.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
García Fernández, L. (2004). El pretérito imperfecto: repaso histórico y bibliográfico. In L. García Fernández, & B. Camus Bergareche (Eds.), El pretérito imperfecto (pp. 13–95). Madrid: Gredos.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Giacalone Ramat, A., & Topadze, M. (2007). The coding of evidentiality: A comparative look at Georgian and Italian. Italian Journal of Linguistics 19(1), 7–38.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gutiérrez Aráus, M. L. (1995a). Formas temporales del pasado en indicativo. Madrid: Arcos Libros.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1995b). Sobre los valores secundarios del imperfecto. ASELE, Actas VI1, 177–185.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haßler, G. (2012). Indicative verb forms as means of expressing modality in Romance languages. In W. Abraham, & E. Leiss (Eds.), Covert patterns of modality (pp. 133–152). Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Laprade, R. A. (1981). Some cases of Aymara influence on La Paz Spanish. In M. Hardman (Ed.), The Aymara language in its social and cultural context: A collection of essays on aspects of Aymara language and culture (pp. 207–227). Gainesville: University Presses of Florida.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Leonetti, M., & Escandell-Vidal, V. (2003). On the quotative readings of Spanish imperfecto. Cuadernos de Lingüística, X1, 135–154.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Real Academia Española (2009). NGLE: Nueva gramática de la lengua española. Madrid: Espasa Libros.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2010). Nueva gramática de la lengua española. Manual. Madrid: Espasa Libros.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Real Academia Española. Corpus de referencia del español actual. CREA, Banco de datos [en línea] de la Real Academia Española, retrieved on 29.05.2019, from [URL]
Reyes, G. (1990a). Tiempo, modo, aspecto e intertextualidad. Revista Española Lingüística, 201, 17–53.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1990b). Valores estilísticos del imperfecto. Revista de Filología Española, Vol. LXX, Nº 1/2, 46–70.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1996). Los procedimientos de cita: Citas encubiertas y ecos. Madrid: Arco Libros.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Volkmann, G. (2005). Weltsicht und Sprache. Epistemische Relativierung am Beispiel des Spanischen. Tübingen: Gunter Narr.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wachtmeister, F. (2005). Evidencialidad. La codificación lingüística del punto de vista. Tesis doctoral, Stockholms Universitet.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Watkins, L. (1984). A grammar of Kiowa. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Mañas Navarrete, I., E. Rosado Villegas, S. Mujcinovic & N. Fullana Rivera
2025. Acquisition of modal readings of the Imperfect tense in L2 Spanish. Language Acquisition 32:2 ► pp. 216 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 8 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue