Cover not available

In:The Grammar of Interaction: Epistemicity, information management and discourse in language use
Edited by Susana Rodríguez Rosique and Jordi M. Antolí Martínez
[IVITRA Research in Linguistics and Literature 46] 2025
► pp. 180–210

Get fulltext
PDF logo with download linkDownload Chapter PDF

From reference identification to discursive alignment

The (counter)argumentative power of es eso in Spanish

 | Universidad de Alicante
Open Access logo
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

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

Published online: 17 October 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ivitra.46.07rod
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to examine the Spanish construction es eso — literally ‘(It) is that’, which means ‘I agree with you’. Based on the dataset extracted from an interactional, audiovisual corpus (GestINF), es eso emerges as an intersubjective structure — as outlined by both Traugott (2010) and Nuyts (2001, 2012) —, which is used to reinforce a previously activated proposition. In its process of constructionalization from an original identifying / (pseudo-)cleft structure, es eso acquires a (counter-)argumentative function that facilitates the speaker’s alignment with the addressee while distancing from a third part. Overall, es eso transitions from sentence grammar to interaction grammar.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Conversational interaction as a frame for new grammatical material
  • 3.From theory to practice: The corpus GestINF
  • 4.Es eso in interaction
    • 4.1Structural description of es eso
      • 4.1.1On the verb ser ‘to be’ in Spanish. Beyond attribution
      • 4.1.2Discursive potential of the neuter demonstrative eso ‘that’
    • 4.2Es eso: Constructionalization of intersubjectivity
  • 5.Conclusion: Es eso, from sentence grammar to interaction grammar
  • Notes
  • References
References (75)
References
Achard, Michel. 2001. “French ça and the Dynamics of Reference.” In LACUS Forum 27: Speaking and Comprehending, R. Brend, A. Melby and A. Lommel (eds.), 49–62.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Aikhenvald, Alexandra. 2004. Evidentiality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bermúdez, Fernando W. 2005. La evidencialidad. La codificación pragmática del punto de vista. Doctoral Dissertation. Stockholms Universitet.
Borreguero Zuloaga, Margarita. 2016. “Elementi anaforici e frasi scisse nei testi giornalistici contemporanei.” In La lingua variabile nei testi letterari, artistici e funzionali contemporanei (1915–2014): analisi, interpretazione, traduzione.Atti del XIII Convegno della Società Internazionale di Linguistica e Filologia Italiana. Palermo (22–24 settembre 2014), G. Ruffino (ed.), 529–542. Firenze: Franco Cesati.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bosque, Ignacio. 1999. “On focus vs. wh-movement: The case of Caribbean Spanish.” Sophia Linguistica: Working Papers in Linguistics 44–45: 1–32.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brinton, Laurel. 2010. “The development of I mean. Implications for the study of historical pragmatics.” In Methods in Historical Pragmatics, S. Fitzmaurice and I. Taavitsainen (eds.), 37–80. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Briz, Antonio. 2000. “Las unidades de la conversación.” In Cómo se comenta un texto coloquial, A. Briz and Grupo Val.Es.Co (eds.), 51–80: Barcelona: Ariel.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Briz, Antonio and Albelda, Marta. 2009. “Estado actual de los corpus de lengua española hablada y escrita: I+D.” El español en el mundo. Anuario del Instituto Cervantes 2009, 165-226. Madrid: Instituto Cervantes.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Briz, Antonio and Grupo Val.Es.Co. 2003. “Las unidades de la conversación: el acto.” In Estudios ofrecidos al profesor José Jesús de Bustos Tovar, J. L. Girón Alconchel (ed.), 953–968. Madrid: Editorial Complutense.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014. “Las unidades del discurso oral. La propuesta Val.Es.Co de segmentación de la conversación (coloquial).” Estudios de Lingüística del Español 35 (1): 11–71.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chafe, Wallace. 1994. Discourse, consciousness and time. The flow and displacement of conscious experience in speaking and writing. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Clark, Herbert. 1996. Using language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cuenca, Maria Josep. 2024. “¿Marcadores del discurso introductores de párrafo? El caso de dit això ‘dicho esto/eso’ en catalán.” Círculo de Lingüística Aplicada a la Comunicación 99: 39–51. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Da Milano, F. 2007. “Demonstratives in parallel texts: a case study.” Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung 60 (2): 135–147.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
De Cock, Barbara. 2013. “Entre distancia, discurso e intersubjetividad: Los demostrativos neutros en español.” Anuario de Letras. Lingüística y Filología 1 (2): 5–36Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dryer, Matthew S. 1996. “Forms, pragmatic presupposition, and activated propositions.” Journal of Pragmatics 26: 475–523. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eguren, Luis. 1999. “Pronombres y adverbios demostrativos. Las relaciones deícticas.” In Gramática descriptiva de la lengua española, I. Bosque and V. Demonte (dirs.), 929–972. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Enghels, Renata, Jansegers, Marlies and Van Den Driessche, Nele. 2024. “Reflexiones metodológicas y teóricas sobre el análisis de marcadores pragmáticos: ilustraciones a través del estudio de es que.” Biblioteca de Babel. Revista de Filología Hispánica Extra 2: 19–50. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Escandell-Vidal, M. Victoria and Leonetti, Manuel. 2009. “La expresión del verum focus en español.” Español Actual 92: 11–46.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fernández Leborans, María Jesús. 1999. “La predicación. Las oraciones copulativas.” In Gramática descriptiva de la lengua española, I. Bosque and V. Demonte (dirs.), 2357–2461. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fillmore, Charles J. 1981. “Pragmatics and the description of discourse.” In Radical Pragmatics, P. Cole (ed.), 143-166. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fillmore, Charles J., Kay, Paul and O’Connor, M. Catherine. 1988. “Regularity and idiomaticity in grammatical constructions: the case of let alone.” Language 64–3: 501–538. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fuentes Rodríguez, Catalina. 2015. “Pragmagramática de es que: El operador de intensificación.” Estudios Filológicos 55: 53–76. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
García Vizcaíno, María José. 2006. “Funciones pragmáticas de Eso es y Efectivamente en el español peninsular.” Spanish in Context 3 (2): 215–237. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ginzburg, John. [2012] 2015). The interactive stance. Meaning for conversation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goldberg, Adele. 1995. Constructions. A Construction Grammar approach to argument structure, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2006. Constructions at work. The nature of generalization in language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gutiérrez Ordóñez, Salvador. 1989. Variaciones sobre la atribución. León: Universidad de León.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1997. Temas, remas, focos, tópicos y comentarios. Madrid: Arco Libros.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2015. “La familia de las ecuacionales.” Revista Internacional de Lingüística Iberoamericana 26 (2): 15–37. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gutiérrez-Rexach, Javier and Zulaica Hernández, Íker. 2007. “Abstract Reference and Neuter Demonstratives in Spanish.” In Proceedings of DAARC 2007. The 6th Discourse Anaphora and Anaphor Resolution Colloquium, A. Branco et al. (eds.), 25–30. Oporto: Centro da Linguistica da Universidade do Porto.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heim, Irene. 1982. The semantics of definite and indefinite noun phrases. Doctoral Dissertation. UMassAmherst.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heine, Bernd. 2002. “On the role of context in grammaticalization.” In New reflections on grammaticalization, I. Wisher and G. Diewald (eds.), 83–101, Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2023. The Grammar of Interactives. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heine, Bernd, Kaltenböck, Gunther, Kuteva, Tania and Long, Haiping. 2013. “An outline of discourse Grammar.” In Reflections on functionalism in Linguistics, S. Bishoff y C. Jeny (eds.), 155–206. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hidalgo, Antonio. 2002. Comentario fónico de textos coloquiales. Madrid: Arco Libros.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kaltenböck, Gunther, Heine, Bernd and Kuteva, Tania. 2011. “On thetical grammar.” Studies in Language 35 (4): 852–897. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lakoff, G. 1987. Women, fire and dangerous things. What categories reveal about the mind. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lambrecht, Knud. 1994. Information Structure and sentence form. Topic, focus and the mental representations of discourse referents. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Levinson, Stephen C. 1979. “Activity types and language.” Linguistics 17: 365–399. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lyons, J. 1977. Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Marín, Maria Josep and Cuenca, Maria Josep. 2012. “De l’atribució a la modalitat: construccions amb és que en català oral.” Caplletra. Revista Internacional De Filologia 52: 65–94.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Martín Zorraquino, M. Antonia and Portolés, José. (1999). “Los marcadores del discurso.” In Gramática descriptiva de la lengua española, I. Bosque y V. Demonte (dirs.), 4051–4211. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Méndez Vallejo, Dunia C. (2015). “Ser focalizador: variación dialectal y aceptabilidad de uso.” Revista Internacional de Lingüística Iberoamericana 13 (2): 61–79. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Moreno Cabrera, Juan C. (1999). “Las funciones informativas: las perífrasis de relativo y otras construcciones perifrásticas.” In Gramática descriptiva de la lengua española, I. Bosque y V. Demonte (dirs.), 4245–4304. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Narrog, Heiko and Heine, Bernd. 2021. Grammaticalization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nuyts, Jan. 2001. “Subjectivity as an evidential dimension in epistemic modal expressions.” Journal of Pragmatics 33: 383–400. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2012. “Notions of (inter)subjectivity.” English Text Construction 5 (1): 53–76. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pérez Saldanya, Manel. 2021. “De las copulativas identificativas a las construcciones hendidas.” Verba: Anuario Galego de Filoloxía 48. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pérez Saldanya, Manel and Hualde, J. Ignacio. 2021. “De las copulativas identificativas a las justificativas con es que”. Revista de Filología Española (RSE) CI (2): 421–448. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pons Bordería, Salvador. 2022. Creación y análisis de corpus orales: Saberes prácticos y reflexiones teóricas. Berlin: Peter Lang. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Porroche, Margarita. 1990. Aspectos de la atribución en español. Zaragoza: Pórtico.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1998. “Sobre algunos usos de que, si y es que como marcadores discursivos.” In Marcadores del discurso, M. A. Martín Zorraquino and E. Montolío (eds.), 229–242. Madrid: Arco Libros.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Portolés, José. 1998. “El concepto de suficiencia argumentativa.” Signo y Seña 9: 201–224.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2004. Pragmática para hispanistas. Madrid: Síntesis.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2020. “El marcador discursivo claro: evidencial, razonamiento e identidad.” In El conocimiento compartido. Entre la pragmática y la gramática, S. Rodríguez Rosique and J. Antolí Martínez (eds.), 187–212. Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Potts, Christopher. 2007. “Into the Conventional-Implicature dimension.” Philosophy Compass 4 (2): 665–679. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Prince, Ellen. 1981. “Toward a new taxonomy of Given-New Information.” In Radical Pragmatics, P. Cole (ed.), 223–255. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Real Academia Española and Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española [RAE/ASALE]. 2009. Nueva gramática de la lengua española. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Remberger, Eva M. 2020. “Information-structural properties of is that clauses.” In Information-structural Perspectives on Discourse Particles, P. Y. Modicom and O. Duplâtre (eds.), 47–69. Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rodríguez Rosique, Susana and Cifuentes Honrubia, José L. (on line). Corpus GestINF. Universidad de Alicante: Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes 〈[URL]〉
Rojo, Guillermo. 2016. “Los corpus textuales del español.” In Enciclopedia lingüística hispánica, J. Gutiérrez-Rexach (ed.), 285–296. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2024. “El futuro de los corpus de referencia”. Studia Linguistica Romanica 2024 12: 18–33. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sedano, Mercedes. 1990. Hendidas y otras construcciones con ser en el habla de Caracas. Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2006. “Seudohendidas y oraciones con verbo ser focalizador en dos corpus del español hablado de Caracas.” Estudios de Lingüística del Español 23. [URL]
. 2010. “El verbo ser en las oraciones seudohendidas y con verbo ser focalizador”. Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica 58 (1): 39–58. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Squartini, Mario. 2012. “Evidentiality in interaction: The concessive use of the Italian future between grammar and discourse.” Journal of Pragmatics 44: 2116-2128.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stalnaker, Robert C. 1978. “Assertion”. In Syntax and semantics 9. Pragmatics, P. Cole (ed.), 315–332. New York: Academic Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth C. 1989. “On the rise of epistemic meanings in English: An example of subjectification in semantic change.” Language 65 (1): 31–55. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2010. “(Inter)subjectivity and (inter)subjectification: A reassessment.” In Subjectification, intersubjectification and grammaticalization, K. Davidse, L. Vandelanotte and H. Cuyckens (eds.), 29–71. Berlin / New York: Walter de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2008. “‘All that he endeavoured to prove was’: On the emergence of grammatical construction in dialogal and dialogic contexts.” In Language in Flux: Dialogue Coordination, Language Variation, Change and Evolution, R. Cooper and R. Kepson (eds.), 143–177. London: Kings College Publications.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2015. “Toward a coherent account of grammatical constructionalization.” In Diachronic construction grammar, J. Barðdal et al. (eds.), 51–80. Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth and Trousdale, Graeme. 2013. Constructionalization and constructional changes. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue