Responding and Clarifying

This paper utilises the methodology of Conversation Analysis (CA hereafter) to report on the Spanish particle pues in Mexican Spanish talk. Two general sequential contexts are examined: 1) pues-prefacing in the second pair-part of an adjacency pair, i.e., in the second pair-part of an assessment sequence and in response to questions; and 2) turn-final pues and pues at the end of a turn-constructional unit. The analysis of assessment sequences shows that pues is used to treat the previous assessment as obvious and index epistemic independence; in addition, pues can be one of the elements used to formulate a delicate disagreement. In response to questions, pues either signals unstraightforwardness in answering or indicates that the answer is obvious which challenges the relevance of the question. Similarly, pues, in response to challenges, prefaces the obvious actions to fulfil the request, making the response a riposte. Turn-final pues and pues at the end of the turn constructional unit mark repair after interactional trouble. Finally, in a news delivery sequence, sí pues treats the previous talk as not news for the recipient.