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Perspectives on Evidentiality in Spanish: Explorations across genres
Edited by Carolina Figueras Bates and Adrián Cabedo
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 290] 2018
► pp. 107–124

Chapter 5
Evidentiality, deonticity and intensification in Internet forum language

 | Pompeu Fabra University
We analyze the Spanish verbal periphrases tienes que + infinitive and debes + infini-tive [you have to + infinitive and you should + infinitive], with a deontic meaning, in an Internet forum. These verbal forms are used to give advice to other Internet users. After analyzing their functions, we reached the conclusion that such periphrases, with deontic value, function as epistemic modals: on the part of the speaker, they imply an axiological evaluation of his or her advice in terms of it being essential and necessary. Its evidential value (in the sense of information validation rather than as a source) derives from two factors. From a pragmatic inference: when a speaker expresses a high degree of certainty, to the extent of presenting an act as a requirement or obligation, he or she must have compelling evidence in order to believe that. And from an argumentative strategy: in order to justify their exhortations, the speakers draw on their personal experience and present themselves as witnesses who guarantee the validity of their recommendations.
Keywords: evidentiality, deontic modality, intensification, internet genres
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Work methodology and preliminary considerations concerning the corpus data
  • 3. The theoretical question
  • 4. Tienes que + infinitive [you have to + infinitive] vs. debes + infinitive [you should + infinitive]
    • 4.1The source of necessity in tienes que + infinitive [you have to + infinitive] and debes + infinitive [you should + infinitive]
    • 4.2 Analysis of the periphrasis debes + infinitive [you should + infinitive]
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 24 July 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.290.05mic
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Cited by one other publication

Cabedo Nebot, Adrián & Carolina Figueras Bates
2018. Evidentiality in discourse. In Perspectives on Evidentiality in Spanish [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 290], ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo

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