From truth-attesting to intensification: The grammaticalization of Spanish la verdad and Catalan la veritat

Abstract

The aim of this article is to discuss and illustrate the grammaticalization process and the polysemic and polyfunctional nature of the Spanish and Catalan markers la verdad and la veritat, from an original objectified referential meaning of the forms (‘tell the truth’, opposite to ‘tell a lie’) to a highly subjectified procedural meaning of the markers (figuratively/metaphorically: ‘frankly/sincerely/honestly’). The pragmatic meaning of these markers stems from the loss of semantic features (i.e. semantic bleaching) and the different uses that they can adopt in a variety of syntactic and pragmatic contexts, where their (inter)subjective, evaluative, and intensifying modal dimensions are fully manifested. In lexical terms, they are noun phrases that can take variable and invariable forms. In morphological terms, the variable form is inflected in number (Sp. cantar las verdades; ‘tell the truths’) and has a referential value, whereas the invariable form, prosodically extraposed, or followed by a verbal predicate when working as pragmatic marker (Cat. la veritat, no m’agrada; ‘frankly, I don’t like it’), is always uninflected and is polyfunctional, with a procedural value. When followed by a verbal predicate (la verdad/veritat es/és que; ‘the truth + be + that), la verdad and la veritat acquire a structural dimension, besides their modal illocutionary one, being used as boundary markers that separate description of facts from first person evaluation, in a monologued stretch of discourse. In an interactional context, the marker frequently prefaces counter expectations. In order to show its grammaticalization process, I will discuss and exemplify their role as (a) evidential marker with a truth-attesting value (‘tell the truth’), (b) epistemic modality markers used to introduce the speaker’s attitude to the content of the proposition (modal meaning) or to the addressee (affective meaning) in the context of an utterance (‘frankly’, ‘honestly’), (c) intensifiers or boosters used to modify the illocutionary force of a speech act (‘really’, ‘truly’), and (d) discourse boundary markers used to delimit real-world facts (description) from personal opinion (evaluation; ‘in fact’, ‘actually’). In order to account for their polysemic and polyfunctional dimensions, I will propose salient meanings and prototypical functions.