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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Evidential markers derived from visual perception in Spanish dialects : a contrastive study of por lo visto and se ve (que)

subject

description

Verbs of perception (PV) are known to frequently give rise to discursive uses. PVs are used, for example, as evidential markers through grammaticalization processes. This study focuses on two evidential markers of Spanish derived from the visual PVs ver ('to see'), namely, 'por lo visto' and 'se ve (que)'. Although the attention dedicated to these evidential markers in Spanish has increased considerably in recent years, contrastive studies have not taken into account the dialectal variation of this phenomenon. We aspire to take a first step in filling this gap by contrastively studying 'por lo visto' and 'se ve (que)' in different dialects of Spanish by means of a comprehensive, empirical study. The results display the distribution of 'por lo visto' and 'se ve (que)' in the dialectal map of Spanish. In addition to the diatopic variation, the frequency differences also reveal some significant diaphasic variation (in this case linked to discursive genre). In general, the results show that 'se ve (que)' is used more frequently and appears more often in informal registers than 'por lo visto'. Likewise, 'se ve (que)' turns out to be more widespread geographically than 'por lo visto'.