Document type

Article

Version

Submitted version

Publication date

All rights reserved

Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/2445/102009

'Que bé, tu!' ('That's great, you!'): An emerging emphatic use of the second person singular pronoun tu (you) in spoken Catalan

Journal Title

Director/Tutor

Additional contribution

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Abstract

The Catalan second person singular (2sg) pronoun tu (you) has acquired a wide range of pragmatic values in spoken registers that have received little or no attention from scholars in the field. The aim of the present article is to analyse a particular emerging use of the 2sg pronoun tu from a corpus-based perspective. In the light of Grammaticalisation Theory, it is argued that whereas in some contexts this pronoun maintains all or part of its referential function (e.g. as subject or as a vocative, respectively), in other contexts its use is very similar to that of an emphatic pragmatic marker. Data drawn from three spoken corpora suggest that the pronoun has consolidated this new use. Prosodic evidence is also provided to show the semantic and pragmatic changes undergone by the pronoun.

Related resource

Citation

Citation

BLADAS MARTÍ, Òscar and NOGUÉ SERRANO, Neus. 'Que bé, tu!' ('That's great, you!'): An emerging emphatic use of the second person singular pronoun tu (you) in spoken Catalan. Pragmatics. 2016. Vol. 26, num. 3, pags. 473-500. ISSN 1018-2101. [consulted: 8 of October of 2026]. Available at: https://hdl.handle.net/2445/102009

Export metadata

JSON - METS

Share record