This chapter aims to provide evidence for the direct interaction between the meaning of discourse particles and their situation with respect to discourse units. Changes in position bring corresponding changes in meaning and, more importantly for our purpose, they may trigger or inhibit attenuation. Examples taken from the Diccionario de partículas discursivas del español (DPDE, www.dpde.es) provide evidence for the existence of some discourse particles whose core meaning is mitigating, and some others where an attenuating meaning arises in particular contexts. The former particles are prototypically attenuating, but their position with respect to discourse is determinant for them to finally work as such; the latter, by contrast, may develop a contextual, peripheral attenuating meaning if their position in discourse is changed.
The aim of this paper is twofold. First, it aims to delve into the influence of contextual discursive factors in determining the type of evidential chosen and the pragmatic functions developed by evidentials in Spanish parliamentary discourse; second, it shows how evidentials can also provide useful new insight on the genre. A corpus study has been carried out studying the Spanish evidential discourse marker al parecer in parliamentary debates. The analysis shows how real examples of al parecer hardly fit any category of evidentials posited previously; data also illustrates how factors such as the discursive role or the part of the parliamentary process do affect the meaning of al parecer and change the pragmatic nuances conveyed by the discourse marker.
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