To believe and not to believe: appellative modality and assertion in language

Abstract

The present study is based on empirical data extracted from the CREA corpus (Corpus de Referencia del Español Actual). The aim is to describe the metadiscursive uses of two imperative forms –créeme and no creas–. These communicative uses are analyzed, and the semantic and functional relationships established between the two, as well as the formal and semantic changes observed in some cases, are studied in detail. Properties such as the formal fixedness, idiomaticity, extra-predicative character, etc. prompt an analysis of the relationships (on the dimension of discourse) between lexical processes and those processes ascribed to the category of discourse markers. The analysis of créeme and no creas illustrates that the difference between these two extremes is gradual. Some uses are close to the prototypical use of discourse markers, whereas others are only marginally similar to that functional category.