Chapter 8. French j’imagine , Spanish me imagino
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Stefan Schneider
Abstract
French imaginer and Spanish imaginar start to appear during the second half of the 13th century. Initially, these verbs remain closely linked to the corresponding nouns image and imagen, their prevailing meaning being ‘form a picture’. After the 14th century, a second meaning, ‘suppose’, gradually begins to develop. The spread of the ‘suppose’ meaning favors, among other things, the appearance of detached constructs, that is, deverbal discourse markers (Schneider 2020a, 2022), in the first person present indicative singular. From the 17th century to the 19th century, in these detached constructs, French imaginer is regularly preceded by a subject pronoun and a reflexive pronoun, whereas Spanish imaginar occurs without pronouns. In the 20th century and beginning 21st century, the French deverbal discourse marker without reflexive almost completely supplants the one with reflexive. In contrast, the recent development of imaginar in Spanish goes in the opposite direction, with me imagino replacing imagino as deverbal discourse marker. Hence, for centuries, French and Spanish maintained a specific contrast regarding the discourse marker construction with imaginer and imaginar: presence of the reflexive pronoun in French, absence of the reflexive pronoun in Spanish. In the course of the 20th century, this contrast seems to have reversed. The present study seeks to provide additional data both from written and spoken corpora and also addresses the question of whether the absence or, respectively, presence of the reflexive pronoun in the discourse marker construction represents a merely superficial and formal phenomenon or is due to a deeper structural and semantic difference.
Abstract
French imaginer and Spanish imaginar start to appear during the second half of the 13th century. Initially, these verbs remain closely linked to the corresponding nouns image and imagen, their prevailing meaning being ‘form a picture’. After the 14th century, a second meaning, ‘suppose’, gradually begins to develop. The spread of the ‘suppose’ meaning favors, among other things, the appearance of detached constructs, that is, deverbal discourse markers (Schneider 2020a, 2022), in the first person present indicative singular. From the 17th century to the 19th century, in these detached constructs, French imaginer is regularly preceded by a subject pronoun and a reflexive pronoun, whereas Spanish imaginar occurs without pronouns. In the 20th century and beginning 21st century, the French deverbal discourse marker without reflexive almost completely supplants the one with reflexive. In contrast, the recent development of imaginar in Spanish goes in the opposite direction, with me imagino replacing imagino as deverbal discourse marker. Hence, for centuries, French and Spanish maintained a specific contrast regarding the discourse marker construction with imaginer and imaginar: presence of the reflexive pronoun in French, absence of the reflexive pronoun in Spanish. In the course of the 20th century, this contrast seems to have reversed. The present study seeks to provide additional data both from written and spoken corpora and also addresses the question of whether the absence or, respectively, presence of the reflexive pronoun in the discourse marker construction represents a merely superficial and formal phenomenon or is due to a deeper structural and semantic difference.
Chapters in this book
- 日本言語政策学会 / Japan Association for Language Policy. 言語政策 / Language Policy 10. 2014 i
- Table of contents v
- From synchrony to diachrony 1
- Chapter 1. Linguistic change in the 20th century 17
- Chapter 2. The apparent-time construct as a proxy to spoken conversational data in the 20th century 63
- Chapter 3. Cultural products, passing fashions, and linguistic changes 95
- Chapter 4. Diatopic variation as evidence for diachronic changes in the 20th and 21st centuries 120
- Chapter 5. Social indexicality and pragmatic change in the late 20th century 158
- Chapter 6. How are linguistic changes in the 20th century to be studied? 188
- Chapter 7. Bestial and warm addressing forms in Mexican Spanish 218
- Chapter 8. French j’imagine , Spanish me imagino 240
- Chapter 9. Constructional changes in Brazilian Portuguese in the 20th century 261
- Index 291
Chapters in this book
- 日本言語政策学会 / Japan Association for Language Policy. 言語政策 / Language Policy 10. 2014 i
- Table of contents v
- From synchrony to diachrony 1
- Chapter 1. Linguistic change in the 20th century 17
- Chapter 2. The apparent-time construct as a proxy to spoken conversational data in the 20th century 63
- Chapter 3. Cultural products, passing fashions, and linguistic changes 95
- Chapter 4. Diatopic variation as evidence for diachronic changes in the 20th and 21st centuries 120
- Chapter 5. Social indexicality and pragmatic change in the late 20th century 158
- Chapter 6. How are linguistic changes in the 20th century to be studied? 188
- Chapter 7. Bestial and warm addressing forms in Mexican Spanish 218
- Chapter 8. French j’imagine , Spanish me imagino 240
- Chapter 9. Constructional changes in Brazilian Portuguese in the 20th century 261
- Index 291
