Tradicionalidad discursiva e influencia del francés en la gramaticalización de en definitiva como marcador del discurso

Abstract

Abstract This paper addresses the grammaticalization of Spanish en definitiva as a discourse marker. The objectives are threefold: to enquire about previous changes and discourse traditions that took place, to outline the path to the new values that were acquired, and to ascertain whether the French construction en définitive had an influence on the Spanish one during the grammaticalization process. To do so, we examined the cases found in Frantext for French, while for the Spanish data, we used Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española and Corpus diacrónico del español. Additionally, Gallica and Hemeroteca Digital were used to fill the gaps in the documentation for the 18th and 19th centuries. The results show that en definitiva might have undergone a vernacular evolution fixing as a ritual formula that gave rise to a modal construction and later assimilated new discourse uses as loan translations from the French construction en définitive. This finding leads to deeper consideration of the evolution of Modern French discourse markers and 19th century Spanish press.