Haverkate, H. (1984) - Speecha Acts, Speakers and Hearers

SPEECH ACTS, SPEAKERS, AND HEARERS
Pragmatics & Beyond

An Interdisciplinary Series of Language Studies
Editors:
Hubert Cuyckens
(Belgian National Science Foundation,
University of Antwerp)
Herman Parret
Universities of Louvain and Antwerp)
Jef Verschueren
University of Antwerp)
Editorial Address:
Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures
University of Antwerp (UIA)
Universiteitsplein 1
B-2610 Wilrijk
Belgium
Editorial Board:
Norbert Dittmar {Free University of Berlin)
David Holdcroft {University of Leeds)
Jacob Mey {Odense University)
Jerrold M. Sadock {University of Chicago)
Emanuel A. Schegloff (University of California at Los Angeles)
Daniel Vanderveken (University of Quebec at Trois-Rivières)
Teun A. van Dijk (University of Amsterdam)
V:4
Henk Haverkate
Speech Acts, Speakers, and Hearers

Reference and Referential Strategies in Spanish
SPEECH ACTS, SPEAKERS,
AND HEARERS
Reference and Referential Strategies

in Spanish
Henk Haverkate
University of Amsterdam
JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY

AMSTERDAM/PHILADELPHIA
1984
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Haverkate, Henk.
Speech acts, speakers, and hearers.
(Pragmatics & beyond, ISSN 0166-6258; V:4)
Bibliography. p. 131
1. Spanish language-Reference. 2. Speech acts (Linguistics).
I. Title. II. Series.
PC4585.H38 1984 460.1'9 84-24200
ISBN 90-272-2537-0 (European)
ISBN 0-915027-42-9 (U.S.)
© Copyright 1984 - John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or
any other means, without written permission from the publisher.
To Willy
Tú te quieres, yo me quiero
tú me quieres, yo te quiero
Padre, en este tuteo

de infinidad entrañable
en Ti me endioso, me creo,
se hace mañana mi tarde.
En Ti, Padre, yo me veo,
Tú te ves en mí, mi Padre;
tuteo se hace yomeo
y somos uno de sangre.
Tú me crees, yo te creo,
y en este diálogo que arde,
turneo se hace yoteo
y las palabras gigantes.
Hablando se entienden hombres
y el nombre a la cosa le hace;
forjada a incendios de soles
fría palabra ... diamante.
Miguel de Unamuno, 'Cancionero. Diario poético'

TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi
0. INTRODUCTION 1
1. SPEAKERS, HEARERS, AND OTHERS PERSONS 3
2. SPEECH ACTS, SPEAKERS, AND HEARERS 9

2.0. Introduction 9
2.1. Propositional acts 9
2.2. Illocutionary acts 14
2.2.1. Performatives 16
2.2.2. Assertives 18
2.2.3. Directives 18
2.2.4. Commissives 21
2.2.5. Expressives 22
2.3. Illocutionary preconditions 24
2.3.1. Sincerity 24
2.3.2. Nonobviousness 29
2.3.3. Willingness 30
2.3.4. Ability 31
2.3.5. Reasonableness 33
2.3.6. Obviousness 34
3. LINGUISTIC STRATEGIES 37
4. A SPEECH ACT ANALYSIS OF LINGUISTIC STRATEGIES 45
5. LINGUISTIC STRATEGIES AND SPEAKER- AND HEAR

ER-REFERENCE 51
5.1. Standard expressions 51
X SPEECH ACTS, SPEAKERS, AND HEARERS
5.2. Focalizing expressions 56

5.2.0. Introduction 56
5.2.1. Speaker-reference 56
5.2.1.1. Egocentric expressions 58
5.2.1.2. Nonegocentric expressions 63
5.2.2. Hearer-reference 66
5.2.2.1. Vocative expressions 67
5.2.2.2. Nonvocative expressions 76
5.3. Defocalizing expressions 79
5.3.0. Introduction 79
5.3.1. First-person plural expressions 84
5.3.2. Second-person singular expressions 92
5.3.3. The indefinite pronoun uno 97
5.3.4. Pseudo-reflexive expressions 100
5.3.5. Implicit reference 105
6. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 113
FOOTNOTES 121
REFERENCES 131
SOURCES OF THE EXAMPLES QUOTED 141

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Among the people who have contributed directly or indirectly to the

form and content of the present book, I would like to mention in particular
Teun van Dijk, Henk Pander Maat, and Dick Springorum.
I am indebted to Teun van Dijk for valuable suggestions concerning
matters of presentation.
Henk Pander Maat's detailed criticisms have helped me to arrive at a
better interpretation of the many interactional settings discussed throughout
the book.
I am grateful to Dick Springorum for his original suggestions, which
enabled me to improve the contextual presentation of many of the examples
that are used for illustration purposes.
It remains for me to record my special gratitude to Fernando Quilodrán,
who has devoted so much attention to refining the form and content of the
Spanish examples.
0. INTRODUCTION
This study is an inquiry into the pragmatics of speaker- and hearer-ref

erence. It falls into a theory-based and a description-based part. The former
covers three topics: (a) the categories of speaker and hearer as opposed to
the category of nonparticipants in the speech act; (b) the interactional roles
of speaker and hearer as defined by the illocutionary point of the speech act
and the preconditions underlying its successful performance; (c) the decom
position of the speech act as a model for describing strategies in verbal interac
tion.
The structure of the model referred to in (c) as well as the concept of
linguistic strategy will be dealt with in detail, as the descriptive part of the
study analyzes expressions referring to both the speaker and the hearer within
the framework of certain categories of selection procedures, which are
applied by speakers in order to ensure the strong successfulness of their
speech acts. In this respect, the following categories are distinguished: (i)
standard expressions, (ii) focalizing expressions, and (iii) defocalizing expres
sions.
Standard reference to the speaker and the hearer is expressed by per
sonal pronouns, which serve as unmarked devices, compared to the
categories expressing focalizing and defocalizing reference. Focalizing refer
ence, which is expressed by both proper nouns and common nouns, serves
to emphasize the role of the speaker or the hearer in the state of affairs
explicitly described or implicitly referred to. Defocalizing reference, on the
contrary, which is expressed by nonspecifically referring constituents, such
as indefinite pronouns, serves to downgrade or minimize the role of the
speaker or the hearer.
The hypothesis underlying the present study is that the above categories
of standard, focalizing, and defocalizing reference provide a necessary and
sufficient framework for the analysis of any expression referring to the
speaker or the hearer.
The object of the descriptive part of this study is to survey the different
linguistic realizations of the three categories mentioned before, and the
2 SPEECH ACTS, SPEAKERS, AND HEARERS
strategical effects speakers intend to bring about by employing them. To this

purpose, a language-specific analysis is applied to the system of speaker- and
hearer-reference in Peninsular Spanish. For the sake of homogeneity, Penin
sular Spanish is also chosen as the object language for the discussion of the
general language phenomena which are treated in the theoretical discussion.
By means of a systematic translation of Spanish examples into English,
an implicit contrastive reference is made to the categories of speaker and
hearer expressions in the latter language. In several cases, empirical evidence
from other languages, particularly Dutch, will be taken into consideration
as well.
1. SPEAKERS, HEARERS, AND OTHER PERSONS
Up till now no integrated study of the pragmatics of speaker- and hearer-

reference has been realized. Since the publication of Brown and Gilman's
classical paper "The pronouns of power and solidarity" (1960), most research
has been devoted to hearer-reference with a particular focus on the social
and interactional connotations of pronouns of address. With respect to
Spanish, the following contributions to the study of this subject can be men
tioned: Criado de Val (1973), Keller (1975), Lambert and Tucker (1976),
Lapesa (1970), Marín (1972), Pérez Botero (1975), Scotti-Rosin (1981), and
Solé (1978). A second type of research into hearer-reference concerns the
pragmatics of vocative constructions. This topic has been given considerably
less attention, as may be shown by the fact that, as far as Spanish is concerned,
the only reference is to a paper written by myself (1978). In section 5.2.2.1,
which is the first of two sections dealing with focalizing reference to the
hearer, particular attention is paid to the pragmalinguistic properties of
vocatives.
Finally, in a recent paper, Clark and Carlson (1982) deal with the cate
gory of the hearer from another point of view by making a distinction between
various types of hearers involved in the performance of the speech act. A
return to Clark and Carlson's classification will be made later on in this
section.
As for the literature on speaker-reference, we find that it is particularly
the social role and the perspective of the speaker as determined by the context
and situation of utterance which have been investigated in the past few years;
see two Dutch studies, by Pander Maat (1982) and Van Lint (1977). Unlike
the various kinds of studies mentioned above, this one aims at giving an
integrated description of the categories of speaker and hearer. Such an
approach is motivated by the fact that it enables us to concentrate upon the
roles of the central participants of the speech act as they influence each other
according to the particular type of verbal interaction in which they are
involved. The following concerns the role of speaker and hearer as discourse
interactants:
"Most discourse in any language, is oriented to the people involved in the

speech act, and pre-eminently to the speaker ...
In the speaker's view of the world, as it impinges on him and he describes
it in his language, he will be the quintessential agent. Radiating out from
this egocentric focus, the next most likely agent will surely be the addressee".
(Dixon 1979: 85)
Notice further that the basic role of speaker and hearer has also been
used as an argument to replace the traditional tripartite of first-person,
second-person, and third-person reference by a binary system made up of a
speaker and a hearer component, on the one hand, and a nonspeaker,
nonhearer component, on the other. Thus, Hjelmslev states that ego and tu
should be considered as two paradigmatic forms of one and the same pro
noun.1 As briefly indicated in the introductory section, the pragmatics of
speaker-and hearer-reference will be dealt with using two different perspec
tives. The following chapter concerns itself with the interaction between
speaker and hearer as defined by the specific commitments and obligations
that derive from the illocutionary point of the speech act. For illustration
purposes, consider the commitment of the speaker to carry out a promise
made to the hearer, and the obligation of the hearer to comply with an order
issued by a speaker endowed with the required authority in the corresponding
area of behavior. Within the same frame of reference, I will discuss the
different ways in which the contributions of speaker and hearer to their
verbal exchange are determined by the preconditions underlying the success
ful performance of the speech act. For example, one may think of willingness
and ability as preconditions inherent in the act of requesting; that is to say,
a speaker uttering a request presupposes the hearer to be both willing and
able to perform the act requested.
Various types of information concerning the speaker and the hearer as
conveyed by propositional content will be the focal point with regard to the
internal structure of the speech act. The second perspective from which to
approach the pragmatics of speaker- and hearer-reference is that of strategies
in verbal interaction. In relation to this, a general survey of linguistic
strategies will first be presented, and after that a model will be developed
for describing these strategies in terms of the decomposition of the speech
act into its integral parts. The componential analysis involved results in a
distinction between four subacts of the speech act, viz. the phonetic, the
illocutionary, the predicating, and the referring subact. In accordance with
the subject matter of this book, particular emphasis will be placed upon
strategies applied in the performance of the referring subact. It will be argued
SPEAKERS, HEARERS, AMD OTHER PERSONS 5
that speakers referring to themselves or to their hearer make a selection

from three types of strategies, that is, they choose between standard
strategies, focalizing strategies, and defocalizing strategies. In the first case,
the selection by the speaker results in the use of one of the members of the
category of pronouns. This category can be considered to be unmarked in
comparison with the categories of focalizing and defocalizing expressions,
since the latter two are employed in bringing about particular perlocutionary
effects in the hearer. As indicated by the terminology, focalizing strategies
serve to bring into prominence the role of the speaker or the hearer in the
state of affairs described, whereas defocalizing strategies serve to minimize
that role. In each case, a detailed analysis will be presented of the linguistic
categories that are used by speakers in applying the corresponding strategies.
The above analysis will provide an insight into the different ways in which
speakers, in general, and Spanish speakers, in particular, verbally assess the
social and interactional relation with their hearer. Notice next that first- and
second-person expressions do not only explicitly identify speakers and hear
ers as individual persons, but implicitly refer to them in terms of the social
roles or functions they perform. By this I mean that first- and second-person
pronouns, for instance, may indicate any member of the set of roles per
formed by one and the same speaker or hearer, such as mother of a family,
teacher at a college, and trainer of a softball team.2 In the discussion of
concrete examples of referential strategies, explicit comment on social roles,
when required by the specific context in which the examples are dealt with,
will be forthcoming.
My following point concerns the referential potential of second-person
expressions. Usually, these directly address the interlocutor or interlocutors.
Nevertheless, other persons may be present at the place and time of speaking
as well. If, in the presence of these other persons, the speaker addresses the
interlocutor in another way than when these persons had not been present,
we can speak of a special type of speech act. Clark and Carlson (1982) suggest
calling these acts 'informatives'. Besides the person or persons actually
addressed by the speaker, they distinguish 'side-participants', who are not
addressed but causally involved in the speech act performed, and 'overhear-
ers', who are not causally involved in the speech act but are only physically
present at the place and time of speaking.
The present study will not elaborate on the category of informatives,
and the term 'hearer' is used exclusively for the person directly addressed
by the speaker.
In connection with the distinction between speaker- and hearer-refer

ence, on the one hand, and reference to nonparticipants in the speech act,
on the other, our point of departure has been the classification of strategies
involved in making reference to the speaker and the hearer. In this connec
tion, I distinguished standard strategies, focalizing strategies, and defocaliz-
ing strategies. With respect to grammatical analysis, the first type of strategy
is realized by the use of personal pronouns, the second by the use of proper
nouns and common nouns, and the third by the use of nonspecifically refer
ring constituents. As has been observed earlier, standard expressions are
unmarked, focalizing and defocalizing expressions are marked. Now, the
above opposition of markedness does not apply to expressions referring to
nonparticipants in the speech act. That is, although the same grammatical
categories may be used to express third-person reference, their distribution
is basically determined by the context or situation of utterance. What we
find, then, is that personal pronouns are not used by the speaker if he/she
assumes that the hearer does not share with him/her the necessary common
ground in order to properly identify the referent of the pronoun; in that case,
the speaker selects a proper noun or a common noun. This, of course, does
not hold for speaker- and hearer-reference, since the selection of the corre
sponding personal pronouns is not dependent upon the specific background
information of the hearer.
Furthermore, third-person pronouns may correlate with an indefinite
number of descriptive noun phrases, according to the view of the world the
speaker wishes to communicate. In relation to narrative structures, this point
has been formulated in the following way: "Given the findings of Downing
... on the wide variety of nominal terms used by a speaker in referring to a
single character in these narratives, it would be impossible to state with any
certainty what fuller linguistic form underlies any particular pronominal ref
erence" (Clancy 1980: 128).
The foregoing statement implies that strategies involved in the expres
sion of third-person reference are particularly realized by the selection of
descriptive noun phrases.
In the present context I would like to pay attention to three types of
strategies which apply with a relatively high frequency. In not a few cases,
then, the selection of third-person expressions is determined by the speaker's
wish to apply stylistic variation. To give one example of what I am referring
to, let me mention a study by Isaza Calderón (1967) entitled La doctrina
gramatical de Bello, in which I counted not less than thirteen different expres-
SPEAKERS, HEARERS, AMD OTHER PERSONS 7
sions all of them referring to the protagonist. Thus the author refers to Bello
as: (a) Bello (b) don Andrés Bello (c) el maestro Andrés Bello (d) el autor
(e) nuestro autor (f) el autor caraqueño (g) nuestro gramático (h) el gramático
de Caracas (i) el gramático venezolano (j) el ilustre hijo de Caracas (k) el
humanista venezolano (1) el eminente americano (m) este ilustre hijo de
América.2, From the foregoing examples it may be seen that, if referential
variation has its source in the intention of the speaker or the writer to avoid
stylistic monotony, he/she is likely to fall—quite paradoxically—into the use
of clichés. The phenomenon under consideration has been called
'synonymonania' by Bernstein, who describes it in the following way: "a
compulsion to distract and, if possible, to puzzle the reader by calling a spade
successively a garden implement and a earthen-turning tool" (Bernstein 1958:
132; quoted in Kinneavy 1971: 185).
Synonymomania, however, should be sharply distinguished from the
second type of strategy to be discussed for illustration purposes, namely the
strategy realized by the selection of referential expressions that serve to
communicate a specific point of view of the speaker. In these cases we are
dealing with the intention of the speaker to bring about a certain persuasive
effect in the hearer. This point is emphasized in the following quotation:
"Up till now we have had in towns what we call garbage or trash collectors.
These 'garbage men', instead of going round with their own carts, are now
often employed by the local authorities or 'Sanitation Departments' and in
some places their official title is now 'sanitation officer'. Behind changes of
labels of this type may lie economic and political factors as well as prestige.
Changes in nomenclature can thus reflect conflicts and changing spheres of
influence and prestige. Actual changes in the town garbage collection and
in the type of work the men do, are not in themselves likely to be enough
to trigger such changes in verbal labeling." (Blakar 1979: 140-141)
It is important to point out that the strategical impact of referential
expressions such as the one discussed in the foregoing quotation derives from
the presupposition inherent in the descriptive part of the expression. As for
this matter, a distinction is called for between the predicative and the nonpre-
dicative use of the noun phrases involved. In the former case, the noun
phrase serves to explicitly assert a property of the subject, in the latter, the
descriptive part of the noun phrase is conveyed as a presupposition. This
may be seen from the contrast between: Your friend is that criminal and That
criminal is your friend, respectively.4 The latter example clearly shows that
speakers may manipulate their hearers by using noun phrases that primarily
serve as referring expressions but at the same time involve a presupposition
concerning positive or negative properties assigned to the object or person

in question.
The last type of strategy concerning reference to other persons than the
speaker or the hearer rests upon a specific use of third-person pronouns.
Until recently, this category of pronouns didn't lend itself to developing
linguistic strategies. In the last few years, however, this situation has changed
in that speakers nowadays are in a position to choose between what is usually
called 'sexist' and 'nonsexist' forms of reference. This terminology implies
that the standard use of the pronouns he and him is sexist, because these
forms may refer in an unmarked way to members of both sexes. She and
her, on the contrary, can only be used in a marked way, since they do not ex
press but reference to female persons. What happens, then, is that for ideolog
ical reasons speakers may develop a referential strategy that aims at creating
a one-to-one correspondence between grammatical gender and human sex.
Consider for purposes of illustration the following passage: "The ironist usu
ally intends to communicate the somehow opposite of what is literally ex
pressed. But not only this: he/she also conveys his/her distance to the situa
tion, his/her detachment, and his/her superiority" (Bollobás 1981: 327; my
emphasis).
Female speakers also create a pronominal system that is the opposite
of the standard one, because it assigns to she and her the property of making
an unmarked reference to both sexes. This system, which, according to the
above terminology, is as sexist as the standard one, may be illustrated by
the following example: "either we choose the active voice because it places
the speaker in the position of having to accept responsibility for her asser
tions" (Stanley 1975: 37).
From all this one might conclude that pronominal strategies applied for
the ideological purpose mentioned above are fundamentally different from
the other types of reference discussed in this section, because the former are
not used to reflect the speaker's attitude towards the particular person refer
red to.
From the analyses carried out in the present section, it is obvious that
third-person reference is realized by selection procedures that differ basically
from those involved in first- and second-person reference.
It has also become clear that, in spite of the fact that the present study
is devoted to speaker- and hearer-reference, a pragmatic analysis of reference
to nonparticipants in the speech act would be of great interest.
2. SPEECH ACTS, SPEAKERS, AND HEARERS
2.0. Introduction
This chapter is devoted to the pragmalinguistic analysis of speaker- and
hearer-reference in terms of the propositional and illocutionary subact of
the speech act and the preconditions underlying its successful performance.
The starting point will be the description of a set of specific relations
holding between propositional structure and certain types of information
concerning the speaker and the hearer. The corresponding analysis will be
carried out at the level of both the semantic and the syntactic component of
the proposition.
Next, I will focus on the interactional roles of speaker and hearer as
defined by the commitments and obligations deriving from the type of
illocutionary act performed. This analysis will be undertaken within the
framework of Searle's speech act classification (1976), which rests upon the
distinction between assertives, directives, commissives, expressives, and
declarations. In the last section of the chapter, a set of presuppositions con
cerning the interactional behavior of speaker and hearer will be dealt with
within the framework of the preconditions inherent in the successful perfor
mance of the speech act. Special emphasis will be laid upon the formal expres
sion of speaker- and hearer-reference insofar as it reflects the interactional
categories mentioned before.
Finally, from the systematic translation of the Spanish examples into
English — in some cases evidence form Dutch will be presented too —, it
will become clear that most of the phenomena investigated in this chapter
are not specific for the Spanish language, but are likely to occur in a wide
variety of languages.
2.1. Propositional acts

This section opens with a discussion of a class of predicates which, under
certain conditions, do not allow the subject slot of the sentence to be filled
by expressions referring to the speaker. After that, there follows an analysis
of a subclass of the class of directional verbs. The verbs in question are of

interest to us here, because in their semantic description reference must be
made to a set of presuppositions involving specific information about the
speaker and the hearer. Presuppositonal information concerning the speaker
will only be discussed in connection with so-called 'factive' predicates.
Finally, syntactic analysis focusing on the distribution of speaker-referring
expressions in compound noun phrases will be made.
As indicated above, I will start with a discussion of the semantic structure
of the proposition, concentrating on three phenomena related to predicate
selection. Firstly, there is a general constraint on the use of predicates denot
ing forms of human behavior that are considered blameworthy from a social
point of view. The constraint operates in the following way: if the main clause
of the sentence is marked for present tense and nonhabitual aspect, the
subject slot is not filled by a first-person singular expression. Predicates
belonging to the category under consideration are, for example, engañar 
deceive', despellejar  gossip', and estar al acecho  lurk', or its equivalents
acechar and vigilar.
An often discussed example in English is the verb lurk, dealt with first
by Ross in relation to his performative analysis (1970: 234-235). For the
present purposes it is worth quoting Leech's comments on the subject:
"It is odd for a person to predicate lurk of himself (whether in speech or in
thought). This phenomenon has nothing to do with grammatical restrictions,
but seems to be a consequence of the strangeness of a speaker's attributing
to himself unfavourable asociations such as furtiveness, cowardliness, etc.
which lurk has in common with semantically related verbs like skulk, sneak,
slink." (1980: 126)
As pointed out by Leech, the condition triggering the constraint in ques
tion is not a syntactic, but a pragmatic one. It bears upon the fact that speakers
attempt to prevent losing their face, which would result from confessing that
they are committing blameworthy acts in the course of their verbal interac
tion. In section 2.3.1,I will return to this topic when discussing the sincerity
precondition.
The second category of predicates to be considered consists of directional
verbs whose lexical description requires that reference be made to the place
or location of the speaker and the hearer. The spatial deixis involved should
be considered a presupposition underlying the proper use of the verbs in
question. This point was originally made by Fillmore in various publications.
For example, consider his analysis of the English verbs go and come:
SPEECH ACTS, SPEAKERS, AND HEARERS 11
"The directional complement of the verb 'go' indicates a place where the
speaker (encoder) is not located at coding time, the destination associated
with expressions containing the verb 'come' requires somewhat more com
plicated understandings. The place to which one speaks of somewhat or
somebody 'coming' is understood as a place where either the speaker or
addressee is located at either coding or reference time." (Fillmore 1975:50)
Applying the above approach to the Spanish verbs ir to go' and venir 'to
come', we observe that, unlike their English counterparts, they are differen
tiated in a symmetrical way insofar as the presupposition related to the loca
tion of the speaker is concerned. Thus, it can be argued that the directional
complement of the verb ir indicates a place where the speaker is not located
at coding time, whereas the directional complement of the verb venir indicates
a place where the speaker is located at coding time. For illustration purposes,
consider the following examples:
(1) El lingüista mejicano va al instituto mañana.
T h e Mexican linguist will go to the institute tomorrow.'
(2) El lingüista mejicano viene al instituto mañana.
'The Mexican linguist will come to the institute tomorrow.'
The presupposition underlying the utterance in (1) is that the speaker
is not located at the place indicated by el instituto at coding time. (2), on the
contrary, involves the presupposition that the speaker is either located at
the institute at coding time, or, in case he/she is not, that the institute is a place
where he/she is habitually located. In the latter case, one could also say that the
institute referred to serves as a home base for the speaker. Note further that
both presuppositions remain constant under negation; they are not affected
by the illocutionary point of the speech act either. Turning to the presuppo
sition concerning the location of the hearer, it should first be pointed out that
assertions such as (1) and (2) do not involve specific information about the
place where the hearer is located at coding time. If, however, the hearer is
explicitly referred to, this situation alters. Thus, from the following imposi
tives:
(3) Vaya usted al instituto mañana.
'Go to the institute tomorrow.'
(4) Venga usted al instituto mañana.
'Come to the institute tomorrow.'
it may be inferred that the former involves the presupposition that the hearer
is not located at the institute at coding time. The utterance of the latter
impositive, however, presupposes that the hearer may, but need not be
located at the institute at coding time. If he/she is not, we may think of a com
munication situation where the speaker conveys to the hearer the corre
sponding order or request by calling him/her up or sending him/her a telegram.
Lastly, note that there is another set of directional verbs, llevar 'to take'
and traer 'to bring', which run parallel with ir and venir in the sense that the
locative presuppositions of llevar correspond to those of ir and the locative
presuppositions of traer to those of venir. A brief discussion of so-called
'factive' predicates follows. These predicates should be mentioned here
because they involve presuppositional information concerning the speaker.
The category of factive predicates was introduced by Kiparsky and Kiparsky,
who pointed out that in complex sentences the use of certain main verbs
involves the presupposition by the speaker that the complement sentence
expresses a true proposition. Thus, comparing the following pairs of sen
tences:
It is odd that it is raining. (factive)
It is likely that it is raining. (nonfactive)
and
I regret that it is raining. (factive)
I suppose that it is raining. (nonfactive)
they observe:
"The first sentence in each pair (the factive sentence) carries with it the
presupposition 'it is raining'. The speaker presupposes that the embedded
clause expresses a true proposition, and makes some assertion about that
proposition." (1971: 348)
With respect to Spanish, nothing has to be added to the above statement;
the category of factive predicates operates in exactly the same way as in
English. It is interesting to observe, in conclusion, that the famous nine
teenth-century grammarian Andrés Bello already made implicit reference
to factive predicates in his analysis of the following examples:
(5) Me alegro de que goces de tan buena salud.
'I am happy that you enjoy such a good health.'
(6) Sienten mucho tus amigos que te resuelvas a expatriarte.
'Your friends are very sorry that you have decided to emigrate. '
Bello's comment runs as follows:
"Es claro que se afirma indirectamente que gozas de salud, y que te resuelves
a expatriarte, porque estos hechos son los que producen la alegría y el
sentimiento". (1951a: 139; my emphasis).
(It is obvious that it is indirectly stated that you enjoy good health, and that
you decided to emigrate, because it is these facts which cause the happiness
and the sorrow.)
After discussing various types of information concerning the speaker
and the hearer as determined by the semantic structure of the proposition,
I will deal with a syntactic rule that bears upon the distribution of two or
more coordinated noun phrases, of which one refers to the speaker. In this
kind of constructions, the noun phrase referring to the speaker, usually the
first-person singular pronoun, fills the final slot of the chain.
What we are dealing with here is an interesting instance of the interplay
between syntax and pragmatics, since the distribution of the first-person
expression and the other noun phrase or noun phrases is triggered by a
general convention inherent in polite or modest interactional behavior. In
this connection, compare the following quotation:
"It is interesting to note that the psychological motivation for this surface
constraint is fairly obviously a convention of politeness. Unusual though
this is in English, the judgments of native speakers are as unequivocal in
these examples as elsewhere,'where politeness is not at issue." (Hurford
1975: 166)5
Since the same applies to Spanish, we can say that instances of the sequence
  NP are ill-formed. It may be observed in passing that the constraint
also seems to apply to nominal strings in which the noun phrase or noun
phrases preceding  refer to nonhumans. An illustrative example is provided
by the title of Juan Ramón Jiménez's novel Platero y yo, where Platero is the
name of a donkey. Note, however, that if speaker-reference is not expressed
by the subject of the sentence, the constraint seems to apply in English
in a less strict way. Thus Hurford observes: "For many speakers surface
constraints of the form me and NP are quite grammatical when used as
nonsubjects" (1975: 166).6 This situation does not hold for Spanish, where
both subjects and nonsubjects are under control of the same pragmasyntactic
rule. Therefore Hurford's example It is easy to please me and my wife would
not translate as Es fácil agradarnos a mí y a mi mujer, but as Es fácil agradar
nos a mi mujer y a mí.
To conclude the analysis of the sequence NP and I, I wish to point to
an alternative structure in which the pronoun referring to the speaker surfaces
as the subject of the sentence and the other noun phrase as the filler of the
comitative slot. This alternative has been discussed by Fraser, who, quoting
Mehrabian and Wiener, states:
"in saying 'John and I went to the movies last night' the speaker reflects a
more immediate positive feeling towards John than if he were to say T went
to the movies last night with John'." (1980: 346-347)
Although the above interpretation in itself is correct, Fraser fails to mention
a third possibility, namely, John went to the movies last night with me. None
of these distributional patterns, however, represent a phenomenon particular
of English; they equally occur in Spanish, where the same pragmatic interpre
tation should be attributed to them.
2.2. Illocutionary acts

In order to achieve a coherent analysis of the interactional roles of
speaker and hearer as defined by the illocutionary point of the speech act,
I have used Searle's classification of illocutionary acts as a frame of reference.
As I pointed out in section 2.0, this classification rests upon the distinction
between assertives, directives, commissives, expressives, and declarations.
One of the basic criteria involved in the delimitation of these classes is the
so-called 'direction of fit'. This criterion bears upon the relation between the
words uttered and the world referred to. In some cases, the utterance of
words serves to describe a state of affairs, in others, it serves to create one.
The difference involved has been explained by Searle in the following
way:
"Some illocutions have as part of their illocutionary point to get the words
(more strictly — their propositional content —) to match the world, others
to get the world to match the words. Assertives are in the former category,
promises and requests are in the latter." (1976: 3)
In the following analysis of illocutionary acts, illocutionary point and direc

tion of fit serve as basic parameters to describe and account for the interac
tional roles of speaker and hearer.
Starting with the class of assertives, we find that their illocutionary point
is to commit the speaker to the truth of what is expressed by the proposition
(Searle 1976: 10). As indicated by the previous quotation, the direction of
fit involved in the performance of an assertive is words to world. Con
sequently, no specific conditions are imposed on the interactional behavior
of either the speaker or the hearer, which is equivalent to stating that asser
tives are illocutionary acts that can properly be qualified as 'speaker- nor
hearer-centered'. This is corroborated by the fact that, as far as first- and

second-person reference is concerned, the propositional content of assertives
is not subject to constraints. In other words, in uttering an assertive we may
make reference to any person, not necessarily ourselves or our hearers.
The class of directives falls into various subclasses, all of them sharing
the same direction of fit, which is world to words. The illocutionary point
of directives consists in getting the hearer to do the act specified by the
proposition. For this reason, directives acts are 'hearer-centered'. A subclass
characterized by this property in a particular way is the one made up of
proposals, whose illocutionary point is to get the hearer to perform, in col
laboration with the speaker, the action specified by the proposition. There
fore proposals are typically 'speaker- and hearer-centered'.
Commissives are 'speaker-centered' acts. They constitute the mirror
image of directives, since their illocutionary point is not to get the hearer to
perform the act specified by the proposition, but to commit the speaker to
perform that act. The direction of fit, therefore, is world to words.
Expressives serve to indicate a psychological state of the speaker brought
about by a state of affairs expressed by the proposition. Typical examples
of expressive verbs are thank, congratulate, and apologize.
Note that in order for the speaker to use these verbs with expressive
illocutionary force, he must utter them as the main predicate of a performa
tive sentence. In this way, then, a particular interactional contact is estab
lished between speaker and hearer, as a result of which expressives can be
qualified as 'speaker- and hearer-centered' acts. Although Searle observes
that expressives lack a direction of fit, it seems to me that, if we take into
account their characteristic realization as performative acts, their direction
of fit, just like that of declarations, which will be discussed below, is both
words to world and world to words.
Lastly, declarations are ceremonial speech acts performed in the con
texts of certain social institutions. They all belong to the class of performative
acts, as may be gathered from such standard examples as I pronounce you
man and wife, I appoint you chairman, and I baptize you Mary Elizabeth.
On account of their official status, declarations have a fixed, ritualized
form which prevents them from showing referential variation. It follows from
the examples mentioned before that the direction of fit is both words to
world and world to words. In the present study, declarations will only be
dealt with incidentally.
The following sections will center upon the manifestations of first- and
second-person reference as conditioned by the different interactional roles

of the speaker and the hearer. As has been observed earlier, these roles are
determined by the illocutionary point of the speech act, which creates certain
commitments and obligations with respect to their future intentional
behavior.
As an introduction to this analysis, the class of performatives, which are
normally characterized by explicit reference to both the speaker and the
hearer — regardless of the illocutionary point of the speech act — will be
dealt with.
2.2.1. Performatives
As is well-known from the extensive literature on the subject,7 the lin
guistic output of performative speech acts is characterized by a lexical expres
sion of the illocutionary act the speaker performs in producing that output.
Moreover, in most cases performative utterances contain an overt reference
to the speaker and the hearer indicating their particular involvement in the
illocutionary point of the speech act. Consider the following set of examples
illustrating an assertive, a directive, a commissive, and an expressive perfor
mative act, respectively:
(7) Te digo que lo he visto con mis propios ojos.
T tell you that I have seen it with my own eyes.'
(8) Le pido que hable un poco más bajo.
'I request you to speak a little softer.'
(9) Te prometo volver la semana que viene.
'I promise you to come back next week.'
(10) Te felicito por haber obtenido el diploma.
T congratulate you on having obtained the diploma.'
There are two exceptions to the rule that reference is made to the speaker
and the hearer. First, we have the class of declarations, which, as was briefly
indicated in the previous section, is composed of ceremonial formulae. 8 These
formulae, now, may lack an explicit reference to the speaker, to the hearer,
or to both of them, as is shown by the following examples, respectively:
(11) Está usted despedido.
'You are fired.'
(12) Declaro abierta la reunión.
T open the meeting.'
(13) ¡Firmes!
'Attention!'
A subclass of the class of declarations consists of archaic performative
expressions that are characterized by first-person plural reference. This kind
of reference, which dates back to Roman Antiquity, is called 'majestic plural'.
Its use is restricted to certain official documents signed by or in the name of
civil or clerical sovereigns such as kings and bishops. In this connection,
compare: "Nos ha sobrevivido en el llamado plural may estático, ya anticuado
(Nos, el Rey decretamos . . . ) " (Gili y Gaya 1955: 205). (Nos has survived in
the so-called majestic plural, already obsolete (We, the King, decree ...).) 9
Another exception to the rule that performatives contain a first-person
singular pronoun is typical of the class of so-called 'hedged performatives'.
Hedged performatives can be qualified as strategical devices serving to miti
gate the force of standard formulations of performative acts. According to
Fraser (1975: 187), hedged performatives are syntactically defined by the
presence of a modal or a semi-modal verb. However, they do show another
formal property that is relevant to the present analysis, viz. in addition to
the presence of modals, hedged performatives are often marked for first-per
son plural reference, which obviously serves the purpose of downgrading the
responsibility of the speaker for the act specified by the proposition. To see
this more clearly, consider the following hedged variants of (11):
(14) Debemos comunicarle que está usted despedido.
'We must inform you that you are fired.'
(15) Sentimos tener que comunicarle que está usted despedido.
'We regret that we must inform you that you are fired.'
To recapitulate, the analysis of speaker- and hearer-indicating expres
sions in performative utterances calls for a basic distinction between declara
tions, on the one hand, and assertives, directives, commissives, and expres
sives, on the other. The latter are characterized by both first- and second-per
son reference, whereas the referential structure of declarations is peculiar
in the sense that they may lack an explicit reference to the speaker, the
hearer, or to both of them. In conclusion, performative speech acts are not
appropriate candidates for applying referential strategies, which is due to
the fact that speakers performing them are usually not able to avoid employ
ing strictly defined syntactic patterns.
2.2.2. Assertives
Assertive acts are not constrained as far as their propositional content
is concerned; they may express "any proposition p" (Searle 1969: 66), which
is equivalent to stating that speakers uttering an assertive are in a position
to assign properties not only to themselves or to their hearers, but also to
any other person. As we will see below, assertives are radically different
from commissives and directives in that their performance does not call forth
any commitment or obligation on the part of the speaker or the hearer to
undertake a future action for the benefit of either of them. Note further that
it is precisely assertive speech acts which are characterized by the widest
variety of speaker- and hearer-referring expressions, which is certainly due
to assertives being favorite candidates for expressing conversational implica-
tures. As a consequence, the speaker- and hearer-referring expressions in
question serve a great many strategical purposes, which will be discussed in
detail in the chapters on focalizing and defocalizing expressions.
2.2.3. Directives
Directive acts fall into two major subclasses, to which the labels 'imposi
tive' and 'nonimpositive' properly apply (cf. Haverkate 1979: 31-32). The
former subclass is made up of speech acts that serve to influence the inten
tional behavior of the hearer in such a way that he/she performs, primarily
for the benefit of the speaker, the action directly specified or indirectly
suggested by the proposition. What we are dealing with, then, are essentially
orders and requests. It follows that, as far as the performance of direct speech
acts is concerned, explicit reference is made to the hearer in order to indicate
his/her role as the performer of the action. This is the reason why the subject
of an imperative sentence, to take a standard case in point, is compulsorily
marked for second-person reference.
With respect to orders and requests, the following interactional differ
ence holds: if the speaker issuing an order is endowed with the appropriate
power in the corresponding area of behavior, the hearer is obliged to carry
out the act indicated. If the speaker makes a request which is accepted by
the hearer, the latter commits him-/herself to carrying out the act. Therefore,
with regard to impositive speech acts, the obligation and commitment of the
hearer are interactional categories that are determined by the kind of act
performed by the speaker.
Nonimpositive directive speech acts are differentiated from impositive
ones by the fact that the result of the action that the hearer has to carry out
is supposed to primarily benefit the hearer himself. To this category belong

such speech acts as advise, recommend, and invite. As to the referential
structure of nonimpositive acts, the same holds as for impositive ones, i.e.,
a direct realization of the speech act requires the surface structure of the
sentence to be marked for second-person reference. This formal property
reflects the hearer-centered character of directive speech acts, both imposi
tive and nonimpositive ones, as it is defined by their illocutionary point.
In what follows, I will discuss two subclasses of the class of impositive
acts, namely, permission-seeking and proposing acts, which in a certain
respect can be considered each other's mirror image.
Permission-seeking acts are double-action focused. Due to their
illocutionary point, their aim is getting the hearer to grant the permission
requested. The act of granting or not granting permission by the hearer might
be called the primary act. The secondary act is the act performed by the
speaker in case the hearer grants his/her permission. We can also formulate
this by stating that the performance of the secondary act by the original
speaker is presupposed if the primary act of permission-seeking is positively
reacted to by his/her interlocutor. Notice that direct realizations of permis
sion-seeking acts require the secondary act to be literally specified. This literal
specification is formally marked for present tense and first-person reference,
as the following examples show:
(16) ¿Abro la ventana?
Lit.: 'Do I open the window?'
(17) ¿Podemos entrar?
'May we come in?'
If first-person plural expressions are used, as in (17), their reference is neces
sarily exclusive, which is a logical consequence of the fact that the speaker
and the hearer play mutually exclusive roles in the type of interaction
involved. In addition to speaker-reference, we also find expressions referring
to the hearer, which is in accordance with the requestive character of permis
sion-seeking acts. Consider, for instance, the following variant of (17):
(18) ¿Nos permite usted entrar?
'Do you permit us to come in?'
Notice that in (18) the selection of the predicate permitir, in addition to the
use of the pronoun of polite address, reflects the power or authority of the
hearer in the corresponding area of behavior. 10
With respect to indirect realizations of permission-seeking acts we may

be brief. The speaker or the hearer may, but need not be referred to, as
shown by the following indirect variants of (16):
(19) Paso mucho calor aquí.
T am very warm here.'
(20) ¿Pasa usted mucho calor también?
'Are you also very warm?
(21) Hace mucho calor aquí.
'It is very warm in here.'
Proposing acts constitute the second subclass of impositive acts in this
study. Their illocutionary point is both getting the hearer to perform a certain
action and committing the speaker to cooperate with the hearer in performing
that action. Consequently, direct realizations of proposing acts are marked
for first-person plural reference, as example (22) illustrates:
(22) Saquemos entradas primero.
'Let's get tickets first.'
Due to the cooperation of the speaker and the hearer in performing the
action proposed by the former, the first-person plural reference involved is
inclusive.
Now, if we compare this situation with the one discussed in relation to
permission-seeking acts, we arrive at the conclusion that the traditional dis
tinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural reference is a
distinction that should be accounted for primarily within the framework of
a speech act classification. Such an approach, then, yields the following
paradigm:
(a) speech acts that are incompatible with exclusive reference;
(b) speech acts that are incompatible with inclusive reference;
(c) speech acts that are neutral with respect to exclusive or inclusive
reference.
The first and second category have been discussed in our analysis of proposals
and permission-seeking acts, respectively. The third category is made up of
assertives. To see this more clearly, consider the following example:
(23) En Toledo lo pasamos estupendamente.
'In Toledo we had a wonderful time.'
According to the character of the state of affairs described, the first-person

plural reference expressed by pasamos has to be interpreted as exclusive or
inclusive. Assertives, therefore, may be considered to be inherently ambigu
ous as far as the referential scope of first-person plural expressions is con
cerned.
Focusing next on utterances which express indirect proposals, we find
that they usually do not contain explicit reference to the speaker and the
hearer. Let us consider the following examples:
(24) Hace falta colocar este armario en el rincón.
'This cupboard has to be put into the corner.'
(25) Este armario estorba aquí.
This cupboard is an obstacle here.'
Although both (24) and (25) are marked for declarative surface structure, it
is not likely that they will be uttered as assertives only. Under the interpre
tation that concerns us here, they represent proposals directed to the hearer
to undertake an action together with the speaker. This action is explicitly
specified in (24) and indirectly suggested in (25). In both cases, as was
observed earlier in connection with the structure of indirect speech acts, the
hearer must infer the illocutionary point from his/her specific knowledge of
the context or situation of utterance.
Finally, it should be pointed out that indirect manifestations of directive
speech acts, in general, and impositive ones, in particular, play a dominant
role in everyday conversation. In section 5.3.5, which is devoted to the cat
egory of implicit reference to the speaker and the hearer, I will pay special
attention to both the linguistic structure and the pragmatic functions of indi
rect impositives.
2.2.4. Commissives
I propose to define the illocutionary point of commissive acts as follows: by
performing a commissive act the speaker places him-/herself under the commit
ment to perform, for the benefit of the hearer, the act specified by the
proposition. By virtue of their illocutionary point, therefore, commissive
acts are typically 'speaker-centered'. Although, as far as I am aware, commis
sives have never been analyzed in terms of the distinction between direct
and indirect speech acts, I posit that they can be. Thus, the direct performance
of a commissive produces an utterance whose proposition contains both an
explicit reference to the speaker and a full description of the act the speaker
commits him-/herself to do. What is relevant to our present analysis is that the
agent role of the speaker is made explicit by means of a specifically referring
expression, usually the first-person singular pronoun. Occasionally, how
ever, other nominal expressions are employed as well. Compare the following
examples:
(26) Llegaré al aeropuerto a tiempo.
I'll be at the airport in time.'
(27) No te preocupes, tu papá te ayudará.
'Don't worry, your daddy will help you.'
In the chapter on focalizing reference I will discuss the strategical effects
aimed at by the use of noun phrases such as tu papá in (27).
Let us now concentrate on the referential structure of indirect commis
sive acts. The category we wish to consider here consists of nonspecific expres
sions used by speakers to refer to themselves in a polite or modest way. I
assume that, as far as formal realization is concerned, it is pseudo-reflexive
constructions that will be employed in particular to convey the indirect infor
mation in question. Thus, the following example would be a case in point:
(28) No llores, todo eso se recogerá.
'Don't cry, all those things will be cleaned up.'
Under the interpretation at issue here, the speaker uttering (28) indirectly
identifies hin-/herself as the one who assumes the responsibility for cleaning
up the things referred to.
Observe, in conclusion, that the pseudo-reflexive of (28) may also
express the information that other persons than the speaker are involved in
the cleaning up. Again, the correct interpretation by the hearer will depend
on his/her specific knowledge of the context or situation of utterance.
2.2.5. Expressives
Regarding the illocutionary point of expressive acts, consider the follow
ing definition given by Searle:
"The illocutionary point of this class is to express the psychological state
specified in the sincerity condition about a state of affairs specified in the
propositional content ... The propositional content ascribes some property
(not necessarily an action) to either S or H." (1976: 12-13)
Searle gives the following examples of verbs denoting expressive acts: thank,
congratulate, apologize, condole, deplore, and welcome. From this enumer-
ation it follows that the performance of an expressive act establishes a particu

lar interpersonal relation between the speaker and the hearer in the sense
that the former expresses a psychological state brought about by a state of
affairs that causally involves the latter.
It is obvious from this qualification that expressive acts can properly be
labeled 'speaker- and hearer-centered'. Nevertheless, as regards the interac
tional roles of the interlocutors, there is an essential difference with the class
of proposing acts, which we also suggested to call 'speaker- and hearer-cen
tered'. We may formulate this difference in the following way: the illocutio-
nary point of proposals, as was pointed out in section 2.2.3, is both getting
the hearer to perform a certain action and committing the speaker to cooperate
with the hearer in performing that action. The illocutionary point of an
expressive, on the contrary, does not bear upon future actions by the speaker
and the hearer, since the truth of the proposition expressing the state of
affairs in which the hearer is causally involved, is presupposed. In other
words, unlike proposals, expressives are not defined by the direction of fit
that runs from world to words. This illocutionary difference is formally
reflected by a difference in referential structure. As we have seen before,
proposals are marked for first-person plural reference; expressives, however,
are never marked this way, but show the following patterns of speaker- and
hearer-reference:
(a) reference to both the speaker and the hearer;
(b) reference to the speaker, but no reference to the hearer;
(c) no reference to either the speaker or the hearer.
Let me illustrate these distributional rules by means of the following exam
ples:
(29) Te felicito por haber obtenido la licencia de conducir.
'My congratulations on your obtaining your driver's licence.'
(30) Me excuso por no haber asistido a la reunión.
T apologize for not having attended the meeting.'
(31) ¡Qué lástima que todo eso haya ocurrido así!
'What a pity that it all happened that way!'
When interpreting these examples, we find that in (29) it is the hearer who
plays the agent role in the state of affairs described by the embedded prop
osition. The same applies, mutatis mutandis, to (30) with respect to the role
of the speaker. (31) does not express any reference to either the speaker or
the hearer; nevertheless, the expressive content of qué lástima, together with
the meaning of the embedded proposition, make it clear that the hearer is
causally involved, either as an agent or as a patient, in the state of affairs
indicated by todo eso hay ocurrido así. It should be noted, in conclusion,
that expressive acts are no appropriate candidates for being performed in an
indirect way, which is obviously due to the fact that their illocutionary point
is defined by the expression of a psychological state of the speaker.
2.3. Illocutionary preconditions

The first systematic investigation of illocutionary preconditions was
undertaken by Searle (1969: 63-71). In Haverkate (1979: 93-98) I proposed a
partial revision as well as an extension of Searle's framework in order to
increase its descriptive power, particularly in relation to the analysis of
impositive speech acts. Taking the modified model as a frame of reference,
I will discuss the following types of preconditions: sincerity, nonobviousness,
willingness, ability, reasonableness, and obviousness. We will see that only
the two latter are inherently neutral with respect to the interaction between
speaker and hearer. As for the other preconditions, we find that the sincerity
precondition is inherently speaker-centered, the nonobviousness and willing
ness preconditions are inherently hearer-centered, while the ability precon
dition is speaker- or hearer-centred according to the type of speech act that
is performed.
In the following sections, then, I will present an analysis of the above
illocutionary preconditions in terms of the corresponding interactional
involvement of speaker and hearer. In each case, my point of departure will
be the linguistic manifestation of the precondition involved.
2.3.1. Sincerity
As has been observed in the preceding section, sincerity is the only
precondition that is inherently speaker-centered. Describing it in general
terms, we can say that it bears upon the intentional state of the speaker
which underlies the performance of the speech act.
In addition to this global qualification, the concept of sincerity has to
be defined for each kind of speech act in a specific way. Thus, if we wish to
successfully perform an assertive act, we should believe that the truth condi
tions of the proposition expressed are met. If we ask a question, to take
another example, we really ought to want to know the information asked
for. The sincerity precondition can be empirically shown by the so-called

paradoxes of Moore. These paradoxes account for the fact that no contradic
tion may hold between the illocutionary point of the speech act and the
intentional state of the speaker which gives rise to the performance of that
speech act. The following examples, therefore, expressing an assertive, a
directive, a commissive, and an expressive speech act, respectively, are all
ill-formed:
*It is raining, but I believe it is dry.
*Get me some beer, but I don't want you to do that.
*I will return the books before Monday, but I don't have the in
tention to do so.
*Congratulations with your appointment, but I am not really very
glad about it.
Just like all other preconditions, sincerity may, but need not be overtly
expressed. In the former case, which concerns us here, a description is given
of the intentional behavior of the speaker, as a result of which the utterance
produced is marked for first-person singular reference.
Consider, for instance, the following realization of an impositive act:
(32) Quisiera que me limpiara estos pantalones.
T would like you to clean this pair of trousers.'
Further note that (32) contains an expression of the precondition that speak
ers sincerely issuing an order or making a request want their interlocutor to
carry out the action specified by the proposition. Searle has formulated this
precondition as follows: "S wants H to do A" (1969: 66).
It is interesting to observe that the sincerity of the speaker may also be
explicitly referred to by the hearer who verbally reacts to the impositive
speech act. This is illustrated by the following adjacency pair:
(33) A: Camarero, prepárenos una mesa en el rincón, por favor.
'Waiter, get us a corner table ready please.'
B: Como usted quiera.
'As you wish.'
According to its formal realization, the expression of the sincerity precondi
tion serves different interactional pruposes. Thus, in (32) the preterite form
of the subjunctive mood quisiera denotes politeness by virtue of the fact that
it literally specifies an unreal state of affairs. The use of its nonpolite counter
part quiero T want' would imply that the speaker considers himself to be
endowed with power or authority in the area of behavior involved. This,

however, does not mean that the requestive form of an utterance indicates
that the speaker has an equal or inferior social position with respect to the
hearer. Put more generally, I believe that, with the exception of ritual orders
such as those characterizing certain interaction patterns in the army, the
following maxim underlies the performance of impositive speech acts: if you,
as a speaker, regardless of whether or not you have power over the hearer,
want to get him/her to do a certain act, address yourself to him/her in the
first instance by making a request. 11
The most interesting cases, as far as the strategical impact of sincerity
expressions is concerned, manifest themselves in the performance of assertive
acts. Notice first that the sincerity involved in assertives concerns the
speaker's belief that the proposition expressed corresponds to a true state
of affairs. Now, explicit formulations of the sincerity of the speaker serve
the purpose of creating in the hearer the impression that the speaker does
not have the intention of imposing his/her opinion on him/her in an incontest
able way, since he/she confines hin-/herself to expressing a personal belief.
Compare, for instance, the use of the following belief-predicates:
Creo
(34) Me parece que tu padre cometió un error muy grave aquí.
Sospecho
T think
It seems to me that your father made a very serious mistake
here.'
I assume
Evidently, creo, me parece, and sospecho serve as mitigating devices, because
they make it possible for the speaker to avoid asserting in a straightforward
way his/her being convinced of the truth of the proposition expressed. This
point is focused on in the following statement:
"Se emplea (i.e., 'me parece') muy frecuentemente para atenuar un juicio,
una censura  un reproche: 'Me parece que no has hecho bien'." (Moliner
1967: 640)
(It (i.e., 'it seems to me') is very often used to mitigate a judgment, a
criticism, or a reproach: 'It seems to me that you haven't done well.')12
It is important to add to the foregoing that mitigating assertive force by
means of an explicit reference to the sincerity precondition often goes hand
in hand with the use of first-person plural expressions. In this way it is
suggested that the hearer shares the responsibility for the point of view put
forward by the speaker. In academic texts we do not only find assertives
such as:
(35) Creo haber demostrado que ...
'I think that I have proved that ...'
but also
(36) Creemos haber demonstrado que ...
'We think that we have proved that ... '
This kind of strategical device will be discussed in detail in section 5.3.1. For
present purposes, note that, if the sincerity of the speaker is explicitly referred
to, the use of first-person plural expressions is speech act-specific ; it is charac
teristic of assertives and commissives only. That is, as far as directives and
expressives are concerned, the lexical expression of the sincerity precondition
is essentially marked for first-person singular reference.
To give one example, of the following pair of impositives, only the first
member is perfectly acceptable:
(37) Quiero que me devuelvas el dinero hoy.
T want you to give me the money back today.'
(38) 11 Queremos que me devuelvas el dinero hoy.
'We want you to give me the money back today.'
I proceed next to two constraints on speaker-reference as conditioned by the
sincerity precondition of assertive acts. As we have seen in section 2.1, pred
icates such as estar al acecho, acechar, and vigilar, whose meaning corres
ponds to that of the English verb 'lurk', cannot be used properly, if: (a) the
referent of the subject of the sentence is the speaker, and (b) coding time
and reference time coincide. Now, within the framework of illocutionary
preconditions, we may give an explanation for the ill-formedness of sentences
in which the aforementioned constraint is violated. This explanation rests
upon the fact that the sincerity precondition and the semantic content of the
proposition are mutually exclusive; as a consequence, it is impossible for the
speaker to sincerely believe that he/she is unobserved by the hearer and to com
municate that to the hearer. This situation may be illustrated by the contrast
between the following examples, the former of which is well-formed and the
latter ill-formed, because of the violation of the constraint under considera
tion:
(39) Estaba acechando para ver qué estabas haciendo.

T was lurking to find out what you were doing.'
(40) *Estoy acechando para ver qué estás haciendo.
T am lurking to find out what you are doing.' 13
The difference between (39) and (40) can be empirically illustrated by embed
ding them in the context of a question-answer dyadic. Thus, (39) would be
a felicitous answer to the question ¿Qué estabas haciendo? 'What were you
doing?', whereas (40) would not be a felicitous answer to the question ¿Qué
estás haciendo? 'What are you doing?', because at the moment of uttering
the answer the speaker is not lurking any more.
The second constraint concerns 'belief-verbs such as creer, parecer, and
sospechar, which, as we saw earlier, denote the sincerity precondition
involved in the performance of an assertive. Now, the use of these verbs
may call forth a discrepancy between the expression of the sincerity precon
dition and the semantic content of the embedded proposition. I would like
to suggest formulating the corresponding constraint on well-formedness in
the following way:
If a 'belief'-verb fills the predicate slot of the matrix clause of a complex
sentence in which the referent of the subject of both the matrix and the
embedded clause is the speaker, the sentence is ill-formed if both of the
following conditions obtain:
(a) the embedded clause expresses a controllable state of affairs ;
(b) coding time and reference time coincide.
In order to see how this constraint works, compare the following pair of
sentences:
(41) Creo que mi hija está cantando.
T believe that my daughter is singing.'
(42) *Creo que estoy cantando.
T belief that I am singing.'
(41) is a perfectly well-formed sentence because it conveys a belief of the
speaker concerning an action performed by another person. At the syntactic
level this is reflected by the non-coreferentiality of the subjects of the matrix
and the embedded clause. However, with respect to (42), it is easy to see
that its ill-formedness stems from the fact that the performance of an action
presupposes the actor to be aware of his/her performing that action. There
fore, speakers who report the belief that they are performing a certain action
convey redundant information.

The foregoing analysis, then, leads to the interesting conclusion that the
two kinds of ill-formedness we have just been discussing constitute in a sense
each other's mirror image. That is to say, when verbs of the 'lurk' type are
at issue, violation of the constraint produces utterances that are ill-formed
by virtue of a contradiction. When, on the contrary, 'belief-verbs are at
issue, the ill-formedness is caused by the expression of a redundancy.
2.3.2. Nonobviousness
The nonobviousness precondition underlies the performance of assertive
and directive acts. It bears upon a state of affairs in which the hearer is
causally involved such that that state of affairs may not hold in order for the
speaker to successfully perform the speech act. Thus, to a speaker making
an assertion it should not be obvious that the hearer already knows the
information he/she wishes him/her to convey. In Spanish, this precondition
is made explicit in a characteristic way by the tag ¿sabes? 'you know', which
is representative of colloquial speech. Consider:
(43) Fue un partido fenomenal, ¿sabes?
'It was a fantastic match, you know.'
We may say that the lexical meaning of ¿sabes?, or its polite counterpart
¿sabe usted?, together with the interrogative force of the expression, denotes
the intention of the speaker of letting the hearer know that he/she does not wish
to convey information already known to the latter. For this reason, the tags
under consideration would typically qualify as members of the class of par
ticles whose function has been labeled "recherche d'approbation discursive"
(call for assent in discourse) (See Settekorn 1977: 195).
As regards directive acts, we can define nonobviousness as a presuppo
sition on the part of the speaker that the hearer will not carry out the required
action of his/her own accord, i.e. without the speaker performing the directive
act. For this reason the precondition is formally reflected by interrogative
utterances expressing questions about the future behavior of the hearer.
Consider, for instance:
(44) ¿Me abre usted la puerta?
Lit.: 'Do you open the door for me?'
Observe that the dative pronoun me contributes in an essential way to the
impositive interpretation of this example. On the semantic level it plays the
role of a benefactive constituent, usually called 'dative of interest' in tradi-
tional Spanish grammar. Without this pronoun, (44) is likely to express the
surprise of the speaker when noticing that the hearer opens the door. It may
also be the case that ¿Abre usted la puerta? expresses the disapproval of the
speaker with the factual behavior of the hearer, so that the illocutionary
function involved is a prohibition, or a reproach, or both.
Lastly, note that, as suggested by the literal translation of the above
example, making explicit the nonobviousness precondition involved in the
performance of directives normally does not serve to convey a request in
English. As far as I know, this is the only situation where Spanish and English
do not show a one-to-one correspondence with respect to the linguistic man
ifestation of illocutionary preconditions.
2.3.3. Willingness
Willingness is an illocutionary precondition underlying the successfull
performance of directive acts, in general, and requestive acts, in particular.
The latter category can be formulated in the following way: in sincerely
making a request, the speaker presupposes that the hearer is willing to do
the act specified by the proposition of the corresponding utterance. Willing
ness, therefore, is a typically hearer-centered precondition. The following
examples illustrate that there are several ways in which the willingness of the
hearer can be explicitly referred to:
(45) ¿Queres pasarme la sal?
'Will you pass me the salt?'
(46) ¿Tendría usted la bondad de cerrar la puerta?
'Would you be so kind as to close the door?'
(47) ¿Me hace el favor de decirme qué hora es?
'Would you be so kind as to tell me what time it is?'
These examples make it clear that the linguistic manifestation of willingness
requires that explicit reference be made to the interactional behavior of the
hearer as conditioned by the illocutionary point of requestive acts. Consider
also the two following examples:
(48) ¿Le importaría meter el coche en el garage?
'Would you mind putting your car in the garage?'
(49) ¿Tienes inconveniente en sentarte en otra mesa?
'Do you object to sitting down at another table?'
The type of expressions exemplified by (48) and (49) constitutes a pragmati-
cally marked subset of the set of expressions reflecting the willingness precon
dition. The marker involved is politeness, indicated by questions about pos
sible objections the hearer might have with respect to granting the speaker's
wish. The next point worth mentioning is that, as far as lexical reference to
illocutionary preconditions is concerned, the expression of willingness is com
parable to that of nonobviousness in that it allows tag expansions. Thus,
instead of (45) ¿Quieres pasarme la sal?, we can also have:
(45') Pásame la sal, ¿quieres?
'Pass me the salt, will you?'
The same applies, mutatis mutandis, to (46) ¿Tendría usted la bondad de
cerrar la puerta? and
(46') Cierre usted la puerta, ¿tendría la bondad?
'Close the door, would you be so kind?'
Notice, in conclusion, that overt expressions of the willingness precondition
are employed by speakers to address the hearer in a polite way. Therefore,
utterances making reference to the willingness of the hearer cannot have the
force of an order, only that of a request.
2.3.4. Ability
As suggested by the term, the ability precondition concerns the capacity
of the speaker or the hearer to perform a certain act. We may speak, there
fore, of speaker-centered ability, as opposed to hearer-centered ability. Actu
ally, the ability of acting persons is determined by two different conditions:
their inherent capacities, both physical and mental, on the one hand, and
external circumstances related to the time and place of action, on the other.
Furthermore, it is important to observe that the distinction between the
ability of the speaker and the ability of the hearer is speech act-dependent.
In the former case we are dealing with commissive acts, in the latter with
directive acts. We find that the correct performance of commissives presup
poses that the speaker is able to fulfill his promise to the hearer. Therefore,
a speaker who states that he/she is in a position to do a certain act for the
benefit of the hearer may inform the hearer that, by making that statement,
he/she commits him-/herself to do the act referred to. For illustration pur
poses, consider the following expression of the ability precondition involved
in making a promise:
(50) Puedo devolverte los libros dentro de una semana.
T can return the books to you within a week.'
Turning next to directives, we find that the ability precondition is for

mally expressed by questions through which speakers ask their hearer if they
are able to do the act specified by the proposition. As a consequence, what
is conveyed is both an interrogative and a requestive meaning.
To see this more clearly, consider the following question, which repre
sents a conventional way of making a request:
(51) ¿Podrías colocar estas sillas en el rincón?
'Could you put these chairs into the corner?'
With respect to the physical and mental capacities of the hearer, the following
comments are of interest:
"A command must be realizable ... Thus any possible human doing, i.e.,
anything which lies within the power of men to do or not to do, can serve
as a command requirement. Anything impossible — logically, physically,
conceptually (e.g. altering the past) — has to be excluded." (Rescher 1966:
29-30)
It follows that the precondition is violated in case of "overreaching commands
which require of the recipient more than can be reasonably asked of him for
example, by asking of him that which is physically impossible for him ('Henry,
lift that weight!' where it weighs 1000 pounds ...')" (Rescher 1966: 17).
Concerning the example given by Rescher, we can say that irony is one
of the linguistic categories that lends itself to empirically verifying the ability
precondition. In this respect, it is important to distinguish two different kinds
of irony. First, we have cases like the one referred to in the foregoing quo
tation, i.e. situations in which the irony bears upon the biological constraints
of human beings. This sort of constraint often constitutes the base of practical
jokes such as asking a person with a broken leg to participate in a football
game. The other kind of irony that interests us here forms a sort of mirror
image of the first one, since it manifests itself in those communication situ
ations in which it is completely obvious to both the speaker and the hearer
that the latter is able to perform the action required. Questions concerning
that sort of ability, therefore, are not sincere. For illustration purposes,
consider an ironical request such as Could you take your feet off my chair?
To recapitulate the major point of this section, the ability precondition
is either speaker-centered or hearer-centered according to the type of speech
act performed. In the former case, we have to do with commissives, in the
latter with directives, and in particular with requestives, the linguistic man
ifestation of the precondition being marked for first-person singular and
second-person reference, respectively.
2.3.5. Reasonableness
Reasonableness is a general precondition underlying the successful per
formance of assertives, directives, and commissives. It bears upon the fact
that the speaker must be presumed to be able to indicate the reason or
reasons he/she has for performing the speech act. Thus, when performing an
impositive, speakers must be able to motivate why they issue the order or
make the request, whereas when performing an assertive, they must be able
to motivate why they believe that the proposition expressed refers to a true
state of affairs. Let me illustrate the foregoing with the following examples
of an impositive and an assertive speech act, respectively:
(52) Enciende la luz, que está muy oscuro aquí.
'Turn the light on, because it is very dark in here.'
(53) Vamos a tener mal tiempo: el barómetro baja.
'We are going to have bad weather, the barometer is falling.'
From (52) and (53), it is easy to see that the reasonableness precondition is
typically expressed by causal clauses indicating the reason the speaker has
for performing the speech act manifested by the main clause.
The concept of reasonableness involved in the performance of imposi
tives has been described by Rescher in the following way:
"a command generally has some justification — i.e., the source should be
in a position to provide a rational and reasonable answer of why he issued
a certain command. A command can thus be 'questioned' by its recipient
both as regards the authority of its source and his grounds for giving it."
(Rescher 1966: 16-17)
It should be added to the foregoing that speakers often restrict themselves
to indicating the reason they have for performing the speech act without
explicitly expressing its illocutionary point.
In these cases, then, we are dealing with indirect speech acts in the
proper sense of the term, since in order to get at the correct interpretation
of the intention of the speaker, it is not sufficient for the hearer to rely upon
the information actually conveyed; in other words, the hearer also needs to
have specific knowledge of the context or situation of utterance, as may be
illustrated by the indirect variants of (52) and (53):
(54) Está muy oscuro aquí
'It is very dark in here.'
(55) Baja el barómetro.
It is obvious from the above analysis that, although the reasonableness pre
condition is inherently related to the rational behavior of the speaker, its
linguistic manifestation does not necessarily require that it refer to the
speaker.
2.3.6. Obviousness
In Haverkate (1979: 143-147) obviousness was introduced as a speech
act-specific precondition not mentioned by Searle (1969). It should be defined
as a precondition that is not related to the interactional behavior of the
speaker or the hearer, but to the structure of the situation of utterance. It
plays a part in the performance of commissive and directive acts, since it is
dependent upon the fact that speakers cannot make a promise, issue an
order, make a request, etc., with the intention that they themselves or their
hearers bring about a state of affairs that already exists at coding time. The
following examples show that the linguistic manifestation of the precondition
may involve reference to the speaker, reference to the hearer, or no reference
to either of them, respectively:
(56) ¿Has echado la carta al correo ya?
'Have you mailed the letter already?'
(57) ¿ Ya tienes una entrada para el partido de esta noche?
'Do you already have a ticket for the match of tonight?'
(58) ¿Hay café?
Ts there any coffee?'
As for the interpretation of these examples, it should be borne in mind that
they are inherently marked for illocutionary ambiguity. On the one hand,
they can be used as information-eliciting utterances only, on the other, they
may serve a twofold illocutionary purpose, in which case they represent clear
instances of indirect speech acts. Since it is the latter interpretation which is
important to us here, the following specific comments are in order: if the
answer to (56) is negative, the question serves as a request to get the hearer
to mail the letter referred to. Under the same premises, a negative answer
to (57) involves a commitment on the part of the speaker to provide the
hearer with a ticket for the match. A similar kind of indirectness, finally, is
involved in the utterance of (58), which under the interpretation that concerns
us here, is intended to express a request equivalent to:
(59) ¿Quieres servirme una taza de café?
'Will you pour me a cup of coffee?'
As to the impositive interpretation of (56) and (58), compare also the follow
ing observations by Downes:
"However, it may NOT be the case that imperatives are restricted to future
time reference ... The crucial criterion may be that the speaker does not
know that the act has been carried out or carried out in a certain way. We
might say that imperatives are incompatible with 'verified by the speaker'
past time reference. Since verification includes future time (one cannot
verify an act yet to be performed), the more general constraint on impera
tives is that the act must be unverified by the speaker or hypothetical as far
as the speaker is concerned." (1977: 86)
Focusing on the hearer's reaction, we find that he/she need not answer the
information-eliciting part of the question if he/she has not yet performed the
action involved but intends to do so. The hearer may limit her/himself to
observing that he/she has the intention of granting the speaker his/her wish.
Thus an appropriate verbal reaction to (56) would be:
(60) No te preocupes; lo haré ahora mismo.
'Don't worry; I will do it right now.'
If, on the other hand, the hearer does not want to cooperate with the speaker,
he/she need not give an explicitly negative answer to the question either, as
may be seen from a reaction like:
(61) Hazlo tú mismo; yo no tengo tiempo.
'Do it yourself; I don't have time.'
Note, finally, that the adverb a 'already' appearing in (56) and (57) contri
butes in an essential way to impositive interpreation. It reflects the shared
background information of the speaker and the hearer that the latter is sup
posed to carry out the action described.
3. LINGUISTIC STRATEGIES
As an introduction to the concept of linguistic strategy, which will be

dealt with from a general point of view in the present chapter and from a
specific point of view in the chapters on standard expressions, focalizing
expressions, and defocalizing expressions, I will pay some attention to the
category of linguistic actions.
Linguistic actions belong to the category of actions that call for an
analysis based on the distinction between intention and purpose. Concerning
this distinction, we can say that speakers are successful as far as the satisfac
tion of their intention is concerned, when they succeed in getting the hearer to
correctly interpret the communicative purpose of their speech act. In other
words, a speech act is weakly successful if the hearer correctly interprets
both its illocutionary point and its propositional content. A speech act is
strongly successful if the hearer does not only correctly interpret the commu
nicative purpose of the speaker, but shows a cooperative reaction to that
purpose. Again taking up Searle's speech act classification, we should define
the cooperative reaction of the hearer in different ways according to the type
of speech act performed. Thus, if an assertion is made, the corresponding
reaction by the hearer consists in considering the propositional content of
that assertion to correspond to a true state of affairs. If a commissive act is
performed by the speaker, the cooperative reaction of the hearer consists in
accepting the speaker's commitment to do the act specified by the proposi
tion. The cooperative reaction to an expressive consists in the hearer's believ
ing that the speaker is sincere in expressing the psychological state which is
brought about by the state of affairs specified by the proposition.
In all these cases, strong successfulness of the speech act implies that a
particular mental change is brought about in the hearer. The case of directive
speech acts, however, is different, because strong successfulness of a directive
implies not only that a particular mental change is brought about in the
hearer, but that the hearer is induced to carry out the action specified by the
proposition.
Now, the essential question which arises in relation to the foregoing is:
How do speakers ensure that their speech acts are strongly successful? The
answer to this question is: they do so by applying linguistic strategies. Obvi
ously, this answer immediately leads to a second question: What are linguistic
strategies? Basically, there are several answers to this question depending
on the level of analysis one wishes to concentrate upon. Thus, at a preliminary
level, speakers make a distinction between contributions they wish to make
to the verbal exchange with their interlocutor and contributions they might
make in principle, but refrain from making. This point has been formulated
by Dolitsky in the following way:
"Thus, for a felicitous, neutral communication to occur, speakers must care
fully choose both what is to be said and what is to be left unsaid. " (1983:41)
Taking a chronological point of view, we may say that the first strategy
applied by the speaker is the one involved in the selection procedure
described by Dolitsky, which, by virtue of its function, may properly be
called a prelinguistic strategy. Since in the present context I am not concerned
with the type of situation where speakers decide to leave things unsaid, I
proceed to the analysis of those situations where speakers decide to explicitly
contribute to the verbal exchange with their hearer. Note that contributing
to the verbal exchange does not only imply that the speaker has decided
what to say, but at the same time that he/she has decided how to say what
he/she wishes to say. Therefore, the second strategy applied by the speaker
is a purely linguistic strategy; it concerns the selection of those linguistic
devices that the speaker thinks optimally serve the purpose of ensuring strong
successfulness of his/her speech act.
To recapitulate, speakers who decide to verbally communicate with their
hearer first choose what to say and second, how to say what they choose to
say. It is important to bear in mind that both selection procedures involve
the application of specific strategies, as defined by what could be called the
argumentative and the rhetorical level of discourse. In the former case, one
may think, for example, of the careful planning carried out by speakers who
are concerned with selecting the most effective arguments for making a
delicate request or a serious reproach. Consider also, to take another exam
ple, the selection of arguments used in political debates, juridical pleadings,
and scientific treatises. In this respect, think of Toulmin's distinction (1979:
viii) between five fields of reasoning: law, science, arts, management, and
ethics. Finally, note that complementary to the strategy that bears upon the
choice of specific arguments, there is another one that bears upon the order
LINGUISTIC STRATEGIES 39
in which these arguments are presented to the hearer.

To summarize the types of strategies we have distinguished at the
argumentative level of discourse: first, speakers choose what to say, and
second, they determine where to say what they choose to say. It follows that
the analysis of argumentative strategies requires that emphasis be laid upon
the macrostructure of the text, or, more precisley, upon the sequential coher
ence of the speech acts making up the text.
Now, the present study does not concern itself with argumentative
strategies, but with the second type of strategies mentioned before: rhetorical
strategies. Since the latter play an essential part at the microlevel of discourse,
we can also speak of local strategies, which is the term employed from now
on in order to avoid evoking the traditional stylistic connotations of the term
'rhetorical'.
It is important to note that local strategies should be described primarily
in terms of selection procedures involved in the speaker's decision how to
say what he/she chooses to say. It is obvious from this that the development of
local strategies is dependent to a large extent upon the concrete course and
evolution of the verbal exchange as determined by the reactions of the inter
locutors to each other's speech acts.
Now, it is my claim that these local strategies can be properly described
and accounted for within the framework of a componential analysis of the
speech act. The following chapter, therefore, will be devoted to the construc
tion of an analytical model that rests upon the decomposition of the speech
act in terms of the phonetic, the illocutionary, and the propositional subact,
the latter being further split up into the referring and the predicating sub-sub-
act. This approach makes it possible to reach a speech act-functional analysis
of those linguistic strategies which, traditionally, have been studied in terms
of such categories as rhetorical devices and stylistic variation. At this point
of the discussion I would like to make some general, preliminary remarks.
My first is that an important distinction must be made between strategies
that are applied almost automatically and strategies that require careful plan
ning by the speaker.
In the former case we are dealing with speech acts that are performed
as a form of routine behavior, such as greeting, thanking, or formulating a
simple question or request. In the latter case we are dealing with speech acts
that are generally considered to be more difficult to perform than others.
Compare the following quotation, which focuses on this point from the
perspective of language acquisition:
"There is no reason to believe that all children will learn to request, clarify,
refuse, promise, correct, warn, praise, apologize, suggest or hedge at the
same time or at the same rate. Most adults, in fact, never learn to condole
and some never learn to deny very effectively." (Shuy 1978: 95)
Obviously, such delicate speech acts as condole and deny — other examples
could be easily added — require the speaker to carefully select the linguistic
devices he/she considers most appropriate for achieving his/her communicative
goal. Nevertheless, I wish to argue that also in the performance of speech acts
which do not require such a thorough planning, speakers are concerned with
developing linguistic strategies. Speaking in more general terms, actions
which must be defined in terms of the distinction between intention and
purpose cannot be performed without the actor choosing a certain strategy
to perform them. This is due to the fact that in order to obtain a certain goal
those involved choose from a set of options concerning the different ways
the action in question can be carried out.
With respect to linguistic actions, this means that strategies are applied
in all those cases where in the performance of the speech act the speaker is
in a position to make a choice from a set of options concerning the concrete
realization of that speech act. With the exception of Searle's declarative
speech acts, and probably a set of fixed formulae such as greeting and ritual
forms of address, the performance of a speech act requires the speaker to
apply a particular strategy. These strategies can be subdivided into three
major categories, to which the labels 'neutral', 'reinforcing', and 'mitigating'
would properly apply. In the literature on the subject, most attention has
been paid to the category of mitigating strategies. I may refer here, for
example, to the many studies devoted to the phenomena of politeness. A
clear case in point is Goody's often quoted Questions and politeness: Strategies
in social interaction (1978). Notice that mitigating strategies are also involved
in the performance of so-called 'hedges'. In this connection, compare Fraser
(1975), for instance.
As to reinforcing strategies, we find that they are typically employed in
those types of interaction where the speaker has or pretends to have power
over the hearer. Therefore, characteristic instances of reinforcing strategies
can be found in the performance of impositive speech acts.
Since up to now relatively little attention has been paid to the impact
of reinforcement in verbal interaction, let me elaborate on one example here.
In Haverkate (1979), I argued that reinforcement in impositives is typical of
orders which are issued when the hearer disregards a previous impositive
speech act of a speaker endowed with power. When the hearer keeps refusing
to grant the speaker his/her wish, a sequence of orders may be produced.
Each following member of the corresponding set, then, expresses the order
in a more emphatic way than the preceding one. Consider, by way of illus
tration, the following sequence of impositive speech acts marked for gradu
ally increasing reinforcement:
(62) Carlos, ¿quieres recoger tus libros?
'Carlos, will you clear away your books?'
(63) ¡Carlos, recoge tus libros!
'Carlos, clear away your books!'
(64) ¿Vas a recoger tus libros, sí o no?
'Are you going to clear away your books, yes or no?'
(65) Si no recoges tus libros ahora mismo, te doy dos bofetadas.
'If you don't clear away your books right now, I'll slap you.'
Finally, as suggested by the terminology, neutral strategies are applied
by speakers who do not wish to lay particular emphasis upon the way in
which they assess their interactional relation with the hearer, as a result of
which they avoid making use of mitigating or reinforcing devices.
In the present study the distinction between neutral, reinforcing, and
mitigating strategies plays a central role in the analysis of the three referential
categories to be dealt with in chapters 5.1, 5.2, and 5.3, viz. standard expres
sions, focalizing expressions, and defocalizing expressions, respectively.
In the rest of this chapter, I would like to draw attention to some basic
factors influencing or controlling the strategical behavior of speakers. I have
already pointed out that the speaker's selection of strategies is determined
to a large extent by the type of speech act performed. Furthermore, personal
variables of both the speaker and the hearer, such as age, sex, and
socioeconomic status, may also play a dominant role in that selection. It is
particularly these variables which result in the development of so-called 'ac-
comodative' and 'nonaccomodative' forms of verbal behavior. The concept
of accomodation has been been defined by Giles and Powesland in the follow
ing way:
"Accomodation through speech can be regarded as an attempt on the part
of the speaker to modify his persona in order to make it more acceptable
to the person addressed." (1975: 158)
Notice also that accomodation should be viewed as the regular form of verbal
behavior, which is equivalent to saying that forms of nonaccomodative or

contrastive behavior are found to serve specific purposes. This can be illus
trated with an observation by Van den Broeck, who, in an empirical study
on the style of formal and informal interviews, arrives at the conclusion that:
"It is possible that working-class speakers to a certain extent 'deliberately'
use more simplified syntactic forms in the formal situation because they want
to dissociate from the middle-class, while middle-class speakers prefer to use
more complicated syntactic forms because they want to maintain a boundary
between themselves and the working-class" (1979: 18).14 In general, we can
say that accomodation or contrastiveness in verbal behavior is the result of
a decision made by speakers in wanting to express themselves, using a certain
code or register which reflects the attitudes they wish to adopt toward the
hearer.
Let us look next at a secondary purpose speakers may attempt to achieve
in performing speech acts. This purpose stems from their wish to make a
favorable impression on their hearers. More specifically, speakers tend to
express themselves in such a way that their hearers consider them as reason
able and sociable, thinking and acting persons. Therefore, in most types of
interaction speakers develop strategies both at the global and the local level
to create, preserve, or increase a positive image of themselves. 15 To a large
extent, these strategies are determined by the kind of speech act performed.
The following comment on the act of arguing illustrates this: "Thus, instead
of presupposing that the goal of arguing is to convince alter of the truth of
one's own statement (opinion), of reaching a consensus, we can now include
a goal such as conveying a certain image of ego to alter (the rational intellec
tual who 'thinks it out logically')" (Quasthoff 1978: 13).
Finally, I would like to point to the fact that speakers in most communi
cation situations have the opportunity of developing linguistic strategies.
However, I believe there are two situations in which this opportunity is denied
to speakers. Firstly, we have situations where one of the interlocutors exercises
an absolute power over the other. 16 Such asymmetrical relations are typical,
for instance, of robberies, hijacks, and blackmail, where the interlocutor
who unlawfully controls the behavior of the other, is in a position to prescribe
the form and content of the speech acts to be carried out by the latter.
Secondly, as was observed earlier, the performance of declarations, which
are also called 'ceremonial performatives', 17 also exludes the development
of linguistic strategies. This is due to the fact that the corresponding speakers
formally represent certain social institutions which oblige them to make use
of codified formulae. With the exception of the above types of interaction I

assume that speakers are constantly concerned with developing strategies in
order to bring about strong successfulness of their speech acts. In this connec
tion, consider the following quotation: "Linguistic interaction, as Bernstein
(1962) has pointed out, can most fruitfully be viewed as a process of decision
making, in which speakers select from a range of possible expressions. The
verbal repertoire then contains all the accepted ways of formulating mes
sages. It provides the weapons of everyday communication. Speakers choose
among this arsenal in accordance with the meanings they wish to convey"
(Giles and Powesland 1975: 114-115).
4. A SPEECH ACT ANALYSIS OF LINGUISTIC STRATEGIES
In Haverkate (1979), I presented a componential analysis of the speech

act based on the primary distinction between an instrumental and a functional
subact, the former corresponding to the phonetic act, the latter giving rise
to a subclassification into an interpersonal and a propositional act. Further
more, I split up the interpersonal act into an allocutionary and an illocutionary
act, and the propositional act into a referential and a predicating act. The
result of this subcategorization was the introduction of allocution as a new
dimension of the speech act. I defined this subact in the following way: "By
allocution I mean the selection by the speaker of those linguistic devices
which he thinks optimally serve the purpose of eliciting from the hearer a
positive reaction to his speech act. Allocutionary acts, therefore, determine
the strategy of verbal interaction" (1979: 11). However, I have come to the
conclusion that the approach outlined above does not make it clear that
speakers develop specific strategies in performing each of the subacts of the
speech act. Therefore, I propose to refine the original model in such a way
that it does not only account for the fact that allocution manifests itself as
the strategical component of the speech act serving the purpose of bringing
about particular perlocutionary effects in the hearer, but that these per-
locutionary effects are the result of selection procedures carried out by the
speaker in the performance of each of the subacts of the speech act, viz. the
phonetic, the illocutionary, the referring, and the predicating act. The corres
ponding model can be represented in the following way:
Speaker Hearer
Intention —5→ Interpretation
ALLOCUTION →PERLOCUTION
With regard to the above figure I would like to make the following
clarifying remarks. As indicated by the hierarchical structure of the central
blocks, the phonetic act characterizes the entire output of the speech act
encompassing each of the subacts. The phonetic act, for instance, may deter
mine in a distinctive way the output of the illocutionary act.
Thus, the following utterances Juan viene hoy 'Juan is coming today'
and Venga usted conmigo 'Come along with me' may receive different
illocutionary interpretations according to the intonation contour with which
they are produced. That is, the former may represent an assertion or a ques
tion, the latter an order, a request, or an invitation. Turning to the level of
allocutionary analysis, we find that particular strategical effects may be
brought about by reinforcing or mitigating types of intonation contour. In
the former case, it will normally be the intention of the speaker to produce
a menacing perlocutionary effect in the hearer, in the latter, it is the intention
of the speaker to express empathy or sympathy toward the hearer.
Following the hierarchical structure of our diagram, we find that accord
ing to the type of speech act involved the illocutionary act may control the
output of the propositional act. One may think here, for example, of the
restriction imposed on the performance of direct impositive speech acts,
which are characterized by the expression of action predicates and second-
person reference. The selection of allocutionary devices inherent in the per
formance of illocutionary acts is based on the distinction between direct and
indirect manifestations of the speech act. In Haverkate (1979), I attempted
to show that this distinction plays a decisive role in the performance of imposi
tive speech acts. In this respect, I set up a taxonomy of indirect impositive
speech acts as well as a scale of different degrees of indirectness. The present
study will elaborate more on this subject in the section on implicit reference.
The two inner blocks of the diagram, finally, represent the internal
structure of the propositional act as it is composed of its two subacts, the
referring and the predicating act. Since the following chapters are devoted
to a detailed analysis of allocutionary realizations of the referring act, I wish
to confine myself here to giving some general comments on the strategies
inherent in the performance of the predicating act. Predicating strategies,
then, are developed at the levels of syntactic structure and lexical selection.
With regard to the former, we have to distinguish between global and local
strategies. Global strategies are typically reflected by the speaker's choice
of complex or noncomplex syntactic structures. A characteristic instance of
a local strategy is the use of active as opposed to passive constructions, which
A SPEECH ACT ANALYSIS OF LINGUISTIC STRATEGIES 47
reveals the subjective perspective from which the speaker views the world
described. Compare the following analysis by Blakar: "The structuring effect
of grammatical form becomes even more clear through the comparison
between (1) 'The police took in the demonstrators' and (2) 'The
demonstrators were taken in by the police'. Here the grammatical forms
actually indicate vaguely, but subtly, the separate context. In (1) the police,
more or less actively, take action (the police took action, the police struck).
In (2), on the other hand, it seems implicit that the demonstrators carried
on in such a way that the police were forced to take action (the demonstrators
did, the demonstrators provoked). The different points of view expressed
as regards causality becomes much clearer in (1) 'Police took action' versus
(2) 'The police had to take action'. Nevertheless, the speaker in an ordinary
communication situation must be quite observant that the two expressions
actually imply entirely different causal relationships" (Blakar 1979:151-152).
Furthermore, syntactic order can be used as a tool to divide the informa
tion conveyed into two parts: that which is asserted and that which is presup
posed. Thus, depending on the different slots that are filled by the adjectives,
the following statements, although cognitively synonymous, serve different
communicative purposes: (a) This immoral attitude is new, (b) This new
attitude is immoral, and (c) This attitude is new and immoral. What we see
here, is that immoral and new in (a) and (b), respectively, are not intended
to be discussed as properties asserted of this attitude; they are tacitly assumed
by the speaker to refer to facts already existing at the moment of his making
the statement. However, no such presupposition is involved in (c), because
new and immoral both serve as fillers of the predicate slot and, for that
reason, are intended to convey new or contrastive information to the hearer.
Proceeding to the level of lexical selection, we find that, in order to
produce particular perlocutionary effects in the hearer, speakers concentrate
on making optimal choices from those sets of lexical items which share the
same denotative content, but differ so far as connotative meaning is con
cerned. In the literature on the subject lexical strategies are generally dealt
with in terms of stylistic choices. Nonetheless, the strategical impact of these
strategies has often been overlooked, as is correctly pointed out by Blakar:
"Among those interested in language (especially philologists) one has often
heard discussions about which expression is the most correct in the purely
linguistic or stylistic sense. One hardly ever is witness to discussions about
which interests or perspectives lie behind a particular verbal expression."
(Blakar 1979: 133)
In the present study, then, the point of view will be put forward that: "Style
is the feather in the arrow, not the feather in the hat" (Blanshard 1967: 50;
quoted in Kasher 1977: 115)
The following quotation mentions a few characteristic instances:
"The vocabulary of vices and virtues, and of racial prejudice; words and
expressions which, in certain circumstances, may have a derogatory conno
tation, express condemnation, and reflect prejudices. E.g. : 'She got married
to a Jew (Negro)', 'the candidate is a homosexual'. These uses of these
expressions, which can be understood as expressing condemnation, or at
least disapproval, can be contrasted with neutral, descriptive uses, e.g.: Jew
or Jewish person, Negro of Black person." (Marcondes de Souza 1983:61)
To return to the componential analysis of the speech act, it is important to
point out that the four subacts distinguished, viz. the phonetic, the illocutio-
nary, the referring, and the predicating subact, do not play an autonomous
role but are interrelated. This is shown by the fact that no internal contradic
tion may hold between them. Thus, our communicative competence prevents
us, for example, from performing a speech act which at the phonetic level
is characterized by a menacing intonation and at the referring level by an
affective vocative expression, since this would create a kind of double-bind
pattern. Notice, however, that when we wish to express ourselves in an
ironical way, we may use strategical paradoxes to convey informative mean
ing. Irony is, as far as I can see, the only exception to the rule that applying
incoherent strategies produces deviant utterances.
Furthermore, I would like to emphasize that from an interactional point
of view the use of allocutionary devices serves to create in the hearer a certain
psychological state, which in the dyadic model outlined above is represented
by the perlocutionary component. We may state, then, that, as far as the
correlation between allocution and perlocution is concerned, the speech act
is strongly successful if its allocutionary realization brings about a positive
perlocutionary effect in the hearer. This means that, if, for instance, an
assertion is made, the hearer is convinced of its corresponding to a real state
of affairs, and, if a request is made, the hearer is persuaded to carry out the
act the speaker wishes him/her to carry out.
To conclude the present chapter, I would like to point to the fact that
the componential analysis of the speech act outlined before has a universal
validity in the sense that it can be applied as a model for describing the
relations between the subacts of the speech act and the strategies applied in
their performance, regardless of the particular language one wishes to inves-
A SPEECH ACT ANALYSIS OF LINGUISTIC STRATEGIES 49
tigate. Thus, the subacts distinguished should be considered constants which,

according to the strategy developed by the speaker, are given a variable
realization.
5. LINGUISTIC STRATEGIES AND SPEAKER
AND HEARER-REFERENCE
In chap. 3, I argued that a general classification of linguistic strategies

developed at the microlevel of the speech act should rest upon the distinction
between neutral, reinforcing, and mitigating strategies. In regard to referen
tial strategies, which constitute the subject matter of the present book, the
above classification can be made more specific by qualifying neutral, reinforc
ing, and mitigating as standard, focalizing, and defocalizing, respectively.
As has been pointed out earlier, neutral, or in the present case, standard
strategies are applied by speakers who do not wish to explicitly focus on the
way in which they assess their interactional relation with the hearer. As a
consequence, the corresponding devices are unmarked, lacking the specific
sociopsychological connotations inherent in focalizing and defocalizing
expressions. These connotations will be dealt with in detail in chapters 5.2
and 5.3. The category of standard expressions, which is made up of first-
and second-person pronouns, 18 will be analyzed in the following chapter,
where I will pay attention to both grammatical structure and pragmatic func
tion.
5.1. Standard expressions

To start with the internal structure of the paradigms of standard expres
sions, we see an obvious asymmetry between pronouns referring to the
speaker and those referring to the hearer. That is, the latter paradigm consists
of five members, tú, vosotros, vosotras, usted, and ustedes, and the former
of three, yo, nosotros, and nosotras. This asymmetry stems from the fact
that in Peninsular Spanish referring to the hearer implies making an obliga
tory selection between polite and familiar forms of address, that is, between
usted (sing.)/ustedes (plur.) and tú (sing.)/vosotros, -as (plur.), respectively.19
Another kind of asymmetry holds between yo, tú, usted, and ustedes,
on the one hand, and nosotros and vosotros, on the other, since the latter
set of pronouns is differentiated from the former by being inflected for gen
der. The masculine form of nosotros and vosotros is unmarked, because it
serves to express reference to sets of male speakers and hearers as well as

to sets of both male and female speakers and hearers, respectively; the
marked forms nosotras and vosotras cannot but express reference to female
speakers and hearers, respectively.
Focusing next on syntactic structure, we observe that, as far as subject-
slot filling is concerned, the derivation of personal pronouns in Spanish is
strictly determined by the thematic structure of the sentence. That is, nonclitic
pronouns such as yo, tú, nosotros, and vosotros show a strong tendency only
to appear at surface level if they express emphatic or contrastive reference;
in the latter case, they fill the comment slot of the sentence, in the former,
they represent the output of strong topicalization processes. If, on the other
hand, first-person or second-person expressions represent a nonemphatic
topic, the subject slot is normally not filled; instead, the corresponding ref
erence is expressed by verb inflection only. However, as we will see in the
final part of this section, it may be the case that pronominal reference to the
speaker occurs more frequently than pronominal reference to the hearer.
An obvious exception to the general pattern is the pronoun of politeness
usted, which is optionally derived at surface level if it represents a nonemphat
ic topic. Grammars dealing with this phenomenon usually mention two
sources for the relatively high frequency of occurrence of usted: (a) expression
of politeness; (b) avoidance of ambiguity, which may arise due to the
homonymy with third-person verb inflection. In this respect, compare Bouzet
(1945: 191) and Ramsey (1964: 83).
Let us turn next to the semantic and pragmatic analysis of first- and
second-person pronouns. As to the former, first-person plural reference will
be concentrated upon, because, as we will see in the chapter on defocalizing
reference, it is this type of reference which is used for a wide variety of
strategical purposes. With respect to second-person reference, attention will
be paid to the social dimensions of the distinction between polite and familiar
forms of address, or, to speak in terms of Brown and Gilman's well-known
categories, the distinction between pronouns of power and pronouns of sol
idarity.
Starting with nosotros, I would like to note first that the traditional term
'first-person plural pronoun' suggests that we are dealing with the plural form
of the first-person singular pronoun , which refers to the speaker. However,
nosotros is not the plural of  in the sense that it refers to a plurality of
speakers, since it is only one speaker who actually performs the speech act
and who can be held responsible for performing that act. The plurality
LINGUISTIC STRATEGIES/SPEAKER-, HEARER-REFERENCE 53
involved bears upon the fact that the speaker and one or more other persons
are collectively engaged in the same state of affairs. Consider the following
statement by Jespersen:: "The most important instance of the plural of approx
imation is we, which means I + one or more not-I's. It follows from the
definition of the first person that it is only thinkable in the singular, as it
means the speaker in this particular instance. Even when a body of men, in
response to 'Who will join me?' answer 'We all will', it means in the mouth
of each speaker nothing but 'I will and all the others will (I presume)'" (1955:
192).20
It is obvious from the foregoing that first-person plural expressions refer
to two distinct roles of the speaker: (a) the performer of the speech act (b)
a member of the set of persons collectively involved in the state of affairs
specified by the predicative part of the proposition. It is interesting to note
that the unique role of the speaker as the performer of the speech act is
morphologically reflected by the asymmetry that holds between  and nosot
ros. That is , nosotros, which, as we have seen above, cannot be considered
the conceptual plural of , is not the formal plural of  either, since standard
pluralization rules of Spanish operate on the lexical base of the singular form.
Benveniste (1966: 233) has pointed out that this phenomenon manifests itself
in the vast majority of languages. He mentions the case of Eskimo as a
remarkable exception to this rule.
To conclude the analysis of first-person plural reference, I would like
to refer to Jespersen's statement (1955:198) that the prominence of speakers
using first-person plural expressions is formally reflected by verb agreement.
That is to say, he assumes it to be a universal rule of grammar that both
inclusive reference, which involves the speaker and the hearer, and nonin
clusive reference, which involves the speaker and one or more persons other
than the hearer, require first-person plural agreement in the verb, and not,
for instance, second-person or third-person plural agreement, respectively.
I will now get down to a discussion of second-person reference focusing
on the distinction between familiar and polite or formal pronouns of address.
Let us take the latter category as a point of departure; it is employed by
speakers in order to create a certain social distance between themselves and
their interlocutors. From a diachronic point of view, we may say that this
social distance is reflected by the fact that the Spanish pronoun of politeness,
usted, is derived from the honorific noun phrase Vuestra Merced 'Your
Mercy'. In this connection, compare also: "Maximal social distance is
achieved through the 3rd person metaphor of compadrazgo ..., where the
speaker, in a sense, pretends not to be speaking to his addressee at all. This

usage is well known from the V-pronouns of European languages such as
German, Portuguese, and Spanish, which are 3rd person in origin" (Hill and
Hill 1978: 142).21
Applying Brown and Gilman's categories of 'power', 'equality', and
'solidarity', we observe that the use of polite pronouns of address is triggered
by the following interaction patterns: (a) the relation between the inter
locutors is defined by the power of the hearer over the speaker; (b) the
relation between the interlocutors is defined by equality, but not by solidarity.
In addition to these general patterns, the following language-specific
phenomena must be mentioned. Firstly, it is a striking fact of Spanish that
it allows pronominal code-switching in certain types of interaction where the
speaker excercises power over the hearer. Thus, parents who are annoyed
with the behavior of their children are frequently found to switch from tú to
usted, which must obviously be seen as an efficient strategy to create interper
sonal distance. Beinhauer illustrated this situation by describing the example
of a mother who repeatedly asks her child to sit down by saying: ¡Siéntate!
'Sit down!'. The child, however, refuses to obey, until, finally, the mother
loses her patience and emphatically orders the child by switching to the
formal code: ¡Ahora se sienta usted! 'Now you (polite/formal) sit down. (1958:
22).
Next I would like to draw attention to a referential strategy applied by
speakers who hesitate in selecting either a familiar or a polite form of address.
This kind of situation arises when the interaction takes place at a level of
equality which oscillates between solidarity and nonsolidarity. Now, such
speakers may combine the use of the pronoun of politeness usted and the
the first name of the interlocutor, thus formally creating an intermediate level
between the opposite poles of solidarity and nonsolidarity. It is, for example,
perfectly correct for a Spaniard to say:
(66) No se preocupe usted, Carmen.
'Don't worry, Carmen.' 22
Our conclusion from the foregoing is that Spanish has a three-level system
of second-person reference, as defined by the following registers:
Informal: tú & [+ first name of the hearer]
Formal: usted & [ - first name of the hearer]
Semi-formal: usted & [+ first name of the hearer] 23
To conclude the present chapter, I would like to pay attention to the distribu
tion of first- and second-person expressions in current types of discourse,
particularly in everyday conversation. Several empirical studies have shown
that speakers assign a more prominent discourse role to themselves than to
their hearers, since most pronominal reference is made to the speaker, less
to the hearer, and least to nonparticipants in the speech act. It follows that,
as far as referential structure is concerned, verbal interaction could be qual
ified as typically egocentric.
Although no statistical data are available with regard to Spanish, the
assumption is made that the results from the investigations of English and
Italian to be cited below would equally apply to Spanish corpuses.
Consider first the following comments on pronominal distribution in
English:
"Guy and Allen (1976), in a test of G.H. Head's concepts of social interac
tion, show that more pronominal reference in conversation is to the self,
less to the conversation partner, and least to the generalized other rep
resented by 'they'". (Zubin 1979: 472)
The following data, based on a corpus of spoken Italian, are of particular
interest to us, because Italian, under the same conditions as Spanish, makes
use of both personal pronouns and verb inflection to express first- and second-
person reference:
"If the speaker has NOT been attended to in recent discourse history, refer
ence will most probably not be through use of subject-verb agreement only.
Only 7.1% (8) of first-person referents expressed through subject verb
agreement were NOT located within the recent discourse history of the
current utterance. Speakers refer to themselves through subject-verb agree
ment typically only when there has been some recent mention of themselves.
On the other hand, the story differs when it comes to ADDRESSEE REF
ERENCE. The constraint that the referent (addressee) has to be recently
selected for attention is not as strong. Speakers will often use subject-verb
agreement to refer to the addressee, even when there has been no recent
mention. Indeed, 41.2% (7) of the second-person subject-verb agreement
referents were not located in the immediate discourse history (within two
clauses back). This difference with speaker reference indicates that speakers
may assume that the addressee has been attending to himself even if there
has not been talk about himself. The speaker does not assume, however,
that the addressee has been attending to the current speaker." (Duranti and
Ochs 1979: 391)
5.2. Focalizing expressions

5.2.0. Introduction
After the discussion of standard expressions referring to speaker and
hearer, which are qualified as formal devices employed by speakers who
wish to develop neutral referential strategies, we proceed to the analysis of
reinforcing and mitigating strategies as manifested by the use of focalizing
and defocalizing expressions, respectively. As suggested by the terminology,
speakers selecting focalizing expressions have the intention of bringing into
prominence the role of the referent in the state of affairs described. There
fore, the constituents selected are always marked for specific reference. As
for defocalizing reference, the opposite holds. Speakers make use of them
in order to minimize or to keep silent the role of the referent in the state of
affairs described. For this reason, the constituents involved are marked for
nonspecific reference. Obviously, it is both focalizing and defocalizing
expressions which, as far as the analysis of referential strategies is concerned,
are the most interesting categories to be investigated. In the present chapter,
I will concern myself with focalizing reference, making a distinction between
reference to the speaker and reference to the hearer. In the former case, I
will introduce 'egocentricity' as a primary allocutionary feature, in the latter,
I will focus on the different functions of vocative and nonvocative expressions.
As regards linguistic analysis, both cases are concerned with pronouns,
proper nouns, and common nouns.
5.2.1. Speaker-reference
From a morphosyntactic point of view focalizing reference to the speaker
can be expressed by pronominal and nonpronominal constituents. In the
former case, the personal pronoun  is selected, in the latter, two classes
of constituents are to be distinguished: proper nouns and common nouns.
Functionally, these categorial differences can be accounted for in terms of
an opposition defined by markedness. The pronoun yo, then, represents the
unmarked member, the proper nouns and common nouns together represent
the marked member of the opposition. This approach may be motivated in
the following way: yo — and its oblique case variant mi— serve the exclusive
purpose of expressing emphatic or contrastive reference to the speaker, as
determined in an essential way by the distribution of topic and comment.
That is,  is an emphatic device for topic marking, on the one hand, and,
as far as contrastive reference is concerned, it serves as a comment-indicating
device, on the other. These functions may be illustrated by the two following
examples, respectively:
(67) A: ¿Cree usted que la gente de Langreo le encuentra simpático?
'Do you think that the people of Langreo like you?
B: Yo creo que todo el mundo en Langreo está encantado de
verme por aquí.
'I think that everyone in Langreo is very glad to see me here.'
(Fernández 1950: 219)
(68) Déjate de finolis. Lo que ocurre es que aquí hay algo raro. Que
te lo digo yo. Que esto termina mal...
'Don't be silly. What is happening is that something very strange
is going on here. That's what I am telling you. This is going to
lead to trouble...' (Mihura 1960: 44)
In (67)  represents an emphatic topic as is indicated by itsfillingthe sentence-
initial slot: if nonemphatic topicalization would be at issue, no pronominal
reference could be made to the speaker. In that case, speaker-reference
would be expressed by verb inflection only. So we would get:
(69) Creo que todo el mundo en Langreo está encantado de verme por
aquí.
In (68), on the contrary, yo functions as a comment-indicating device, as
may be shown formally by its occurring in the final position of the sentence.
It expresses contrastive reference with respect to the person addressed and,
for that reason, cannot be deleted. In other words, in the context under
discussion it is not possible to replace Que te lo digo yo by Que te lo digo.
Just like the pronoun yo, speaker-referring common nouns are employed
for expressing emphatic and contrastive thematic functions. They are
marked, however, with respect to yo, because, as we will see below, they
serve specific allocutionary purposes. The explanation for this is that speaker-
referring common nouns do not only have a referential function, but also an
attributive one, since, according to the lexical content of the noun selected,
the speaker attributes to himself a certain property. 24
Speaker-referring proper nouns, lastly, cannot be used for attributive
purposes, since they lack denotative content. Therefore, they serve as refe
rential expressions only; in this regard, their function is perfectly comparable
with that of the first-person singular pronoun. However, they basically differ
from yo, which in Jakobsonian terms has to be qualified as a 'shifter', because
they express a uniquely identifying reference to the speaker. As a conse-
quence, speaker-referring proper nouns serve to bring into prominence the

particular role of the performer of the speech act in the state of affairs
described.
To summarize, both speaker-referring common nouns and proper nouns
as defined by their idiosyncratic markers (namely, attributive meaning and
uniquely identifiying reference to the speaker, respectively) are used for
specific allocutionary purposes.
The first-person singular pronoun is not marked in this way, because it
expresses a shifting type of reference to the speaker only. As is to be expected,
the marked members of the above opposition occur with a relatively low
frequency in comparison with the unmarked member.
The following sections discuss the analysis of common nouns and proper
nouns, specifying them in terms of positive and negative realization of the
feature 'egocentricity'.
5.2.1.1. Egocentric expressions
As has been pointed out in section 5.2.0, egocentric reference is a form
of focalizing reference. It reflects the speaker's intention of bringing his role
into prominence in the state of affairs described. In addition, if oral discourse
is at issue, egocentric reference is restricted to colloquial speech. Further
more, we find that egocentricity is characteristic of assertive types of speech,
particularly narrative and argumentative forms of discourse.
From an allocutionary point of view, we can say that speakers making
use of egocentric reference typically aim at producing, in the hearer, the
impression that the speakers perform the role of protagonist in the state of
affairs described. As a result, the corresponding utterances have a strongly
persuasive character.
Let us consider some typical examples. In general use are este menda
(origin unknown), este tío or el tío este this uncle', esta tía or la tía esta 'this
aunt', el hijo de mi padre 'the son of my father' and la hija de mi madre 'the
daughter of my mother'. In Chilean-Spanish, and possibly in other American-
Spanish dialects too, este pecho 'this breast' or its diminutive derivative este
pechito is used by speakers, particularly children, to refer to themselves as
the performers of praiseworthy acts,25 e.g.:
(70) A: ¿Y quién marcó los dos goles?
'And who scored both goals?'
 : Este pecho (este pechito) !
In Andalucian Spanish we find este cura 'this priest' as a characteristic device
for expressing egocentric reference. In this connection, consider the following

comment:
"In Andalusien ist besonders beliebt este cura - yo: te lo dice este cura. Der
Ausdruck stammt offensichtlich aus der Beichtpraxis. " (Beinhauer 1958:96)
(In Andalusia this priest = I is very popular: this priest says to you. Obviously,
the expression has its source in the confessional.)
From a historical point of view it seems plausible to assume that the egocentric
use of este cura stems from the fact that in Spanish society, where the influence
of Roman Catholicism was and still is pervasive to a large extent in not a
few sectors of everyday life, priests were considered to be prototypes of
reliable persons, since they devote their attention to preach the truth of the
word of God. The following example is quoted from the Sevillian playwright
Alvarez Quintero:
(71) A: ¡Cómo me molestan las lumbreras de la Administración!
'How those lights of the Government do irritate me!'
B: ...Y a este cura.
'... And how they irritate this priest too.' (Fernández 1950:
207)
It should also be pointed out that speakers developing focalizing strategies
do not seldom have the intention of producing certain humoristic effects on
the hearer. As regards the use of este cura, consider, for instance, the follow
ing dictionary entry: "ESTE CURA. Expresión humorística con que alguien
se refiere a sí mismo" (Moliner 1966: 845). (THIS PRIEST. Humorous
expression with which one refers to oneself.) Evidently, the humorous con
notation referred to is associated with the metamorphosis the speaker
suggests he has undergone. Next, I will pay attention to the use of egocentric
expressions by speakers exercising power or authority over their hearer. A
characteristic case in point is parent-child interaction, as may be illustrated
by examples such as:
(72) Ven aquí, tu padre quiere hablar contigo.
'Come here, your father wants to speak with you.'
(73) A: Ponte ropa gruesa, porque hace frío.
T u t on warm clothes, because it is cold.'
B: No hace frío.
Tt is not cold.'
A: Tu mamá te dice que hace frío.
'Your mother is telling you that it is cold.'
(74) La mamita te ayudará.

'Your mommy will help you.'
These examples show that the focalizing effect brought about by the use of
tu padre, tu mamá, and la mamita, respectively, stems from the fact that
reference is made both to the speaker as an individual person and to the
speaker as the one who performs a particular social role. 26 Since this role
corresponds to a status that is superior to the status of the hearer, the common
nouns in question are typically used in utterances manifesting such speech
acts as issuing an order, making a reproach, and making an offer, all of which
presuppose that the speaker has power in the corresponding area of behavior.
In regard to the interpretation of (74), it should be observed that parents
using self-referring common nouns when addressing their children may also
do so without having the intention of developing particular referential
strategies. This is usually the case during the period in which children still
haven't acquired the system of pronominalization rules; parents, then, tend
to mirror their children's forms of address by using papá, mamá, and the
corresponding diminutive derivatives as speaker-referring devices. In this
connection, see also note 28.
I now proceed to the analysis of two types of assertives, viz. narratives
and dissensives, which, on account of their illocutionary point, are appropri
ate candidates for triggering the use of egocentric expressions.
I will start with a discussion of narratives, making a distinction between
written and oral forms of transmission. As to the former, I would like to
quote two examples from Páginas de geografía errabunda by José Camilo
Cela. These examples were originally selected by Bobes Naves (1971:36-37).
(75) El escritor, a eso de las diez de la mañana, se sienta en su pecera
de la calle de Alcalá.
'At about ten o'clock in the morning, the author sits down in his
aquarium at the calle de Alcalá.'
(76) Desde su ventana el cronista ve,  veces, algún lujoso barco anclado
en la bahía.
From his window the chronicler sometimes sees a luxurious ship
anchored in the bay.'
Obviously, the use of el escritor and el cronista, respectively, does not merely
bring into prominence the autobiographic character of the episodes, but at
the same time contributes towards focusing upon the creative role of Cela
as the writer of the text.
As regards oral performances of narratives, we find that egocentric ref

erence is characteristic of colloquial speech. Furthermore, it should be
pointed out that both proper nouns and common nouns are used by narrative
speakers to make reference to themselves. 27 The following examples, in which
the speaker uses his proper name to express egocentric reference, will serve
as illustrations:
(77) Y como Carlos no es tonto, ni mucho menos, se dio cuenta
inmediatamente y le dijo que mentía.
'But Carlos is not stupid at all, so he realized it immediately and
told her that she lied.'
(78) Ya comprenderás que fue a Carlos a quien le tocó fregar los cachar
ros.
'And, as you will imagine, Carlos had to wash the dishes.'
In both (77) and (78) the proper noun serves a focalizing purpose, bringing
the role of the speaker more into the foreground in the state of affairs
described. When actions by the speaker are referred to, as in (77), the use
of the proper noun reflects the speaker's intention of boasting about an
accomplishment. If we bear this in mind, an intriguing example from English
follows, which shows that the selection between egocentric and nonegocentric
expressions may also serve the purpose of manipulating the hearer:
"Richard Nixon used personal self-references when he wished to boast of
an accomplishment, but positional reference ('Your President', 'As com
mander-in-chief , etc.) when he was acting defensively." (Simons 1976:301)
Finally, what has been observed in relation to the focalizing reference
of common nouns equally applies to proper nouns: they may be employed
to produce humorous effects on the hearer. It would be plausible to assume
that these effects are brought about by an association with self-referring
proper nouns used by children during the period in which they still don't
apply pronominalization rules. To this use of proper nouns, of course, no
strategical purposes can be attributed, since in the period under discussion
the child is not in a position to select the proper noun instead of other
self-referring expressions.28
Next, I turn to the analysis of egocentric reference in dissensive speech
acts. As suggested by the term, dissensives are speech acts performed by
speakers who wish to inform their interlocutors that they refuse to accept
the propositional content, the illocutionary point, or the allocutionary reali
zation of a previous speech act performed by the latter. Dissensives, there-
fore, often represent a form of nonaccomodative or contrastive verbal

behavior. Let us consider the following mini-dialogue:
(79) A: Anda, Carlos, tráeme un paquete de cigarrillos.
'Hey, Carlos, go and get me a packet of cigarettes.'
B: Carlos tiene que hacer, hazlo tú mismo.
'Carlos has got other things to do, do it yourself.'
If we compare the above answer by  with its unmarked counterpart
(80) (Yo) tengo que hacer, hazlo tú mismo.
we notice that it is the uniquely identifying reference expressed by the proper
noun Carlos which focalizes the role of the speaker in the state of affairs
described. As a consequence, the reaction Carlos tiene que hacer, which
contains this proper noun, conveys a stronger rejection of the impositive
than a reaction that contains a pronominal ; that is, a shifting type of reference.
In other words, the use of Carlos reinforces the dissensive character of the
reaction by speaker B. Note further that, unlike what might be suggested
by the foregoing examples, speakers need not restrict themselves to the use
of their first name; they may also employ their last name, or their first and
last name together. All this equally applies to male and female speakers, so
that in the examples given Carlos could be replaced by e.g. Carlota, whether
or not followed by a last name. In addition to proper nouns, Spanish
speakers performing dissensive speech acts may select egocentrically refer
ring devices from a wide variety of common nouns. 29 So, besides the examples
already mentioned at the beginning of this section, we also have el infrascrito
{el que suscribe), una persona que tiene experiencia, un español, este amigo,
etc. For illustration purposes, consider the following dialogues:
(81) A: Y a ti ¿ qué te parece mi propuesta?
'And you, what do you think of my proposal?'
B: El infrascrito (el que suscribe) no está de acuerdo.
'The one who signs does not agree.'
(82) A: No puede ser verdad.
'It cannot be true.'
B: Pero te lo asegura una persona que tiene experiencia.
'But a person who has experience assures you of it.'
(83) A: Me gusta vuestro clima. Siempre hay sol.
'I like your climate. There is always sunshine.'
B: No lo creas, nuestro clima es terrible. Te lo dice un español.

'Don't believe that, our climate is terrible. A Spaniard says
that to you.'
(84) A: ¿No llegarás tarde?
'Aren't you going to be late?'
B: ¡Qué poca confianza tienes en este amigo!
'How little do you trust this friend!'
To summarize the major points of this section, egocentric reference is inher
ent in the development of certain persuasive strategies in verbal interaction.
It is used by speakers to bring into prominence their role in the state of affairs
described. In not a few cases, this prominence reflects a superior social posi
tion of the speaker with respect to the hearer. Consequently, egocentric
reference may play an important role in those types of interaction where the
speaker exercises power or authority over the hearer and wishes to communi
cate with the latter within a positional frame of reference. This was illustrated
by a set of examples of parent-child interaction. Furthermore, attention was
paid to speaker-referring devices as they are used for allocutionary purposes
in narrative and dissensive types of discourse. As to the latter, we concluded
that the use of speaker-referring proper nouns and common nouns contri
butes to expressing reinforcement of the speaker's disagreement.
5.2.1.2. Nonegocentric expressions
This section concerns itself with two types of interaction where focalizing
expressions referring to the speaker are marked for nonegocentricity. First,
I will discuss politeness formulae. As I pointed out in Haverkate (1979), the
concept of politeness is more complex than it might seem at first sight. It
seems to be the case that in many, if not most, communication situations
so-called polite forms of verbal behavior do not imply a special deference
or respect of the speaker toward the hearer. They are no more than the
linguistic reflection of social conventions, and consequently function as
mechanically applied devices. For a discussion of some concrete research on
the topic, consider:
"In my work on address there was no point in the coding rule in which being
polite entered; address was simply automatic and unconscious, given certain
social rules. It is important to separate those aspects of speaking which are
routine from those that involve semantic options and become focal." (Ervin-
Tripp 1976: 60)
For the present purposes, I propose to make a distinction between two forms
of politeness to which the labels 'speaker-oriented' and 'hearer-oriented'

would properly apply. This distinction has been formulated by Abraham in
his analysis on honorifics in the following way:
"Apparently there are two kinds of honorifics: one is when the speaker uses
a form the purpose of which is to exalt the addressee. Note that such forms
are found also in the range of modals: Sehr geehrter Herr X!, Honorable
Mr. Snarf, Wenn Sie so lieb sind/wären ... Going hand in hand with this
type is the form that humbles or debases the speaker himself in comparison
to the adressee or things connected with him. Hence such letter endings
like hochachtungsvoll or the historical gehorsamster Diener". (Abraham
1975: 69) 30
Evidently, what we are particularly interested in here is the latter type of

politeness, which manifests itself in the use of expressions denoting modesty
or humbleness on the part of the speaker. In Spanish this attitude is expressed
in a natural way by the common noun servidor 'servant', which is used both
in oral and in written language. In the latter case, particular mention should
be made of the petrified formula su atento (y seguro) servidor or su atenta
(y segura) servidora 'your humble and obedient servant', which appears in
letter endings as the antecedent of the proper name of the person signing
the letter.
Beinhauer explains the sociopsychological connotation of servidor in
this context by pointing to the fact that it suggests a fictitious relation between
master and servant: "wobei sich der Sprechende jeweils zum Diener des
Partners macht, bzw. diesem die Rolle des Herrschers zuteilt" (1958: 95).
(in which the speaker makes himself the servant of his interlocutor, attribut
ing to the latter the role of master.')
Returning to the dyadic of speaker-oriented and hearer-oriented polite
ness, we might consider servidor the speaker-oriented antonym of such
hearer-oriented honorifics as Vuestra Merced 'Your Mercy', Vuestra Majestad
'Your Majesty', and Su Santidad 'Your Holiness'. To illustrate the use of
servidor and its feminine counterpart servidora, I quote the following exam
ples from Beinhauer (1958: 95-96):
(85) ¿Es usted el nuevo ingeniero jefe de la provincia?
'Are you the new chief engineer of the province?'
Servidor.
'Your servant.'
(86) ¿Es usté la hermana Piedá?
'Are you sister Piedad?
Servidora
'Your servant.'
(87) íbamos cuatro: Rodríguez, Montesinos, Casas y un servidor.
'We went with four people: Rodríguez, Montesinos, Casas, and
your humble servant.' 31
It should be added to the foregoing that the use oí servidor as a speaker-refer
ring device is now becoming obsolete, which is certainly due to changing
socioeconomic circumstances. Nevertheless, it may still be used in an ironic
sense, in which case it usually co-occurs with the attributive adjective humilde
'humble'. The whole noun phrase, then, differs from servidor only in that it
does not serve as a speaker-debasing device. Consider, for example, the
following dialogue:
(88) A: ¿Quién hizo este maravilloso cuadro?
'Who made this marvelous painting?'
B: Un (este) humilde servidor.
'A (this) humble servant.'
To conclude this section, I wish to consider two types of ceremonial
illocutionary acts the correct performance of which requires speakers to refer
to themselves by means of a proper noun. Therefore, unlike what happened
in the communication situations discussed so far, the use of focalizing expres
sions is not the result of a selection procedure carried out for strategical
purposes. In general, in these cases it is not possible for the speaker to make
a free choice between the members of a set of two or more possibilities,
which, as we saw earlier, is the basic condition underlying the development
of verbal strategies. Let me specify now the types of illocutionary acts referred
to above:
(a) the act of introducing oneself to other people;
(b) the act of signing documents, such as contracts, letters, and atten
dance lists.
The illocutionary point of both (a) and (b) is the self-identification of the
speaker, who, in order to correctly perform the corresponding referring act,
has to make use of his proper name. Unlike the act of introducing oneself,
which only serves a particular social function, the act of signing can be further
specified according to the type of text requiring its performance. Thus, signing
a contract, to give one example, can be considered a formal realization of
the act of agreeing. In this connection, observe that the illocutionary acts
under discussion are performative acts; they can be properly considered a

subclass of the class of Searle's 'declarations' or Fraser's 'ceremonial perfor
matives'.
As pointed out before, the performance of speaker-identifying illocutio-
nary acts is in principle incompatible with the development of verbal
strategies. Nevertheless, there are some interesting cases where the use of
proper nouns is liable to a certain degree of variation. This variation stems
from the fact that, according to his/her social relation with the hearer, the
speaker may choose between mentioning his first name, his last name, or his first
and last name together. The principles governing this selection procedure
are not sharply demarcated, as is obvious from the fact that in not a few
cases speakers are found to hesitate when it comes to determining the optimal
referential choice. An illustrative example of the kind of variation we are
dealing with here was once given by Phillips, a professor of sociology at the
University of Amsterdam, in a column of Folia Civitatis, the weekly paper
of this university (September 1, 1979). Under the title "What is in a name",
he reports that he and his colleagues used to sign an attendance list at the
official meetings of their department. Normally, when the list was presented
to Phillips, there were only initials and last names on it. Once, however, by
accident, the list was handed to him first, and he spontaneously signed with
both his first and his last name. At his surprise, all the others present followed
this example, and, for the first time, put their first names too. Now, notice
that this kind of allocutionary variation is not restricted to ritual or
institutionalized acts such as those referred to above. It may also manifest
itself in the selection of polite or familiar forms of address. Our conclusion,
then, is that in all communication situations where the social relation between
the speaker and the hearer is not fixed by preestablished boundaries, so that
their verbal interaction may oscillate between the formal and familiar code,
the speaker has to develop either an accomodative or a nonaccomodative
strategy. In the former case, he/she chooses the linguistic expression which
he/she thinks agrees optimally with the expectations or wishes of the hearer;
in the latter case, his/her selection is intended to reflect the way he/she
hin-/herself evaluates his/her social relation with the hearer.
5.2.2. Hearer-reference
From a morphosyntactic point of view, focalizing reference to the hearer
can be expressed by pronominal and nonpronominal constituents. In the
former case, the speaker selects one of the members of the category of
second-person pronouns, in the latter he/she selects a proper noun or a

common noun.
The focalizing function of second-person pronouns runs parallel to that
of first-person pronouns. That is, both serve the purpose of expressing
emphatic or contrastive reference to the speaker and the hearer, respectively,
as determined in an essential way by the distribution of topic and comment.
For the analysis of some concrete examples, see section 5.2.1.
In the following sections, which deal with vocative and nonvocative
expressions, attention will only be paid to proper nouns and common nouns.
Both categories can be compared with second-person pronouns, as was
undertaken with regard to first-person pronouns. That is, in this case too,
we can establish an opposition based on the criterion of markedness. The
unmarked member of the opposition, then, is represented by the category
of personal pronouns, which are used exclusively for expressing thematic
functions. Proper nouns and common nouns, on the other hand, represent
the marked member of the opposition, since, besides expressing thematic
functions, they serve a set of allocutionary purposes, which will be discussed
in the following sections.
5.2.2.1. Vocative expressions
As pointed out in Haverkate (1978), the study of vocatives has never
played a central role in linguistic research. Traditional grammars of languages
in which vocatives are marked by noun inflection, for instance, confine them
selves mainly to describing the morphology of case forms, and as far as
transformational grammar is concerned, I know of only one monograph
devoted to the subject (cf. Thorne 1966). This lack of interest may result
from the fact that most linguists are not primarily concerned with the analysis
of constituents not inherent in the basic structure of the proposition. It is,
however, precisely the extrapropositional origin of vocatives that this study
takes as its starting point for the present analysis. Therefore, first consider
the following syntactic and semantic phenomena. On the surface level, voc
atives typically fill the peripheral slots at the beginning or the end of the
sentence. Furthermore, they are marked with a special intonation contour,
including an optional pause, which separates them from the rest of the sen
tence, even if they do not occur in initial or final position. So vocative into
nation may play a distinctive role in assigning the correct illocutionary func
tion to sentences with identical phatic structure. For example, compare the
impositive and assertive interpretation of (89) and (90), respectively:
(89) ¡Cierra la puerta, Juan!

'Close the door, Juan!'
(90) Cierra la puerta Juan.
'Juan closes the door.'
With regard to semantic structure, vocatives have no influence whatever on
the well-formedness of the sentence in which they occur. For that matter,
they are always optional constitutents. It might also be pointed out in this
connection that within the model of case grammar, vocatives could not qualify
as cases, since they do not hold specific relations with the predicate or with
any of the noun phrases of the proposition.
By way of summarizing the aforementioned properties of vocatives,
consider the following observation by Gili y Gaya:
"El vocativo no es complemento de ninguno de los componentes de la ora
ción, ni guarda con ellos relación gramatical alguna. Por esto va sin preposi
ción. Los vocativos son, como las interjecciones, palabras aisladas del resto
de la oración por medio de pausas, refuerzo de intensidad y entonación
especial en el lenguaje hablado, y de comas en el escrito." (1955: 192)
(Vocatives are not complements of any of the constituents of the sentence,
nor are they grammatically related with them. That is the reason that they
are not preceded by prepositions. Just like interjections, vocatives are words
separated from the rest of the sentence by means of pauses, reinforcement
of intensity, a special intonation contour in spoken language, and by means
of commas in written language.)
Turning next to the level of pragmatic analysis, I wish to argue that it makes
sense to set up the following typology of vocative functions:
(a) In order to ensure that normal input conditions obtain, speakers
may use vocatives as attention-getting devices.
(b) Vocatives may be used as substitutes for specific illocutionary-
function-indicating devices.
(c) Vocatives may serve as allocutionary devices to bring about par
ticular perlocutionary effects.
(d) Within the context of certain social and cultural institutions, speak
ers may be obliged to use vocatives as honorific forms of address.
I will start with a discussion of category (a). Formally, vocatives that are
used as attention-getting devices may be selected from both the class of
proper nouns and the class of common nouns. Proper nouns, of course,
always express specific reference; common nouns, on the other hand, express
specific or nonspecific reference according to the context or situation of

utterance. A clear example of nonspecific reference is the traffic instruction :
(91) Peatón, circule por su izquierda.
'Pedestrians, keep to the left.'
Some instances of specifically referring vocatives are:
(92) María, ven aquí inmediatamente.
'María, come here immediately.'
(93) Papá, ¿adónde vas?
'Daddy, where are you going?
(94) Los que están en las últimas filas, favor de ponerse de pie.
'Those who are sitting in the last rows, please stand up.'
As reflected by their sentence-initial position, the vocatives of the foregoing
examples should be interpreted as linguistic devices that do not have another
function than drawing the attention of the addressee to the message they
introduce. As a result, such vocatives are not seldom reinforced by interjec
tions. Thus, in (92) María could be quite naturally expanded to Oye, María
'Listen, María', in (93) Papá to Eh, papá, and in (94) Los que están en las
últimas filas to Atención, los que están en las últimas filas. It should be noted,
in conclusion, that the attention-getting function of the vocative needs to be
set apart from its other functions, since it is not related to the internal structure
of the speech act, but to what Searle has called the normal 'input' and 'output'
conditions underlying its performance. 32
Now, we turn to the analysis of vocatives that are not used for attention-
getting purposes. Two situations are to be distinguished here according to
whether or not the vocative is embedded in a larger syntactic structure. In
the latter case, we are dealing with vocatives belonging to our second cate
gory. These vocatives appear on their own and serve as substitutes for specific
illocutionary-function-indicating devices. Evidently, illocutionary functions
expressed in this way are to be inferred by the hearer from the context or
situation of utterance. Compare, for instance, the following dialogue where
speaker B, shocked at the provocative observation by his interlocutor, has
recourse to the vocative Señor in order to express a reproach:
(95) A: Su mujer es muy bonita; me gustaría salir con ella.
'Your wife is very pretty; I would like to go out with her.'
B: ¡Señor!
'Sir!'
The vocative function at issue here has been called 'quasi-referential' by

Lyons (1977: 217). Consider also the following dialogue, which is entirely
made up of vocatives, all representing expressive speech acts:
(96) Leonor: ¡Papá, papaíto!
'Daddy, my dear daddy!'
Antonio: ¡Hija, hija mía!
'Daughter, my daughter!
Beinhauer, from whom I quote the above example, comments on it in the
following way: "Die Freude des Wiedersehens ist so gross, dass kein Raum
bleibt für einen anderen Gruss als die im stärksten Affekt hervorgebrachte
Anrede des geliebten Wesens" (1958: 109). (The joy of seeing each other
again is so great that their greeting takes the form of a vocative, which
expresses the strongest affection toward the beloved partner.) 33
Lastly, note that it is impositive speech acts in particular that are per
formed by the utterance of a vocative alone. Thus, for example, if someone
is ringing at the door, the use of a vocative like ¡Juanita! perfectly serves the
purpose of requesting or ordering the person addressed by her proper name
to open the door.
To recapitulate, in the examples discussed above, the vocatives not only
serve as direct forms of address, but at the same time contribute to making
explicit specific illocutionary functions. As a result, this kind of vocative is
formally characterized by the fact that it is not embedded in larger syntactic
structures from which those illocutionary functions could otherwise be infer
red.
Next are vocatives that are used as allocutionary devices to bring about
particular perlocutionary effects and that are lexically realized both as proper
nouns and common nouns. 34 To start with the former category, according
to the traditional point of view, proper nouns do not have sense but can only
be attributed a referring function. Searle, who definitely rejects this point
of view, summarizes it in the following way: "In short we use a proper name
to refer and not to describe; a proper name predicates nothing and con
sequently does not have a sense" (1969: 163).
I will not concern myself with Searle's criticism here; I only wish to
stress a point that has been generally overlooked in the discussion about the
meaning of proper nouns. This point is that it is implicitly assumed in state
ments such as the one formulated above that proper nouns are formally
unique. This, however, is not the case, since proper nouns referring to human
beings show morphological variation as conditioned by derivational proces

ses. Therefore it is necessary to distinguish between basic forms and derived
forms. The latter category is made up of diminutive and hypocoristic deriva
tives. The formal difference between diminutive and hypocoristic derivatives
can be described in the following way. Diminutives show a regular derivational
pattern, since the corresponding morphemes are added to the base of the
proper nouns. For hypocoristics, however, no general rules can be formulated,
since they are not derived by suffixation, but by idiosyncratic changes of the
base.
Consider, for instance, the following sets of basic forms and hypocoristic
derivatives: Consuelo - Chelo, Mercedes - Merche, Francisco-Paco, Dolores
- Lola. Observe also that hypocoristic forms, in their turn, allow diminutive
derivation. So, besides Paco and Lola, for instance, we find Paquito and
Lolita, respectively.
Now, it is important to note that both basic and derived forms, that is,
diminutives, hypocoristics, and diminutive hypocoristics, may be used indis
tinctly to express reference to one and the same individual. Put another way,
the referential meaning of the proper noun is not affected by derivation, so
that we may use, for example, both Dolores, Lola, and Lolita without pro
ducing a shift in reference. What differs, however, is the connotative meaning
of the basic and the derived forms. This difference must be accounted for in
terms of pragmatic meaning, since it bears upon the degree of empathy the
speaker wishes to express toward the hearer. 35
Therefore, in the following set of examples, the speaker, that is, a mother
worrying about her daughter suddenly turning pale, expresses a higher degree
of empathy toward the latter by using the hypocoristic form of the proper
noun in (97) than by using its basic, nonderived form in (98):
(97) ¿Qué te pasa? ¿Qué te ocurre, Lola?
'What happens, what is the matter with you, Lola?'
(98) ¿Qué te pasa? ¿Qué te occurre, Dolores?
Extending their analysis, we may compare the above examples with (99),
which represents their vocative-less variant:
(99) ¿Qué te pasa? ¿Qué te ocurre?
and with (100), which represents the diminutive hypocoristic variant:
(100) ¿Qué te pasa? ¿Qué te ocurre, Lolita?
Under the assumption that in uttering (99) the speaker does not explicitly
empathize with the hearer, it might be argued that, if we compare the four
examples in the following order: (99), (98), (97), and (100), they constitute
a scale of increasing intensity as far as the parameter of empathy is concerned.
Our general conclusion from the foregoing considerations is that the
vocative use of proper nouns may serve as an important focalizing strategy
applied by speakers in order to convey two different types of information:
firstly, information concerning the way in which they assess their interactional
relation with the hearer, and, secondly, information concerning the way in
which they assess the role of the hearer in relation to the state of affairs
described.
In regard to the above conclusion, consider also the following statement:
"Several of the linguistic tools we have discussed above reflect just this
choice of implicit assumptions. The choice between 'synonymous expres
sions' is typical. ... When mother says 'Johnny' and the teacher 'John Chris
tian Johnson' this says something about the relationship between those
involved. If mother should say 'John Christian' or even 'John Christian
Johnson' this would implicitly communicate a great deal." (Blakar 1979:154)
Notice, in passing, that the previous examples correctly suggest that the
vocative use of proper nouns need not necessarily express empathy on the
part of the speaker. That is, if impositive speech acts are at issue, vocatives
may also serve the purpose of stressing the power or authority the speaker
has over the hearer, as is shown by an example like:
(101) Quiero que te calles en seguida, Juan.
T want you to shut up immediately, Juan.'
It will be clear that, as illustrated by (101), nonempathizing vocatives are
formally realized by the basic, nonderived form of the proper noun.
After this discussion of proper nouns, we will now treat the category of
common nouns. Notice first that common nouns, unlike proper nouns, do
not only serve to express empathy, but are also used to express positive or
negative feelings of the speaker toward the hearer. Starting with the category
of empathy, we find that, just as we observed with regard to the use of proper
nouns, diminutive forms of common nouns express a higher degree of
empathy than nonderived forms.
Thus in the following example of a father-daughter interaction, the
diminutive form hijita bears a stronger empathizing connotation than would
be expressed by the use of hija, the basic form of the noun:
(102) Leonor: ¿No te ha pasado nada?

'Did nothing happen to you?'
Antonio: Nada, hijita, ¿qué me va a pasar?
'Nothing, my little daughter, what would happen to
me?' (Beinhauer 1958: 32)
Let us now focus on the perlocutionary effects that can be brought about
by the use of vocatives which are selected from the class of common nouns
denoting emotive meaning, both affective and depreciatory.
I will start with some examples of the former type of meaning occurring
in a dialogue between two lovers:
(103) Sole: Hola, vidita, ¿estás solo?
'Hello, my little life,36 are you alone?'
Antonio: Solo, cielo, pasa.
'Alone, my sky, come in.'
Sole: ¿Pero qué tienes tú, gloria?
'But what is the matter with you, my glory?'
Antonio: ¿Por qué, cariño?
'Why, my love?' (Beinhauer 1958: 34)37
As regards other types of discourse characterized by the use of affective
vocatives, we may think of parent-child interaction. Thus, in order to address
their parents in an affective way, children often make use of the diminutives
mamita and papaíto, as illustrated by (96), while parents in addressing their
children are frequently found to use such vocatives as rico 'rich', riquín 'little
rich one', rey 'king', and reina 'queen'.
As I pointed out "before, besides common nouns used as vocatives to
express empathy or affection, we also find common nouns the vocative use
of which serves to express negative or depreciatory feelings of the speaker
toward the hearer. Obviously, speakers employing this kind of vocative dis
play a nonaccomodative or, in most cases, a conflictive form of verbal
behavior. It follows that, as far as lexical content is concerned, the common
nouns in question stand in an antonymous relationship with the category of
affective nouns dealt with before. Put differently, their denotative meaning
is such that they can be used by the speaker to insult or debase the hearer.
As for lexical selection, we find both metaphors and nonmetaphors, as illus
trated, for instance, by such examples as cerdo 'pig' and burro 'donkey', on
the one hand, and ladrón 'thief' and canalla 'scoundrel', on the other, respec-
tively.
However, lexical meaning is not a necessary and sufficient condition for
common nouns to be used as derogatory vocatives. It is also possible for the
speaker to address the hearer with a vocative expression that assigns to the
latter a lower social status or a less important role than the status or role he
actually has, or performs, respectively. In order to analyze this kind of situ
ation properly, it is important to make a distinction between the referential
and the attributive or descriptive meaning of noun phrases. This point has
been made clear by Lyons (1977: 181-182):
"If a distinction is drawn between correct reference and successful reference,
one can perhaps maintain the general principle that we can refer correctly
to an individual by means of a definite description only if the description is
true of the individual in question. But successful reference does not depend
upon the truth of the description contained in the referring expression. The
speaker (and perhaps also the hearer) may mistakenly believe that some
person is the postman, when he is in fact the professor of linguistics, and
incorrectly, though successfully, refer to him by means of the expression
'the postman'. It is not even necessary that the speaker should believe that
the description is true of the referent. He may be ironically employing a
description he knows to be false or diplomatically accepting as correct a
false description which his hearer believes to be true of the referent".38
Evidently, what is of particular interest to us here is the situation of the
speaker "ironically employing a description he knows to be false". If vocatives
are used in this way, the speaker develops a strategy which aims at humiliating
the hearer. This may be shown by the following dialogue between a group
of boys and a civil servant who are engaged in a conflict. Within this interac
tional context one of the boys addresses the functionary, making a false
vocative attribution on purpose:
(104) Mire usted, conserje.
'Listen, caretaker.'
The successfulness of this allocutionary move can be seen from the reaction
by the interlocutor:
(105) Soy el Ordenanza Mayor del Gobierno Civil de Gambo.
'I am the Chief Subordinate of the Civil Government of Gambo.'
(García Serrano 1966: 109)39
To conclude this analysis of the various uses that may be made of voc
atives, both at the illocutionary and the allocutionary level, I will pay
attention to the performance of indirect speech acts. As is well-known from
the literature on the subject, indirect speech acts are speech acts in the
performance of which the speaker performs more than one illocutionary act
at the same time. For the present purposes, first consider an example like:
(106) Está lloviendo a cántaros.
'It's raining cats and dogs.
This declarative sentence, of course, may be uttered by the speaker as an
assertion concerning meteorological conditions only. Thus, it can perfectly
serve as an answer to the question ¿Qué tiempo hace? 'What's the weather
like?', in which case it represents a direct speech act characterized by a
one-to-one correspondence between syntactic form and illocutionary func
tion. However, it is not difficult to imagine a situation in which (106) repre
sents the output of an indirect speech act. What happens, then, is that the
assertion made explicit at surface level serves as a clue for the hearer to infer
that the speaker at the same time performs a second speech act, the propo-
sitional content of which is causally related to that of the speech act which
produces a concrete linguistic output. In our example, such a second speech
act could be another assertion indicating the reason why the first one was
made. Consider, for instance, the following utterance making explicit a pos
sible reason:
(107) No puedes jugar al tenis ahora.
'You cannot play tennis now.'
Now, instead of uttering (107), the speaker may also expand the original
assertion with an empathizing vocative in order to communicate that he/she is
considering the corresponding state of affairs from the point of view of the
hearer. Therefore, under the interpretation which concerns us here, in:
(108) Está lloviendo a cántaros, Adela.
the vocative Adela serves as a signal for the hearer that the speaker is aware
of her disappointment caused by the bad weather. At the same time, however,
the vocative indicates to the hearer that, besides the overt assertion about
the weather, she has to interpret a covert one causally related to the former.
The foregoing analysis leads to the conclusion that in the performance
of indirect speech acts vocatives are found to play a twofold pragmatic func
tion: they serve as allocutionary devices to inform the hearer in which way
the speaker assesses the interpersonal component of their relation, and, at
the same time, they serve as a signal for the hearer to infer that a multiple
speech act is performed by the speaker. In a sense, then, these vocatives
combine two basic categories of the typology set up earlier, since they simul
taneously bear upon the illocutionary and the allocutionary component of
the speech act.
The last class of vocatives that remains to be investigated consists of
ritual formulae that are used within the context of certian socially or culturally
determined institutions. The interactional patterns involved are based on
such asymmetrical relations as hold, for instance, between parents and chil
dren, teachers and pupils, or, in general, between superior and inferior speak
ers. Vocatives used in this kind of context reflect the social convention that
inferior speakers addressing their interlocutors display a polite form of verbal
behavior. According to the degree of specificity of the institution, speakers
are either obliged or expected to make use of vocative expressions in address
ing their superiors. The obligatory use of vocatives is inherent in the perfor
mance of ceremonial speech acts. A relevant case in point is the type of ritual
interaction that is found in the army, as illustrated by such stereotyped for
mulas as  sus órdenes, mi sargento 'At your orders, sergeant'. Other exam
ples of vocatives used in strictly defined institutional contexts are Su Majestad
'His/Her Majesty', Su Santidad 'His Holiness', and Excelentísimo Señor
'Your Excellency'.
Obviously, the petrified form of these vocatives results from the ceremo
nial character of the speech acts they accompany. However, if the institution
is less specific so that more people participate in it, inferior speakers need
not necessarily be obliged to address their superior interlocutors with a voc
ative expression, although in most cases they are expected to do so. A telling
example is classroom interaction, where in the normal course of events pupils
address their teachers with such vocatives as maestra, señor, and pro
fesor. They may also use don or doña followed by the first name of the teacher.
In parent-child interaction, finally, it is to be assumed that, depending on
the positional or personal structure of the family, children will be found to
use respectively more or less vocatives when addressing their parents.
5.2.2.2. Nonvocative expressions
The present section is devoted to the analysis of nonvocative second-per
son reference expressed by common nouns. It is characteristic of this kind of
reference that it contributes to creating social distance between the speaker
and the hearer. Furthermore, it is important to note that by creating social
distance speakers may pursue two different, mutually exclusive goals. Thus,
on the one hand, it may be their intention to behave in a formally polite way
in order to make a favorable impression on their interlocutors; on the other

hand, speakers may use the same sort of formulae to debase or humiliate
their interlocutors. Let me introduce the former strategy by means of an
example from a Chilean newspaper, where the readers are formally referred
to in their quality of readers:
(109) ... pero esto mismo da a sus lectores la certeza de que tienen en
sus manos un órgano periodístico que se aproxima a la objetividad.
'... but this is just what gives its readers (i.e. the readers of the
newspaper itself) the certainty that they have in their hands a
journal that approaches objectivity.' (ElMercurio, May 31 - June
6, 1971)
As regards oral forms of transmission, various referential expressions may
be used by speakers who wish to address their hearers in a formally polite
way. Consider, for instance, the following well-known example of a shop
keeper-customer interaction:
(110) ¿Qué deseaba la señora?
Lit.: 'What did the lady wish?'40
From Beinhauer I quote an example reflecting the intention of the speaker
to exalt his superior hearer by addressing him as el señor.
(111) Si el señor desea esperar al Señor marqués, puede hacerlo, desde
luego.
Lit.: 'If the gentleman wishes to wait for the Marquis, he may,
of course, do so.' (1958: 23)41
Let us proceed, finally, to an analysis of politeness formulas which are
used in an ironical way to debase the hearer. Characteristic examples can
be found in classroom interaction where teachers who are angry with their
pupils may address them with such honorifics as el señor or el señorito 'gentle
man', e.g.:
(112) ¿Es que el señorito no ha tenido ganas de hacer sus deberes?
'So the gentleman didn't like doing his homework?'
It will be obvious that in communication situations such as in (112) the use
of el señorito creates a high degree of social distance because of the ironical
intention with which it is uttered. The same allocutionary strategy underlies
the use of the personal pronoun usted when it refers to children who are
normally addressed with tú. This kind of referential code-switching, of
course, is typical of conflictive forms of verbal interaction. Consider the

following comments in this respect:
"conviene hacer notar, por no hallarse registrado en las gramáticas, que
tratar de usted a una persona a la cual tuteamos ordinariamente, significa
enfado o resentimiento hacia ella, como queriendo hacer visible que no
tiene ya nuestra confianza. Un padre trata de usted a su hijo en son de
reprimenda." (Gilí y Gaya 1955: 205)
(Since the phenomenon is not discussed in our grammars, we should point
out that a speaker addressing a person with usted whom he/she normally
addresses with tú expresses anger or resentment toward the latter as if he/she
wanted to show that he/she does not trust him/her any more. A father
addresses his son with usted when he wants to reprove him.)
I am indebted to Ariel Dorfman for the following example, which contains
the noun phrase el hombre 'the man' used as a strongly depreciatory form
of indirect address:
(113) El hombre ya se fue callando.
Lit. T h e man already shut up.'
This impositive was uttered by a Chilean policeman in order to stress his
formal authority over the addressee who wanted to enter into a discussion
with him.
As the examples throughout this section, suggest, it may be assumed
that the class of common nouns which are used for expressing nonvocative
second-person reference is included in the class of common nouns which are
used for expressing vocative reference. This point, which was brought to my
attention by Dick Springorum, can be made clear by considering certain
synonymous or near-synonymous pairs of nouns. Thus, in the case of profes
sional terms such as profesor and catedrático, doctor and médico, it is only
the former member of each pair which can be used to express both vocative
and nonvocative reference to the hearer, whereas the latter member cannot
be used to perform either of these functions. To take one more example,
señor and cabellero refer in a formally polite way to members of the male
sex; both can be used as vocatives, and consequently, both can be used for
expressing nonvocative second-person reference as well.
To summarize the major points of this section, the nonvocative use of
common nouns expressing second-person reference serves two opposite pur
poses in verbal interaction; that is, they are used to develop strategies that
aim at either exalting or debasing the hearer, with the natural consequence
that in both cases a considerable degree of social distance is created. 42
5.3. Defocalizing expressions

5.3.0. Introduction
Thus far this study has concerned itself mostly with expressions denoting
specific reference to speaker and hearer. The present chapter contains an
analysis of the categories of nonspecific and implicit reference. Nonspecificity
is formally expressed by both pronominal and verbal constituents. In terms
of this distinction, the indefintie pronoun uno and the pseudo-reflexive pro
noun se will be dealt with, on the one hand, and verb endings denoting
first-person plural and second-person singular reference, on the other. As
is shown below, in most communiaction situations both pronominal and
nonpronominal devices express a collective reference to the speaker and the
hearer, so that, unlike for the analyses of specific reference carried out in
the preceding chapter, no separate categories for speaker-reference and
hearer-reference will be set up.
From a functional point of view it is important to note that nonspecific
and implicit reference serve the particular purpose of reducing or suppressing
information concerning the identity of the agent; therefore, to indicate the
process involved, the following labels would properly apply: 'defocalization',
'impersonalization', or, more specifically, 'agent identity suppression'. 43 The
two latter terms were introduced by Givón to describe certain aspects of
topic identification. Givón distinguishes a set of formal devices representing
a ten-point scale which ranges from the easiest (least surprising) to the most
difficult (most surprising) topic identification (1982: 6). Following the direc
tion from easiest to most difficult, we find that the category of agent identity
suppression, as manifested by verb agreement and unstressed pronouns,
must be assigned a position very close to easiest topic identification. In other
words, nonspecific constituents which serve to avoid making the identity of
the agent explicit determine the thematic structure of the sentence in such
a way that they surface as weakly topicalizing markers, which, as I will attempt
to show below, is in perfect harmony with the corresponding allocutionary
strategy developed by the speaker.
Let us look next at the different reasons speakers may have for not
specifying the performer of the action they describe. In this regard, I wish
to establish the following classification:
(a) the agent is unknown to the speaker; 44
(b) the agent is known to the speaker, and the speaker assumes him/
her to be known by the hearer as well;45
() the agent is known to the speaker but the speaker doesn't mention
him/her, although he/she is not sure that the agent is known to
the hearer. 46
It will be evident that, as far as the development of defocalizing strategies
is concerned, it is the latter category which is of particular relevance. There
fore, let us see in what kinds of communication situations speakers are found
to withhold information concerning the identity of the agent from their hear
ers. For a general survey consider the following observations:
"Omisión deliberada del sujeto, sujeto que ... es perfectamente conocida
por el hablante; por discreción, prudencia, táctica, conveniencia, etc., el
hablante no quiere hacer referencia al sujeto, y recurre también a la expre
sión impersonal. Me han ofendido; Nos han puesto la zancadilla; Se os ha
insultado; Ha sido elogiada tu obra." (Llorente Maldonado 1977: 110)
(Intentional suppression of the subject which is perfectly known to the
speaker; for reasons of discretion, prudence, tactics, convenience, etc., the
speaker does not wish to make reference to the subject, and has recourse
to impersonal expressions. They have offended me; They have played a dirty
trick on us; You have been insulted; Your work has been praised.)
It is to be noted that Llorente Maldonado speaks of 'subject suppression',

whereas I used the term 'agent (identity) suppression'. As a result, there is
a difference of scope, because conceptually the term 'subject' covers both
the notion of agent and patient. We find indeed that both categories may be
defocalized.47 However, since in the context of this study the focal point is
the strategy of the speaker for avoiding overt referring to his/her own respon
sibility or to that of the hearer for bringing about or having brought about a
certain state of affairs, our main concern is with the categories of nonspecific
and implicit reference to the agent. Furthermore, this study confines itself to
the analysis of defocalizing reference to the speaker and the hearer only,
whereas Llorente Maldonado, as is obvious from his examples, does not
impose such a restriction on his work.
The following will discuss the category of defocalizing strategies within
the framework of Gricean maxims. In section 5.3.1, we will see that the use
of certain first-person plural expressions, to which a pseudo-inclusive func
tion can be attributed, leads, properly speaking, to a violation of the maxim
of quality. In many other cases we will observe that speakers using defocaliz
ing expressions fail to convey maximal information to their hearers, as a
result of which they flout the following maxim of quantity: "Make your
contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the
exchange)" (Grice 1975: 45). From the form in which this maxim is stated,
it follows that, if the speaker applies a defocalizing strategy conveying to the

hearer nonspecific instead of specific referential information, he/she inten
tionally flouts the maxim. As to the interpretive task of the hearer, the
following general procedures can be mentioned:
"The listener may recover referents from the explicit verbal (endophoric
retrieval) and situational (exophoric retrieval) context of the utterance ... If
no specific referent is provided by the speaker, the listener must somehow
supply his/her own. This can be done by inference from a close associate
(bridging) or by the creation of a referent (addition)." (Rochester and Mar
tin 1977: 250)
By way of illustration, let us consider the following pair of examples; the
first one reflects the intention of the speaker of flouting the maxim of quantity
under discussion, while the second one does not:
(114) Así se llega a la conclusión de que no funcionas bien en nuestro
equipo.
'So one comes to the conclusion that you don't fit in in our team. '
(115) Así llego a la conclusión de que no funcionas bien en nuestro
equipo.
'So I come to the conclusion that you don't fit in in our team.'
Under the interpretation that concerns us here, in (114) the speaker
defocalizes his/her involvement in the state of affairs expressed, i.e. coming to
the conclusion referred to, which may or may not be shared by other persons.
(115), on the other hand, contains a first-person singular expression, as a
result of which specific reference is made to the speaker as the performer of
the action involved. Therefore the utterance of (115) may lead to a direct
confrontation between speaker and hearer.
Consider next the following pair of examples:
(116) Esas faltas no se deben cometer.
'One should not make such mistakes.'
(117) Usted no debe cometer esas faltas.
'You should not make such mistakes.'
In contradistinction to (114), (116) does not reflect the speaker's intention
to minimize his/her own role in the state of affairs described, but that of the
hearer. This is equivalent to saying that the speaker wishes to avoid identify
ing the hearer as the agent who brought about an undesired state of affairs.
The specific reference to the agent expressed in (117), on the contrary, may
lead to a direct confrontation between the speaker and the hearer, since the
former does not undertake any attempt to prevent the latter from losing
his/her face. It is interesting to note in passing that speakers may even
explicitly refer to their suppressing the identity of the agent. What we are
dealing with, then, are metareferential expressions such as no cito nombres
T won't mention names'. In addition, these expressions are often employed
in an ironical sense, which implies that the speaker is perfectly aware of the
fact that the hearer knows the identity of the nonspecified agent. 48
The next point to be made is that the expression of defocalizing reference
inherently involves generalization. This may be easily seen from our examples
(114) and (116). Now, it is important to note that generalization serves a
twofold interactional purpose: on the one hand, it suggests that there exists
a consensus with respect to the point of view put forward by the speaker;
on the other hand, it prevents the hearer from feeling directly attacked by
the speaker, because no explicit reference is made to either one of them. 49
Furthermore, generalization by defocalization may also serve to protect the
speaker in the first place. This point is emphasized in the following quotation:
"There is a great difference between the discursive effect of a sentence like
When I get drunk I wake up with a headache and that of When one gets
drunk one wakes up with a headache. The first is a natural candidate for the
so what reaction, whereas the second seems to constitute its own raison
d'être. Moreover, the first can call forth a reaction of disapproval from one's
interlocutor, but he or she can do little more than disagree with the second."
(Laberge and Sankoff 1979: 430)
As illustrated by the foregoing example, speakers making assertions express
ing morals and truisms may employ defocalization as an effective referential
strategy. This point is emphasized by Laberge and Sankoff in the following
way:
"Morals or truisms are even further removed from challengeability insofar
as they function to evaluate or to demonstrate the point of something else.
Children are children, one can't make them think like adults is in itself serving
to justify the speaker's statement that she 'has to' yell at her children. Though
it would be possible for an argumentative interlocutor to respond that indeed
one ought to be able to reason with children, the evaluative role of the
proverbial utterance combines with the nonsituated quality of its reference
to give it a greater measure of protection from such a riposte." (1979:430)
As suggested by the latter part of this comment, morals and truisms are not
seldom conveyed in the form of proverbs. It is important to observe that, as
far as the interaction between speaker and hearer is concerned, proverbs
may serve as powerful tools to avoid personal confrontation. Therefore a
speaker wishing to criticize the hearer's behavior may have recourse to a

proverb in order to de-individualize his/her negative feelings toward the latter
by embedding them in a frame of conventional wisdom. This point of view
is also put forward by Brown and Levinson, who mention a set of conventional
proverbs such as  penny saved is a penny earned, which they characterize
in the following way: "Such generalized advice, may, in context, serve as
criticism; but as criticism with the weight of tradition, it is perhaps easier to
face than other kinds of rule-stating" (1978: 231).
To recapitulate, agent identity suppression is a linguistic device that is
often employed for defocalizing purposes. The de-individualizing effect
brought about in this way may concern both the identity of the speaker and
that of the hearer. Moreover, defocalizing speakers aim at dissociating them
selves not only from their interlocutors but from the state of affairs they
describe. Consider the following illustrations which reflect a gradually
increasing degree of de-individualization of the speaker with respect to his/
her involvement in the corresponding state of affairs:
(118) Como profesor no te lo puedo permitir.
'Being a teacher, I can't give you permission.'
(119) Como profesor uno no te lo puede permitir.
'Being a teacher, one can't give you permission.'
(120) No se te lo puede permitir.
Tt can't be permitted to you.' 50
As we will see in sections 5.5.3 and 5.5.4, the indefinite pronoun uno and
the pseudo-reflexive pronoun se, appearing in (119) and (120), respectively,
both serve as defocalizing devices. Nevertheless, unlike se, uno expresses an
implicit reference to the speaker. This explains the fact that in (119) uno is
compatible with the qualifying noun phrase como profesor, whereas the
pseudo-reflexive construction of (120) excludes that compatibility.
After the above considerations, we are now in a position to give a more
precise definition of the concept of 'defocalization'. Defocalization, then,
involves a referential strategy developed by the speaker in order to minimize
his/her role or that of the hearer in the state of affairs described. In realizing
this strategy, the speaker suppresses the identity of the agent by making use
of nonspecifically or implicitly referring expressions or constructions. We
might also say that the process of de-individualization involved is brought
about by the speaker in order to avoid performing what Brown and Levinson
proposed to call a 'face-threatening act'. This concept was developed to
account for agent identity suppression within a sociopsychological frame of

reference:
"In many languages, agent deletion is allowed not only in imperatives but
also in other verb forms that encode acts which are intrinsically FTA's (i.e.
face-threatening acts)." (1978: 196)
The following survey of categories concludes this introductory section:
first-person plural reference; second-person singular reference; the indefinite
pronoun uno; the pseudo-reflexive-pronoun se; and constructions marked
for implicit reference. The above order — which is also the order in which
the rest of this chapter will deal with these categories — is motivated by the
fact that it shows an increasing degree of de-individualization of the speaker
and the hearer. Finally, the four categories in question function as members
of a language-specific paradigm. Spanish, for instance, does not parallel
French, where, according to an empirical study by Laberge and Sankoff, tu,
vous, and on, can be considered discourse equivalents. 51
5.3.1. First-person plural expressions
The study of defocalizing first-person plural expressions has a long tra
dition. This may be inferred, for example, from the fact that in the course of
the centuries a wide variety of terms have been introduced to refer to the
linguistic and stylistic properties of the category involved. Consider, for
instance, the following enumeration of Latin terms: 'pluralis inclusivus',
'pluralis majestatis', 'pluralis auctoris', 'pluralis modestiae', 'pluralis
sociativus', and 'pluralis rhetoricus'. It is easy to see that the first three terms
are intended to cover a fairly restricted domain of reference, pluralis
inclusivus denoting the semantic scope of the expression, and pluralis majes
tatis and pluralis auctoris the categories of persons producing it. These three
terms indicate the sociopsychological effects aimed at by speakers making
use of defocalizing first-person plural reference.
Independent of traditional terminology, the present investigation is
based on the distinction between three different types of referential
strategies, which I propose to label 'pseudo-inclusive', 'class-inclusive', and
'all-inclusive'. As a starting point for the analysis of the first category, the
following exposition by Gili y Gaya should suffice:
"Nosotros representa a un sujeto singular en el plural de modestia, como el
que emplea, por ejemplo, un escritor al hablar de sí mismo, diluyendo en
cierto modo la responsabilidad de sus palabras en una pluralidad ficticia:
nosotros creemos, en vez de yo creo. Hoy parece ganar terreno el uso de
yo, pero muchas personas lo estiman insolente y pedantesco." (1955: 205)

(Nosotros represents a singular subject when it is used as the plural of mod
esty; we can think here, for instance, of a writer who speaks of himself,
transferring in a certain way the responsibility for his words into a fictitious
plurality: we believe instead of I believe. Nowadays, the use of yo is becoming
more and more popular, but many people consider it insolent and pedantic. )
Contrary to what Gilí y Gaya suggests, the so-called 'plural of modesty' does
not only occur in written texts; it is also used in oral discourse with an exposi
tory character, in one word: "c'est la 'nous' d'auteur ou d'orateur" (Benveniste
1966: 235) (it is the "we" of the writer or the orator). As indicated by the
term, the plural of modesty represents an accomodative form of verbal
behavior; more specifically the primary aim of the speaker employing it is
to avoid a direct confrontation with the hearer. With respect to its referential
scope, one could say that the speaker uses a first-person plural expression
in order to create a situation in which the hearer, or in most cases, the
hearers, are supposed to share the responsibility for the point of view put
forward by the speaker. To illustrate this, consider the following examples,
all of which have been taken from written texts:
(121) Hemos esbozado algunas ideas de lo que sería una teoría de integ-
ración Economía — Ecología. Creemos necesaria una clasifica
cion de rnétodo antes de poner en relación estos dos sistemas de
pensamiento.
'We have outlined some ideas of what could be an integrated
theory of economy and ecology. We believe that it is necessary
to reach a classification of methods before two systems of thinking
can be linked together'. (van Embden 1981: 15)
(122) Los elementos que hemos venido siguiendo en su desarrollo ayudan
a una solución del problema de la valoración, con el que con
cluiremos.
'The elements we have been considering in relation to their
development help us solve the evaluation problem, with which
we will conclude.' (van Embden 1981: 15)
(123) Un antiguo discípulo nuestro, el profesor F. Poyatos, ...es hoy
autoridad en la materia.
'An old pupil of ours, Professor Poyatos, ... is nowadays an
authority on this subject.'
The inclusive character of the first-person plural expressions occurring
in these examples will be looked at first. It is well-known fact that Spanish

does not make a formal difference between inclusive and exclusive first-per
son plural reference. 52 Nevertheless, the distinction is notionally important
as far as defocalizing strategies are concerned. Our present analysis will
mainly be concerned with inclusive reference. Furthermore, it will be neces
sary to introduce a distinction between various class of inclusive reference.
Thus, returning to our examples (121), (122), and (123), we find that the
first-person plural reference expressed by hemos esbozado and creemos, by
hemos venido siguiendo and concluiremos, and by nuestro, respectively, can
not be considered inclusive in the strict sense of the term, because, if we
take into account the factual world described, these expressions denote only
the writer's involvement or responsibility. That is to say, in (121) it is the
writer who is responsible for "outlining some ideas" as well as for presenting
the "belief that it is necessary to reach a classification of methods"; the same
applies, mutatis mutandis, to the predicate expressions hemos venido
siguiendo and concluiremos in (122). Finally, in (123) it is evident that Pro
fessor Poyatos is not a .pupil common to the writer and his readers;
nuestro refers to a pupil only of the writer. In view of the above, I propose
to introduce the label 'pseudo-inclusive' to indicate the type of first-person
plural reference as manifested by (121), (122), and (123).
This new category is intended to replace both the traditional 'pluralis
auctoris' and the 'pluralis modestiae'. We have already observed that the
former term is not only restricted to writers but that also speakers make use
of the corresponding defocalizing strategy; as a consequence, it is not correct
to speak of the authorial plural. I want to point out that the latter term
involves more than modesty alone. The use of nuestro in (123) can, for
example, be properly described in terms of modesty, yet the defocalizing
expressions of (121) and (122) reflect in the first place a persuasive strategy
of the writer which consists in pretending that he and his public share a
collective responsibility for such actions as pointing to the necessity of reach
ing a classification, for which, from a strictly factual point of view, only the
writer is responsible.
The category of pseudo-inclusive reference is made up, to a large extent,
of stereotyped expressions which are particularly used in academic and
argumentative types of texts. Some characteristic cases in point are: así
llegamos a la conclusión de que 'thus we arrive at the conclusion that',
vol-veremos sobre este punto en el capítulo siguiente 'we will return to this point
in the following chapter', and como hemos demostrado anteriormente 'as we
have demonstrated earlier'.

Furthermore, we find that the strategy under consideration may also
serve the purpose of eluding responsibility on the part of the speaker or the
writer. The following example:
(124) Nos hemos equivocado de cura.
'We have made a mistake concerning the cure.' (Bobes Naves
1971: 33)
reflects, under the interpretation that concerns us here, the attempt of a
surgeon to make his patient a participant in the medical failure for which
the former alone should be held responsible.
Finally, pseudo-inclusive strategies are applied by certain categories of
speakers who exercise power or authority over their hearers. We may think
here in particular of such asymmetical relations as those characterizing the
interaction between parents and children, teachers and pupils, and nurses
and patients. Consider the following stereotypical directives:
(125) Y ahora vamos a acostarnos tranquilamente.
'And now we are going to sleep quietly.'
(126) Este ejercicio lo hacemos por escrito.
'We are going to do this exercise in writing.'
(127) Es hora de que tomemos nuestras medicinas.
'It's time for taking our medicines.'
It will be obvious that (125) should be taken as an example of parent-children,
(126) as an example of teacher-pupil, and (127) as an example of nurse-patient
interaction. Actually, the referential structure of these directives can be said
to reflect the wish of the speaker to indirectly refer to his or her power to
control the intentional behavior of the interlocutor. 53 Another factor involved
in the use of the above pseudo-inclusive expressions concerns the intention
of the speaker to create symbolic solidarity with the hearer. The crucial role
of this factor was illustrated by Beinhauer in the following way:
"Dirigido al enfermo, resultaría más personal y afectuoso ¿cómo andamos?,
pues al formular así la pregunta el médico se hace solidario con el destino
interrogado por medio del 'plural inclusivus'." (1963: 326)
{How are we?, asked to an ill person would sound more personal and affec
tive, since if the surgeon formulates the question in this way, he places
himself in a position of solidarity with the destiny of the person interrogated
by making use of the 'plural inclusivus'.)
Jespersen, to quote a non-Spanish source, speaks of the 'paternal we', which
he describes in the following way:

"Among substitutes for notional second person I shall first mention the
paternal we, often used by teachers and doctors ('Well, and how are we
to-day?') and denoting kindness through identifying the interests of speaker
and hearer. This seems to be common in many countries, e.g. in Denmark,
in Germany ..., in France ..." (1955: 217-218)54
From the point of view of Gricean maxims it might be argued that
pseudo-inclusive reference implies a violation of the maxims of quality. That is to
say, in communication situations such as those illustrated by (123) and (125)
the speaker "says what he believes to be false", thus violating the first maxim
of quality (Grice 1975: 46). The reason for this is that in the former case the
speaker knows or may almost be sure that Professor Poyatos is not a pupil
of his audience, while in the latter case he knows that he himself is not going
to actually participate in the action described. In stereotyped expressions
such as así llegamos a la conclusión de que and volveremos sobre este punto
en el capítulo siguiente, the speaker violates the second maxim of quality:
"Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence" (Grice 1975: 46),
because he/she cannot be sure that his audience shares his/her conclusion or
prediction, respectively.
Summing up, we find that the category of pseudo-inclusive reference
manifests itself in the development of four types of allocutionary strategies:
(a) it serves to express modesty;
(b) it serves to suggest that the hearer shares the point of view put
forward by the speaker;
(c) it serves as a device for the speaker to avoid responsibility for
having brought about an undesired state of affairs;
(d) it serves to imply the speaker's symbolic solidarity with the hearer
in certain types of interaction where the former has a superior
position with respect to the latter. 55
We will now get down to the analysis of the second category of defocaliz-
ing first-person plural reference, viz. the category of class-inclusive reference.
Here the process of defocalization consists of the fact that the speaker iden
tifies his/her personal beliefs, points of view, or assumptions with those of
the class of which he/she indicates or implies him-/herself to be a member.
These classes are open-ended and contain members sharing such different
collective properties as defined, for example, by their profession, religion,
or nationality. If applied for strategical purposes, class-inclusive reference
serves as an effective tool for the speaker to protect his/her personal points
of view against direct attack by the interlocutor, since he/she defocalizes
them by presenting them not in the form of individual assertions, but in the
form of general statements whose truth-value has been accepted by all mem
bers of the corresponding class. As a corollary, and implicit appeal is made
to the authority which may be attributed to the common knowledge of the
class in its entirety.
It is evident from all this that class-inclusive reference plays an important
role in argumentative contexts. Therefore, let us consider some examples
from scientific treatises where first-person plural reference is made to the
class of people devoting themselves to the discipline involved:
(128) Durante mucho tiempo hemos estado metodológicamente pen
dientes de una división Ciencias S ocíales-Naturales, que se revela
poco operativa, si no falsa ... Pero ahora comprendemos que las
Ciencias Naturales tienen problemas metodológicos similares a los
de las Ciencias Sociales.
Tor a long time we have been methodologically dependent on
the division between the Social Sciences and Physics, which has
turned out to be barely productive, or even false ... But now we
understand that physicists have methodological problems that are
similar to those of sociologists.' (van Embden 1981: 16)
(129) Cualquiera que sea la actitud que se tome al respecto, en Economía
llegamos a dos exigencias que aunque incompletas, son útiles.
'Whatever attitude one adopts, as far as economy is concerned,
we arrive at two requirements that are useful, albeit incomplete.'
(van Embden 1981: 16)
Obviously, in these examples the writers make assertions about certain prop
erties of a class of which they themselves are members. 56 Thus, in (128) we
may assume that reference is made to the class of sociologists, and in (129)
to the class of economists. In comparison with pseudo-inclusive reference,
class-inclusive reference defocalizes to a higher degree the role of the speaker
in the state of affairs involved. The following empirical evidence may illus
trate the correctness of this observation. In assertions such as (128) and
(129), first-person plural reference cannot vary with first-person singular
reference. Compare, for instance, the substitution of he estado
metodológicamente pendiente and en Economía llego a dos exigencias for
hemos estado metodológicamente pendientes and en Economía llegamos a dos
exigencias, respectively. Although these substitutions produce well-formed

sentences of Spanish, the referential scope of the input sentence is entirely
different from that of the output sentences. Now, it is interesting to note
that just the opposite holds true for (121) and (122). As we have argued
before, these assertions are marked for pseudo-inclusive reference, which is
equivalent to stating that, although formal reference is made to both the
speaker and his/her audience, it is the former who plays a prominent role in
the state of affairs expressed. It is precisely for this reason that, unlike in
(128) and (129), in (121) and (122) first-person plural reference may be
replaced by first-person singular reference. Thus, in (121), for example, it
is perfectly correct for the speaker to say he esbozado algunas ideas and creo
necesaria una clasificación de método instead of hemos esbozado algunas
ideas and creemos necesaria una clasificación de método.
Pseudo-inclusive reference further differs from class-inclusive reference
in that the former necessarily implies that both speaker and hearer are
involved in the state of affairs described. Class-inclusive reference, on the
other hand, is neutral with respect to the feature inclusive first-person plural
reference. Thus, to pick up example (129) again, the class of economists
referred to may, but need not, include the hearer or the hearers as its mem
bers. Note that exclusive first-person plural reference may serve to develop
a defocalizing strategy for manipulative purposes, as (130) shows:
(130) Los médicos no siempre obtenemos éxito al tratar esta enfermedad.
'We surgeons are not always successful in treating this disease.'
The interpretation concerned here is that of a statement made by a surgeon
with the intention of avoiding the responsibility for not having been able to
cure the disease of the hearer-patient. Therefore, he makes a generalizing
reference to the class to which he professionally belongs in order to get the
patient to consider his failure not as an individual failure, but as a failure
that could be attributed to any surgeon.57
To conclude the analysis of class-inclusive reference, I would like to
point to the fact that, unlike what we have seen so far, there are also situations
in which speakers indicate their membership of a certain class without it
being clear in which way the properties attributed to that class apply to them.
Llorente Maldonado interprets these situations as follows:
"En ocasiones, el que al hablar emplea la primera persona del plural forma
realmente parte del sujeto colectivo, pero con frecuencia forma parte sólo
de una manera afectiva y metafórica, tomando como suyo algo que no es
suyo pero que hace suyo solidarizándose con sus conciudadanos, con sus
paisanos, con sus amigos, con los miembros del mismo grupo social. Cuando
decimos Este año hemos exportado muchos barcos, Vamos a coger este verano
mucho trigo, oraciones equivalentes a Este año se han esportado ... y Este
verano se va a coger en España mucho trigo, nosotros, que no somos ni
fabricantes de barcos ni labradores y, por lo tanto no vamos a coger ni un
grano de trigo, nos solidarizamos con los exportadores y con los labradores
expañoles, hacemos nuestros sus afanes e ilusiones." (1977: 114-115)
(Sometimes, speakers who use the first-person plural actually form part of
the collective subject, but often they form part of it only in an affective and
metaphorical way, since they attribute acts to themselves in the performance
of which they have not participated. They do so by manifesting solidarity
with the people living in the same town or country, with their friends, with
the members of the same social group. When we say This year we have
exported many ships, We are going to harvest much grain this summer, sen
tences equivalent to This year many ships have been exported ... and This
summer much grain will be harvested in Spain, we, who are neither ship
producers nor farmers and, therefore, won't harvest any grain, express our
solidarity with the export firms and with the Spanish farmers; we identify
ourselves with their efforts and illusions.)
I now turn to the last category of defocalizing reference to be discussed
in this section, namely the cateogry of 'all-inclusive reference'. The term
'all-inclusive' has been coined by Thrane, who, in addition to the traditional
dichotomy of inclusive and exclusive first-person plural reference, distin
guishes a third category containing the speaker, the hearer, and an indefinite
set of other persons (1980: 211).
In the present context I take the term 'all-inclusive' to express generaliz
ing reference, not bound to a particular class of persons. The speech acts
involved can be considered a special kind of generic statements, as the follow
ing examples show:
(131) No podemos pronosticar si va a haber otra guerra mundial.
'We can't predict if there will be another World War.'
(132) Normalmente, creemos mucho más interesante lo que decimos
nosotros que lo que afirman los demás, y la frase "el diálogo es
un monólogo intercalado" ha nacido, probablemente, en España.
'Normally, we believe what we have to say is much more impor
tant than what others have to say, and the expression "a dialogue
is an interrupted monologue" has probably been invented in
Spain.'(Diáz-Plaja 1976: 88)
The referential scope of the above first-person plural expressions can be

adequately described in terms of what Wales calls 'the context of culture',
which he specifies in the following way:
"Given a speaker or writer's need to make generalizations, we can be
stretched, as it were, to include not only his immediate audience or reader
ship, but people with similar interests, and people in general." (1980:35)58
To conclude this section on first-person plural reference, I want to draw
attention to a formal feature which is common to all three types of defocaliz-
ing reference. Since the basic strategy involved in making pseudo-inclusive,
class-inclusive, and all-inclusive reference consists in suppressing the identity
of the agent, the speaker is prevented from making use of emphatic or contras-
tive forms of reference. As a consequence, in the communication situations
under consideration, the stressed personal pronoun nosotros cannot be used.
The constraint I am referring to is clearly illustrated by the structure of the
idiomatic expressions Vamos a ver 'Let's see' and Ya veremos 'We will see',
which represent typical instances of defocalizing reference and, for that
reason, do not alternate with Nosotros vamos a ver and Nosotros ya veremos,
respectively.59
Taking thematic structure as a frame of reference, we could also formu
late the foregoing by stating that it is the distribution of topic and comment
which prevents nosotros, the topicalized constituent, from being derived at
surface level.
5.3.2. Second-person singular expressions
It is generally agreed upon that defocalizing second-person reference
serves to convey generalizations involving not only the hearer, who is the
person grammatically referred to, but also the speaker and any other person
who is involved or may be in principle involved in the state, process, or
action denoted by the predicate. By way of illustration, consider the following
quotation:
"Vas a la plaza, estás toda la mañana a la cola, y no logras nada puede
escucharse en una conversación, sin que el hablante se refiera a un tú sino
a una persona cualquiera y determinadamente ninguna." (Llorente Mal-
donado 1977: 113)
(You go to the market, you queue up the whole morning, and you don't get
anything can be heard in a conversation, without the speaker referring to a
tú, but to anybody and to nobody in particular.)
Many linguists who have concerned themselves with defocalizing second-per-
son reference emphasize that the speaker occupies a central position in the
referential domain involved. This may be seen, for instance, from the follow
ing observations:
"El llamado TU impersonal es muchas veces en realidad una variante del
YO." (Bobes Naves 1971: 33)
(The so-called impersonal TU is actually in many cases a variant of YO.)
and
"el que habla, a pesar de utilizar la 2a persona, se implica en la cuestión".
(Llorente Maldonado 1977: 114)
(the speaker, in spite of using the 2nd person, involves himself in the ques
tion.)60
In what follows, an attempt will be made to show that this point of view
is too restricted, and that other perspectives than that of the speaker should
also be taken into consideration. First, however, we should highlight that
from a psychological point of view it might be argued that defocalizing second-
person reference reflects the linguistic output of a process of internalized
interaction where the thinking individual could be conceived of as split up
into two interlocutors, a speaker and a hearer. We indeed find utterances
that appear to reflect such a process. Compare, for instance, the second
member of the following adjacency pair, which contains a formal shift from
first-person to second-person singular reference:
(133) ¿ Qué piensa usted sobre la instalación de nuevas armas nucleares
en Europa?
'What do you think about the installation of more nuclear arms
in Europe?'
Lo que me pregunto es si, como líder político, puedes asumir la
responsabilidad de tales proyectos.
T am wondering if you, as a political leader, can assume the
responsibility for such projects.'
Focusing on the social component of verbal interaction, we find that speakers
making use of defocalizing second-person singular reference aim at establish
ing solidarity with their hearers, which, as far as grammatical realization is
concerned, is reflected by the use of the familiar form of address. 61 Now, it
is central to the present analysis that the allocutionary strategy involved can
be developed by the speaker from different perspectives. That is, although
formally the perspective of the hearer is in focus, it is possible for the speaker
to make a generalization which is based upon a personal experience. Consider
the following assertion, for example:

(134) Si trabajas hasta muy entrada la noche, no puedes dormir bien.
'If you work until late at night, you cannot sleep well.'
Under the interpretation that concerns us here, (134) is uttered by a speaker
who takes his/her personal experience as point of reference and extends it
to an all-inclusive domain explicitly including the domain of the hearer.
Such a defocalizing strategy may be useful to the speaker for two reasons.
First, by presenting his/her particular case as a general one he/she can eas
ily avoid a reaction of disapproval from the hearer directed to him/her
personally; second, the generalizing character of the assertion is appropriate
for starting an objective discussion about the problem affecting the speaker
in particular.
These considerations imply that defocalizing second-person reference
can be an effective tool for distracting the attention of the hearer from the
speaker's involvement in a certain state of affairs, since the corresponding
generalization suggests that the hearer could be likewise involved in the same
state of affairs. This can clearly be seen in situations where the speaker has
brought about an undesirable state of affairs. Thus, a person bumping into
another may justify his behavior by saying:
(135) Está tan oscuro aquí que no ves prácticamente nada.
'It is so dark in here that you can hardly see a thing.'
The following type of situations makes generalizations by defocalization
mainly from the perspective of the hearer. The corresponding second-person
singular reference is typical of the performance of directive speech acts,
which, as we have pointed out in section 2.2.3, should be qualified as hearer-
centered acts. Characteristic cases in point are morals, such as:
(136) A las personas ancianas las debes tratar con respeto.
'Older people should be treated with respect.'
The difference between speaker perspective, as implied by (135), and hearer
perspective, as implied by (136), can formally be justified as follows. In
(135), the perspective of the speaker can be made explicit by a paraphrase
containing a constituent specifically expressing first-person singular refer
ence. Thus, compare the following non-defocalizing variant of (135):
(135') Está tan oscuro aquí que yo no veo prácticamente nada.
Taking into account the communication situation under discussion, it would
be impossible to make explicit the perspective of the hearer, as the unaccept-

ability of (135") — as a variant of (135) — shows:
(135") Está tan oscuro aquí que tú no ves prácticamente nada.
Turning to the perspective interpretation of (136), we notice that just
the opposite holds. That is to say, the implicit perspective of the hearer may
be made explicit by the specifically referring paraphrase:
(136') A las personas ancianas tú las debes tratar con respeto.
However, the perspective of the speaker cannot be overtly indicated, because
(136")
(136") A las personas ancianas yo las debo tratar con respeto.
cannot be considered a non-defocalizing variant of (136).
Finally, we have situations where defocalizing second-person expres
sions are perspective-neutral in the sense that they do not imply the personal
perspective of either the speaker or the hearer. The speech acts involved are
basically assertions conveying information from an all-inclusive point of view.
Consider (137), in this respect:
(137) En Alemania ganas mucho pero trabajas mucho también.
'In Germany you earn a lot of money, but you have to work hard
too.' (Llorente Maldonado 1977: 114)
The perspective-neutral interpretation of (137) may be shown by the fact that
substituting explicit reference to either the speaker or the hearer for the
defocalizing reference expressed by ganas and trabajas does not produce
non-defocalizing paraphrases of the original sentence.
Remember at this point of the discussion that, regardless of the perspec
tive from which the speaker envisages the state of affairs described, the
generalizing character of defocalizing second-person reference serves to
remove the personal responsibility of the speaker for that state of affairs;
this equally applies to our examples (134) - (137). In the same way, we may
account for the referential structure of quite a few proverbs, which, as has
been discussed in some detail in section 5.3.0, are also often employed with
the purpose of avoiding a personal confrontation between speaker and
hearer. Thus, compare the generalizing second-person singular reference
expressed by popular sayings such as:
(138) Haz bien y no mires a quién.

'Be good, no looking.'
(139) Tanto vales cuanto tienes.
'You are worth what you have.'
(140) Antes que te cases mira lo que haces.
'Before you are going to get married, look out what you are going
to do.'
In this connection, consider also the following statement by Laberge and
Sankoff, who compare the expression of morals and truisms with that of
so-called 'situational insertions':
"One thing that distinguishes morals and truisms from the category we have
called 'situational insertion' is that morals constitute a kind of reflection
based on conventional wisdom, whereas 'situational insertion' seems to be
an attempt to elevate particular experiences and ideas to that status. Morals,
of course, inherently involve the evocation of a situation, but they do gen
erally possess a strong judgmental or evaluative connotation. This is particu
larly clear when the utterance is a saying or a proverb overtly borrowed
from the oral tradition of the community." (1979: 430)
Let us proceed, in conclusion, to the analysis of the formal realization
of defocalizing second-person expressions. Due to their agent-identity sup
pressing character, the personal pronoun tú does not normally appear at
surface level, which is a natural consequence of the fact that tú serves the
particular purpose of expressing focalizing reference to the hearer. It might
be observed in passing that for this same reason defocalizing second-person
reference is incompatible with the use of vocatives. Nevertheless, occasional
instances of pronominal defocalization are found. Thus, consider the fol
lowing passage of an interview with Miguel Delibes:
(141) O quizá todo se reduzca a esa inseguridad que tienes desde los
quince años a raíz de una cosa que te ha venido y no sabes cómo,
porque tú entonces no entiendes de nada.
'Or perhaps all things are reduced to that uncertainty you feel
from your fifteenth year on because of something that has hap
pened to you, and you don't know how, because you don't under
stand anything then.' (Sturniolo 1982: 59)
Evidence for the defocalizing reference of the above tú can be derived from
the fact that in one and the same context defocalizing and non-defocalizing
expressions do not normally alternate. This cooccurrence constraint strictly
applies to the level of sentence structure. Therefore, in the foregoing example

the defocalizing interpretation of the second-person reference expressed by
tienes, te ha venido, and sabes excludes the specific interpretation of tú
entiendes.62
5.3.3. The indefinite pronoun uno
When used as a defocalizing device, the indefinite pronoun uno serves
to express generalizations made from the perspective of the speaker. In the
literature on the subject, the speaker-centered character of uno is frequently
referred to. Consider, for instance, the following observation:
"Dans la langue familière, Uno et Una sont fréquemment employés pour
exprimer la généralisation d'un cas particulier. En effet, dans ce type de
phrases, celui qui parle se réfère toujours, d'une façon plus ou moins ex
plicite, à son cas personnel, et ce, bien qu'il emploie une tournure imper
sonelle." (Coste and Redondo 1965: 211)
(In colloquial language use, Uno and Una are frequently used to express
the generalization of a particular case. Actually, in this type of sentences,
the speaker always refers in a more of less explicit way to his own case,
although he uses an impersonal construction.)63
By way of illustration, consider the following example from Coste and
Redondo:
(142) ¿Has visto con cuántos inconvenientes tropieza uno por ser tan
pequeño? Toda mi vida he necesitado un almohadón para estar
cómodo a la mesa.
'Did you notice how many problems one has if one is so short?
My whole life I have needed a cushion to sit comfortably at the
table.'
As shown by (142), it is possible to formally demonstrate the speaker-cen
tered character of uno. That is, the speaker of this example — in using uno
— starts by making a defocalizing reference to his own case and then indi
vidualizes his experience by employing the specifically referring pronoun mi.
Furthermore, the same example makes it clear that speakers making use of
uno intend to extend their personal perspective to that of all other people
who are or could in principle be involved in the same state of affairs as they
themselves are. This amounts to saying that, as far as the development of al-
locutionary strategies is involved, the use of uno enables the speaker to make
a general claim for the individual point of view he/she wishes to put forward.
The following discussion uses more details with regard to the concept
of speaker-perspective. One of my oldest sources is Kärde, who properly

points out that speakers using uno inherently refer to themselves, but who
draws a wrong conclusion by considering uno "comme simple variation stylis
tique de yo" (1943: 35-36) (a simple stylistic variation of yo). It is not clear
from the above context which referential domain of  is alluded to, since
first-person singular expressions can be used for both specific and generaliz
ing reference. In neither case, however, the corresponding referential expres
sion can be considered a stylistic variant of uno. If it is marked for specific
reference, it refers to the speaker only, as a result of which it cannot serve
as a defocalizing device. This is empirically shown by an example like:
(143) * Uno siempre trabaja por mi propio bien.
'One always works for my own benefit.'
We can account for the ill-formedness of (143) if we take into consideration
that a contradiction is generated by the cooccurrence of uno and mi. That
is to say, the former expresses generalizing, the latter specific reference to
the speaker. We might also say that the possessive pronoun blocks the
defocalizing interpretation of the assertion, which is suggested by the use of
the indefinite pronoun as the filler of the subject slot.64
If yo is marked for generalizing reference, it expresses, just like uno, a
generalization made from the point of view of the speaker, but at the same
time it does more: it also brings into prominence the role of the speaker in
the state of affairs described. Therefore, this kind of first-person singular
reference is typically used for instructional and expository purposes, as may
be illustrated by an example such as:
(144) Sitengo diez manzanas y compro dos, ¿cuántas manzanas tengo?
'If I have ten apples and I buy two, how many apples do I have?' 65
It is obvious from the foregoing that uno and generalizing first-person singular
expressions bear a hyponymous relation to each other, the latter being the
specific and the former the superordinate member of the opposition involved.
As a consequence, uno may always replace generalizing yo, whereas the
opposite does not hold. Consider the following example:
(145) A los treinta años uno cree que va a tragarse el mundo, que va a
hacer una obra genial...
'When one is thirty years old, one believes that one is going to
swallow the world, that one is going to write a brilliant book ...'
(Sturniolo 1982: 63)
In (145) replacing uno by  would produce an ill-formed utterance, since

it is not the speaker's intention to bring into prominence his personal experi
ence, but, instead, to take that experience as a starting point for making a
generalizing assertion about all people being in the same situation. In con
tradistinction to the above example, (144) allows the first-person singular
expression to be replaced by uno, with the natural consequence that prom
inence is not given to the role of the speaker as a teacher or an instructor.
I will now present a formal argument for the speaker-centered character
of un-constructions. As has been pointed out by a large number of Spanish
grammarians, the speaker's perspective is morphologically reflected by the
alternation of uno and una.66 This difference in gender can be adequately
described in terms of markedness, uno being the unmarked and una the
marked member of the opposition. The above analysis is based on the empir
ical fact that male speakers always use uno, while female speakers alterna
tively use uno and una. It is generally agreed upon that the use of una is
restricted to the description of those states of affairs in which the per
sons involved are typically or exclusively women. Compare the following
examples:
(146) Una se pinta estupendamente delante de este espejo.
'One can make oneself up fantastically in front of this mirror.'
(Llorente Maldonado 1977: 121)
(147) Cuando pierde una a su marido, debía morirse también, si no
pensaba volver a casarse en seguida.
'When one loses one's husband, one should die too, if one didn't
think of remarrying immediately.' (Kärde 1943: 36)
However, note that these examples are not intended to imply that female
speakers invariably use una in the kind of situations referred to. As a matter
of fact, other factors, particularly the sex of the interlocutors and their social
relations, appear to be involved in the selection of uno and una as well. This
may be seen from the following quotation from Suardíaz, who discusses the
phenomenon from the point of view of sexist language use:
"However, it is notable that, at least for some female Spanish speakers and
under tight constraints which vary somewhat according to regional (and,
perhaps, class) factors, the form una 'one (f.)', as well as uno, is in use. For
example, in my dialect una is restricted to adult women who share a close
relationship, appearing in conversations about children-rearing or house
hold activities (these topics especially seeming to indicate a rather close
identification between them in terms of perceived sex roles). By way of
illustration: a mother talking to her sister (also a mother) about her children
might say una (* uno) se harta de ellos 'one (f.) gets sick and tired of them',
whereas if she were speaking instead to the pediatrician (either male or
female, assuming, in the latter case, that the doctor is not a close personal
friend as well) she would use the more general masculine form uno (*una)
se harta de ellos. This interesting and not well understood phenomenon
merits fuller consideration in any general analysis of women's language."
(1973: 11)
Beinhauer assumes that there is a correlation between the speaker's prefer

ence for using uno and his/her socioeconomic status. Thus, he observes:
"Leute aus dem niederen Volke lieben es besonderes, sich hinter die
Allgemeinheit zu verbergen und sich möglichst anonym auszudrücken."
(1958: 114)
(People with a low social status show a particular preference for hiding in
anonymity and for expressing themselves anonymously if possible.)
However, the Spanish sources I have consulted do not provide any evidence
for this statement, which might be properly considered a reference ante lit
teram to Bernstein's restricted code. Speaking in general terms, we may say
that not only uno, but that other defocalizing expressions also play an impor
tant role in everyday conversation, independent of the socioeconomic status
of the speaker. Finally, from a grammatical point of view, uno represents a
language-specific category. However, if we turn to the level of pragmatic
analysis, we find that it is comparable with certain indefinite pronouns occur
ring in other languages.
Thus, in his discussion of French on and German man, Spitzer points
out that speakers making use of these pronouns show a general tendency to
raise their personal, necessarily restricted perspective to the level of a univer
sal perspective (1918: 145).
5.3.4. Pseudo-reflexive expressions
Pseudo-reflexive reference is expressed by the pronoun se, which is
defined by a set of idiosyncratic grammatical properties. It behaves like a
clitic pronoun, so that, from a syntactic point of view, it cannot function as
a surface subject. Semantically, pseudo-reflexive constructions involve refer
ence to the agent or experiencer role of the notional subject of the sentence.
This may be illustrated by the two following examples:
(148) Se vende leche fresca.
Fresh milk sold.'
(149) En España, déjenme que exagere un poquito, se "nace" sospech

oso.
'In Spain, let me exaggerate a little bit, one "is born" suspicious.'
(Paso 1963: 7)
Curiously, the experiencer function of pseudo-reflexives is often overlooked
by Spanish grammarians, as the following quotation illustrates: "The whole
point of the 'impersonal' (i.e. pseudo-reflexive) se construction is to declare
the irrelevance of the agent" (García 1975: 19).
Turning to the level of pragmatic analysis, we observe that, unlike the
indefinite pronoun uno, pseudo-reflexives are not necessarily used to express
generalizations. Accordingly, I will discuss two types of reference in the
present section, namely generalizing and nongeneralizing pseudo-reflexive
expressions. In relation to this distinction, Carrasco observes:
"SE prejuzga siempre la universalidad de la predicación, las restricciones
le vienen sobre todo de la situación extralingüística. ... la realización de
SE con valor particular es de alguna forma una desnaturalización de su
propio valor genérico." (1978: 219)
(SE always presupposes the universality of the predication, its restrictions
are particularly determined by the extralinguistic situation the realization
of SE with specific value is in a certain way a denaturalization of its original
generic value.)
I will start with the category of generalizing reference by comparing it with
second-person singular and un-reference. As we have seen before, from a
strictly formal point of view, the two latter categories express generalizations
made from the perspective of the hearer and the speaker, respectively. Now,
the category of pseudo-reflexive expressions essentially differs from the
foregoing ones in that it is inherently neutral with respect to perspective
orientation. Consequently, no cooccurrence restrictions hold between se, on
the one hand, and second-person singular and uno expressions, on the other.
To see this more clearly, consider the following examples:
(150) Cuando se quiere competir en los olímpicos tienes que privarte de
muchas comodidades.
'When one wants to participate in the Olympic Games, one must
deny oneself many pleasures.'(Carrasco 1978: 220)
(151) ¿Ves hombre? ¡Así se puede trabajar! Así da gusto. Así es uno
una persona respetable.
'Do you see? In this way one can work! In this way it is fine. In
this way one is a respectable person.' (Díaz-Plaja 1976: 278)
Note that both examples reflect a process of narrowing referential perspec

tive: that is, in each case we find the perspective-neutral se occurring prior
to its perspective-oriented correlates. This distributional pattern seems to
be a particular instance of the general tendency to process information along
a dimension that runs from more general to more specific content, as reflected
in a paradigmatic way by the thematic structure of the sentence. Notice that
the same holds, mutatis mutandis, for cooccurrence relations between
pseudo-reflexive and first-person plural expressions, as may be seen from
an example like:
(152) Cuando se manda, y al mismo tiempo se indica que estamos seguros
de ser obedecidos, aseveramos una cosa futura.
'When one gives an order, indicating at the same time that we are
sure to be obeyed, then we assert afuture event.'67 (Bello 1951b: 13)
Let us consider next the category of pseudo-reflexive expressions that
are not used for making generalizations. This category is especially interesting
from the point of view of allocutionary strategies, since it manifests the
speaker's intention of avoiding, for interactional purposes, a direct confron
tation with the hearer. Actually, nongeneralizing pseudo-reflexive reference
is found to serve a variety of these purposes, most of which stem from the
speaker's wish to display an accomodative form of verbal behavior. For a
systematic analysis it is necessary to make a distinction between three kinds
of strategies, which can be described in the following way:
(a) argumentative strategies;
(b) strategies which try to avoid the speaker or the hearer losing
his/her face;
(c) strategies which serve to make explicit the superior position of
the speaker with respect to the hearer.
Paradigm cases of the first category are academic treatises, where we often
find that writers make reference to themselves not only by means of first-per
son singular and first-person plural expressions, but also by pseudo-reflexive
ones. The latter, then, serve the purpose of defocalizing the role of the writer, as
a result of which he/she avoids imposing his/her points of view upon the readers
in a straightforward way. We may also formulate this by saying that the use
of defocalizing reference contributes to creating the impression in the hearer
that the truth of what is asserted is generally accepted. Thus, compare the
difference in perlocutionary effect brought about by the following specific
and defocalizing variants of one and the same assertion:
(153) Esta hipótesis no puede ser correcta, como he demostrado antes.

This hypothesis cannot be correct, as I have demonstrated
before.'
(154) Esta hipótesis no puede ser correcta, como se ha demostrado antes.
'..., as has been demonstrated before.'
The second category of strategies is applied by speakers who wish to
conceal specific referential information from their interlocutors. These
speakers may prefer not to refer explicitly to their role in the state of affairs
they describe in order to avoid creating an interactional context which might
lead to loss of face for either themselves or their interlocutors. We may think
here, in general, of assertions conveying information the speaker assumes
to be unpleasant for the hearer and, in particular, of assertions indirectly
criticizing the behavior of the hearer. These situations are illustrated by (155)
and (156), respectively:
(155) En la reunión de ayer se decidió que no puedes continuar
trabajando con nosotros.
'At yesterday's meeting it was decided that you can't continue
working with us.'
(156) Por eso se nota que no has considerado una solución ver
daderamente eficaz.
Therefore it can be observed that you have overlooked a really
effective solution.'
Under the interpretation which concerns us here, the pseudo-reflexive
expression of (155) denotes defocalizing reference to a set of persons which
includes the speaker, but, of course, not the hearer. It follows from this
interpretation that, although no specific reference is made to the speaker, he/she
may have had a central part in making the decision referred to. In other words,
the pseudo-reflexive construction makes it possible for the speaker to avoid
specifying his/her particular contribution to bringing about the state of affairs
under discussion. The same accomodative strategy may be applicable to
the utterance of (156), with the difference that pseudo-reflexiveness may
serve to express defocalizing reference to the speaker alone.
Empirical evidence for the fact that se-constructions may indicate
involvement of the speaker can be derived from such examples as:
(157) Por lo menos en mi caso se deja de pensar así y yo pienso que

seguiré haciendo unas novelas como las que he hecho hasta ahora.
'In my case at least one stops thinking that way, and I think that
I will go on writing novels just as I have done until now. '(Sturniolo
1982: 63)
(158) Nunca se está segura de nada.
'One can never be sure of anything.' (Carrasco 1978: 217)
In the latter example it is the gender agreement of the predicate which for
mally reflects the involvement of the (female) speaker in the state of affairs
described. (157) represents an instance of the principle that information
processing takes place in the dimension that runs from general to specific
content, or, put concretely, se as a generalizing device preludes the specific
information conveyed by yo.
By virtue of their referential flexibility, pseudo-reflexives can also be
used as defocalizing devices to avoid specifying the role of the hearer in the
state of affairs described. In these cases, too, we are dealing with accomoda-
tive forms of verbal behavior, as may be shown by a comparison between
the two following examples:
(159) Usted no resolvió ese problema debidamente.
'You didn't solve that problem correctly.'
(160) No se resolvió debidamente ese problema.
'That problem hasn't been solved correctly.
It is easy to see, then, that speakers considering a selection between the
above alternatives will prefer (160) in case they wish to avoid identifying the
hearer as the person who failed to bring about the state of affairs desired,
which is equivalent to saying that the use of the pseudo-reflexive serves the
purpose of preventing the hearer from losing his/her face. Speakers opting
for (159), on the other hand, do not intend to adopt an accomodative attitude
toward the hearer, since the use of the specifically referring pronoun usted
leads to a direct confrontation with the latter.
Finally, there is the category of interactions where the use of pseudo-
reflexives is primarily intended to make explicit the superior position of the
speaker with respect to the hearer. The strategies involved are typically
applied in the performance of impositive speech acts. Since the illocutionary
point of impositives consists in getting the hearer to do a certain act, it is
normal for the speaker to refer to the hearer by means of a second-person
pronoun. Now, we may say that speakers who do not use such a standard
expression to address the hearer but use a pseudo-reflexive one instead do
so in order to dissociate themselves from their hearers. Another way of
formulating this is that it is the intention of the speaker to impersonalize
his/her relation with the hearer. Evidently, this strategical effect is brought
about by the defocalizing character of the pseudo-reflexive; as a result, the
corresponding speech acts usually have the force of an order.
(161) ¡Por la puerta se va a la calle!
'Get out of here ! ' Lit. : 'Through the door one goes to the street. '
(162) A tu edad no se habla delante de las personas mayores.
'At your age one does not speak in the presence of adults.'
(163) ¡Se tiene que apagar la luz ahora mismo!
'One must turn off the light immediately!'
It follows from these examples that impersonalization of forms of address is
a referential strategy that enables impositive speakers to dissociate them
selves from their hearers with the specific aim of making explicit their superior
position with respect to the latter.
It is interesting to compare, in conclusion, the interactional implications
of impositives such as (161) - (163) and those dealt with in the section on
first-person plural expressions. In this connection, remember our examples
(125) - (127). The defocalizing strategies applied in the performance of both
sets of impositives represents each other's mirror image. That is, the first-per
son plural expressions referred to serve to reduce the social distance between
the speaker and the hearer by virtue of the fact that the former suggests
solidarity with the latter in the performance of his task, whereas the use of
the pseudo-reflexive expressions of (161)—(163) brings about a high degree
of social distance between the speaker and the hearer by virtue of the fact
that the former impersonalizes his/her interactional relation with the latter.
5.3.5. Implicit reference
This last section will be devoted to an analysis of utterances which lack
any formal reference to either the speaker or the hearer but which, as deter
mined by the context or situation of utterances, imply such reference. The
category of implicit reference divides into two subcategories. Firstly, there
is the category of agentless passive utterances, which, unlike in many other
languages, does not play an important role in Spanish. Agentless passives
perform a strategical function similar to that of pseudo-reflexives, as may be
shown by the pragmatic equivalence of (163) and

(164) ¡La luz tiene que ser apagada ahora mismo!
The syntactic structure and the pragmatic function of agentless passives have
been investigated in a wide variety of studies. Thus, it has been frequently
emphasized that passives are particularly used to suppress the identity of the
agent. Compare, for instance:
"If there is any one function that is common to the passive in all of the
languages that are customarily said to have a passive voice (and in certain
languages this seems to be its sole function: e.g. in Turkish), this is that it
makes possible the construction of 'agentless sentences': e.g. Bill was killed."
(Lyons 1968: 378)
This statement implies that agentless passive sentences outnumber passive
sentences with an explicitly expressed agent. Indeed they do so to a large
extent, as has been empirically verified for various languages.68 As for
Spanish, passive sentences, both with and without an explict agent, are sub
ject to several syntactic constraints. Furthermore, they occur with a relatively
low frequency, which is certainly due to the fact that, as far as the suppression
of agent identity is concerned, the pseudo-reflexive construction is a com
monly used alternative to which no syntactic constraints apply.69 Put differ
ently, the pragmatic effects attributed to the use of agentless passives in other
languages can all be brought about by the pseudo-reflexive in Spanish. An
enumeration of the reasons speakers may have for resorting to agentless
passives has been given by Coetzee:
"the (i.e. agentless) passive is useful to a speaker when (I) the agent is
unknown to him, or (II) it is indefinite, or (III) it is not present in his mind,
or (IV) he feels no need to name it because it is known, or (V) he does not
wish to name it." (1980: 217)70
Let me further point to the fact that the relationship between agentless pas
sives and pseudo-reflexives has been frequently referred to in Spanish gram
mars. This may be seen, for example, from the use of the term pasiva refleja
(Gili y Gaya 1955: 113-116). Compare also the following observation:
"The sense of 'impersonal' se constructions is approximately 'passive' if the
verb is transitive... the actual 'performer' is deemphasized and out of focus."
(García 1975: 14)71
Hadlich, lastly, working within the framework of transformational generative
grammar, proposes to derive pseudo-reflexive and passive sentences contain
ing a direct object from one and the same deep structure (1971:33). It should
be noted, however, that implicit reference to the agent, as involved in the

utterance of agentless passives, does not necessarily concern reference to
the speaker or the hearer; it will be clear that, according to the context or
situation of utterance, reference to any person may be intended.
Next, I will deal with the second category of implicit reference, namely
the category of utterances manifesting indirect speech acts. In sections 2.2.3,
2.2.4, and 2.2.5,I discussed some indirect realizations of directive, commis
sive, and expressive speech acts, respectively. However, it is particularly
impositive speech acts that are performed in an indirect way. In this connec
tion, notice that it is no coincidence that in the literature on the subject
indirectness of speech acts is nearly always treated in relation to the formu
lation of orders and requests. The reason for this is that a speaker making
a request or issuing an order attempts to exercise a direct control over the
intentional behavior of the hearer. In order to achieve this interactional goal,
which implies a higher risk of loss of face of either of the interlocutors than
the goals inherent in the performance of nonimpositive speech acts, imposi
tive speakers are found to have recourse to a wide variety of allocutionary
strategies, among which the performance of indirect speech acts plays a
central role. Therefore, the introduction to this analysis of implicit reference
will start with a general survey of the syntactic and pragmatic properties of
indirect impositives.
For the sake of convenience, the definition of impositive speech acts
already given in section 2.2.3 is repeated here. They were described as speech
acts performed by the speaker to influence the intentional behavior of the
hearer in order to get the latter to perform, primarily for the benefit of the
speaker, the action directly specified or indirectly suggested by the proposi
tion. Now, it is argued that the aforementioned disjunction directly specified
or indirectly suggested by the proposition should be taken as the basic criterion
for distinguishing between the direct and indirect performance of impositive
speech acts. Direct performances, then, are characterized by both the full
specification of the act of the hearer and reference to the hearer himself.
Indirect performances lack such a specification as well as an explicit reference
to the hearer. Therefore, from this formal point of view, the impositive
question
(165) ¿Puedes pasarme la sal?
'Can you pass me the salt?'
is not an indirect, but a direct speech act by virtue of its propositional struc-
ture. In this connection, it is important to note that, as far as the reaction

of the hearer is concerned, it is the complete description of the act together
with the explicit second-person reference which enables him/her to correctly
interpret the impositive character of the speech act without any particular
background information.
The next point I want to make is that there are different degrees of
indirectness as determined by the following conditions on propositional out
put:
(a) specification of the act to be performed by the hearer without
reference to the hearer;
(b) no specification of the act nor reference to the hearer.
A relevant example of the latter category would be:
(166) Paso un frío tremendo aquí.
T am terribly cold.'
when uttered by a speaker who wants to get the hearer to close the window.
An example characteristic of the former category is
(167) Hay que cerrar la ventana.
T h e window must be closed.'
under the interpretation that it is the person addressed who is supposed to
close the window referred to. It is clear that (167) represents a less indirect
type of impositive than (166) because of the overt description of the action
to be carried out by the hearer. The higher degree of indirectness of (166)
is reflected by the fact that, in order to correctly interpret the intention of
the speaker, the hearer needs to have specific background information which
enables him/her to figure out whether the speaker wishes the door to be
shut, the heating to be put on, the window to be closed, etc. For the non-
cooperative hearer, therefore, it is relatively easy to neglect the impositive
intention of the speaker by reacting to the assertive component of the speech
act only. In the concrete case we are considering, such a noncooperative
reaction by the hearer could be:
(168) Sí, es lógico, estamos en pleno invierno.
'Yes, of course, it is mid-winter.'
In Haverkate (1979: 127-134) it was argued that there are two classes of
indirect impositive speech acts both satisfying condition (b). One of these
classes contains impositives such as (166), the other one can be illustrated
by the following example:
(169) La asistenta no ha venido hoy tampoco.

'The maid did not show up today either.'
Interpreting (169) as an indirect impositive uttered by a wife to her husband,
we find that its assertive component describes a state of affairs which is quite
different from that expressed by (166). That is to say, (166) describes a state
of affairs the speaker wishes to be transformed into another state of affairs,
whereas the proposition of (169) does not describe such a state of affairs, so
that the action involved can only be inferred by the hearer from his per
sonal knowledge of the context or situation of utterance. Thus, in this particu
lar case, it may be such different actions as doing the dishes, helping to clean
the rooms, or going to the maid's house to ask why she didn't show up. To
summarize, we can say that the basic distinction between (166) and (169)
derives from the fact that the former belongs to a class of indirect utterances
which denote a state of affairs A that has to be transformed into ~ A, or
vice versa, whereas the utterances of the class represented by (169) denote
a state of affairs that the speaker does not intend to transform into another
one. Here, the description of the state of affairs only serves as a clue for
the hearer to infer that he is supposed to carry out a particular action in
order to bring about that the state of affairs A, which is not explicitly indi
cated, is transformed into ~ A, or vice versa. On account of this basic differ
ence, utterances such as (166) can be properly called indirect impositives
with transparent propositional content, and utterances such as (169) indirect
impositives with opaque propositional content. It is important to add to the
foregoing that both classes of indirect impositives serve to specify the reason
the speaker has for requesting or ordering the hearer to carry out the action
involved. What we are dealing with, therefore, is the concrete realization of
the reasonableness precondition inherent in the performance of impositive
speech acts. As has been pointed out in section 2.3.5, this precondition
reflects the rational ability of speakers to motivate their speech acts. Note
also that the action the speaker indirectly refers to can always be made
explicit by means of a direct speech act, in which case, of course, reference
to the hearer remains no longer implicit. Thus, (166) can be overtly para
phrased by:
(170) Cierra la ventana, que paso un frío tremendo aquí.
'Close the window, because I am terribly cold.'
and (169) by:
(171) Friega los cacharros, por favor, que la asistenta no ha venido hoy
tampoco.
'Wash the dishes, please, because the maid did not show up today
either.'
To conclude the discussion of indirect speech acts, attention must be
drawn to the following point. It has been observed that, as far as the social
component of verbal interaction is concerned:
"Politeness is the most prominent motivation for indirectness in requests,
and certain forms naturally tend to become the conventionally polite ways
of making indirect requests." (Searle 1975: 76)
Evidently, this statement refers to conventional forms of request such as:
(172) ¿Queres abrirme la puerta?
'Would you open the door for me?'
and
(173) ¿Podría decirme qué hora es?
'Could you tell me what time it is?'
It should be pointed out, however, that there are a great number of indirect
speech acts which do not reflect any kind of politeness at all. I am referring
here to the members of the important subclass of indirect impositives that
are realized by the overt expression of the reasonableness precondition. By
way of illustration, compare:
(174) ¡Las plantas están sin regar!
'The plants have not been watered!'
(175) ¡El cuarto de baño está muy sucio!
'The bathroom is very dirty!
If uttered with a reinforcing intonation contour, the foregoing examples can
be interpreted as authoritarian orders directed to the hearer in order to get
him/her to water the plants and to clean up the bathroom, respectively.
Consequently, these impositives could be formulated in a quite natural way
by parents who are irritated by the negligent behavior of their children. In
general, the criterion of politeness is only one of the factors involved in the
performance of indirect impositives; it has not been demonstrated that it is
the chief factor.
To recapitulate, in this section we have distinguished two different types
of implicit reference: the type involved in the realization of agentless passives
and the one involved in the performance of indirect speech acts. In the former
case, no specific predictions concerning our basic categories of speaker- and
hearer-reference can be made, which is due to the fact that agent identity
suppression in agentless passive sentences may concern reference to any
person, not just the speaker or the hearer. In the latter case, we have confined
our analysis to the class of indirect impositive speech acts, which further
divides into two subclasses according to whether or not the action to be
carried out by the hearer is specified. As to the hearer himself, however, we
found that in neither case he/she is explicitly identified by the speaker as the
one who is supposed to carry out the action involved. Indirect impositives,
therefore, are basically characterized by implicit reference to the hearer as
the performer of the action.
6. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
This final chapter is devoted to summarizing and commenting on the

major results obtained by the analyses that were carried out in the foregoing
chapters. Attention will be paid to the correlation between theoretical foun
dations and empirical verification.
The first chapter was a general introduction to the basic object of the
present study, viz. the category of speaker- and hearer-reference. In this
connection, both language-universal and language-particular phenomena of
Spanish were discussed. Chap. 2 focused on different types of relations that
hold between the illocutionary and the referential component of the speech
act. The corresponding analysis was carried out on two different levels: the
level of the illocutionary act and the level of the preconditions underlying
the correct performance of the illocutionary act. It was found that the inter
relation between illocution and speaker- and hearer-reference does not rep
resent a language-particular phenomenon of Spanish; it could probably be
described in the same way for most, if not all languages. Nevertheless, a set
of specific phenomena have also been attested. Thus, through the systematic
English translation of Spanish examples analyzed, we could gather that in
the latter language questions about the future behavior of the hearer, such
as ¿Me echas una mano? (Lit. 'Do you give me a hand?'), typically express
the nonobviousness precondition involved in the performance of impositive
speech acts, whereas, in the normal course of events, their English counter
parts do not. In this connection, compare the standard, non-nonobviousness
interpretation of Do you give me a hand?72
Chap.3 dealt in some detail with the concept of linguistic strategy. In
chap. 4, a model was developed for describing linguistic strategies in terms of the
internal structure of the speech act as defined by four kinds of subacts. In
this respect, the following classification of strategies was set up: phonetic
strategies, illocutionary strategies, predicating strategies, and referring
strategies. These four classes of strategies make up the allocutionary compo
nent of the speech act, which serves to produce specific perlocutionary effects
in the hearer.
In accordance with the main topic of the book, the category of referring
strategies was discussed in detail in chaps. 5, 5.1, 5.2, and 5.3. The point of
departure was a general classification based on the distinction between neu
tral, reinforcing, and mitigating strategies. With regard to the analysis of
speaker- and hearer-reference, two new categories were introduced: focaliz
ing and defocalizing strategies. The term 'focalizing' refers to the intention
of the speaker to bring into prominence his/her own role or that of the hearer
in the state of affairs described. Consequently, the referential expressions
involved, that is, personal pronouns, common nouns, and proper nouns, are
positively marked for specificity.
If the speaker makes a focalizing reference to hin-/herself, we have to
distinguish between egocentric and nonegocentric expressions. The former
are characteristic of colloquial speech, serving as allocutionary devices to
enhance the persuasive effect of the speech act. More in particular, egocentric
expressions reflect the speaker's intention of assigning to him-/herself the
role of protagonist in the state of affairs described; for this reason, they are
preferably employed in those types of interaction where the speaker is or
feels hinWherself superior to the hearer. By way of illustration the example
of parent-child interaction was mentioned. Finally, egocentric reference was
found to be characteristic of narrative and dissensive types of discourse.
As for nonegocentric reference, I made a distinction between communi
cation situations where the speaker is free to select a focalizing expression
and communication situations where he/she is not. In the former case, the
speaker makes a particular selection in order to display a polite form of
behavior, in the latter, it is two types of ceremonial performative acts which
oblige the speaker to employ his/her proper name, viz. the act of introducing
oneself to other people and the act of signing documents.
Focalizing expressions referring to the hearer lay special emphasis on
the involvement of the hearer in the speech act performed. Both from a
grammatical and an allocutionary point of view, it is useful to make a distinc
tion between vocative and nonvocative expressions. The former category
performs a variety of pragmatic functions, which led to the establishment of
a four-fold classification. The first class consists of vocatives that are used
as attention-getting devices. This function clearly differs from the other ones
in that it is directly related to the input and output conditions underlying the
successful performance of the speech act. That is, attention-getting vocatives
do not bear upon the content of the message conveyed, but upon the precon
dition that the message is properly received by the hearer.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 115
The second class of vocatives is made up of expressions that serve as

substitutes for illocutionary-function indicators. Two cases are to be distin
guished here, according to whether or not the vocative appears alone. If it
appears alone, the vocative does not only denote reference to the hearer
but, at the same time, it expresses an illocutionary act the interpretation of
which is entirely determined by the context or situation of utterance. In
relation to this, I discussed examples of a reproach, an expressive, and an
impositive speech act. If, on the other hand, the vocative is part of a larger
syntactic structure, it may perform the function of drawing particular atten
tion to the fact that more than one illocutionary act is involved in the perfor
mance of the speech act. In these cases, therefore, the vocative serves as a
signal for the hearer that the speech act to be interpreted is an indirect one.
Next I discussed the class of vocatives that perform specific allocutionary
functions. A basic distinction was made between vocatives expressing empathy
toward the hearer and vocatives expressing positive or negative feelings
toward the hearer. The former category consists of both proper nouns and
common nouns, the latter of common nouns only. Finally, I distinguished a
class of vocatives which serve as ritual formulas in the context of certain
social and cultural institutions. According to the degree of specificity of the
institution, the use of the vocative is found to be either obligatory or not. In
both cases, however, we are dealing with types of verbal behavior that are
characterized by the expression of formal politeness.
The category of nonvocative second-person expressions is made up of
common nouns which denote honorific forms of address. As regards their
interactional function, it is interesting to note that they are not only used to
exalt the hearer, but that they may also be intended by the speaker to be
interpreted in an ironical sense, as a result of which they serve as hearer-
debasing devices. Evidently, both the ironical and nonironical use of the
honorifics under consideration serve to create a high degree of social distance
between the speaker and the hearer.
In chapter 5.3, five different types of defocalizing reference were dis
cussed. These types were shown to share a common base which justifies estab
lishing a paradigmatic relation between them. The basic parameter involved
is the perspective of the speaker and the hearer. That is to say, from a formal
point of view, defocalizing expressions denote generalizations that pattern
in the following symmetrical way:
(a) first-person plural expressions suggest that the generalization is
made from the perspective of both the speaker and the hearer;
(b) second-person singular expressions convey generalizing informa

tion from the perspective of the hearer;
(c) uno-expressions generalize the perspective of the speaker;
(d) pseudo-reflexive and implicit reference are perspective-neutral.
Jespersen, in his analysis of a set of similar categories in French and English,
speaks of reference to 'generic person'. Thus, discussing examples such as
"(1) as we know = comme on sait (2) you never can tell = on ne saurait le
dire (3) one would think he was mad = on dirait qu'il est fou", he states:
"The choice between these several expressions depends on a more or less
emotional element: sometimes one wants to emphasize the fact that one is
included oneself in the general assertion, sometimes one wants to make a
kind of special appeal to the person addressed at the moment, and sometimes
one wants to keep one's own person in the background, though what is
meant is really the first person more than anything else {one, a fellow). But
the name 'generic person' covers the notion underlying all these uses of
various grammatical persons." (1955: 215-216)
Speaking in general terms, we might argue that the essential factor involved
in perspective generalization is the wish of the speaker to suggest the solidar
ity of the hearer with the point or points of view put forward by the speaker
him-/herself. Therefore, perspective generalization is a device that serves to
formally reflect accomodative behavior on the part of the speaker. As follows
from the examples given by Jespersen, generalizing first-person plural and
second-person singular expressions are not restricted to Spanish. These
categories are probably employed in a wide variety of languages for the same
interactional purposes. However, this does not hold true for uno and pseudo-
reflexive expressions, which call for a language-specific interpretation. 73
Besides the realization of perspective generalization, first-person plural
and pseudo-reflexive expressions are used for other referential purposes as
well. Thus, the former category can be split up into the subcategories of
pseudo-inclusive, class-inclusive, and all-inclusive reference.
By using the first category, the speaker implies that the hearer is involved
in the same way as the speaker in the state of affairs described; by using the
second category the speaker indicates that he/she considers him-/herself a
member of the class he/she implicitly or explicitly refers to; all-inclusive
reference, lastly, is a generalizing type of reference including all people.
As regards pseudo-reflexive expressions, we found that these manifest
both accomodative and nonaccomodative forms of verbal behavior. That is,
accomodative speakers may use pseudo-reflexives to develop a defocalizing
strategy which aims a avoiding a direct confrontation with the hearer, whereas
to nonaccomodative speakers pseudo-reflexives serve as devices to dis
sociate themselves from their hearers. The corresponding speech acts, then,
typically have the status of authoritarian orders.
Finally, I devoted my attention to the category of implicit reference,
concentrating in particular on the realization of indirect impositive speech
acts. In this relation, I distinguished between utterances which specify the
act to be performed by the hearer and utterances which do not contain such
a specification. The latter category can be split up into utterances with trans
parent and utterances with opaque propositional content. Transparent prop
ositions contain explicit information on the state of affairs which has to be
brought about, opaque propositions only refer in an implicit way to that state
of affairs, as a result of which the hearer needs to have specific background
information in order to figure out which act he/she is supposed to do.
Summing up, in chap. 2 an attempt was made at giving an answer to the
question of where we can expect to find reference to the participants in the
speech act as determined by their specific roles in the process of verbal
interaction; in chapters 5.2 and 5.3 an answer was posited to the question of
how speakers give expression to that reference in developing focalizing and
defocalizing strategies.
Among the topics I have not dealt with in the present study the most
important one seems to me an empirical investigation of the categories I
have set up. Needless to say, such an investigation should be based on a
representative corpus of both oral and written Spanish texts, with the ultimate
purpose of finding out in which way the context or situation of utterance —
in particular, the social relation between the speaker and the hearer — influ
ences the choice of specific focalizing and defocalizing expressions.
In other words, the analyses carried out in this study, which have been
applied to isolated instances of speech acts, should be complemented by
other ones bearing upon coherent sequences of speech acts constituting a
discourse.
A second, more far-reaching subject for research is that of a comparative
cross-linguistic analysis of the categories of focalizing and defocalizing
strategies, as they are applied by speakers of different languages. Logically,
the results of such an analysis could be called successful if they would give
an answer to at least the two following questions:
(a) Are there focalizing and defocalizing expressions which can be
considered proper candidates for pragmalinguistic universals?
(b) Do speakers of one language more often — and, more interest

ingly, in a more conventional way — have recourse to focalizing
and/or defocalizing strategies than speakers of another language?
If the answer to the latter question is affirmative, one might draw a parallel
with recent theories on syntactic markedness by formulating the speculative,
but interesting hypothesis that languages differ as to the proportion in which
their speakers prefer to make use of strategies at the four levels of the speech
act distinguished in chapter 4, i.e. the phonetic, the illocutionary, the pred
icating, and the referring level. In Haverkate (1983b: 654-655) I give one exam
ple of what is referred to here by making a comparison between two language-
specific categories of Dutch and Spanish. Dutch shows a large variety of
so-called modal particles, which serve important strategical functions in the
performance of the illocutionary act. A simple request or invitation, for
instance, such as Please sit down, can be realized in Dutch in at least six
different ways: Ga even zitten, Ga maar zitten, Ga eens zitten, Ga maar eens
zitten, Ga maar even zitten, and Ga maar eens even zitten.
It follows that we can regard Dutch as a language that is strongly marked
for strategical devices operating at the illocutionary level. Turning to Spanish,
we note that this language does not have any modal particle comparable to
those in Dutch. Spanish, on the contrary, is extremely rich in so-called
augmentative and diminutive suffixes. These morphemes, which are attached
not only to nouns, but to adjectives and adverbs, are used to express a great
variety of affective, often subtle, connotations, and therefore serve to develop
strategies such as those which reflect the empathy or lack of empathy the
speaker feels toward the persons addressed or referred to. To pursue our
comparison with Dutch, we notice that this language has but one diminutive
suffix, which is usually attached to nouns. We arrive at the conclusion, there
fore, that by virtue of the morphological flexibility indicated above, Spanish
shows a striking markedness at the level of lexical derivation.
It seems that contrasting phenomena such as those referred to above
justify the attempt to carry out systematic research into the hypothesis that
languages may not only be marked for syntactic structures, but for categories
of linguistic strategies. One possibility would be that markedness manifests
itself in the performance of one or more of the four subacts of the speech
act, but, of course, not in the performance of all of them ; the other possibility,
which could be called the strong form of the hypothesis, would be that mark
edness is restricted to not more than one category in each language.
To return, in conclusion, to the category of referential strategies, the

criterion of markedness may also be applied to the comparative analysis of
the subcategories of focalizing and defocalizing reference. The corresponding
research, then, should be primarily directed at finding an answer to the
following question:
Is it the case, as we have observed with respect to Spanish, that
a relatively high frequency of defocalizing expressions always runs
parallel with a relatively low frequency of focalizing expressions,
and perhaps, vice versa?
FOOTNOTES
1. For a more detailed analysis of Hjelmslev's point of view, see Thrane (1980: 206-207). In this
connection it may also be pointed out that, as far as third-person reference is concerned, not all
languages express this type of reference by means of a particular pronouns. Compare: "Many
languages do not have a proper third-person pronoun at all, e.g. most Indo-European languages,
especially the older ones. If I am not talking about me or you I can use the name or a demonstrative"
(Forchheimer 1953: 36).
2. Multiplicity of social functions may be at issue even in one and the same text or discourse, as
is obvious from the following analysis of a T.V.-interview with a Dutch prime minister:
"Ja, dat heb ik [minister-president] dus niet alleen voor het zeggen. Ik [persoon]
geloof ook niet dat het helemaal zo ligt als u het stelt. Ik [leider links kabinet] heb
dus ook kennis genomen van die uitspraken van meneer Andriessen." (Van Lint
1977: 43)
(Actually, I [prime minister] cannot decide that on my own. I [individual person]
don't think that you put it in the right way. I [leader of a left-wing cabinet] have
also heard those statements by Mr. Andriessen.)
3. It follows, therefore, that Sacks and Schegloff are right in observing that: "For reference to
any person, there is a large set of reference forms that can do the work of referring to that one
(e.g., he, Joe, a guy, my uncle, someone, Harry's cousin, the dentist, the man who came to
dinner, et cetera)" (1979: 16).
4. This example was originally presented by Searle in a discussion of the referential and the
descriptive component of definite noun phrases (1969: 89-90).
5. Observe that occasional exceptions do occur. In Shuy (1978: 276) I found the following exam
ple: "For several years I and my students have been attempting to develop a computer based
methodology" (my emphasis). Nevertheless, it may be safely assumed that the constraint under
discussion applies almost automatically in most languages.
6. This observation is verified by the following example I found in Wilensky (1982): "However,
our current research at Berkeley, particularly that of myself and Yigal Arens..." (my emphasis).
7. The basic point of reference is Ross's paper "On declarative sentences" (1970).
8. This is the reason that they are also called 'ceremonial performatives'. Fraser, who introduced
this terms, gives the following description:
"The term ceremonial performative is used to refer to those verbs denoting acts
which rely for their successful performance on the existence of some codified legal,
religious, business, government, sport, or similar activity. Such acts are nearly
122 S P E E C H ACTS, S P E A K E R S , A N D H E A R E R S
always performed by the use of a performative sentence (e.g. 'I hereby pronounce
you man and wife')". (1975: 190)
9. For a more detailed description of the majestic plural in Spanish, see Bobes Naves (1971: 33).
For a general historical survey, see Brown and Gilman (1960: 255).
10. In this connection, compare also Fillmore's analysis of May we come in?: "I have indicated
that for the moment I am interpreting an utterance of the sentence, not as a request for information,
but as a request for action — in particular, as an attempt on the part of the speaker to get his
conversation partner to perform the needed permission-granting or permission-denying act. In
the sense that Shall I come in? can be taken as a request for a command, May we come in? can
be taken as a request for a permitting act" (1973: 110).
11. It follows from this that I reject Rivero's claim that in order for a sentence to contain a 'polite
verb' (verbo cortés) the speaker may not be in a position of control with respect to the hearer
(1978: 79).
12. In addition to 'belief'-verbs, there is also a class of adverbials which, in a similar way, serve
to make explicit the sincerity of the speaker performing an assertive act. For this reason they are
marked for first-person singular reference, as may be seen from the following examples: a mi
parecer, bajo mi punto de vista, en mi opinión, all of them equivalent to 'in my opinion'. It is
worth noting that besides en mi opinión, we also find en mi modesta opinión ('in my humble
opinion'). If we take into account the intrinsic meaning of the adjective modesto, the latter
adverbial at first glance seems to be a mitigating variant of the former. Nevertheless, it functions
typically as an expression which is conventionally taken in an ironical sense. As a result, instead
of having a mitigating function, it serves as a reinforcing device. Other manifestations of the
sincerity precondition are de verdad and a decir verdad ('honestly speaking'), which are generally
used by the speaker to introduce assertives whose truth-value he/she expects to be problematized
by the hearer.
13. As for the constraint on the use of lurk, compare: "When the tense of lurk is the same as
the time of utterance (present tense), the subject must suppose himself or herself unobserved at
the time of the utterance. But if the subject of lurk is first person, then the speaker must suppose
himself or herself unobserved at the time of utterance. If it is a serious speech act of the informing
class, the speaker expresses to the hearer the belief that he or she is, at the time of utterance,
unobserved. But now we have the 'awkward' situation of the speaker attempting to inform
someone and in the very attempt compromising a belief that the performance counts as expressing.
Since these are the only (relevant) conditions for the speech act to defeat itself, we should expect
that any other combination of person and time would not be awkward or at least not quite so
awkward" (Harnish 1975: 148-149).
14. It should be noted that, as far as the scope of the corresponding research is concerned, the
majority of studies on accomodation in verbal behavior lay emphasis on variation at the syntactic
and the phonetic, particularly the prosodic level of speech. An interesting exception is a paper
by Geerts (1978), who concentrates on lexical variation.
15. Notice that transmitting a positive image of themselves may even be the primary purpose of
speakers engaged in certain forms of social talk. We can think here, for example, of conversations
between passengers in a train or between people waiting in a doctor's waiting-room.
16. For a classical introduction to the pragmalinguistic relevance of the concept of power, see
FOOTNOTES 123
Brown and Gilman (1960). Brown and Gilman's model has been revised in order to make it
applicable to the analysis of impositive speech acts in Haverkate (1979: 65-91).
17. For a definition, see footnote 8.
18. Note that, although both personal and possessive pronouns are used to express reference to
the speaker and the hearer, the distinction between these two systems is basically a distinction
between different grammatical categories. Therefore, in order to avoid descriptive redundancies,
I will select my examples from the category of personal pronouns only.
19. In the context of this study, I will only deal with the pronominal system of Peninsular Spanish.
Therefore I will not be concerned with the so-called voseo, which is characteristic of those Ameri
can-Spanish dialects that, in addition to tú or instead of tú, use vos as a familiar pronoun of address.
20. Benveniste comments on the prominence of the speaker's perspective as expressed by the
first-person plural in the following way: "En quoi consiste ici la pluralisation de la personne
verbal? Ce 'nous' est autre chose qu'une jonction d'éléments définissables; la prédominance de
'je' y est très forte, au point que, dans certaines conditions, ce pluriel peut tenir lieu du singulier.
La raison en est que 'nous' n'est pas un 'je' quantifié ou multiplié, c'est un 'je' dilaté au-delà de
la personne stricte, à la fois accru et de contours vagues" (1966: 234-235).
(How to account for the pluralization of verbal person? This "we" is not the same thing as a
conjunction of definable elements; the prominence of 'T" is so strong that, under certain condi
tions, this plural can take the place of the singular. The reason for this is that "we" is not a
quantified or multiplied "I"; it is an "I" that is extended beyond its strictly personal scope; it is
not only expanded, but at the same time its contours have become vague.)
21. There are also languages where the pronouns of politeness can be considered to iconically
express the power of the person addressed by virtue of the fact that they are morphologically
marked for plural inflection. In this respect, consider: "In some languages (e.g. German, Russian,
French, Turkish) V (i.e. the pronoun of politeness) is PLURAL: in a simple physical sense, 'there
is strength in numbers', so that the form of V is an icon of power" (Haiman 1980: 530).
22. For a description of a similar strategy in German, see Hartmann (1975:118). The same author
also gives a general description of the use of polite and familiar forms of address in German
(1975: 112).
23. Notice that no referential variation is at issue when speakers address nonhumans. Then they
invariably use the familiar form of the personal pronoun. Thus, the donkey from Platero y yo is
addressed with tú, as shown by the following quotation: "¡No te asustes, hombre! ¿Qué te pasa?
Vamos, quietecito" (Jiménez 1967: 21). (Don't be frightened! What is happening to you? Come
on, quiet, please.)
24. Note that, up till now in the literature on the subject, the features we are considering have
been discussed particularly in relation to Donellan's distinction between the attributive and refer
ential use of noun phrases (Donnellan 1971). Compare also Wimmer, who speaks of the predica-
tively and referentially orientated use of noun phrases (1979: 98).
25. This was pointed out to me by Guillermo Araya. It may be assumed that the focalizing
meaning of the expression stems from the fact that it verbally refers to the gesture of striking
one's breast.
124 SPEECH ACTS, SPEAKERS, AND H E A R E R S
26. In Dutch, but not in Spanish, relevant examples can also be found in classroom interaction.
Children going to primary school, for instance, address their female teachers with juffrouw 'miss',
which is often abbreviated to juf. This latter form, then, can be used by the teacher as a self-refer
ring expression. Compare, for instance, the following example: Zal juf je even helpen? (Lit. 'Shall
miss help you?').
27. Notice that proper nouns, which, as we will see later on, are usually considered to have a
referential function only, are unique in the sense that they may express both first-person, second-
person, and third-person reference. This point has passed unnoticed so far, since studies on proper
nouns do not take into account that their referential potential comprises speaker-reference, hearer-
reference, as determined by the use of vocatives, and reference to persons other than the speaker
or the hearer.
28. In this connection, it might be observed that parents often tend to mirror and even reinforce
nonpronominal first-person reference by their children by using papá and mamá as speaker-refer
ring devices. It is a striking fact that quite a few parents keep doing so even long after their
children have learned to correctly pronominalize. Similar mechnisms are also found to operate
in so-called 'foreigner talk', which is used by speakers of a language when talking with foreigners
whom they suppose to have a low-level education and little or no knowledge of the language in
question. Lastly note that examples such as: Tarzan like Jane, as compared with Hike Jane, may
be said to represent a fictitious kind of foreigner talk. In this relation compare Ingram (1971:47).
29. It is probably the case that, as far as the selection of common nouns is concerned, a number
of language-specific differences can be found. Thus, in Dutch, but not in Spanish, one finds mijn
persoontje (Lit: 'my little person'), the use of which seems to be characteristic of the speech of
female speakers. As for English, I quote the following example from Jespersen: "A distinctively
self-assertive substitute for T is number one" (1955: 217).
30. Compare also: "There are two sides to the coin in the realization of deference: one in which
S humbles and abases himself, and another where S raises H (pays him positive face of a particular
kind, namely that which satisfies H's want to be treated as superior). In both cases what is
conveyed is that H is of a higher social status than S" (Brown and Levenson 1978: 183).
31. For more examples, see also Fernández (1950: 207).
32. In certain interaction types it is not uncommon that hearers feign that one of the normal
input conditions does not hold, which may lead their interlocutors, who expect these hearers to
be insincere, to start the interaction with a separate attention-getting vocative. This situation has
been illustrated in the following way: "Parents know from long experience that children frequently
'fail' to hear utterances like
A: Simon, it's bath time.
and therefore resort to presequences which establish the first assumption — that the addressee
is listening:
A: Simon.
B: Yes.
A: It's bath time" (Coulthard 1977: 172).
33. Note that Antonio reinforces the expression of his emotional involvement by making use of
the possessive pronoun mía. Such vocative expansions emphasizing the positive feelings of the
speaker toward the hearer are by no means uncommon. The corresponding noun phrases are
formally characterized by the fact that they do not have a paradigmatic relation with expressions
FOOTNOTES 125
containing possessive pronouns referring to other persons than the speaker. Thus, the following
examples would be ill-formed as vocative expressions: *Hija tuya 'Your daugther' and *Hija suya
'His daughter'. Finally, we have a set of interjections historically derived from vocatives and also
obligatorily marked for first-person singular reference. Well-known examples are Dios mío and
Madre mía.
34. The nowadays popular use of the personal pronun tú as a vocative should be considered a
fairly recent development of colloquial Spanish. I quote two examples from a novel by Delibes:
(a) ¿Dónde anda el coche, tú?

'Where does the car go, you?'
(b) Es barato, tú.
'It is inexpensive, you.' (Delibes 1978: 43, 70).
35. The following definition would apply to the concept of empathy as I prefer to interpret it in
the present context: "Empathy is the speaker's identification, with varying degrees (ranging from
degree 0 to 1), with a person who participates in the event that he describes in a sentence" (Kuno
1977: 628). Notice, however, that Kuno's paper is not devoted to the analysis of pragmatic, but
to the analysis of syntactic phenomena.
36. In order to properly reflect the specific metaphorical meaning inherent in the vocative expres
sions in question, they are literally translated from Spanish.
37. Compare also the following example from English, in which all information is conveyed by
affective vocatives:
"EDWIN Darling!
ANGELINA Yes, darling?
EDWIN Nothing, darling. Only just darling, darling" (Whitcut 1980: 95).
38. Compare also the different interpretations of Who is the man drinking a martini? (Donnellan
1971: 103-104).
39. In this connection, consider also the following example dealt with by Ervin-Tripp:
POLICEMAN: What's your name, boy?

DOCTOR: Doctor Pouissant. I'm a physician ...
POLICEMAN: What's you first name, boy?
DOCTOR: Alvin.
"Ervin-Tripp observes that the policeman insulted the doctor three times. Firstly, he employed
a social selector for race, in addressing him as 'boy'; secondly, he treated the reply as a failure
to answer, a non-name; thirdly he repeated the term 'boy' emphasizing the irrelevance of the
name Dr. Pouissant" (Quoted from Coulthard 1977: 48).
40. The following statement makes it clear that the politeness formulas under discussion are by
no means language-specific: "Often, when addressing people by title, the third person is used for
the second: French monsieur désire?, German die gnädige Frau wünscht?, Danish Hved mener
professoren? But German Kellnerdeutsch has also a hybrid form which I have not yet found in
literature, using the verbal form of the polite address (3 rd person plural) wiht the title (3 rd person
singular). Whether we call it an anakoluthon or a mixed form, it does exist, e.g. Was wünschen
der Herr Leutenant? Der Herr Direktor belieben..., Haben der Herr schon bestellt?" (Forchheimer
1953: 38).
In this connection, consider also Jespersen (1955: 218).) As for Spanish, finally, an illustrative
example from a historical point of view is the personal pronoun usted, which originally derived
from a full noun phrase, Vuestra Merced 'Your Mercy'. Due to its frequent use it suffered a
considerable phonetic reduction, which gave rise to its actual contracted form. Its nonpronominal
origin is still reflected by the fact that when it surfaces as the subject of the sentence, it does not
show second-person, but third-person agreement with the verb.
41. Beinhauer correctly observes that, while in Spanish el señor should be considered a marked
form of address, in Portuguese  senhor is a standard expression for polite second-person refer
ence. Notice that this may also be seen from the fact that Portuguese lacks a personal pronoun
comparable with Spanish usted.
42. It is interesting to compare in this connection the following statement concerning the use of
third-person personal pronouns in French:
"ƒ/ (ou elle) peut servir de forme d'allocution vis-à-vis de quelqu'un qui est présent quand on
veut le soustraire à la sphère personelle du 'tu' ('vous'). D'une part, en manière de révérence:
c'est la forme de politesse (employée en italien, en allemand ou dans les formes de 'majesté')
qui élève l'interlocuteur au-dessus de la condition de personne et de la relation d'homme à homme.
D'autre part, en témoignage de mépris, pour ravaler celui qui ne mérite même pas qu'on s'adresse
'personellement' à lui. De sa fonction de forme non-personelle, la '3 e personne' tire cette aptitude
à devenir aussi bien une forme de respect qui fait d'un être bien plus qu'une personne, qu'une
forme d'outrage qui peut le néantiser en tant que personne" (Benveniste 1966: 231).
(Il (or elle) may be used to address someone who is present when one wishes to with draw him/her
from the personal sphere of "tu" (or "vous"). On the other hand, this may express respect: it is
the form of politeness (used in Italian, German, or as the majestic plural) which exalts the
interlocutor both as an individual person and as a participant in social interaction. On the other
hand, it may express disdain serving to debase the person who doesn't even deserve to be addressed
"personally". Functioning as a non-personal form, the "third-person" may be transformed not
only into a form that expresses respect and raises someone to a higher level than that of a normal
individual, but also into a depreciatory form which may be used to destroy his/her personality.)
43. For a discussion of the more traditional term 'process-oriented', see Lyons (1969: 366-367).
For a detailed analysis of a process-oriented construction like cantan en la casa vecina 'people
are singing in the house of our neighbors', compare Spitzer (1918: 148).
44. This situation frequently involves unspecified sets of persons. Characteristic examples can
be found in the formulation of clauses of a law , rules of games, and instructions for the use of
medicines. For a more detailed discussion of these categories, compare Pape-Müller (1980: 97,
117, 235).
45. The referential information involved may be general or specific. In the latter case the speaker
takes into account the particular background knowledge of the hearer, in the former case implicit
reference is made to general sectors of social or cultural knowledge, such as the fact that the
predicates condenar 'to sentence' and detener 'to arrest' require their agent slots to be filled by
the noun phrases el juez 'the judge' and la/el policía 'the police', respectively.
46. A more extensive set of criteria has been established by Coetzee in order to account for the
pragmatics of agentless passive sentences. These criteria will be explicitly quoted in section 5.3.5.
Further note that agent identity suppression has also been discussed in relation to literary analysis,
as may be seen from the following quotation: "syntax and semantics can be manipulated so as to
FOOTNOTES 127
'remove all vestiges of an agent from the surface' of a poem, to reflect a poetic world in which
there are no initiators" (Grimshaw 1982: 744).
47. Patient identity suppression has been described by Brown and Levinson in terms of "the
stylistic homogeneity of phrases like 'It would be desirable (for me)', 'It would be appreciated
(by me)', and 'It seems (to me)' as they occur in English business letters" (1978: 201).
48. For a survey of expressions used by speakers to explicitly indicate that they withhold informa
tion from their hearers, see Ducrot et al. (1980: 221).
49. For a clear exposition of this point, see Holly (1979: 200-201).
50. For a more elaborate discussion of the interactional setting of these examples, see Ruessink
(1980: 215-216).
51. Compare: "forms with disparate origins can come to be discourse equivalents. Furthermore,
we believe that such discourse equivalents sooner or later come to have an official place in the
grammar as linguistic equivalents" (Laberge and Sankoff 1979: 439).
52. For a diachronic and comparative survey, consider: "The idea that 'we' and 'ye' imply some
other person(s) besides T and 'thou' is at the root of the Fr. combination nous (or vous) autres
Français, i.e. 'I (or thou) and the other Frenchmen'. In Spanish nosotros, vosotros have been
generalized and are used instead of nos, vos, when isolated or emphatic" (Jespersen 1955: 192-
193).
53. Spitzer (1918:171-172) and Jespersen (1955:193) already observed that inclusive first-person
plural reference is used not only to express modesty, but also superiority on the part of the speaker.
54. Jespersen's reference to German and French is corroborated by analyses by Hindelang (1978:
401) and Spitzer (1918: 163, 165), respectively. For a discussion of some English examples, see
Cole (1975:259). Finally, I wish to mention evidence from Dutch and Flemish. The Dutch example
is taken from a tourist guide of the little village of Ruinen. This guide contains the following set
of instructions for summer guests:
"Wij beschadigen géén bomen en struiken. Wij laten de vogels en andere dieren met
rust. Wij nemen de plaatselijke regels en voorschriften in acht". (Toeristische Infor
matiegids Ruinen 1980: 31)
(We don't damage trees and bushes. We don't disturb birds and other animals. We obey
the local rules and instructions.)
It follows from the pseudo-inclusive reference of wij that it is the wish of the local authorities of
Ruinen to pretend to act out of solidarity with the visitors to the village. However, notice that if
those to whom the instructions apply feel addressed as if they were not able to behave as respon
sible, adult persons, the perlocutionary effect brought about is contrary to that aimed at by the
encoder of the message.
The Flemish example, which mixes up first- and second-person reference, runs as follows:
"hij [i.e. de dokter] antwoordde: "Wij zullen eens onder de röntgenstralen gaan met uw nieren"
(Boon 1980:72; my emphasis), (he [i.e. the surgeon] replied: "Let'stake X-rays of your kidneys.")
55. The referential property shared by all pseudo-inclusive expressions may be called 'the assumed
we'. This term was coined by Simons, who quotes the following text for purposes of illustration:
"In the first weeks of protest activity, we were proud of those young people who came to show
their government that the peace movement was not dead ... We were particularly proud of the
final day of that first week when uncounted thousands gathered to voice a massive demand for
peace now. We were proud of the protestors ... We were proud of our police ... We were proud
of ourselves" (1976: 154).
56. In relation to the referential scope of the first-person plural expressions involved, compare
also the term 'membershipping' discussed by Coulthard (1977: 82).
57. A nonmanipulative, but not less remarkable instance from a literary source can be found in
a Flemish short story entitled Het grafschrift. In this short story the protagonist, a male student,
observes with respect to this fellow students that they don't have the slightest idea of how children
are born. For him this had never been a problem, since he reports: "Ik wist het. Waren 'we' bij
ons thuis geen vroedvrouw?" (Jonckheere 1980:295). (/knew it. Weren't 'we' midwives at home?)
58. This quotation has been taken from Pander Maat (1982: 11).
59. The same constraint applies to nonspecific third-person plural reference, as may be seen from
the following quotation: "Lenz ('La oración y sus partes', Madrid. P. 88.) fait observer que le
pronom personnel ellos n'est jamais exprimé auprès de la 3e pers. du plur. ayant la valeur de
'on'. Dans la langue moderne je n'ai pas relevé d'exception à cette règle" (Kärde 1943: 66). (Lenz
... points out that the personal pronoun ellos is never expressed when the 3rd person plural has
the value of on. In current language use, I have not found exceptions to this rule.)
It is also interesting to note that in certain dialects of French, defocalizing strategies give rise to
deviant patterns of subject-verb agreement, as may be seen from the following observation:
'"je sommes' en français du Nord faisant pendant au 'nous suis' du franco-provenzal:

expressions où se mêlent le besoin de donner à 'nous' une compréhension indéfinie et
l'affirmation volontairement vague d'un 'je' prudemment généralisé" (Benveniste 1966:
235).
("je sommes" in Northern France forming the counterpart of "nous suis" of Franco-
provenzal: expressions in which the necessity of giving "nous" an indefinite interpretation
and the intentionally vague affirmation of a carefully generalized "j e " go hand in hand. )
60. With respect to the defocalizing use of French tu, compare:
"The utterances we are concerned with are generalizations involving an indefinite person,
and they all have the effect of locating this person in a potentially repeatable activity or
context. Anyone's experience may constitute the basis for generalization, though most
often it is the speaker's" (Laberge and Sankoff 1979: 428).
61. The pronoun of polite address, usted, is only occasionally used as a defocalizing expression.
Compare, for instance, the following example quoted by Kärde:
¡Con estos cambios de temperatura! Por el día tiene usted calor, por la tarde frío.
'With these changes of temperature you feel hot during the day and cold in the evening!'
Note further that the central role of the factor 'solidarity' is generally agreed upon. Compare,
for instance, Bobes Naves (1971: 33), Coste and Redondo (1965: 213), and Llorente Maldonado
1977: 114).
FOOTNOTES 129
62. Concerning the distinction between defocalizing and non-defocalizing second-person refer
ence in English, where, mutatis mutandis, the same situation holds as in Spanish, the following
text is worth quoting: "In Jack London's Martin Eden, p. 65, I find the following conversation
which well illustrates the colloquial import of the generic you. Miss Ruth asks Martin: 'By the
way Mr. Eden, what is booze? You used it several times, you know.' 'Oh, booze,' he laughed.
'It's slang. It means whisky and beer — anything that will make you drunk.' This makes her say:
'Don't use you when you are impersonal. You is very personal, and your use of it just now was
not precisely what you meant.' 'I don't just see that.' 'Why, you said just now to me, "whisky
and beer — anything that will make you drunk" — make me drunk, don't you see?' 'Well, it
would, wouldn't it?' 'Yes, of course,' she smiled, 'but is would be nicer not to bring me into it.
Substitute one for you, and see how much better it sounds'" (Jespersen 1955: 216).
63. For a similar account of these facts, compare, e.g., Carrasco (1978: 218-219).
64. For a discussion of a similar example, see Carrasco (1978: 221).
65. Consider also the following passage from the Bible, quoted by Kärde:
"Aunque hable con las lenguas de los hombres y de los ángeles: si caridad no tengo,
soy como cobre que suena". (1943: 2).
(Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have no charity, I am
become as sounding brass.)
66. Compare, e.g., Bobes Naves (1971: 36), Kärde (1943: 36), Llorente Maldonado (1977: 121-
122), Suardíaz (1973: 11).
67. For a syntactic analysis of this kind of perspective switches in French, see Sankoff and Laberge
(1978: 121).
68. Van den Broeck (1979: 6), for instance, who investigated a corpus of spoken Flemish, found
that even 95% of the passive sentences produced by his informants lacked an explicit referene
to the agent. For an investigation of spoken French, consider Roulet (1969: 138).
69. Concerning the rare use of Spanish passives in general, and passives with an explicitly indicated
agent in particular, see Seco (1967: 182) and Green (1975: 361), respectively. For the rarity of
agentful passives in Portuguese, where the same situation holds as in Spanish, see Azevedo (1980:
78).
70. As regards the latter strategy, consider the following comment: "The passive coupled with
a rule of agent deletion is perhaps the means par excellence in English of avoiding reference to
persons involved in FTA's (i.e. face-threatening acts)" (Brown and Levinson 1978: 199).
In this same connection, compare Gibson (1966:123), Hartmann (1975: 113), and Stanley (1975:
38).
71. A similar situation holds for Italian, as has been pointed out by Costa: "si constructions are
exploited pragmatically as a means of shifting responsibility off a subject. This pragmatic use is
typically a reflection of politeness and formality conventions which require that in potentially
embarrassing situations speakers should avoid pinning down who is responsible for what action"
(Quoted from Brown and Levinson 1978: 279).
72. Compare also Searle's observation on the impossibility of making requests in Czech by asking
questions about the ability of the hearer (1975: 76).
73. For a discussion of the difference in syntactic behavior of uno and se, see García (1975: 18)
and Roldán (1971: 26).
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SPEECH ACTS, SPEAKERS, AND HEARERS

Pragmatics & Beyond

Speech Acts, Speakers, and Hearers

Reference and Referential Strategies

JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY

Padre, en este tuteo

Miguel de Unamuno, 'Cancionero. Diario poético'

1. SPEAKERS, HEARERS, AND OTHERS PERSONS 3

2. SPEECH ACTS, SPEAKERS, AND HEARERS 9

4. A SPEECH ACT ANALYSIS OF LINGUISTIC STRATEGIES 45

5. LINGUISTIC STRATEGIES AND SPEAKER- AND HEAR­

5.2. Focalizing expressions 56

6. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 113

SOURCES OF THE EXAMPLES QUOTED 141

Among the people who have contributed directly or indirectly to the

This study is an inquiry into the pragmatics of speaker- and hearer-ref­

strategical effects speakers intend to bring about by employing them. To this

Up till now no integrated study of the pragmatics of speaker- and hearer-

"Most discourse in any language, is oriented to the people involved in the

that speakers referring to themselves or to their hearer make a selection

In connection with the distinction between speaker- and hearer-refer­

concerning positive or negative properties assigned to the object or person

2.1. Propositional acts

of a subclass of the class of directional verbs. The verbs in question are of

2.2. Illocutionary acts

In the following analysis of illocutionary acts, illocutionary point and direc­

hearer-centered'. This is corroborated by the fact that, as far as first- and

second-person reference as conditioned by the different interactional roles

is supposed to primarily benefit the hearer himself. To this category belong

With respect to indirect realizations of permission-seeking acts we may

According to the character of the state of affairs described, the first-person

ation it follows that the performance of an expressive act establishes a particu­

2.3. Illocutionary preconditions

for. The sincerity precondition can be empirically shown by the so-called

endowed with power or authority in the area of behavior involved. This,

(39) Estaba acechando para ver qué estabas haciendo.

convey redundant information.

Turning next to directives, we find that the ability precondition is for­

As an introduction to the concept of linguistic strategy, which will be

in which these arguments are presented to the hearer.

behavior, which is equivalent to saying that forms of nonaccomodative or

of codified formulae. With the exception of the above types of interaction I

In Haverkate (1979), I presented a componential analysis of the speech

tigate. Thus, the subacts distinguished should be considered constants which,

In chap. 3, I argued that a general classification of linguistic strategies

5.1. Standard expressions

serves to express reference to sets of male speakers and hearers as well as

speaker, in a sense, pretends not to be speaking to his addressee at all. This

5.2. Focalizing expressions

quence, speaker-referring proper nouns serve to bring into prominence the

for expressing egocentric reference. In this connection, consider the following

(74) La mamita te ayudará.

As regards oral performances of narratives, we find that egocentric ref­

fore, often represent a form of nonaccomodative or contrastive verbal

B: No lo creas, nuestro clima es terrible. Te lo dice un español.

of politeness to which the labels 'speaker-oriented' and 'hearer-oriented'

Evidently, what we are particularly interested in here is the latter type of

under discussion are performative acts; they can be properly considered a

second-person pronouns, in the latter he/she selects a proper noun or a

(89) ¡Cierra la puerta, Juan!

specific or nonspecific reference according to the context or situation of

The vocative function at issue here has been called 'quasi-referential' by

beings show morphological variation as conditioned by derivational proces­

5. LINGUISTIC STRATEGIES AND SPEAKER- AND HEAR

This study is an inquiry into the pragmatics of speaker- and hearer-ref

In connection with the distinction between speaker- and hearer-refer

In the following analysis of illocutionary acts, illocutionary point and direc

ation it follows that the performance of an expressive act establishes a particu

Turning next to directives, we find that the ability precondition is for

As regards oral performances of narratives, we find that egocentric ref

beings show morphological variation as conditioned by derivational proces

Beinhauer assumes that there is a correlation between the speaker's prefer

(149) En España, déjenme que exagere un poquito, se "nace" sospech

Note that both examples reflect a process of narrowing referential perspec

(b) second-person singular expressions convey generalizing informa

(b) Do speakers of one language more often — and, more interest