Opinion verbs in Spanish between parenthetical and weak-valency verbs: syntactic and semantic-pragmatic aspects

Abstract

Opinion verbs in Spanish between parenthetical and weak-valency verbs: syntactic and semantic-pragmatic aspects. The aim of this paper is to deepen some of the ideas presented in a previous article (González Ruiz 2014) about the syntax, semantics and pragmatics of Spanish opinion verbs such as opinar, creer, imaginar and suponer when they are used in their performative form (opino, creo, pienso, imagino, supongo). More specifically, in order to suggest new areas for future research, two main points will be discussed: a) the relation between these verbs and the syntactic and semantic properties of the “weak valency verbs”, according to the proposal of Blanche-Benveniste and Willems (2007 and 2010); b) the differences in the semantics of these verbs regarding epistemic modality and evidentiality.

Keywords

• Opinion verbs
• weak verbs
• epistemic modality
• evidentiality.