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Modality appears in conversational Spanish markers vamos and vaya as a result of their modal origin from subjunctive forms. Some of their implicit modal values are gone conventionalizing because of their continued interaction with certain contexts, while other ones have weakened as the textual values of these elements were strengthened. In this paper, we focus on one of the modal functions of these markers that has barely been addressed in the literature, despite its considerable functional performance. This is reaffirmation propositional function, which presents distinctive formal and functional features that allows it to be considered as an independent (sub)function of these conversational markers, and in particular, their constructional derivatives and . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the whole range of devices to express Verum Focus (or polarity focus) in Spanish is analysed. After having introduced the basic concepts needed for the analysis (Verum Focus, its syntactic manifestations and its semantic interpretation), the various constructions expressing Verum Focus, the conditions governing the way they fit into the context and their contribution to the interpretation of the discourse in which they occur are considered in detail. The asymmetries that arise are explained as the result of some structural differences. A principled account of the notion of "emphasis" is offered in terms of Verum Focus. The proposal is illustrated with examples from various corpora of contemporary Spanish. From a more general point of view, it is shown that current theoretical models can successfully account for the distribution and nuances of colloquial discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]