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This article discusses the diachronic development of the Spanish multifunctional formula en plan (with its variant en plan de, literally 'in plan (of)' but usually equivalent to English like). The article has two main aims: firstly, to describe the changes that the formula has undergone since its earliest occurrences as a marker in the nineteenth century up to the early 21st century. The diachronic study evinces a process of grammaticalization in three steps: from noun to clause adverbial and then to discourse marker. Secondly, to conduct a contrastive analysis between en plan (de) and the English markers like and kind of/kinda so as to shed new light on the potential existence of a universal pathway of grammaticalization in the emergence of discourse markers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a corpus-based study of the Spanish phrase en plan (de) from a functional perspective. Overall, seven different functions have been identified, which can be grouped into two macrofunctions, namely the adverbial and the discursive values. Discursive uses are only recorded since the late 20th century, and they are more frequent in oral texts. The study also shows the variation between the prepositional phrase en plan de and the adverbial phrase en plan, which gains ground in the most recent texts. Finally, a more detailed analysis of the use of en plan (de) among Spanish teenagers in the early 21st century is also provided, since it is in this demographic sector where the use of the formula is more recurrent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]