Martínez Vázquez, Montserrat2025-01-282025-01-282023-07-18In Constructions in Spanish. Edited by Inga Hennecke and Evelyn Wiesinger. 2023. John Benjamins. 255-278.10.1075/cal.34.10marhttps://hdl.handle.net/10433/22719This paper examines the variable functions of the clausal construction digo yo (DY) ‘I say’ in contemporary Peninsular Spanish. A corpus-based analysis shows pendulation between a communicative DY, which introduces past quotes, and a metacommunicative DY, which functions as a comment clause. In initial position, DY resembles a matrix clause, however, its subjectverb inversion produces a backgrounding effect which renders the conjunction que (‘that’) unnecessary and favours a parenthetical analysis of DY. In medial and final positions DY is an evidential/epistemic comment clause which overlaps with other epistemic comment clauses (e.g. creo yo ‘I believe’, pienso yo ‘I think’). In order to provide a unified account of the different uses of DY, a constructional approach is taken. In line with Van Bogaert (2010) and Kaltenböck (2010, 2013), the formal and functional features of DY are explained through a constructional network. A hierarchical network captures its links to the communicative construction, while its analogical connections to other epistemic constructions are captured in a horizontal network (Traugott, 2018).application/pdfenJohn Benjamins(Meta)communicative constructionConstructional networkEpistemic parentheticalsComment clausebook partopen access