‘Ya ves que’—You See That: A Deictic Intersubjective Pragmatic Marker

In the pragmaticalization of ya ves que… ‘you see that…’, the perceptual basis of the verb becomes diluted, keeping its deictic profile. Most of its pragmatic values extend to non-perceptual phenomena, implying shared knowledge. Further extensions involve bleaching the concrete referent into abstract shared information in the form of (i) first and second-hand evidentials: shared and alien facts presented as familiar; (ii) mitigators: small appeal to shared information; (iii) miratives missing crucial information; and (iv) a continuity discourse marker where shared information is not relevant. Based on spontaneous oral data from Mexican Spanish, we propose that intersubjectivity prevails given its common ground deictic schema, allowing for assumed information to become diluted into a fictive common space where the speaker assumes the existence of notions the speaker may not always have. Diachronic data support the analysis: data from the 16th–17th century from Spain show the prevalence of testimonial references with no presence of shared knowledge; from the 19th century onward, shared knowledge becomes crucial, and it is not until current informal Mexican Spanish that even referential and shared knowledge may be diluted, and the assessment is validated by incorporating the hearer into the speaker’s mental space.