Y al principio... no fue el verbo (estrategias pragmáticas relacionadas con la posición del sujeto en la conversación coloquial)

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to explain what are the implications of the appearance of the subject in Colloquial Spanish. We will emphasize the pragmatic conditionings that account for the use of different constructions. The presence of the subject of the sentence in the Spanish SVO scheme and its position in relation to the verb involve specific pragmatic meanings, which have to do with three main determining factors: (a) type of verb (accusative or inaccusative), (b) informative characterization of the subject (theme/rheme and topic/comment structure) and (c) context of use. Additionally, all different meanings are logically related to the two conversational roles: speaker and listener.