There’s a(nother) quotative on the rise in Macedonian

Resumen

This paper shows that the speech verb reče ‘says’ in Macedonian is in the initial stages of grammaticalization towards a quotative marker. Morphologically, syntactically and phonetically reče shows properties of a quotative clitic. First, because unlike other speech verbs, reče tends to follow the first phonological word within a discourse report. Secondly, it can co-occur with other speech verbs. Furthermore, it is not always inflected in contexts where a verb would be. Finally, reče is sometimes reduced to eče or just če. However, there is a high degree of variation and the quotative use of reče can only be found in spontaneous, colloquial spoken language. There are also speakers who seem to use another speech verb, veli, as a quotative marker, rather than reče.

Leonardo Contreras Roa

Profesor de fonética y fonología inglesa

Fonetista y profesor de inglés, doctor en lingüística