Grammar, Semantics and Pragmatics of the Río de la Plata’s nomás (a small Tribute to Berta Vidal de Battini)

Abstract

This paper intends to pay tribute to Berta Vidal de Battini by reconsidering one of her linguistic observations in El español de la Argentina, where nomás (or no más) is identified as an adverb with specific uses, especially in the Río de la Plata variety. Based on this work, the article first describes the meaning and grammatical function of the general Spanish use of nomás, which is common to all Argentine varieties. Regarding the Río de la Plata usages, a first stage (toward the end of 18th century) is distinguished, in which nomás carries a mitigating value when combined with deictic terms (ahí nomás) and imperative verb forms (entre nomás). In a second stage (probably in the early 20th century), new uses emerge: nomás intensifies the meaning of the particle meta (¡Meta nomás!, cf. Pacheco, La ribera, 1910) or makes reference to a previous —not necessarily explicit— speech act (¿Le sigue doliendo, nomás?, cf., Sánchez, Barranca abajo, 1905). In this way, by focusing on the successive processes of grammaticalization of nomás, which represent an instance of intersubjectification (Traugott, 2003), we hope to contribute to the grammatical study of Argentine varieties of Spanish.