Acceso usuarios
Alicante, España
This paper deals with the function of the construction ¡Qué A ni qué B!, as well as with its origin and development. This study is based on the examples extracted from the CDH and CORPES corpora. The construction ¡Qué A ni qué B! is used to show rejection of something previously uttered. The relevant cases are those where the construction does not have a function within a verbal phrase, since in those cases it would be analyzed as a rhetorical question with a negative implication. By contrast, it is argued that the ¡Qué A ni qué B! construction constitutes an expressive speech act of rejection – rather than a declarative one –, due to the exclamative nature of the construction, and it is consequently linked to emphasis and intensification. There are two causes that explain the origin and the development of this construction: constructions with the structure qué A ni qué B functioning as rhetorical questions with expletive negation, and the value of rejection triggered by the negative binomials ni X ni Y. It is precisely an increase of expressiveness which displays the evolution of the construction.
