¡No se me había ocurrido nunca! A pluperfect mirative construction in Spanish

Abstract

Mirativity refers to the grammatical marking of unexpected information. More precisely, it is the linguistic expression of the surprise which unexpected information provokes in the speaker. Mirativity can be codified as an overt or a covert grammatical category, and as an optional or an obligatory ca-tegory, depending on the grammar of the language. There are no mirative morphemes in Spanish language; nevertheless, a corpus study of Internet message boards written in Chilean Spanish shows that clauses such as ¡No se me había ocurrido nunca! can be described as a mirative construction. This construction presents specific constraints on type of predicate, predi-cation frame, information structure and illocutionary force.