Evidentiality and illative markers in Spanish

•The evidential use of the illative markers occurs when they head an independent sentence.•The illative markers draw on indirect evidence.•The evidential sense cannot be deduced from the lexical meaning of these categories.•A range of properties imply a link between the illative markers and evidential affixes.

This study investigates the presence of evidentiality in the Spanish language, which lacks morphological affixes and, therefore, does not possess specialized forms for evidential meaning. In particular, I examine the requirements for appropriate interpretation and the type of evidentiality possessed by consecutive markers, such as así que, conque, and de manera/modo que, when they head a sentence and do not express a relation of result with any immediately prior discourse. I review some typical examples and provide evidence regarding the scope of negation and interrogation in relation to evidentiality. I also explore the effects of surprise, irony and displeasure – issues that have previously been examined by other researchers – in order to argue for the evidential nature of these structures in Spanish.