The syntax of some intensifying constructions in Spanish and in colloquial Catalan

In this paper we analyze the syntactic behaviour of several intensifiers in colloquial Spanish (mira, vaya, cuidado, anda) and catalan (mira, vaya, deu-n 'hi-do, diras, d 'a xavo, espaiet). Intensifiers are grammaticalized forms to a variable degree, that prototypically emphasize the expression of quantity or quality. According to this emphasizing function, they have several syntactic peculiarities. In our contribution we justify, on the one hand, their inclusion in the interjectional category. On the other hand, we study the consequences derived from the fact that these words usually emphasize quantitative expressions and analyze the syntactic structures in which they can appear (intensifiers can be followed by the conjunction que or by exclamative words). Finally, we explain the word order in these constructions.