Exclamativas y expletividad. El que enfático

Abstract

This paper deals with the functional analysis of que when this word appears in sentences like ¡Qué buena novela que estoy leyendo!/Qué buena novela la que estoy leyendo!, ¡Qué cosa más rara que le ha pasado a Miguel!/¡Qué cosa más rara que le haya pasado a Miguel! Traditionally, two kinds of que have been well described: relative and completive; a third kind of que, typically expletive, is particularly interesting in exclamative sentences. We search what happens about negation, verbal mood and article in exclamative contexts, using literary and colloquial texts in Spanish. We treat two more aspects. First, if these sentences with expletive que can appear as embedded clauses. Secondly, we suggest that there is a common line between cleft exclamative sentences with es lo que and expletive sentences with que, according to distributional and semantical features.