<i>There are people who …</i> existential-attributive constructions and positioning in Spoken Spanish and German

Abstract The study analyses the use of a bipartite construction that serves as a resource for the ad hoc establishment of personal categories, and thus, for social positioning. In particular, it examines the Spanish construction “hay gente que …” and the German equivalent “es gibt Leute, die …,” which translate into English as “there are people who …”. The first conjunct asserts the existence of a social category, which is then specified attributively in the second conjunct. After a short characterisation of the construction, the analysis focuses on its functions from an interactional-linguistic perspective. Two ways of using the construction for positioning are identified: (1) to relate individuals to categories, i.e. oneself or others can be ‘ascribed to’ or ‘distanced from’ a certain category; (2) to modify presupposed categories by reevaluating or deconstructing them. The study is based on Spanish and German conversation data, taking a cross-linguistic perspective.