ABSTRACT
The author should like to take this occasion to continue examining structures that occur in conversational Spanish, but not, it seems, in the written language or in the more formal spoken registers, under the assumption that the characteristics of these oral forms are due to the speech situation itself. His discussion is based on speech recorded in Spain, and specifically on consideration of a particular kind of construction that he have studied in detail: the constructions he call 'X-forms'. The finding that X-forms mention referents that are salient in the particular discourse in which they occur suggests that this manner of expression may be an example of 'topicalization', presumably, the presentation of a referent as salient. Other characteristics of X-forms are also consonant with this view: as regards their reference, we often find repeated mention by X-form either of the same referent or of several referents being treated in the context as equivalent.
