Estrategias evidenciales mediante formas verbales en español europeo. Reflexiones en torno a su didáctica en ELE

This paper aims to offer a reflection on the importance of teaching evidential mechanisms in intermediate and advanced levels of Spanish as a foreign language, with the aim of improving the understanding of the non-prototypical meanings conveyed by three verb tenses in European Spanish: the past imperfect, the future and the conditional, both in simple and compound forms. The Nueva gramática de la lengua española (2009) and the Plan Curricular del Instituto Cervantes (2006) propose interpretations related to epistemic modality for these secondary uses; however, we believe that evidential interpretation would facilitate comprehension by learners of Spanish. Finally, an observation will be made of how these contents are presented in the teaching materials and some suggestions will be made for their didactics.