General Extenders and Syntactic Analyzability: Sp. y todo eso vs. y todo

This study examines the historical and functional divergence between two Spanish general extenders, y todo eso and y todo, in order to determine whether the loss of syntactic analyzability can serve as a criterion for distinguishing stages of grammaticalization and identifying pragmatic shifts. Drawing on extensive diachronic and synchronic corpus data, the analysis compares the formal evolution, semantic properties and pragmatic functions of both constructions. The results show that y todo eso follows a prototypical grammaticalization path marked by a progressive reduction in its internal structure, the weakening of referential meaning, and increasing freedom from syntactic constraints, while preserving analyzability through alternation with the simpler form y eso. In contrast, y todo displays an earlier and more advanced process of grammaticalization, dating back to medieval Spanish, in which the construction undergoes semantic bleaching, loss of additive value, and reanalysis as a scalar focus marker. These findings support the view that y todo no longer functions as a general extender in contemporary Spanish, whereas y todo eso retains this status, illustrating how syntactic analyzability correlates with shifts between pragmatic categories.