As we can see, one of the most frequent argumentative values is the restrictive. In such cases, the first enunciation is admitted into the speaker’s statement, this is done by recurring to, for example, the first person singular (“I understand”, “I don’t have”) or to “efectivamente” (“indeed”), to confirm a previous opinion, and to then cancel out the possible inferences deriving from that enunciation (Domínguez García, 2007: 99). In these examples, pero has an anti-orientational, logical-argumentative function which manifests in messages more typical of the written conceptional variety of discourse (López Serena & Borreguero Zuloaga, 2010: 360 & 378). To this end, it figures in syntactically more elaborate utterances addressed to the auditorium or to the collective of followers and not to one specific interlocutor, and comes after a comma or an aside.

Within this anti-orientational, argumentative function, it also takes on a value of weak opposition when, though still expressing counter-argumentative opposition, the speaker introduces an explanation. The enunciation which introduces pero cancels out a conclusion of the previous utterance and justifies said cancellation (Domínguez García, 2007: 103):

(4) And travel? From when? Personally, I’m Spanish and confined here, but (pero) I spend long periods of time in another country for work and I’d need to know more or less when air space is reopening. Gracias (Twitter, 29-04-2020).

(5) I agree, though we shouldn’t forget that health is not an independent variable! If the economy goes pear-shaped and there’s a recession (and there will be), that too will end up having consequences on people’s health in the medium-to-long term. It’s not that simple. People are setting health against the economy as if they were 2 independent things, but (pero) they’re not, we have to be careful (YouTube, 14-03-2020).

In these messages, pero indicates that the second segment is that of greater informative weight and that which determines the argumentative orientation of the enunciation (Fuentes Rodríguez, 1998: 37). Thus, in these cases it presents a “meta-discursive value of control over the act of speaking” (Domínguez García, 2007: 106). It particularly appears in monologic comments which place in doubt what the tweet or Facebook post by the Ministry, or the video of the institutional press conference on YouTube, has said.

However, we note that it is also utilised in replies addressed to other users on the same social network, so as to add a refutative value to the connector’s restrictive one, associated with dialogic contexts (Domínguez García, 2007: 101). Opposition is established between what different speakers say (Portolés Lázaro, 1995: 259-263), so as to allow its inclusion among the markers with an interactive reactive function, with which the speaker opposes the previous intervention, sometimes to place doubt on the exactitude of the interlocutor’s statement (López Serena & Borreguero Zuloaga, 2010: 361), as in (6), which responds to a tweet from the ministry, or to attenuate a criticism made of another participant:

(6) But (Pero) let’s see... if Sanitat says at 15:00 that there are 63 cases, how the hell can there be 50 cases in the Province of Valencia at 18:00? What numbers are you working with? Do you take us all for fools, or what? It seems we can’t even add up now, as if sums weren’t easy... (Twitter, 10-03-2020).

(7) A: HOW hilarious, well I DISAGREE, I have a 94-year-old family member with an ulcer, and her nurse isn’t coming to treat her because the protocol says it’s not an urgency. WHAT on Earth is happening?! As there’s a PANDEMIC they’re leaving disable PEOPLE to die!!!!!. [...]