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Article published In:
Diachronica
Vol. 34:1 (2017) ► pp.1–39

Competing modal periphrases in Spanish between the 16th and the 18th centuries

A diachronic variationist approach

| Universitat Jaume I (Castellón)
| Universitat Jaume I (Castellón)

The history of Spanish modal constructions has been widely discussed in the literature, focusing primarily on the semantic differences between the available alternatives. This paper offers an innovative analysis of the evolution of these constructions by adopting a diachronic variationist approach that takes into account a wider range of semantic, syntactic, morphological and stylistic factors that influence the choice between the competing modal periphrases during two key stages in the evolution of Spanish. The data is drawn from a diachronic corpus of personal correspondence, reflecting actual language usage during the respective periods as closely as possible. Particular attention is paid to the question of whether the influence of different factor groups remains stable over time or not, and it is shown that the most frequent form – context pairings are particularly resistant to innovation. This can be explained by cognitive entrenchment of the respective variant in specific linguistic environments.

Keywords: variationist linguistics, modal constructions, Spanish, epistolary corpus, communicative proximity (Nähesprache), frequency effects, cognitive entrenchment
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The origin and evolution of the periphrases with haber, tener and deber as auxiliary verb
  • 3.The corpus
  • 4.Distribution of the periphrases in the corpus
    • 4.1General observations
    • 4.2Semantic values
    • 4.3Distribution of the periphrases according to their semantic values
  • 5.Coding and methodology
    • Linguistic factors
    • Extralinguistic factors
  • 6.Results and analysis
    • 6.1Patterns of continuity
      • 6.1.1Type of deontic modality
      • 6.1.2Person and number
      • 6.1.3Tense/mood
      • 6.1.4Clausal polarity and type
      • 6.1.5Stylistic and register variation
      • 6.1.6Discourse factors: The priming effect
    • 6.2Diverging patterns of variation
      • 6.2.1Syntactic (im)personality
      • 6.2.2Agentivity
      • 6.2.3Assertiveness/intensification
      • 6.2.4Clause type
  • 7.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References


This article is currently available as a sample article.

Published online: 25 April 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/dia.34.1.01bla
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