Condicionamientos textuales en la evolución de los adverbios en <i>-mente</i>

Abstract

RESUMEN: El trabajo plantea que los adverbios en -mente pueden ser caracterizados como un cultismo peculiar. Analiza diacrónicamente la diferente manifestación de estos adverbios en lengua literaria y no literaria, la preferencia de ciertos soportes discursivos por adverbios en -mente, la temprana y rápida inhibición de la variante vernácula diptongada -miente y las varias causas que motivan la generalización de la variante no diptongada -mente. El trabajo se basa en un análisis estadístico para mostrar la significatividad de las variables estudiadas.Palabras clave: adverbios en -mente, cultismo, cambio sintáctico, oralidad, escritura, condicionamiento textual del cambio.ABSTRACT: The paper analyzes the evolution of manner adverbs in -mente in Spanish. These adverbs constitute a peculiar learned construction not only in their formation but also in their evolution. The variables examined are: the difference between written and spoken texts; the genre or textual conditioning of the syntactic-semantic change of manner adverbs; the early and fast inhibition of the vernacular variant -miente and the various causes of the generalization of -mente. The paper shows the statistical significance of the variables studied.

Adjective Adverb Interfaces in Romance

“…It easily forms formulaic or fixed expressions of generic, atemporal reading: votar libre es la clave de la democracia 'to vote free is the key of democracy' . As for -mente, it does not form collocations or constructions with such a strong degree of lexicalization (Company 2014a). The relative order with the verb is more rigid in the case of aa (almost always behind the verb), than in the case of -mente.…”

“…It has always been analyzed as 'adverb', having reached the status of manner adverbs par excellence in Spanish grammars and specialized works. It has received four labels only: "derived adverbs" (Medina, Alarcón & De la Mora 2014), 2 "long adverb" (Company, 2014a;Medina, Alarcón & De la Mora 2014), "manner adverb" (Kovacci 1999: 700ff;Katz 2008;rae-asale 2009: § 30.7;Company 2014a, and many other authors because is the most usual label), -mente adverb (Company 2014a: § 6.3).…”

“…There is a strong disagreement in the specialized literature regarding whether aa and -mente have a basic, abstract, general meaning (separately aa and -mente), and polyfunctionality comes from the context (Hummel , 2013aCompany 2014aCompany , 2014b, or whether the various meanings of each one of these forms are a case of polysemy (Kovacci 1999;. In consequence, for the authors defending a basic, general meaning, the internal classification of each adverb relies on context, exclusively or, at least, to a great extent Company 2014a). For the authors postulating polysemy, the context plays a minimal role in the classification of these two forms.…”

“…As for -mente ending, there are various morphological and semantic disagreements: whether it has lexical meaning, grammatical meaning or does not have any meaning at all; whether it is a derivational affix or it is functioning as a compound formative; whether it is a true affix or a phrase affix Company 2014a: § 6.5 for a status quaestionis of these aspects). 4…”

Bare adjectives as syncretic forms

“…The reduced inflection of these adjective forms is the result of inability to check their inflectional features with a name. For this reason they were included in the wide category of adverbs; this inclusion was supported by the alternations of some forms with adverbs in -mente, which are the preferred ones in written language (Hummel, 2012 and2013;Grevisse 1936Grevisse /1989Company, 2012 and in press): 3 (2) a. Juan habló claro/ claramente en la reunión. Juan spoke clear/ clearly at the meeting.…”