Os camiños da gramática: unha aproximación á variación e o cambio lingüístico desde a sintaxe do galego

• Main Author: Francisco A. Cidrás Escáneo
• Format: Article
• Language: Catalan
• Published: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela 2009-01-01
• Series: Estudos de Linguistica Galega
• Online Access: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=305626315002
• ISSN: 1889-2566; 1989-578X

This paper looks at various Galician syntactic phenomena undergoing change in order to support (albeit only partially and inconclusively) a possible model to explain the direction of linguistic change in syntax. It is assumed that the nature and spread of changes involving grammatical constructions is distinct from that involving the language’s sound component. On that basis, the hypothesis adopted is that the evolution of linguistic systems, as regards their morphosyntactic makeup, is driven by a dialectical tension between the benefi ts of a rigorous formalisation of the grammatical code—grammaticalisation as an institutionalisation process whereby the limitations and ambiguities inherent to the speech act can be overcome— and the advantages of a vaguer pragmatic codifi cation that provides more versatility for modulating a text to adapt it to unstable contextual characteristics. To support this hypothesis, empirical evidence is given for ongoing phenomena of variation in Galician chiefly relating to agreement, case marking (namely the use of the preposition a with the DO and certain collateral effects on the expansion of the IO), and changes in the forms of expressions of the future.