Apogeo y declive de ansí en los Siglos de Oro: nuevos datos desde la sociolingüística histórica

Abstract

espanolA partir de un corpus compuesto integramente por textos de inmediatez comunicativa, el presente estudio analiza un fenomeno de variacion que enfrento a los adverbios asi y ansi durante los Siglos de Oro. En el marco de la sociolinguistica historica, el analisis de regresion logistica de efectos mixtos efectuado muestra que la forma vernacula ansi gozo de un considerable exito durante buena parte de este periodo, si bien conocio un momento culminante entre 1540 y 1620. Sin embargo, a partir de entonces, los usos del adverbio irian descendiendo bruscamente hasta cerrar la centuria con empleos que hacian presagiar ya la censura a la que el adverbio iba a ser sometido a partir del siglo XVIII. Otro resultado relevante es que, en la difusion de ansi, cobraron especial importancia algunos factores extralinguisticos en mucha mayor medida que los linguisticos, un hecho poco habitual entre las variables gramaticales, aunque explicable en este caso por el componente morfo-lexico que presenta este hecho de variacion. Los factores mas destacados fueron de caracter dialectal –la principal distribucion de la forma vernacula tuvo lugar en las areas centro-meridionales de la Peninsula, asi como en las comunidades americanas– y sociolectal, con una preferencia mayor por ansi entre los estratos bajos, seguidos por los intermedios y a distancia de las elites, las cuales se mostraron siempre mas reacias a su empleo, especialmente a partir del siglo XVII. EnglishBased on a corpus of communicative immediacy texts, the present study analyzes the variation between the adverbs ansi and asi during the Golden Age Spanish period. Within the framework of historical sociolinguistics, the mixed-effects logistic regression analysis carried out shows that the vernacular form ansi enjoyed considerable success during this period, although it reached its peak between 1540 and 1620. However, from the latter date onwards, the uses of the adverb declined sharply until the end of the century, foreshadowing the negative attitudes to which ansi was exposed from the 18th century onwards. Another meaningful result of the study is that, in the diffusion of ansi, some extralinguistic factors took on special relevance to a much greater extent than the linguistic ones, an unusual fact among grammatical variables, perhaps explainable in this case by the important morpho-lexical component that this variation represents. The most relevant factors were of a dialectal –the main distribution of the vernacular form took place in the central-southern areas of Spain, as well as in the American speech communities– and sociolectal nature, with a greater preference for ansi among the lower strata, followed by the intermediate ones, and both of them a long way from the social elites. These elites were always more reluctant to use the vernacular form, especially from the middle of the Seventeenth century onwards.