Variación morfológica y corpus lingüístico: los diminutivos -ico, -ito, -illo en la provincia de Almería (siglos XVIII y XIX)

Abstract

This thesis aims to re-examine the historical distribution and frequency of diminutive suffixes in the Spanish of Almería in the 18th and 19th centuries through inventories of goods. The suitability of this textual source is based on two main aspects: the clear dating and geographical location which characterises this type of documents and the absence of the formal style, which tends towards functionality and the use of features close to the oral language, especially the presence of diminutives. The period analysed is considered essential for the constitution of the modern Spanish in the province of Almería, a region which has received little attention despite its geographical location as a frontier between two strongly characterised linguistic varieties: the Andalusian and Murcian modalities. For this purpose, a specialised diachronic corpus with a volume of 53 300 words has been compiled. At the same time, it includes a control corpus with which to contrast the use of diminutives in the Andalusian province. This contains inventories of Madrid from the same two centuries. In total, the whole corpus is close to 119 000 words and is made up of 97 inventories of goods in Almería and Madrid from the 18th and 19th centuries. The texts are integrated into the corpus Oralia Diacrónica del Español (ODE), which is characterised by a specific methodology for its elaboration using the TEITOK tool (Janssen, 2016). This system requires the transcription of the texts according to the XML-TEI standard and allows the online publication of a triple digital edition (facsimile image, semi-palaeographic edition and standard edition), as well as the linguistic processing and use of the corpus. Of relevance to this study is the allocation of morphological tags (POS) and lemmas. The specific problems involved in linguistic annotation are dealt with in the specific case of the lexicon of the inventories of a specialised corpus such as ODE. The study of diminutives is based on the methodological distinction between lexicalised diminutives and transparent diminutives. Regarding lexicalised forms, a glossary is provided with 100 entries including definitions, meanings and examples that support the meanings expressed in the corpus. On many occasions, ODE has served to improve the lexicographic information available on certain voices, some of which are scarcely documented. With regard to transparent diminutives, based on a hypothesis test, a statistical analysis establishes significant differences in the use and distribution of diminutives in the periods and places studied. Opposing trends in the use of diminutives are confirmed, from the point of view of their diachronic and diatopic evolution between Almería and Madrid and between the 18th and 19th centuries. Differences are more outstanding in the case of the Andalusian province.