Paradigms and Polifuncionality

This book deals with the historical development of a group of four Spanish adjectives and adverbs: preciso / precisamente, justo / justamente, exacto / exactamente and cabal / cabalmente. The first part analyses each pair separately using larger language-samples of several centuries from the Corpus del Nuevo Diccionario Histrico. This part focuses on the Latin origin of these words and the several semantic changes during Spanish language history. Since 16th century, these words build the semantic field of adjectives and adverbs expressing exactness (in English: exact / exactly, precise / precisely and just). They can be exchanged in several contexts and are therefore grouped to one paradigm. This word-group or paradigm develops new functions since 16th century, leading to parallel as well as to diverging shifts, since each adjective or adverbs specialises in one specific function. Hence, the second part of the book deals with three discourse functions shared by more or less all adjectives and adverbs. The corpus analysis shows that the development of each function is leaded by one single adjective or adverb. The other words follow these paths later, they are used less frequently and do not adopt all shades of meaning. An isolated analysis of each adjective and adverb, without considering the rest oft he paradigm, would not be sufficient and would not show theoretically understandable language changes. The first discourse function is those of focus adverbs that emphasize a surprising or significative content. They often show subjective attitudes and emotions of the speaker, for example pasa justo hoy (`that happens exactly today`) and no fue precisamente democrtico (`that was not particularly democratic`). The focus-function and its several nuances and subfunctions are developed by precisamente. Therefore, the few examples of cabalmente as a focus adverb can only be explained as imitation of precisamente. The second discourse function is affirmation. In dialogs, adjectives and adverbs expressing exactly are used as discourse markers that confirm something (for example, exacto `yes, exactly`). The historical corpus analysis shows that cabalmente and cabal are the first ones used as confirmation markers. The inventory of confirmation markers changes faster than usually do other types of grammatical or semantic changes. This is characteristic for the rapid development of discourse markers in spoken language. The third discourse function is reformulation. Ms exactamente / ms precisamente (`more precisely/exactly`) and para ser ms exactos / precisos (`to be precise`) introduce a segment that corrects or reformulates something previously stated. The reformulation-function is developed step- by-step by exacto and exactamente and is transferred later to precisamente and preciso. Again, an isolated analysis of precisamente / preciso would be inadequate, since the historical development of this function only can be observed and explained with exacto / exactamente. The research results are interpreted within the theoretical frameworks of subjectification (grammaticalization or grammaticalization) and of cooptation (thetical grammar). It turns out that both models which generally are seen as contradictory complement each other since they describe genuinely different kinds of language change.