Ramón Menéndez Pidal’s Concept of “Latent State” and the History of Spanish Aspectual Constructio

• Natalia I. Stolova ^[1]
  1. [1] Colgate University

     Colgate University

     Town of Hamilton, Estados Unidos

     
• Localización: Romance philology, ISSN 0035-8002, Vol. 64, Nº. 2, 2010 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Fall - Special issue In memoriam: Ray Harris-Northall (1953-2009)), págs. 257-267
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • In is highly acclaimed book, "Origenes del español: estado lingüístico de la Península Ibérica hasta el S.XI", published in 1926, the spanish philologist Ramón Menéndez Pidal (1869-1968) proposed the methodological concept of the "latent state". According to Menéndez Pidal, before a linguistic phenomenon stablishes itself as a part of the written norm, it can remain unnoticed and unattested for centuries. One of the often-cited examples of this phenomenon is the weakening and eventual loss of the word-initial Latin f-. According to Menéndez-Pidal, during the so-called "épocas primitivas" the loss of f- was confined to a limited group of speakers in Cantabria and its immediate surroundings in the extreme north of the Iberian Peninsula.