«Delos sos oios tan fuerte mientre lorando»: a syntactic change examined through a digitized corpus

Abstract

In this study, we extend the idea of a synchronic sociolinguistic continuum to a diachronic framework in order to examine the origin and evolution of a particular Spanish syntactic change -the possessive construction article + possessive adjective + noun, for example los sos oios- with data extracted from a digitalized corpus of early medieval notarial documents from the Sahagun Monastery on the border of Castile and Leon (9^th to 12^th centuries). These texts are written in a mixed or Latinate style that employs both Latin morphology and lexis along with other forms rendered in completely reformed, phonetic spellings patterned after the spoken Romance vernacular at the time. We used a digital corpus tool called MOCA (Multimedia Online Corpus Analysis) to follow the evolution of this possessive construction over time. This methodology allowed us to establish a linguistic continuum between Romance syntax in documents written both before and after the adoption of Carolingian orthographic reforms.