The conjunctive locution "caso que": Proofs of its variation and usage

Abstract

The conjunctive locutions formed with the noun «caso» arise from the need to renew linguistic expression of the precesses related to the hypothetical starting in the fourteenth century. They are frequently found in texts typical of communicative distance and their uses fluctuate between concessive and conditional values. The analysis of these locutions through the resources provided by corpus, in particular CORDE, reveals the following chronology: caso que reaches its highest point of frequency in the fifteenth century, when it begins its decline before the rise of puesto caso que, en caso que y dado caso que, which are experience a sharp fall from the eighteenth-century coinciding with the gradual increase of the modern locution en caso de que.