Dequeism in COSER: variation in rural peninsular Spanish

Abstract

The aim of this article is to make a contribution to the study of the grammatical variation of peninsular contemporary Spanish through the analysis of the cases of dequeism that appear in the COSER (Corpus Oral y Sonoro del Español Actual). On the one hand, it shows the geographical distribution of the phenomenon and, on the other hand, it observes the specific localized cases and analyzes the type of verbs and constructions with which it appears, as well as the function performed by the syntagma headed by de que.
Likewise, an attempt is made to find out the possible motivation for its use and, among the causes named, the type of document and the level of instruction are mentioned, and factors such as the confusion of regimes and the establishment of analogies between semantically close verbs are considered. The thesis advanced is that for some speakers the canonical and the stigmatized structure work as invisible variants. The value of de as evidentiality marker is pointed out, whereas priming stands out as a significant motivation for the speaker, who unconsciously repeats structures already present in the discourse. Other explanations for the appearance of dequeism (such as the negative evaluation or the distance between the guiding element and the subordinate one) are questioned.
Finally, it is emphasized that COSER is a very useful tool to know what the distribution of dequeism in the Peninsula is and that it provides us with really significant data about the type of speakers that use it and about the cotexts and contexts in which they do it.