Norma, Uso Y Autoridad En La Teoría Lingüística Del Siglo XVI

Abstract

Summary The paper discusses the significance of the concepts of ‘norm’ and ‘usage’ in the linguistic debate in 16th-century Spain. The understanding of what should be accepted as ‘norm’ and what as ‘(grammatical) correctness’ was far from uniform in that period. The concept of ‘authority’ with regard to these questions reveals various interpretations; it is by no means a simple transfer of a Latin classicist model. The authority on what should be regarded as ‘standard’ in the 16th-century discussion appears to have been established along the lines of the importance given to ‘usage’ and the meaning that each grammarian attached to this term. In this paper, altogether three positions are identified: (1) A number of scholars support the Quintilian codification and maintain the classical tradition; (2) others do not recognize any other authority but that of ‘common usage’, understood as the linguistic habits of the speakers, either in terms of a speech community (Valdés), or in terms of the individual speaker (Aldrete), and 3) those who consider ‘reason’, i.e., logic, as the sole principle guiding both grammatical doctrine and linguistic usage (Sanctius).

Manuales de lenguas vulgares del XVII: autoridades literarias en las gramáticas italianas y españolas publicadas en Francia

“…Las gramáticas que aquí analizamos heredan parte de estas diferencias y pueden ser sopesadas en gran medida en el uso de las autoridades literarias que contienen, 10 El concepto de norma lingüística ha sido profundamente analizado en la tradición hispánica en estudios como los de Pozuelo Yvancos (1984), Martínez Gavilán (1990), Moriyón Mojica (1991), Ramajo Caño (1993 o Satorre Grau (1996). Un análisis minucioso de las autoridades del XVII se encuentra en Quijada (2008).…”