Hesselbach R (2022)
Publication Language: German
Publication Type: Book chapter / Article in edited volumes
Publication year: 2022
Publisher: Peter Lang
Edited Volumes: Romanische Sprachgeschichte und Sprachkontakt
Series: Münchner Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft
City/Town: Berlin
Pages Range: 156-180
ISBN: 978-3-631-87297
At present, the superlative in the Spanish language is formed by the suffix -ísimo (i.e. bueno > buenísimo), which goes back to the classical Latin -ĭssimus. While - ísimo today is stylistically neutral, the eleven adjectives of modern Spanish that form the superlative on -érrimo (< lat. -errimus; i.e. pobre > paupérrimo) show the opposite behavior: they belong ‒ with a few exceptions ‒ rather to an elevated style of language. The aim of this paper is to shed more light on the diachronic development of the forms on -érrimo. By analyzing the CORDE corpus of the Real Academia Española (RAE), it can be shown that at earlier times in the history of the Spanish language, more than the eleven adjectives of present- day Spanish performed suffixations with -érrimo. It is finally argued that not only -érrimo as a superlative marker, but rather the combination of [base + suffix] was borrowed from Classical Latin, and therefore the suffix is productive to a very small extent nowadays.
APA:
Hesselbach, R. (2022). Zum historisch-lateinischen Sprachkontakt: Die auf -(ĔR)RIMUS basierende Superlativbildung im Spanischen. In Roger Schöntag; Barbara Schäfer-Prieß (Hrg.), Romanische Sprachgeschichte und Sprachkontakt. (S. 156-180). Berlin: Peter Lang.
MLA:
Hesselbach, Robert. "Zum historisch-lateinischen Sprachkontakt: Die auf -(ĔR)RIMUS basierende Superlativbildung im Spanischen." Romanische Sprachgeschichte und Sprachkontakt. Hrg. Roger Schöntag; Barbara Schäfer-Prieß, Berlin: Peter Lang, 2022. 156-180.
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