Specificity of the description of pronouns in the Spanish grammars of the Golden Age: Tradition and innovations

Abstract

The study is aimed at identifying those aspects of the grammatical tradition of the pronoun class in the Spanish tradition of the Golden Age that tended either to preserve the postulates of the canon or to introduce innovations into it. The study is novel in that it is the first to reveal the solutions related to the changes made in the canon as exemplified by the pronoun class in early Spanish grammars. Such issues as the place of this class of words in the system of parts of speech, its status and boundaries, the criteria for singling out pronouns, their types, the nomenclature of their accidents, as well as the peculiarities of exemplification reflected in the description of different pronoun types are under consideration. As a result of the study, it has been found that the canonical representation of pronouns as “substitutes for names” has received different interpretations concerning the possibility of “substituting” different classes of names. It is shown that the question of external and internal boundaries of the pronoun class is one of the most debatable within the Golden Age tradition. The divergences in the nomenclature and in the character of presenting the accidents of this part of speech as well as the differences concerning the principles of exemplification of different pronoun types are revealed.