On the survival of the Spanish absolute construction: a qualitative diachronic study based on a corpus of translations from Latin

Abstract This article studies the diachronic behaviour of the non-finite verbal (participial, gerundial) absolute construction (AC) in (pre)classical and modern Spanish translations from Latin, written between the 15th and the 18th centuries. It focuses on the convergence of and divergence between the ACs of the Spanish target texts and those of the Latin source texts, drawing on three types of translations: (i) Latin absolute constructions translated as Spanish absolutes (translated ACs), (ii) Latin absolute constructions translated as Spanish constructions other than absolutes (non-translated ACs) and (iii) Spanish absolute constructions that do not stem from Latin absolutes (ex-novo ACs). The article traces a diachronic evolution of the AC in terms of formal and functional equivalence, or creativity, and links the results to the cultural-historical context. The analysis shows that the nearly extinct, (pre)classical participial AC developed from a ‘marked’ Latin calque situated at the far end of the Communicative Distance pole to a less formal, gerundial AC, moving in the direction of Communicative Immediacy. This process of syntactic elaboration concurred with the AC’s increased frequency and was caused by language-internal mechanisms such as structural priming and form/function overlap with gerundial free adjuncts (FAs). From the 15th century onwards, a growing tendency towards unbounded construals enabled the gerundial AC to become fully entrenched in early modern Spanish, which guaranteed the survival of this construction.