Del futuro morfologico al perifrastico: Un cambio morfosintactico en el espanol de California, 1800--1930

This dissertation investigates the predominant linguistic forms during the 19th century and beginning of the 20 th century to express the future tense in the Spanish variation used in California. This work also attempts to establish social and linguistic factors influencing the choice of future tense variations. This research is centered on five hypotheses. The first hypothesis states that the Spanish variation used in California during the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century expresses the future tense with the morphologic form predominantly. The results show the existence of several forms to express future found in alternating contexts. The second hypothesis states that forms to express future tense diversify towards the end of the 19th century producing a significant acceleration in the use of the periphrastic form ir a + infinitive and the present tense in indicative mode. This acceleration is related to historic and social factors. The results do not show the first part of the hypothesis. The second part of the hypothesis is shown by acceleration in the use of those two forms. The third hypothesis states that the speaker selects the variations of future tense taking linguistic factors into account such as temporal distance the writer feels with respect to the future event mentioned and the adverbial context used along with the selected form of future used. Results show that temporal distance does not influence the selection of the future form; however, adverbial specificity does affect the selection. The fourth hypothesis indicates a different use based on genre, women being more innovative than men. This is shown in this work. Finally, the last hypothesis points out the differences in the use of forms to express future tense taking into account style factors found in the writings. This hypothesis is also shown in this research.