LA PALATALIZACION INCOMPLETA DE LOS GRUPOS /PL-/, /FL-/ Y /KL-/ EN ESPANOL: UN ANALISIS DEL PAPEL DE LA FRECUENCIA

by Quintana Muñoz, Sonia

This study examines the causes that led to the incomplete palatalization of the initial clusters /pl-/, /fl-/ and /kl-/ in Spanish. In view of the insufficiencies found in previous explanations, the goal of the project presented here is to provide an alternative analysis taking a different perspective from the traditional approaches, treating the palatalization of these clusters as an example of lexical diffusion and looking at the frequency of use as one of the main factors that led to the palatalization of just part of the lexical items. In order to find out whether the frequency of use is a relevant factor in this process, we looked at the frequency with which a group of palatalized and non-palatalized words appeared in a selection of texts from the Corpus Diacronico del Espanol. The results indicate that, statistically, palatalized words are more frequently used in this corpus than the ones that maintained the initial cluster, confirming that frequency plays a role in the diffusion of this change.