<em>ENSEGUIDA</em> AND <em>INMEDIATAMENTE</em>. CREATION OF TEMPORAL ADVERBS FOR INMEDIACY IN MODERN SPANISH

Abstract

The adverbs used to express temporal immediacy in current Spanish, enseguida e inmediatamente, are relatively new. Inmediatamente, formed on the learned word inmediato, begins to be used in the fifteenth century with the modal value ‘directly’. The displacement to the temporal value takes place in the sixteenth century, and becomes a frequent adverb in the eighteenth century. Enseguida shifts its meaning from the initial value ‘next’ to a meaning of temporal immediacy. This process begins in the eighteenth century and is consolidated in the nineteenth century. The rise of these two elements is related to the loss of the feature of immediacy by the adverb luego