RELATIVE CLAUSES HEADED BY PREPOSITION WITH HUMAN ANTECEDENT IN THE 16TH CENTURY IN USAGE CONTEXTS

Abstract

Based on a corpus of ego-documents (mainly private letters) from the 16th century, the article offers the results of a variationist analysis about factors favoring the survival of the related compound in the relative clauses headed by prep- osition with human antecedent. The first accounts of the related compound come from high prose of the 13th century. In the 15th century came the generalisation of its use. In the century 16th, despite the fact that it maintains a remarkable presence in contexts such as the analyzed in this work –as opposed to quien–, it is observed its gradual decline against other forms to be strengthened in subsequent centuries.