TENSION IN THE NEW GRAMMAR OF THE SPANISH LANGUAGE BETWEEN THE THEORETICAL AND THE NORMATIVE. A FALSE EPISTEMOLOGICAL DILEMMA

Abstract

This article attempts to move past the apparently irresolvable dichotomy that the New Grammar of the Spanish Language (Nueva gramática de la lengua española) establishes between linguistic theory and linguistic norms, based on a theoretical and meta-theoretical analysis of the notion of linguistic normativity. Springboarding from Coseriu’s proposed distinction between standard norms and customary norms, it reveals the epistemological inconsistency that underlies both the coincident use of the terms norm and normative with the concept of a prescriptive or standard norm and the false dilemma, also established in the New Grammar, between discernment in correctness—understood as the fruit of “adaptation of the standard norm”—and discernment in grammaticality, wrongly understood as the result of either the presence in the corpus of the grammatical structure in question or of its “introspective” [sic] acceptance by native speakers.