Evolución e historia de la lengua española (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Evolución e historia de la lengua española Steven N. Dworkin María Jesús Torrens Álvarez. Evolución e historia de la lengua española. Manuales de formación de profesores de español 2/L. Madrid: Arco/Libros, 2007. 309 pp. ISBN: 978-84-7635-712-5 At first glance it may seem strange that a book dealing with the development and history of the Spanish language should appear in a series of “Manuales de formación de profesores de español 2/L”. Its author, María Jesús Torrens Álvarez, has solid credentials as a scholar in Hispanic philology and in the teaching of Spanish as a second language. In the former category she is probably best known for her edition and linguistic study of the Fuero de Alcalá. The premise underlying the book under review is that an understanding of the main features of the evolution of the language will aid the instructor in teaching selected structures of Spanish to the language learner. Historical linguists have long observed that structures that synchronically on the surface seem to be irregular and unpredictable, and are taught as such to language learners, actually reflect regular processes of historical change. To offer just a handful of examples, such verb-stem alternations as vuelvo ∼ volvemos ← volver, [End Page 376] siento ∼ sentimos ∼ sintieron ← sentir, digo ∼ dices (OSp. dizes) ← decir; so-called “irregular” verb forms as pret. dijo, hizo ← decir, hacer; or the participles dicho, hecho all result from regular processes of sound change in the passage from Latin to Spanish. Such knowledge may help the instructor to understand better the background of such forms, and thus aid in their effective presentation to the student. The author is not suggesting that language teachers bring such historical knowledge directly into the language classroom. Historians of the Spanish language can approach the subject matter from the mutually complementary perspectives of internal and external history. The former, known as historical grammar (gramática histórica), involves the description and analysis of the changes in the phonology, morphology, and syntax that mark the evolution from spoken Latin to medieval or modern Spanish. In contrast, external history (historia de la lengua), examines the development over time of the language against the relevant historical, political, social and cultural background. It tends to emphasize the history of the Spanish lexicon, especially borrowings from the languages with which the Latin-Spanish continuum has come into contact over its history. The traditional exemplar of this approach has long been the various editions of Rafael Lapesa’s venerable Historia de la lengua española. Readers can now profitably consult the chapters in the collective Historia de la lengua española, coordinated by Rafael Cano Aguilar. In her book, Torrens Álvarez has chosen to present both the internal and external history of Spanish. Given its pedagogical goal, this book makes no claim to be an original contribution to our knowledge of the history of the Spanish language. Rather, it offers its intended audience a clear summary of selected features of the internal and external history of Spanish, based on the contents of the standard manuals and works on Spanish historical grammar and language history identified in her bibliography (303–09). The first part, “Evolución de la lengua española”, comprises nine chapters. After a brief introduction to the goals and the structure of the book, Torrens Álvarez offers an overview of some key notions concerning the nature of language change and a survey of relevant processes of phonetic change. The author devotes the next two chapters to sound changes in the passage from Latin to Spanish. After describing the key differences between the vowel systems as preserved in classical Latin and the stage she labels latín tardío (without specifying this term’s chronological limits), namely the loss of vowel quantity and the development of an accent of intensity, the [End Page 377] author presents the evolution of the individual vowel phonemes. She follows the traditional practice of studying separately stressed and unstressed vowels, with particular attention to the diphthongization of the stressed open-mid vowels, to the vowel-raising provoked by a nearby palatal, and the apocope...