La evolución de los superlativos absolutos cultos y populares en diferentes tradiciones discursivas (siglos XVI a XX)

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This article addresses the evolution of the synthetic, standard and colloquial absolute superlatives in Spanish over five centuries (from the sixteenth to the twentieth) and in different discourse traditions (considering the perspective of distance and communicative immediacy). To this end, 26 pairs of superlatives have been studied in which there is an alternation between the colloquial and the standard form, of the type amiguísimo/amicísimo, buenísimo/bonísimo, noblísimo/nobilísimo, pobrísimo/paupérrimo…, in which the first expression represents the colloquial variant and the second, the standard. Results show an increase in the use of the superlative over the centuries, with particular relevance in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and a predominance of the standard variant throughout the historical series. The study shows a crucial turn in the twentieth century, when the colloquial variant becomes the preferred option for the first time. Moreover, the study reveals significant differences in the corpora analyzed. While formal texts opt for the standard superlative, informal discourse traditions favour colloquial voices. These results highlight the importance of corpus research in analyzing both formal texts and those closer to the orality of the time.