THE LANGUAGE OF THE CUENTOS POPULARES

ESPAÑOLES

AURELIO M. ESPINOSA

STANFORD UNIVERSITY

In the following notes I shall study the more important linguistic phenomena that are to be found in my Cuentos populares españoles, the most abundant and most important collection of Spanish folk-tales that has ever been collected and published. The three volumes that contain the folk-tales offer us 280 dialectic versions of some 200 different tales representative of 24 of the 49 provinces of Spain and collected from 88 different towns, villages, and localities from the following regions of north, central, and southern Spain: La Montaña, Asturias, León, Castilla la Vieja, Castilla la Nueva, Andalucía, La Mancha, and Estremadura. About one third of the materials are from Old Castile. All the folk-tales, with the exception of those from Asturias, were collected and taken down (frequently in phonetic script) by myself. The Asturian folk-tales (eleven in number) are the only materials in the entire collection that may be called non-Castilian and for that reason they will not enter into our present linguistic studies. The linguistic materials that are to be the object of our study are, therefore, fundamentally and essentially Castilian materials from Old and New Castile and from the southern Spanish regions that have been castilianized since the XIIth century when these regions began to be recaptured from the Arabs,2 and they do not, in general, represent any of the special

1 Cuentos populares españoles, recogidos de la tradición oral de España y publicados con una introducción y notas comparativas por Aurelio M. Espinosa, Stanford University Publications. Tres tomos, 1923, 1924, 1926. Vol. IV, Notas comparativas, now in press. See Boletín de la Biblioteca Menéndez y Pelayo, 5. 1-25 (1923); F. Krüger, Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen 150. 267-8 (1926).

2 Although the distinctive and fundamental traits of Castilian were originally limited to a very small territory north of Burgos (the old Cantabria and neighboring territory) the reconquest of Spain carried the originally unimportant dialect to most of northern, central, and southern Spain, thus breaking up the old linguistic uniformity of Spain and establishing Castilian as the language of all the conquered territories. See Menéndez Pidal, Orígenes del español §§ 100–06.

linguistic characteristics of Asturian, Galician, Leonese, Aragonese, Valencian, Portuguese or Catalonian. Andalusian Spanish shows, to be sure, certain linguistic traits that appear to separate it from the Castilian of the northern and central regions, but many of these traits are after all developments of phenomena that had their beginnings in Castile.

In our study of the linguistic phenomena of my Cuentos I shall enter into problems of modern pronunciation only in certain special cases. The general character of Castilian pronunciation is well known thanks to the epoch-making publication of Tomás Navarro Tomás and to this publication we shall refer constantly in all matters of modern phonetics. I cannot enter, of course, into a detailed discussion of Andalusian phonetics, but certain outstanding linguistic phenomena that are characteristically Andalusian, such as the frequency of l + cons. >r+cons., the fall of intervocalic r and other consonants, the disappearance of most final consonants except in certain cases before a vowel, the absence of the Castilian z and ll sounds, the various special developments of s, etc., will be treated at some length. I shall also try to show that many of the linguistic phenomena commonly believed to be Andalusian are rather widespread in Spain and that even such developments as -ada>-á, -ede>-é, -ado>-ao, -ido>-ío, b (v) + vowel>g+vowel and the apocopated verbal forms quié, quién, tié, tién, puson, quison, etc., are rather general in all parts of Spain. The linguistic materials will be studied under three general divisions: phonology and lexicology; special phonetic phenomena; syntax. The three volumes of the Cuentos are numbered consecutively. All references will be to pages without indicating the volume.

Part I. Phonology and Lexicology

1. alante

This dialectism is a syncopated form of adelante. There are examples in the Cuentos from many parts of Spain, from Old and New Castile, from León, and from Andalucía, a few of which are listed below: Avila5

* The general development of Latin f->h- (modern Spanish j) in Andalusian, for example, is only a retarded development of a phenomenon once general in Castilian. It seems to have originated also in the Cantabrian region and developed quickly to a weak aspirate and then disappeared generally, whereas in Andalusia it remains at the h stage. See Origenes del español § 41.

Manual de pronunciación española, Madrid,1 1918,3 1926.

"In recording the source of the folk-tales I shall indicate the province or region and not the village or locality for the sake of geographical clearness.

80 ('Y ya se echó el azadón al hombro y se fué camino alante.'), 119 ('Bueno, pues los otros se fueron por la senda y él siguió alante por el camino resto."); Valladolid 436 ('Y salieron la zorra y el lobo por el camino alante.'), 490 ('Y más alante, más alante encontraron en el camino a un gallo, .'); Segovia 300 ('Se marchó el mayor por el mundo alante. .'); Madrid 368; Soria 59, 92, 249, 284, 326, 411; Astorga 396; Zamora 56, 154, 181; Toledo 189, 227, 281, 357; Cuenca 122, 204, 236; Granada 46, 48, 52, 113, 145, 331; Sevilla 264, 462, 476; Córdoba 439, 482.

The phonetic development was as follows: adelante >aelante >alante, a gradual weakening of intervocalic d after it has changed from an explosive to a continuant, its complete disappearance, and finally a reduction of de to a by regressive assimilation to the accented and more sonorous vowel of the group. According to Menéndez Pidal, Cantar II s.v. adelant, a regular Old Spanish form more commonly used than adelante, the modern literary form, the etymology of adelante is ad-de-inante. This would give in Old Spanish *adenante, *adenant, forms that apparently have not been found in any Spanish documents. By dissimilation *adenante became adelant(e). We are certain that *adenante must have been a primitive Old Spanish form in view of the Xth century denante (Glosas Emilianenses 80, Glosas Silenses 2807) and the Classic and modern dialectic enantes, denantes, endenantes. Just why an old form *adenante is not documented while the adverbs denantes, endenantes persist even to modern times is not clear. Cuervo in his Diccionarios cites cases of denantes from Juan del Encina, Luis de León, Cervantes, Lope de Vega and Calderón, of endenantes from Solís, Calderón and Bretón, and states that enantes as well as the other forms are found in the modern dialects of Spain and America. In Apuntaciones9 § 374 he repeats this last statement but does not indicate exact localities. Enantes, denantes and endenantes are not found in the Cuentos so they are apparently not as common in Spain as Cuervo believes. According

• Cantar de mío Cid, texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid, 1908–11. 7 See Menéndez Pidal, Orígenes del español § 78. There are other examples given for the Xth and XIth centuries. In these old documents denante still appears only with its prepositional character and without de, as in Glosas Emilianenses 80: 'Facanos Deus omnipotes tal serbitjo fere ke denante ela sua face gaudioso segamus.'

Diccionario de construcción y régimen de la lengua castellana, 2 vols., Paris,

1886-93.

9

• Apuntaciones críticas sobre el lenguaje bogotano, 6th ed., Paris, 1914.

to Lamano y Beneite, 10 however, denantes and endenantes are found in Salamanca, a region not visited by me, and for La Montaña Duque y Merino11 records enantes. For endenantes Acad. 1512 states: 'De uso vulgar en varias regiones de España,' and in García-Lomas13 we read: 'Arcaísmo muy usado en los pueblos de la región central y suroeste.' The accumulation of Latin prepositions in the formation of these Spanish words indicates that their original meanings and force were frequently lost. In Classic Spanish the adverbs antes, denantes and endenantes did not differ in meaning. For that reason it is quite possible that the modern dialectism alante of our Cuentos may be derived from an old form adelante that had originally a very weak. intervocalic d because it was derived not from ad-de-in-ante but from ad-in-ante. For Italian innanzi we suppose merely in-ante, the first stage in the prepositional accumulation. The Old Spanish enantes (Cid 866) could also represent in-ante, but the modern dialectic enantes probably comes from denantes with apheresis of d, a common phenomenon in the Spanish dialects. It is of course possible to derive alante from a form adelante <ad-de-in-ante, but in view of the apparent anarchy in the accumulation of prepositions not only in Spanish but in all the Romance languages (cf. French avant, Roumanian aînte Italian avanti, Old Spanish avante, etc. <ab-ante, French devant, Italian davanti <de-ab-ante, Roumanian inainte <in-ab-ante, etc.), often with little or no reason for the choice I prefer to derive alante from adelante< ad-in-ante.15

The dialectism alante is also found in the following Spanish regions not visited by me: Salamanca,16 Murcia.17 For Salamanca a form 10 José de Lamano y Beneite, Dialecto vulgar salmantino, Salamanca, 1915,

8.vv.

11 Contando cuentos y asando castañas 124, Madrid, 1897.

12 Diccionario de la lengua española por la Real Academia Española 15th edition, Madrid, 1925.

13 Estudio del dialecto popular montañés, San Sebastián, 1922, s.v. endenantes. Aside from Bogotá (Cuervo) endenantes is found in America also in New Mexico, Studies in New Mexican Spanish I § 191; in Argentina, Tobías Garzon, Diccionario argentino, Barcelona, 1910, s.v., and in Venezuela, Julio Calcaño, El castellano en Venezuela 53, Caracas, 1897.

14 Apuntaciones § 374.

15 The accumulation of Latin prepositions almost reaches absurdity in the Spanish phrase para en adelante, quoted by Cuervo in his Diccionario from Calisto e Melibea: 'No tengo enojo; pero dígotelo para en adelante.' It represents proad-in-ad(-de)-in-ante, six or seven prepositions, two of which occur twice.

16 Lamano y Beneite § 39 and s.v.

17 Alberto Sevilla, Vocabulario murciano, Murcia, 1919, s.v. It is also recorded for La Montaña by Duque y Merino 69, 95.

alantre with parasitic r is also recorded, a form found also in Mexico18 and derived probably from Old Spanish adelantre. In American-Spanish alante must also be a common form, but there are few documentary evidences of it.19

2. aluego

This word represents the temporal adverb luego <Latin loco (Portuguese logo, Old French lues). It is also used in the adverbial phrase aluego que. Although not as common in the Cuentos as alante, the phenomenon is frequent enough. A few examples follow: Granada 51 ('Y aluego pasa por ai un escarabajo.'), 215 ('Y aluego que se fueron aquéllo. . .'); Sevilla 265 ('Y aluego entró la menó. . .'), 299 ('Y aluego que se fué el gigante. . .'), 425; Jaén 80: Cáceres 196; Ciudad Real 201; Córdoba 483.

The source of aluego is a+luego. I have written it in one word because the two words make a single group generally unstressed. Whether the phenomenon is Old Spanish derived from original Latin ad-loco it is difficult to say. The Romance adverbs composed of a preposition, commonly ad or de, a noun, adjective or adverb are quite numerous.20 The one in question is in Roumanian de loc<Latin de-loco. In Spanish we have ad in ahora <ad-hora, aún<ad-huc, anoche <ad-noctem, etc., so that an original ad-loco in Spain would be quite possible, but I do not know of any examples of aluego in Old or Classic Spanish. If the form is modern the prepositive a is probably due to the analogy of the common adverbial phrases that are used as equivalents such as a poco, a poco que, al momento, al momento que, etc., and of the similar phrases al otro día, al día siguiente, etc., all common in old and modern literary and popular Spanish.

This phenomenon seems to be found only in southern Spain, but it is certainly not limited to Andalucía as Cejador believes.21 I have no examples from American-Spanish.

3. ande, onde

Either of these dialectic words may represent the literary Spanish donde or adonde. I cannot go into the syntax of the problem now.

13 Ramos y Duarte, Diccionario de mejicanismos, Mexico, 1898, s.v.

In

19 Teófilo Marxuach, El lenguaje castellano en Puerto Rico 42, San Juan, 1903. 20 See García de Diego, Elementos de gramática histórica castellana 295-8, Burgos, 1914. In the Spanish of the XIII-XVI centuries the most common adverbs for the modern literary luego que were de que, desque.

21 Julio Cejador y Frauca, Tesoro de la lengua castellan 9. 112 (Madrid, 1912).