Los mecanismos de superlación en la General estoria (Primera parte): la consolidación de un modelo romance

Abstract

This article deals with the different mechanisms of superlative forms used in the Primera parte of Alfonso X’s General estoria. Attention is paid to quantitative forms such as muy, bien, mucho, asaz, tan and además, showing which formulas appear most frequently, the constructions they take part in and the innovation they represented in their historical context. Complementing this is an analysis of other syntactic elements such as enteramente, verdaderamente, maravillosamente, and the paper also describes the incipient process of grammaticalization undergone by both types of expressions. Similarly, attention is also drawn to the absence of the morphological elative –ísimo, which is clear evidence of the efforts of Alfonso X’s Scriptorium to move away from the Latin sources and to make Castilian the vehicular language.

Keywords

• General estoria
• superlatives
• elatives
• grammaticalization