"Que ho faça jo?! Que ho faci ell!" Evolució del present de subjuntiu en el nord-occidental actual

Abstract

Summary: On the basis of a corpus of Northwestern Catalan that collects surveys of 240 informants from 40 localities, we describe several conjugation models of present subjunctive found in this dialect and we analyse the introduction of innovative variants shared by both Central Catalan and standard Catalan spread by the media and the education system. The description of the distribution of different verbal marks of present subjunctive according to person and verb classes makes evident that the introduction of innovative vowel i finds some resistance, on the one hand, in the first person singular, and on the other hand, in the third conjugation with inchoative augment. The analysis of the innovation, considering how it fits the verbal paradigm of Northwestern Catalan, helps us understand the above-mentioned resistance and linguistic change in general. Keywords: Northwestern Catalan; inflectional morphology; linguistic change; present subjunctive; syncretism; inchoative augment