The linguistic variety spoken in Madrid in the late 18th century according to Los madrileños adoptivos (1790)

Abstract

The focus of this study is to analyse the characteristic phenomena of the linguistic variety spoken in Madrid presented in the manuscript of the short comedy Los madrileños adoptivos (1790), by Antonio González de León, in order to determine if these elements can really be known as dialect linguistic features of that variety in the 18th century. For this, firstly, a contextualization of the work has been carried out, which allows us to understand its uniqueness and ponder its real value as a linguistic testimony. Secondly, the graphic-phonic, morphosyntactic and lexical-semantic phenomena represented in the comedy have been analysed. Furthermore, the address system has been explained, due to the interest that it has at that time and to the knowledge of this linguistic variety.