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Patterns of individual variation and change in Golden Age Spanish. An analysis of three linguistic variables in a corpus of private correspondence

Abstract Based on a corpus of private correspondence written by 16 authors from the Golden Age period, this study analyses the idiolectal distributions of three distinctive variants of early classical Spanish. After comparing these distributions at different times in the lives of these individuals against those found in the same period in previous variationist studies, the existence of three idiolectal profiles is detected: refractory, in-between and followers. The first two profiles are in the majority, although some examples of the third are also found. In any event, these profiles are not monolithic. On the contrary, with a few exceptions, speakers do not follow the same patterns in the three cases of variation studied. Moreover, a longitudinal analysis of the letters at different life stages shows that the stability of the distributions is the norm. Nevertheless, there are also some exceptions, i.e. authors who evolve significantly in the distribution of the variants, although almost always in the same direction: the progressive replacement of vernacular forms by others, following the prevailing trends of change. The main theoretical implications of these results are connected to previous findings in the literature on earlier stages of other European languages dealing with the role of idiolectal variation in shaping linguistic variation and change.