Sobre la variación en el marco de la libre elección entre "cantara" y "cantase" en el español peninsular

Abstract

The article deals with variation in the use of the -ra and-se forms of the Spanish past subjunctive in cases in which they exhibit allomorphism. The empirical material consists of 3,201 instances gathered from different areas of mainland Spain. The aim of the study was to detect possible regional differences and to recognize other possible factors related to the above variation. The results not only exhibit diatopic variation but, in some cases, also contex-tual variation, which, based on the literature, was not supposed to exist. Furthermore, the choice between the allomorphs involves differences between men and women.