Study of testaments of the 16th, 17th and 18th Centuries written in Havana. Linguistic and diplomatic description

Abstract

The concept of discursive traditions appears in the fields of historic linguistics because of the interest in studying the restrictions that the interaction among speakers and the order of discourse impose on texts. This paper contributes to the study of the history of Spanish language in Cuba since it studies a type of document during a period of three centuries (16th, 17th , and 18th), the testament, that had been neglected. The linguistic structures correspond to the field of pragmatic indicators and to the field of traditions that rule the linguistic structure of the text. The rigid formulas of these documents of a legal nature depend on their structure. The initial protocol; the clauses naming the heirs and executers; the derogatory clause and the eschatocol are the most formulaic parts. The body is most extensive and variable; and the argumentative enunciations are characterized by a variety of modal and temporal structures; the presence of cohesive elements and textual configurations of diverse types and with bigger frequency. The findings obtained with the application of the typology proposed by Wesh allow us to affirm that testaments, besides presenting a rigid order with formulas and having been written by learned people have an elaborate textuality. This condition would sustain the hypothesis that in these documents the norm was highly cultured and exemplary.