Las construcciones pasivas en el español del siglo XV

Abstract

The author of this article tries to demonstrate that the superiority of the passive construction with the verb "ser" and the past participle in the 15th century Spanish is due to a stylistic use of this form in a period in which a cultivated, humanistic spirit attempted to ennoble the language, introducing lexical and syntactic latinisms. Therefore this verbal periphrasis is used profusely with non-passive values, and sometimes it permits a prosodic role by means of emphasizing the significant element: the past participle. And, in the 15th century Spanish, this form is also used to stress the agent of the action when it works as the first and second person.