Gramaticalización y diacronía de las perífrasis comenzar a y empezar a + INFINITIVO.

This paper provides a diachronic study of the inchoative periphrases comenzar a and empezar a + INFINITIVE drawing upon grammaticalization theory, in an attempt to contribute to the history of Spanish and, particularly, to the studies focused on verbal periphrases. Based on the results of an analysis of a large number of documented occurrences between the 11th and 21st centuries, we propose that the lexical meaning of words to be relevant in the construction of grammatical pieces; therefore synonymy seems to play an important role in shaping the grammar of a language. As we will see, alternation of the studied forms shows that both coexist nowadays, and that their use is conditioned both by contextual and chronological factors, because both express the same semantic values. Since the use of empezar a + INFINITIVE increases around the 19th century, we reflect on other change processes linked to verbal periphrases during this period, and on their importance in the syntactic periodization of Spanish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]