El concepto de variante en lingüística: con especial referencia a su uso en morfología

Abstract

Although, as could not be otherwise, the clear majority of people engaged in language studies usually agree on the idea that the first step to take when describing a natural language is to determine what the formal and semantic invariants are that characterize it. Then, the second step is to describe the variations that these invariants develop in the concrete reality of speaking; however, not everybody conceives the concepts of invariant and variant in the same way. The purpose of this article is precisely to analyze how the concept of variant is interpreted in the different currents of modern synchronic and diachronic linguistics and the theoretical and practical foundations on which such interpretations are based.