Abstract In this paper, we examine the grammatical status of el que in Spanish prepositional relative clauses (el lugar en el que vivo) [the place where I live] from a variationist perspective of the theory of grammaticalization. At least from the nineteenth century onwards, several authors have defended the nature of el que as a compound relative pronoun, even if these forms continue alternating today with others without the article [el lugar en que vivo], in contrast to el cual, a fully grammaticalized relative since the late fifteenth century. Based on a 3,200,000 word corpus of immediacy text (mainly private letters), we test the hypothesis of el que being a case of grammaticalization in progress from a variationist point of view, examining in depth what happens inside the grammar and the socio-stylistic matrix in different periods of history, from 1700 to 1960. The idea underlying this approach is that the structure of changes as well as the grammaticalization in progress can be inferred from the comparative analysis between different quantitative magnitudes of functionally similar variants. To do so, we have performed three independent mixed-effects regression analyses (Rbrul), one for each century. The results of these comparative analyses confirm the progression of el que in prepositional subordinate clauses between the early eighteenth century and the first half of the twentieth. Yet, this progression has taken place at a slow pace and, objectively, can only be described as moderate. Moreover, a number of elements of continuity in history are revealed, such as several conditioning factors that are systematically selected and with the same explanatory direction in all periods. This casts serious doubt on the existence of a grammaticalization in progress in the case of el que, and sees the evolution as not essentially different from other morphosyntactic changes that have taken place in the history of Spanish.

中文翻译：

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在进行语法化的过程中：que是否已成为西班牙介词关系从句历史上的复合相对代词？

摘要在本文中，我们从语法化理论的变异主义角度考察了西班牙语介词从句（el lugar en el que vivo）[我居住的地方]中的语法的语法地位。至少从19世纪开始，有几位作者捍卫了el que作为复合相对代词的性质，即使这些形式在今天继续与其他没有代词的文章交替出现，与el cual相比，自十五世纪末以来，完全语法化的亲属。基于即时文本（主要是私人字母）的320万个单词语料库，我们从变异论的角度检验了el que的假设是否正在进行语法化，并深入研究了语法内部和社会风格矩阵中的情况在不同的历史时期 从1700年到1960年。这种方法的基本思想是，可以从功能相似变体的不同定量大小之间的比较分析中推断出变化的结构以及进行中的语法化。为此，我们执行了三个独立的混合效应回归分析（Rbrul），每个世纪进行一次。这些比较分析的结果证实了介词从句从属词在18世纪初至20世纪上半叶之间的发展。但是，这种进展速度缓慢，客观上只能描述为中等程度。此外，还揭示了历史连续性的许多要素，例如系统选择的几个条件因素，并且在所有时期都具有相同的解释方向。