Dialectal Variation in a Nineteenth-Century Catalan Grammar Corpus

One of the main objectives currently developed by the LEXDIALGRAM project is the creation of a grammar corpus obtained from digitizing Catalan dialect works that were written during the nineteenth century. Digitized materials are included in an internet web-portal (http://www.ub.edu/lexdialgram/) in order to promote their access and dissemination. Currently eight grammars and two orthographies corresponding to the Valencian, Majorcan, Menorcan, Algherese and Rossellonés varieties are included. The texts were processed using a computer tool that has facilitated access to materials through simple and complex queries. Computerization has helped to develop studies based on the analysis of dialectal language variation, from both a synchronic and diachronic viewpoint. The corpus allows us to develop sociolinguistic analysis and issues arising from language contact, since in many cases the works are bilingual or trilingual. This paper is divided into two parts: the first describes the corpus and the computer tool used to process the Catalan grammars; the second examines two grammatical phenomena. Altogether, it is a sample of the potential of this data as a resource to describe linguistic variety in an area and in a given time period, and the possibility of accomplishing comparative dialectal studies.