In contrast to the frequent claim that the Spanish verb preveer (‘foresee’) is originated in the mistaken combination of prever and proveer (‘provide’), this research holds the hypothesis that preveer is a variant that has existed along the history of Spanish, competing with prever. It also claims that preveer only started to be proscribed in formal Spanish after the publication of the Diccionario de autoridades (1726-1739). The authors substantiate this hypothesis with two main facts: (a) all Spanish dictionaries prior to 1726 show the word preveer and not prever, which just appears in the first dictionary published by the Real Academia Española, and it is reproduced in later lexicographic works; (b) the analysis of the historical registers of Spanish carried out in the Corpus diacrónico del español (CORDE) shows written occurrences of both forms, prever and preveer. Prever does not become the privileged variant until the mid-18th century, date that coincides with the publication of the Diccionario de autoridades.
Keywords:
History of Spanish, Lexicography, Preveer, prever (foresee), Diccionario de autoridades
González Vergara, C., Cabezón Droguett, T., & Toro Varela, F. (2018). Prever and preveer: a tale of two words. Boletín De Filología, 52(2), pp. 99–118. Retrieved from https://revistaestudiosarabes.uchile.cl/index.php/BDF/article/view/48598
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