The relationship between use and perception: the case of Catalan variants of a subject coreferential with an antecedent

Abstract

In this paper, we analyse the relationship between use and perception of five Catalan variants of the variable subject co-referential with an antecedent.This will be done by examining the results of a cloze test and three perception surveys answered in 1997 by 26 respondents. Two different correct constructions were then presented as correct answers in the exercise, which were also evaluated in terms of to what extent the subjects used them and how they felt about their grammaticality and their stylistic distribution. Three more variants were also evaluated in the same surveys. The result is that there is general agreement on the stylistic distribution of three variants, ranging from colloquial to formal situations, regardless to what extent the five variants are used.