Pushing the envelope: Looking beyond the variable context

Abstract However the variable context is defined, it is standard variationist practice to exclude tokens outside this context from further quantitative analyses. The role of occurrences of forms in contexts that lie outside the shared space of grammaticizing constructions in variation, ranging from highly infrequent occurrences to vast and diverse territories, has yet to be adequately explored. Spanish Synthetic Future (SF) in epistemic contexts does not overlap functionally with Spanish Periphrastic Future (PF). Four Goldvarb analyses of SF-PF variation since 1600, alongside quantitative analysis of epistemic SF, reveal an intimate relationship. Beyond a parallel rise in frequency of PF and epistemic SF, a connection between epistemic SF patterns and SF-PF variation is found in shifts in relative magnitudes of effect. It is argued that quantitative analysis of frequently occurring contexts that fall outside the envelope of variation may provide valuable explanatory insight regarding diachronic shifts within the variable context.