This article examines the reduction of syntactic options
in South Texas Spanish narrative discourse during the nineteenth
century. I argue that nineteenth-century Texas Spanish
made ample use of the absolute construction as an orientation
strategy in narrative discourse. In the beginning of the
century the absolute construction appeared quite frequently
in the narratives analyzed, but by the turn of the century
the construction had become virtually unknown. I argue
that the loss was actualized through a series of reductive
changes that were played out in the internal and external
syntax of the construction. These reductive changes, I
suggest, not only cut across stylistic boundaries, but
also corresponded with social changes under way with the
incorporation of the region into the United States. The
notion of “historical generation,” as it has
emerged in social theory, is invoked as a significant social
variable in relation to the linguistic variation and change
observed.