This study explores the origin and evolution of the expression of regret lo siento as a conventionalized apology strategy, which has become highly recurrent and routinized in present-day Peninsular Spanish.
Drawing on a systematic search of the Corpus Diacrónico del Español (CORDE) and adopting a usage-based approach, the author seeks to identify the extra- and intralinguistic factors that fostered the conventionalization of expressions of regret throughout the history.