Allomorphy and syncretism are both deviations from the one-to-one relationship between form and meaning inside the linguistic sign as postulated by Saussure as well as from the ideal of inflectional morphology as stipulated in the canonical approach by Corbett. Instances of both phenomena are well documented in all Romance languages. In inflection, allomorphy refers to the use of more than one root/stem in the paradigm of a single lexeme or to the existence of more than one inflectional affix for the same function. Syncretism describes the existence of identical forms with different functions in one and the same paradigm.
Verbs exhibiting stem allomorphy are traditionally called irregular, a label that describes the existence of unexpected and, sometimes, unpredictable forms from a learner’s perspective. Extreme forms of allomorphy are called suppletion, for which traditional accounts require two or more etymologically unrelated roots/stems to coexist within the paradigm of a single lexeme. Allomorphy often originates in sound change affecting only stems in a certain phonological environment. When the phonological conditioning of the stem allomorph disappears, which is frequently the case, its distribution within the paradigm may become purely morphological, thus constituting a morphome in the sense of Aronoff.
Recurrent patterns of syncretism may also be considered morphomes. Whereas syncretism was quite rare in Latin verb morphology, Romance languages feature it to much greater, if different, degrees. In extreme cases, syncretism patterns become paradigm-structuring in many Gallo-Romance varieties, as is the case in the verb morphology of standard French, where almost all forms are syncretic with at least one other.
Article
Allomorphy and Syncretism in the Romance Languages
Marc-Olivier Hinzelin
Article
Case Markers in Indo-Aryan
Miriam Butt
Indo-Aryan languages have the longest documented historical record, with the earliest attested texts going back to 1900 bce. Old Indo-Aryan (Vedic, Sanskrit) had an inflectional case-marking system where nominatives functioned as subjects. Objects could be realized via several different case markers (depending on semantic and structural factors), but not the nominative. This inflectional system was lost over the course of several centuries during Middle Indo-Aryan, resulting in just a nominative–oblique inflectional distinction. The New Indo-Aryan languages innovated case markers and developed new case-marking systems. Like in Old Indo-Aryan, case is systematically used to express semantic differences via differential object marking constructions. However, unlike in Old Indo-Aryan, many of the New Indo-Aryan languages are ergative and all allow for non-nominative subjects, most prominently for experiencer subjects. Objects, on the other hand, can now also be unmarked (nominative), usually participating in differential object marking. The case-marking patterns within New Indo-Aryan and across time have given rise to a number of debates and analyses. The most prominent of these include issues of case alignment and language change, the distribution of ergative vs. accusative vs. nominative case, and discussions of markedness and differential case marking.
Article
The Early History of Romance Palatalizations
Marcello Barbato
Strictly speaking, palatalization is a phonetic process of assimilation which can generate new palatal phonemes. However, in Romance linguistics, the term is traditionally used to describe any evolution (1) of velar stops preceding a front vowel, (2) of the palatal approximant (also known as “yod”) and clusters involving yod. Therefore, not only does “Romance palatalization” involve a segment which is already palatal, [j], but the result is also not always a palatal consonant: Sometimes it is a dental/alveolar (firstly an affricate, then in some cases a fricative).
The article proposes a two-phase chronology for the early Romance palatalization, with the first phase affecting /kj/, /tj/ and in some cases /k/ and /g/ before front vowels, while the second phase affects other clusters involving /j/. It also draws a distinction between the varieties which show palatalization of velar consonants before front vowels (western Romània, central Italy) and varieties which do not show it or only show it at a late stage (Sardinia, southern Italy, the Balkans).
The Romance data confirm some trends identified in typological literature and in some cases enable more precise descriptions. The consonants most susceptible to palatalization are: regarding the manner of articulation, stops (the most resistant are rhotics); regarding the place of articulation, velars (labials are the most resistant). Geminate segments are also more susceptible to palatalization.
Article
Major Isoglosses in Romània
Marcello Barbato
An isogloss is defined as a line that divides two areas in which a single feature has distinct values. The features apply to all linguistic levels and can be synchronic or diachronic. In Romance studies, isoglosses are generally traced on the basis of phonological and diachronic features. Very early on it was observed that, depending on the feature selected, different zones were outlined (noncoincidence of isoglosses). From this arose skepticism with respect to the possibility of delineating dialect groups. It was noted, however, that isoglosses often follow a trend that is at least parallel, if not coinciding (isogloss bundles). Research has therefore recognized the existence of dialect boundaries and has continued to investigate the correlation between these boundaries and physical or cultural ones.
The isogloss is a problematic instrument for several aspects: It imposes a two-dimensional representation of linguistic reality that leaves no space for vertical variation (diastratic, diaphasic). Moreover, varieties do not always demonstrate a juxtaposition that can be represented by an isogloss (e.g., linguistic enclaves or bilingual areas). A further question is whether it is necessary to establish a hierarchy of isoglosses (phonological, morphological, lexical, etc.). Despite these issues, the isogloss remains a fundamental instrument for linguistic geography.
The major isogloss bundles distinguish dialect groups: Sardinian, Romanian, Galician-Portuguese, Astur-Leonese, Castilian, Navarro-Aragonese, Catalan, Gascon, Occitanic, French, Alpine Romance, Cisalpine Romance, and Italian. For each bundle, the article attempts to determine whether and how it has changed over time, and what the possible cultural correlations of this might be.
Article
Morphologically ‘Autonomous’ Structures in the Romance Languages
Paul O'Neill
This contribution analyses morphologically autonomous structures within the context of the Romance languages, the family of languages which, along with Latin, have most served as an evidence base for these structures. Autonomous morphological structures are defined as an abstract representation of paradigmatic cells which form a cohesive group and reliably share exponents with each other, and the forms which realize them, are thus to a large extent interpredictable. In this contribution, I restrict my discussion to the most canonical type of these structures and those which have sparked the most controversy in the linguistic literature. I analyze this controversy and suggest that it is due to (a) their overlapping meaning with the term morphome, a concept which embodies an empirical claim about all morphology and (b) the controversy surrounding what morphology actually is and the basic units of morphological analysis and storage. I make a distinction between abstractive and constructive models of morphology and suggest that historical tendencies within the latter encourage scholars to view morphologically autonomous structures either as not synchronically relevant or as phonologically or semantically derivable due to their theoretical assumptions about the nature of language and the mental storage of words. These assumptions constitute the horizons of intelligibility of such models regarding the functioning of language and its governing principles, including outdated ideas of the capacity of mental storage. Unfortunately, however, the different theories furnish scholars with an expansive array of devices through which they can seemingly explain away the synchronic generalizations of the data while relegating the most recalcitrant data to the domain of memorized forms which are not relevant to the grammar. I present evidence in favor of the psychological reality of morphologically autonomous structures in diachrony and I argue that synchronically, these structures are necessary to explain the distribution of the data and capture the fact that speakers do not memorize every inflectional form of a paradigm but rely on patterns of predictability and implicational relationships between forms. It is my suggestion that morphologically autonomous structures encourage a revaluation of the basic units of memorization and the structure of the lexicon in accordance with abstractive theories of morphology.
Article
History of the Raeto-Romance Lexicon
Matthias Grünert
The Raeto-Romance varieties, which are spoken in noncontiguous areas reaching from the Grison Alps in Switzerland to the Italian Adriatic coast near the Slovenian border, are characterized by considerable differences from one another at the lexical level. Hence, when describing the Raeto-Romance lexicon, it is important to pay particular attention to which lexical types occur in which main varieties (i.e., in Romansh of Grisons, Dolomitic Ladin and Friulian, secondarily also in subvarieties).
The mentioned spatial perspective intersects the chronological perspective that aims at presenting the components of different origin entering the Raeto-Romance varieties in different periods. The pre-Roman lexicon is of rather small extent and contains especially terms of flora, fauna, terrain, farming, tools, and equipment. Within the Latin stratum, the lexicon inherited from late Latin, Romance formations (on the basis of elements of Latin origin) and borrowings from Latin have to be distinguished. All Raeto-Romance varieties have numerous borrowings from Germanic varieties. Early Germanic elements already entered late Latin and are present in Raeto-Romance as well as in the neighboring Romance varieties. Borrowings taking place in different periods of the Middle Ages and the Modern Era as well as borrowings from different regional varieties of German are often marked phonetically. Romansh of Grisons has borrowings from Alemannic dialects; however, its most eastern varieties are also characterized by borrowings from Tyrolean, which belongs to the Bavarian dialects. Dolomitic Ladin has been exposed to the influence of Tyrolean. In Friuli, there was a period of German influence from the Bavarian area in the Middle Ages, followed by a period of orientation toward Venetan, and later toward Italian as well. In Grisons and in the Dolomites, the influence of Italian dialects and Italian characterizes to a higher degree the southern varieties (i.e., Vallader and Puter, subsumed in Engadinese [Grisons], as well as Fascian, Fodom, and Anpezan [Dolomites]). In contrast, more numerous borrowings from German distinguish the northern varieties (i.e., Surselvan, Sutselvan, and Surmiran [Grisons] as well as Badiot and Gardenese [Dolomites]). A component characterizing exclusively Friulian is a borrowing from neighboring Slovene.
Article
Peculiarities of Romanian Word-Formation
Maria Grossmann
Romanian has features which distinguish it from other Romance languages. These can be attributed to its geographical location on the periphery of the Romance area, and to its having evolved independently and through contact with different languages. Until the early decades of the 19th century, loans and calques based on Slav(on)ic, Hungarian, Turkish, and Greek models influenced Romanian in several respects, including its word-formation patterns. Subsequent enrichment by means of numerous loans and calques from French, Italian, and (Neo-)Latin has been an important force in the re-Romanization and modernization of Romanian. In recent decades English word-formation models have also exercised a strong influence. The wide range of etymological sources and their historical stratification have meant that Romanian has a much richer inventory of affixes and allomorphs than other Romance languages. The possibility of combining bases and affixes entering Romanian from different sources at different periods and related to different registers has been exploited to create nonce formations with ironic connotations and greater expressivity. Of all Romance languages, Romanian is certainly the most interesting for the study of borrowing of affixes and of word-formation patterns.
The most important characteristics distinguishing Romanian from other Romance languages are: the limited productivity of the V-N compounding pattern; the formation of compound numerals; the high number of prefixes, suffixes, and their allomorphs; the presence of a complex system of morphophonological alternations in suffixation; the many gender-marking suffixes; and the systematic and prevalent recourse to -re suffixation and to conversion of the supine to form action nouns, and to adjective conversion to form adverbs.
Article
Central-Southern Italo-Romance
Alessandro De Angelis
Although respective Central (= CIDs) and Southern (= SIDs) Italo-Romance dialects display peculiar linguistic features, they also share a substantial number of common isoglosses such that they can be classified as two subdivisions of the same geolinguistic unit. Some of these are simply represented by the absence of Tuscan features, such as diphthongization in open syllable or anaphonesis. Other features are idiosyncratic and are discussed within the main body of this article, such as: (a) the different types of vowel systems; (b) the two main patterns of metaphony; (c) propagation; (d) phonosyntactic doubling that is not sensitive to stress. Regarding the morphological phenomena present in these varieties, the encliticization of possessives and the loss of both of the future indicative and the present subjunctive will be discussed. With regard to (morpho)syntax, these varieties are known for: (a) the rise of a mass neuter (neo-neuter) class of nouns; (b) an alternating gender value; (c) the extensive use of a dedicated marker to encode the accusative case in highly referential nouns; (d) dual complementizer systems; (e) split intransitivity in auxiliary systems; (f) extensive participial agreement (as well as similar agreement in manner adjectives); and, (g) pseudo-coordination, among other notable phenomena.
Article
Partitive Articles in the Romance Languages
Anne Carlier and Béatrice Lamiroy
Partitive articles raise several research questions. First, whereas a vast majority of the world’s languages do not have articles at all, and only some have a definite article as well as an indefinite article for singular count nouns, why did some Romance languages develop an article for indefinite plural nouns (Fr
des hommes
art.indf.m.pl man:pl ‘men’) and singular mass or abstract nouns (It
del vino
art.indf.m.sg wine ‘wine’, Fr
du bonheur
art.indf.m.sg happiness ‘happiness’)? Secondly, unlike the definite article and the indefinite singular article, whose source is already a determiner (or pronoun), that is, the distal demonstrative and the unity numeral respectively, the partitive article derives from a preposition contracted with the definite article. How did the Latin preposition de grammaticalize into an article? And why was the grammaticalization process completed in French, but not in Italian? Thirdly, given that the source of the partitive article was available for all Romance languages, since some form of partitive construction was already attested in Late Latin, why did the process not take place in Rumanian and the Ibero-Romance languages?
Article
Romance in Contact With Slavic in Central and Eastern Europe
Walter Breu
Romance–Slavic language contact in Central and Eastern Europe occurs in both directions of contact-induced change with Romance varieties as donor and as recipient languages. Latin influence on learned and cultural vocabulary, including derivation, occurred during the Middle Ages and early Modern Age, partly mediated by German. Italian and French played an important role as source languages for lexical borrowings in Czech, Sorbian, Polish, and Russian, although often restricted to special semantic fields such as cooking and music in the case of Italian. Romance loans in Slavic include internationalisms, whose exact provenience is difficult to determine, often with the possibility of multiple borrowing.
As for Russian (and Polish), French contributed to a considerable extent to the development of the standard language at all levels, due to a high degree of bilingualism, characterizing the Russian aristocracy of the 18th and 19th centuries, even with French as their first language. In contrast, Russian, less so Polish, influenced Romance languages by means of a relatively small number of lexical items referring to the Slavic world and its cultural peculiarities and—after World War I—to the Soviet reality.
Romance lexical items have, in general, been integrated into the existent grammatical systems of the recipient languages. The integration of foreign loans in Slavic was mainly based on formal principles such as final vowels and consonants of the nouns fitting to the traditional genders and declensions, with the gender of the source word itself playing only a secondary role. The Latin neuter gender was either replaced or it led to innovative paradigms. In contrast, the Slavic neuter served to integrate masculine nouns with incompatible endings. In the case of borrowed verbs, special integration suffixes developed.
A special case is Romanian (including Moldovan), due to its direct contact with Slavic, spoken by people of its direct neighborhood, in part even forming linguistic enclaves. Contact with Ukrainian has been strongest since the Middle Ages in the northeastern parts of the Romanian language area. In general, influences are found in both directions: Romanian was an important source for shepherd and farming terminology, which is true also for Polish, Slovak, and even Moravian Czech as recipient languages. In contrast, Ukrainian as a donor language contributed to Romanian everyday vocabulary, especially in (Russian and independent) Moldova and the adjacent part of Ukraine. North-Slavic enclaves with strong Romanian influence also beyond the lexicon are of Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, and Czech origin. In grammar, Romanian influence has become visible here, for example, in the development of an analytical system of comparison, including a borrowed comparator.
In contrast to the ancient Romanian–Bulgarian symbiosis in the southeast, the substrate type of language contact has played only a marginal role in Central and Eastern Europe, restricted, by and large, to the French-speaking aristocracy in Russia and to some Romanian–Ukrainian contact areas. So, the adstrate type has clearly prevailed, partially in the form of the special subtype of a (cultural) superstrate.
