Indefiniteness in Francoprovençal. A Real Bare de? New Hints from the Consonantal Liaison

Abstract

In Romance languages the indefinite articles are generally the result of prepositions + determiners (P + D) contraction, de + definite Article, combined with nominals within indefinite Determiners Phrases (DPs). However, some Romance languages show bare articles or bare nouns vs. explicit articles. Thus, Romance languages show asymmetry and competition between cover determiners and bare nouns. All Gallo–Romance varieties have undergone a grammaticalization process, which turns a prepositional phrase (de‑P PP) into a Determiner Phrase (de‑D DP). In this article we focus on the expression of indefiniteness in Francoprovençal (a Gallo–Romance language), sketching the existence of a sub–grammar for its indefinite markers. The Francoprovençal indefinite articles do not seem to have undergone the fusion of the article and the preposition (as in French du ‘some’), but its indefiniteness appears to come from the preposition alone de. A consonantal liaison contributes to the morphosyntactic indefiniteness inside the Francoprovençal DP. Yet, the preposition de ‘of’ without articles, is categorized as D°, a functional marker of indefiniteness. Crucially, the latent liaison consonant is not the result of a contraction of P + Article, but it is issued from two contracted Latin prepositions (P + P).