Abstract
This paper focuses on Istro-Romanian and argues that the TAM auxiliaries of this variety are not morphophonological clitics. This analysis is supported by the existence of several empirical phenomena (auxiliary-licensed VP-ellipsis, scrambling, and interpolation), some not found in modern Romance, others very rare in modern Romance. This property of Istro-Romanian auxiliary verbs accounts, in conjunction with other features of this variety (e.g., the availability of C-oriented and I-oriented pronominal clitics), for the massive variation in the word order of pronominal clitics, auxiliaries, and the lexical verb found in the Istro-Romanian sentential core. An endangered Romance variety spoken in Istria and in the diaspora, historically related to (Daco-)Romanian, Istro-Romanian has been in contact with Croatian since the settlement of Istro-Romanians in the Istrian peninsula. As some of the Istro-Romanian features and phenomena are found both in Croatian and in old Romanian, it appears that contact with Croatian acts as a catalyst of structural convergence engendering the retention of an archaic property of Istro-Romanian auxiliaries: a lower position on the grammaticalization cline, closer to the full word status of their etyma.
Highlights
Considered to be one of the sub-Danubian “historical dialects” of Romanian, Istro-Romanian1 displays two tendencies in its syntax: (i) on the one hand, Istro-Romanian displays a series of Romance archaic features, found in old Romanian; (ii) on the other, we observe the influence on the syntax of Istro-Romanian of Croatian2 and, to a much more limited extent, of Northern Italian dialects, Croatian–Istro-Romanian bilingualism being the norm in the area
The existence of low(er) verb movement is directly relevant to our argumentation: it is a property which directly correlates with the availability of auxiliary-licensed VP-ellipsis, which, in its turn, acts in correlation with non-clitic auxiliaries
Putting aside the issue of what the correct formal analysis of the Croatian data is, what we unequivocally observe is the existence of surface string-identity: identical word order phenomena are found in old Romanian, Istro-Romanian
Summary
Istro-Romanian is an endangered Romance variety spoken in Istria, Croatia, with about 200 speakers at present (cf. Filipi 2002; Vrzić and Doričić 2014), plus émigré speakers in the New York area (Maiden 2016, p. 91). Istro-Romanian is an endangered Romance variety spoken in Istria, Croatia, with about 200 speakers at present (cf Filipi 2002; Vrzić and Doričić 2014), plus émigré speakers in the New York area Considered to be one of the sub-Danubian “historical dialects” of Romanian (alongside Aromanian and MeglenoRomanian), Istro-Romanian displays two tendencies in its syntax: (i) on the one hand, Istro-Romanian displays a series of Romance archaic features, found in old Romanian (which have been taken to mirror the shape of the language at the moment of the dialectal split, presumed to have finished around the 14th century); (ii) on the other, we observe the influence on the syntax of Istro-Romanian of Croatian (see Kovačec 1966, 1968) and, to a much more limited extent, of Northern Italian dialects, Croatian–Istro-Romanian bilingualism being the norm in the area. Istro-Romanian is not available at present, there exist partial descriptions of this linguistic dialect The dialectal split took place prior to the earliest written attestations of Romanian
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