The Convertor Status of Article of Case and Number in the Romanian Language

Abstract

This study represents a research on the grammar of the contemporary Romanian language. It proposes a discussion regarding the identification of the flective-relateme as an expression of the grammatical category of the case (seen as a relational category) of Romanian common nouns with definite and indefinite articles when they occupy a structural position of the part of sentence and syntactic function type, in the absence of prepositions or prepositional phrases. In the Romanian language, the noun, as a Ts, can be subordinated to a Tr only through two subtypes of relateme, which are in a relation of logical disjunction: preposition-relateme vs flective-relateme. A common noun, whether nondetermined or determined (definite or indefinite), may materialize either a monomorphematic flective, in which case the flective-relateme can be of the desinence type or of the definite determinative article type, or a bimorphematic flective. In the latter situation, accepting the phenomenon of syncretism and redundancy in the Romanian language, it becomes clear that common grammatical categories, number and case, are materialized alike in both flectional subunits, making it difficult to delimit the expression unit of the flective-relateme: the desinence or the determinative article. Once we accept the principle of the monosubordination of syntactic functions and the much higher case functionality of the flective of the determinative article type compared to desinence, we may conclude that the determinative article becomes a flective-relateme.