The definite article with personal names in Romance languages

Abstract

This paper examines the factors that motivate the occurrence of the definite article with personal names in Romance languages from a synchronic and diachronic perspective. The Romance languages selected are Asturian, Catalan, French, Galician, Italian, Occitan, Portuguese, Romanian, Sardinian, Spanish, and Sursilvan. It will be demonstrated that a differentiation of semantic definite contexts in terms of dimensions of knowledge contributes to a better understanding of the use of definite article with famous and ordinary names. The definite article is employed with famous and ordinary names in Balearic Catalan, Galician, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, European Portuguese, and Sursilvan. The definite article is restricted to famous names in Asturian, French, Sardinian, and Spanish while it is restricted to ordinary names in Central Catalan as well as in non-standard varieties of French, Italian, and Spanish. In Romanian, personal names lack the definite article. In addition, the occurrence of the definite article can be triggered by semantic-pragmatic, lexical, morphosyntactic, phonological, and sociolinguistic factors. In French and Spanish, the absence of the definite article with ordinary names is related to a Standard Average European feature. By contrast, in Romanian, the absence of the definite article with personal names resulted from deflection.