Romance Languages Research Articles

Comparatives, Superlatives and Definiteness in Romance

Romance languages do not have superlative-dedicated morphemes (see most/-est in English) but instead express superlative meanings by using a comparative combined with a definite article. There are, however, interesting crosslinguistic differences that indicate that the role of “definiteness” for the superlative meaning of comparatives is different across Romance languages. Thus, French superlative adverbs and superlative postnominal adjectives are necessarily formed with (what looks like) a definite article (THE notates items that are morphologically identical to the definite article across languages) preceding the comparative morpheme plus (ER notates the comparative morpheme across languages, regardless of whether it is an affix or a free standing morpheme), whereas in the Italian corresponding examples THE is banned. According to Loccioni (2018) this crosslinguistic difference is not structural: in order to get superlative meanings Italian comparatives would be formed with a covert D(eterminer) corresponding to THE in French. I will propose instead that whereas French has a superlative-dedicated phrase of the form [THE ER], Italian has a “bare”, i.e., a THE-less ER that moreover lacks a than-argument, which gets a superlative meaning via raising to the Spec of [D°THE].

On the Relation Between Cross-Linguistic Influence, Between-Language Priming and Language Proficiency: Priming of Ungrammatical Adjective Placement in Bilingual Spanish-Dutch and French-Dutch Children.

After hearing a structure in one language, bilinguals are more likely to produce the same structure in their other language. Such between-language priming is often interpreted as evidence for shared syntactic representations between a bilingual's two languages and is positively related to proficiency. Recently, shared syntactic structures and structural priming have been invoked to explain cross-linguistic influence in bilingual children. This paper examines the relation between cross-linguistic influence, between-language priming and language proficiency. Almost all studies on between-language priming have focussed on grammatical structures. However, cross-linguistic influence has also been found to result in ungrammatical structures. In this study, we investigated whether ungrammatical adjective placement can be primed from a Germanic language to a Romance language and vice versa, and how to best account for any such priming. Furthermore, we examined the role of proficiency in explaining priming effects and whether this fits with an error-based learning account. Our results show that it is possible to prime ungrammatical structures, that this is lexically constrained, and that it is more likely to occur at lower levels of proficiency. We argue that the same mechanisms underlying grammatical priming can also explain our findings of ungrammatical priming.

Explicitation and the translation of English adjectival compounds into Romanian.

While English and other Germanic languages make extensive use of compounding as a means of expanding their lexicons, in Romanian and Romance languages, in general, compounding is merely a minor word formation process. For this reason, the translation of English compounds into Romanian is a challenging endeavour that usually involves the spelling out of syntactic and semantic information otherwise implicit in the original derivatives. Building on these ideas, the present paper explores the translation strategies employed to render deverbal -ed adjectival compounds into Romanian. It is shown that the typological differences between the two languages lead translators to adopt strategies which, to a large extent, entail obligatory explicitation (see Klaudy & Károly 2005, Klaudy 2003, 2009, 2017, Molés-Cases 2019, etc.), though cases of implicitation are not excluded.

El doblete correcto/correcho y sus derivados en la diacronía del español

Abstract Alongside the evolutionary phenomena that arose in the transition from Latin to Romance, there were educated reactions that rescued the original voices to accommodate them, with minor adjustments, to the systems of the Romance languages, at the same time as the patrimonial words, evolved from the same etymons, managed to stay in the spoken register and from there passed to the linguistic system. Such processes gave rise to the development of doublets in the language, pairs of duplicates that, from a common etymological base, gave different results, such as the one formed by the correcto/correcho pair, whose history and geographical distribution (with the exclusive presence of the patrimonial result correcho in the provinces of León and Asturias) itself illustrates phonological processes that, on occasion, go beyond the territorial boundaries established by historical grammars. The derivative adjective escorrecho is related to these words, which enjoyed remarkable vitality in the 13th century and began to decline later until it fell into oblivion, since the Dictionary of Authorities (1929) already defines it as an outdated term whose appearance in lexicographical works does not exceed the margins of the first half of the 19th century. The processes that led to these evolutions will be explained in the present study with the support of databases on Spanish and the main tools of our lexicographical tradition.

OBSERVAŢII ASUPRA LIMBII ROMÂNE. P. NEMOIANU, PĂRERILE UNUIA CARE N-A ÎNVĂŢAT LA ŞCOALA ROMÂN

In his study, the author aims to discuss the ideas regained from the lines of few microtexts documented in the pages of a brochure, named Limba românească. Părerea unuia care n-a învăţat la şcoala românescă [The Romanian language. Opinions of someone who didn’t study at a Romanian school] and published by the politician P. Nemoianu. The fragments he selected are primarily linguistic, choosing several topics concerning the condition and the nature of Romanian language during the interwar period. These linguistic notes, somehow subjective, were not discussed in specialized studies until now, which determined us to investigate them furthermore. The main purpose of the analysis is to see which were the options in acquiring the Romanian language and how it was perceived in relation with other cultural languages (Latin or French, for example), in the aforementioned period.

LIMBA FĂRĂ LOCUIRE. EMIL CIORAN ȘI EUGÈNE IONESCO: DOUĂ CAZURI DE EXIL LINGVISTIC

This study aims to investigate the exile of Eugène Ionesco and Emil Cioran as a function of the linguistic modifications that occurred in their writing when they abandoned their homeland and their mother tongue, revolutionizing the ethical and aesthetic paradigms of the universal literary landscape. Dealing with their own history and making the repressed past re-emerge have allowed these authors to interrogate the present in the new language acquired starting from the Romanian-speaking literary space. This has led to various phenomena: transformations in the field of creation, starting from the break with the Romanian language, a subjective re-articulation in the field of the foreign language, starting from the triple psychoanalytic arrangement of the imaginary, the symbolic and the real, and the invention of new individualities and styles of thinking.

Recursos digitales para el análisis del léxico de origen latino en las lenguas románicas

Within the framework of the CoToHiLi project (Computational Tools for Historical Linguistics), set up with the aim of providing computational tools for the research of linguistic change, we created a database containing the cognate chains from the main Romance languages. Starting from this database, we conducted experiments that test the machine’s ability to automatically detect cognate sets in any pair of Romance languages. We also explored the possibility of distinguishing semi-automatically between inherited and borrowed words in the Romance languages. The article describes the challenges of each experiment, the application of digital methods, as well as the importance of integrating linguistic data. We also propose an interpretation of the results.

The Evolution of Dependent Subjunctive in Romanian Language

Abstract We focused in this paper on the dependent use of subjunctive in different stages of Romanian language (from the 16th century to the 21st century). We discuss the elements that precede this verbal form and the semantic field they belong to (possibility, probability, certainty, knowledge etc.), some differences due to the evolution of Romanian language and the occurrence of subjunctive in some subordinate clauses.

Master’s Portrait: Eugeniu Coșeriu

Coșeriu approached the field of linguistics from a perspective of universality, something that few linguists could achieve in their lifetime. The perspective is due to the freedom of thought of the renowned linguist of Bessarabian origin, Coșeriu’s knowledge of classical languages, his global vision of language and its location at the center of human disciplines. With a good school at home (he is a graduate of the famous high school for boys “Ion Creangă” from Bălți), these qualities of the distinguished man of letters were cemented and asserted in Italy, Uruguay or Germany, places abroad where he practiced and deepened important research, which has not lost its relevance; on the contrary, whose value increases with the years. Coșeriu being rather a linguist of the future than of the present. The Cosherian concept of integral linguistics treats the discipline as a science of culture, placing speech before language, the former being much broader and more complex. Namely, the famous polemic with Saussure allowed Coșeriu to establish and substantiate the triad language – speech – norm, which he exemplarily illustrated with the help of European languages, but also with subtle analyzes of the Romanian language. The return to his homeland led him to actively support the fight of his compatriots for the triumph of scientific truth regarding the correct name of the language spoken by Moldovans: the Romanian language for the entire Carpatho-Danubian-Dniester space. The Coșeriu centenary brought to the attention of philologists the duty of studying the work in depth, translating it into popular languages, and last but not least, editing Coșeriu’s complete work.

IL CONTATTO LINGUISTICO SLAVO-ROMANZO ATTRAVERSO IL LESSICO CULINARIO ISTRIANO

The article presents the Slavic-Romanesque linguistic contact on the example of selected Istrian terms in the field of culinary used by speakers of the Slovene-Istrian dialect. The centuries-long contact of the Romance and Slavic language traditions in Istria has resulted in numerous interferences that enrich Istrian dialect speeches and languages, among which the culinary field, influenced by many nations, especially the presence of the Venetian Republic and the constant contacts of country people from Istrian villages with the city's Istrian-Venetian speaking population. In Istria, two different cultural, social and economic circles were formed – in the cities, based on the monopolistic influence of Venice and its policy, the Italian language prevailed, and in the patriarchal peasant environment, the Slavic population - closed and isolated - preserved its language and traditions. In addition to the aforementioned Istrian-Slovenian and Istrian-Venetian dialect, which is still preserved by rare autochthonous Romance natives and immigrants from other Croatian Istrian coastal towns, today's inhabitants of Slovenian Istria also speak literary or standard Slovenian and Italian and several languages - e.g., Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian, Macedonian, Albanian, etc. - or their dialect variants, which have been brought here by many immigrants since the middle of the last century. New languages and cultures are constantly influencing colloquial Slovenian and Italian, but so far, they have not changed the dialect of this part of Istria, where at least since the 7ᵗʰ century only the dialect of Romance origin in towns and the dialect of Slavic origin in the countryside on the other side have kept the authenticity.

Problema respectării drepturilor minoritîților naționale în activitățile politice ale reprezentanților ucrainenilor din Bucovina în anii 1928-1929

The death of King Ferdinand Ist and of the leader of the National Liberal Party I. I. C. Brătianu in 1927 laid the conditions for the change of power in Romania. The meeting in Alba-Iulia in May 1928 played an important role in the National Peasant Party coming to power, because the program of the party’s activities for the near future was announced there. After the government of I. Maniu came to power in November 1928, the representatives of the national minorities of Romania expected changes in the government's attitude towards the observance of the rights of national minorities, as well as the political regime liberalisation. The observance of the rights of national minorities for the Ukrainians of Bukovina was seen primarily in the return of the Ukrainian teaching language to the educational sphere adopted by the government. The resumption of activities was another issue after the abolition of the siege state in northern Bukovina, as well as Ukrainian educational societies, primarily the “Ruska Besida”, which performed tasks in educational activities through reading and amateur theatrical groups. The third issue, which should guarantee the implementation of the first two ones, was to obtain a sufficient number of seats in parliament for representatives of the Ukrainian community. From mid-October 1928 through February 1929, Ukrainian communities of Bukovina filed requests for teaching in Ukrainian. The newspaper “Chas” (Time) also dealt with this issue, publishing reports on the meeting of the communities. As a result, 199 applications were received with 30 thousand signatures, which gave the government grounds to talk about the possibility of introducing the corresponding number of teaching hours in schools of 139 communities. In general, the decision of the government in the field of teaching in the Ukrainian language was not made till December 1929 that caused concerns and statements from the Ukrainian side. Also, V. Zalozetskyi who was elected to the Senate in January 1929 made a statement about the loyalty of the Ukrainians of Bukovina to the authorities and motivated the need to introduce the Ukrainian language of teaching for Ukrainians. A number of statements concerning the need to study the state and Ukrainian languages in equal proportions was made by the communities. V. Zalozetskyi called the national consciousness of the Ukrainians of Bukovina not posing a threat to the Romanian statehood, but it could become a condition for preparing the intelligentsia for the future ‘non-Bolshevik Ukraine’. The restoration of the number of organizations of the “Ruska Besida” society led to the spread of the amateur theatre group activities. Such steps gave grounds, primarily to representatives of national liberals, to make statements about the demands of Ukrainians to remove the Romanian language from school. The active role in presenting the situation was played by the newspapers “Curentul” and “Universul”, describing the position and actions of national minorities too critically. In general, the Ukrainians turned out to be a very quiet minority comparing with the Hungarians’ protests and the situation in Dobrudja, although they were less organized to fight for the observance of their rights.

Grammatical gender correspondence between French, Greek, and Spanish nouns

Analyzing the extent to which grammatical gender corresponds between languages contributes to an understanding of language processing in the multilingual mind and guides teaching and learning methods. The present study provides a perspective on this by examining the bilingual and trilingual grammatical gender correspondence between nouns of two Romance languages, French and Spanish, and Greek. Here, correspondence refers to any combination of genders for nouns of the same meaning in translation. The samples considered comprise frequently spoken nouns, nouns of similar ending, and loan nouns of similar pronunciation. Computations involve Greek nouns in singular nominative with and without neuter, the latter to eliminate the handicap of two grammatical genders in French and Spanish compared to three genders in Greek. The results reveal that bilingual and trilingual feminine similarity is considerably greater than masculine similarity, and more so for loan nouns than for frequently spoken nouns. This is because Greek neuter corresponds primarily to French and Spanish masculine, owing mainly to neuter becoming masculine in modern Romance languages. A consideration of semantics with respect to abstractness and concreteness show that noun endings as well as semantics play a significant role in interlanguage gender correspondence between French, Greek, and Spanish.

The Literature Published at Balta­ ­Tiraspol (1932–May 1937)

Between 1932–1937, books in Romanian language and Latin script were printed in Tiraspol and Balta, in the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of Moldova /the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (aSSRM). New literature emerged, mostly produced by radically left-wing émigré Romanian intellectuals, and by a young generation of writers from the villages with Moldovan population. Previously, during the tsarist period, there were no publications in Romanian or institutions operating in this language. In our opinion, the literature of the aSSRM belongs to no one. Most authors were tried and murdered during the cruel purges of 1937–1938 (S. Lehtțir, D. Milev, L. Madan, P. Chior, N. Cabac and many others whose actual names are unknown). Some of the most fortunate were able to flee, others survived either because they were tolerated by the regime or for other unknown reasons (I. Canna, I.D. Ciobanu, L. Cornfeld, V. Galit, M. Oprea).
 Literary activity was centered around the journal “Octeabriu” which became “Octombrie” (“October”) in 1932. The books issued were edited by employees of the State Publishing House of Moldova, which had two printing houses in Balta and Tiraspol (the latter gained most importance after 1936).

A Comparison of Chinese and French Language Structures

The comparative study of two languages can have many angles, such as phonetic comparison, lexical comparison, semantic comparison, grammatical comparison and so on. Chinese and French are commonly used languages in the United Nations. Among them, French belongs to the Latin language family and is an independent language of the Romance language family of the European Indo-European language family; Chinese belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family and is one of the oldest scripts in the world with a history of more than 6,000 years. Among them, French belongs to phonograms, and Chinese belongs to ideograms, which means that there are big differences in the syntactic structure of the two languages. The author studied French systematically at the undergraduate level. When I first came into contact with the French language, the most intuitive feeling was the difference between pronunciation and vocabulary. This paper discusses the structural and phonetic differences between Chinese and French from five aspects: phonetics, inverse linearity and forward linearity, meaning and form, the concept of aspect, and subject and object.

Names of the romanian folk costume (District of Storozhynets, Chernivtsi Region)

Field research in the Storozhinet district, which includes the Romanian villages of Budenets, Cheresh, Chudei, Krasnoilsk, Izhivtsi, Nizhny and Verkhni Petrivtsi, as well as in the Hlybot district, in the village of Ropcha, convinced us that everywhere there is a special interest in preserving the Romanian language, names ancient folk clothing and Romanian culture in general by popularizing traditions and the Christian-Orthodox faith, which are the main components of spiritual identity, defining elements of Romanian identity not only in this zone, but also in other adjacent territories. The purpose of the article is to analyze the terminology related to folk clothing. The novelty of scientific research is due to the fact that the vocabulary for the designation of the Romanian folk costume in the valley of the Siret River is being studied for the first time. The relevance of the study is motivated by the need for an in-depth analysis of the terminology of traditional Romanian folk clothing from ethnographic, ethnological and ethnolinguistic points of view, which confirms the dynamics of the development of the Romanian language in Ukraine. Conclusion. So, after analyzing the specific terminology of the indicated ethnographic region, we came to the conclusion that language elements of Latin origin are the most productive. They testify that the investigated layer of vocabulary was formed a long time ago, and therefore reflects the mentality, linguistic and cultural features of the Romanians of Northern Bukovina, is part of their ethnographic and ethnolinguistic heritage.

Dimitrie Dan's life path

The article is dedicated to Dimitrii Dan (1856–1927), a well-known Bucovina priest, historian, ethnographer, folklorist, paleographer, collector of ancient historical documents and museum organizer, corresponding member of the Romanian Academy of Sciences. The purpose of scientific research is to study the life path of D. Dan on the basis of available historical sources. Such a study is relevant, since a full biography of the academician is not available in the Ukrainian scientific circulation. Its coverage in the most detailed form represents a scientific novelty. The method of the papper based on the study of archival documents, books and articles of D. Dan, memoir literature, periodicals and correspondence. Conclusions. Dimitrii Dan's life path is a synthesis of love for family and friends, for God and research. Great diligence, inquisitiveness and fruitfulness are characteristic of this path. How priest D. Dan took care of church affairs, explained the theological questions needed by clergymen, gave examples from the past of exploits of authoritative representatives of the clergy. As an ethnographer, he familiarized the reader with ethnogenesis, settlement, culture and daily life, inter-ethnic relations of ethnic groups of Bukovyna: Ruthenians (Ukrainians), Armenians, Jews, Lipovans, Gypsies. Folklore publications of Bukovyna and beyond eagerly awaited his collected songs, beliefs, proverbs, poems, legends, etc. His historical works, devoted to villages, monasteries, churches, personalities, were based on a various source base consisting of authentic historical documents, excellent knowledge of archeography and paleography. With his characteristic enthusiasm, he engaged in the protection of monuments and the organization of museums. D. Dan was always a patriot of his people, he cared about the development of the Romanian language, culture and history. As a member of the National Council, he took part in the General Unification Congress of Bukovyna, which took place in 1918 in Chernivtsi. His fruitful activity was noted by the church leadership, the community, the governments of Austria-Hungary and Romania. For his scientific activity, D. Dan received the title of corresponding member of the Romanian Academy of Sciences. Streets in Radivtsi and Suceava were named in his honor. Today, his work has again gained relevance in the scientific circles of Romania and Ukraine

Simplifying the theoretical treatment ofwagerverbs

AbstractSince at least Postal (1974.On raising. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press), English has been assumed to possess a class of verbs that does not syntactically tolerate an overt noun phrase in the “usual” subject position of an infinitival complement clause but will allow one if it has undergone passivization,Wh-formation, Heavy-NP Shift, etc. This class of verbs has been variously described as Derived Object Constraint (DOC) verbs (Postal, Paul. 1974.On raising. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, Postal, Paul. 1993. Some defective paradigms.Linguistic Inquiry24(2). 347–364), ECM-with-Focus verbs (Rooryck, Johan. 2000.Configurations of sentential complementation: Perspectives from Romance languages. London & New York: Routledge), andwager-class verbs (Pesetsky, David. 2019.Exfoliation: Towards a derivational theory of clause size. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Unpublished ms., Version 2.0.http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/004440(accessed 26 April 2022)). Based on the author’s own judgments, supplemented by the results of an acceptability survey conducted at an American university, this paper makes the novel claim that an English verb class with these grammatical properties does not exist, a finding that significantly reduces the inventory of grammatical mechanisms needed to account for complementation types generally. In addition, this paper develops new accounts of two distributional characteristics of thewagerverbs that certain other Raising to Object (RO)/Exceptional Case Marking (ECM) verbs do not exhibit. First, infinitival complements towagerverbs are argued to be aspectually linked to the matrix verb, while those ofpredict-type verbs are not. This explains a well-known stative restriction on complements to this verb class, which includesbelieve. Second, judgments of unacceptability previously attributed to Postal’s DOC or its counterpart in other theories are argued to result from three pragmatic usage preferences involving register and atypical degree that are encoded by the selection of the marked RO option with this verb class, preferences that play out differently forbelieveas opposed towagerverbs.

Knit is a Four-Letter Word

This paper explores the language of knit as a key influence on its status as an artform and craft. The basic nature of the language used in knitting is so commonplace, so entrenched in our language at large, that it leads to distinct associations with everydayness that knit can struggle to overcome, often leading knit to be considered “only” a simple craft. We find that the skills needed for knitting are disassociated with the value of knitting as skill and cultural presence. From dismissive language aimed at the knitter to cultural significance throughout history from metaphor to online neologisms this paper explores the relationship knitting has had with both creating and being shaped by language. Historical linguistics associates a range of “higher” crafts with imported Romance language words, whereas the “lower” craft status of knit is echoed by its use in in the English language (and elsewhere) where simple, domestic words are used. The historical and cultural reckoning of knit, and the language that perpetuated these attitudes today, has influenced perception consciously and subconsciously. With new terminology heralding knit as an evolving, person-centred community that is driving the subject forward. Knit, in its own terms, has many a yarn to tell.

Coromines, colós de l'etimologia

This article emphasizes the contribution of Joan Coromines to the Catalan and Romance dialectology. The foundations of his etymology are documentation, dialectal information and data of all Romance languages. Coromines, apart from enriching the Catalan lexicon with new lexical items, has made a lot of new contributions in the field of research on substratum, arabisms, hellenisms and on catalanisms in Spanish.Keywords: Romance linguistics, etymology, lexicography, dialectology.

Romanizing Chinese: word–tone relations in Athanasius Kircher’s China illustrata

Abstract When Matteo Ricci and the Jesuit missionaries landed in China in the late 16th century, they heard a language they could not readily reproduce in their own tongue. Unlike Latin and the Romance languages, Chinese is a tone language, in which the meaning of a word varies according to its relative pitch level. In order to Romanize Chinese, the Jesuits applied their knowledge of music theory and assigned solmization syllables to the Chinese tones. Although their manuscript musical dictionary remains lost, the essence of it is preserved in print in the most widely disseminated treatise on China of the time: China illustrata (1667), by the Jesuit polymath Athanasius Kircher. To date, sinologists have generally dismissed Kircher’s musical Chinese as unintelligible. Musicologists, meanwhile, having long poured over Kircher’s Musurgia universalis (1650), have yet to offer a detailed critique of China illustrata. In reapproaching this singular source in Sino-Western history, this article argues that the Jesuits’ musical representation of the Chinese language should not be rejected a priori. Kircher’s cryptic description of Chinese can, in fact, be clarified by a letter from Beijing in which a Jesuit spelled out the Chinese tones in musical staff notation. A musical analysis of the lead illustration in China illustrata—the Nestorian Stele of Xi’an—indicates that the Jesuits’ solmizations were closer approximations of Chinese than one might assume. Off-tone though it might at first appear, China illustrata is a valuable record of how the Jesuits Romanized Chinese.