Comparative and Diachronic Perspectives on Romance Syntax

Comparative and Diachronic Perspectives on Romance Syntax
Author: Gabriela Pană Dindelegan
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 463
Release: 2018-04-18
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1527509494

Download Comparative and Diachronic Perspectives on Romance Syntax Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

The volume brings together fifteen papers focusing on the morphosyntax of different Romance varieties. It is based on papers presented at the workshop bearing the same title held at the University of Bucharest in November 2015 and is dedicated to Professor Martin Maiden of the University of Oxford in honour of his 60th birthday. The contributions tackle different theoretical issues concerning current linguistic theory (relevant both for comparative and diachronic approaches), including parameters, features and their hierarchical organization, word order changes, the level of verb movement in different varieties, inflected infinitives, clitic placement and clitic doubling, ethical datives, and personal subject pronouns, among others. As such, the volume represents diverse theoretical approaches to addressing a number of key morphological and syntactic issues in the morphosyntactic development of the Romance languages, drawing on modern research methods and current linguistic theory, with a clear preference for parametric syntax. The most significant areas of grammar are well-represented here. The volume will appeal to advanced graduate and postgraduate students in diachronic linguistics, theoretical linguistics, and Romance linguistics, as well as researchers in the fields of historical and typological linguistics, morphosyntactic theory, and the history of the Romance languages.

Romance Syntax

Romance Syntax
Author: Martin Harris
Publisher:
Total Pages: 120
Release: 1976
Genre: Romance languages
ISBN:

Download Romance Syntax Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Variation and Change in Gallo-Romance Grammar

Variation and Change in Gallo-Romance Grammar
Author: Sam Wolfe
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 480
Release: 2020-05-07
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0192576534

Download Variation and Change in Gallo-Romance Grammar Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

This volume offers a wide-range of case studies on variation and change in the sub-family of the Romance languages that includes French and Occitan: Gallo-Romance. Both standard and non-standard Gallo-Romance data can be of enormous value to studies of morphosyntactic variation and change, yet, as the volume demonstrates, non-standard and comparative Gallo-Romance data have often been lacking in both synchronic and diachronic studies. Following an introduction that sets out the conceptual background, the volume is divided into three parts whose chapters explore a variety of topics in the domains of sentence structure, the verb complex, and word structure. The empirical foundation of the volume is exceptionally rich, drawing on standard and non-standard data from French, Occitan, Francoprovençal, Picard, Wallon, and Norman. This diversity is also reflected in the theoretical and conceptual approaches adopted, which span traditional philology, sociolinguistics, formal morphological and syntactic theory, semantics, and discourse-pragmatics. The volume will thus be an indispensable tool for researchers and students in French and (Gallo-) Romance linguistics as well as for readers interested in grammatical theory, sociolinguistics, and historical linguistics.

Word Order and Parameter Change in Romanian

Word Order and Parameter Change in Romanian
Author: Alexandru Nicolae
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2019-06-06
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0192534270

Download Word Order and Parameter Change in Romanian Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

The book provides a comprehensive description and in-depth analysis of the major word order changes that took place in the clausal and the nominal domains in the transition from old to modern Romanian. The data are set in a comparative Romance perspective, with attention also paid to the impact of the Balkan Sprachbund and the influence of Old Church Slavonic. Alexandru Nicolae's analysis is based on a qualitative and quantitative examination of a large number of phenomena in a representative corpus of old Romanian texts. Some of these phenomena, such as scrambling, interpolation, discontinuous constituents, and variation in the position and linearization of DP-internal adjectival modifiers, are found across Romance, while others, such as the low position for pronominal cliticization, are relatively rare. Still others are specific to old and modern Romanian, such as the proclitic and enclitic realization of the same pronominal clitic, the low definite article, and the adjectival article construction. From an empirical perspective, the volume fills a gap in the Romance linguistics literature, as several of the phenomena it explores have been largely neglected to date. More broadly it offers a valuable contribution to research into word order typology and change, the nature and content of syntactic parameters, and the theory of grammaticalization and syntactic change.

Contemporary Approaches to Romance Linguistics

Contemporary Approaches to Romance Linguistics
Author: Julie Auger
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 422
Release: 2004
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9781588115980

Download Contemporary Approaches to Romance Linguistics Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

This collection of twenty articles, selected from the 33rd annual Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages held at Indiana University in 2003, presents current theoretical approaches to a variety of issues in Romance linguistics. Invited speakers Luigi Burzio and Jose Ignacio Hualde contribute papers on the paradigmatics and syntagmatics of Italian verbal inflection and comparative/diachronic Romance intonation, respectively. The other papers, whose authors include both well-known researchers and younger scholars, represent such areas as French syntax (both synchronic and diachronic), second language acquisition (Spanish & English), Spanish intonation, phonology, syntax, and semantics, Italian semantics, Romanian morphology and syntax, Catalan phonology and morphology, and Galician phonology (two papers). The volume is rounded out by three explicitly comparative studies, one on proto-Romance phonology, one on microvariation in Romance syntax, and a third addressing syntactic microvariation among varieties of French and French-based creoles. Frameworks represented include Optimality Theory, Minimalism, and Construction Grammar.

Information Structure and Syntactic Change in Germanic and Romance Languages

Information Structure and Syntactic Change in Germanic and Romance Languages
Author: Kristin Bech
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Total Pages: 431
Release: 2014-05-15
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027270465

Download Information Structure and Syntactic Change in Germanic and Romance Languages Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

The contributions of this volume offer new perspectives on the relation between syntax and information structure in the history of Germanic and Romance languages, focusing on English, German, Norwegian, French, Spanish and Portuguese, and both from a synchronic and a diachronic perspective. In addition to discussing changes in individual languages along the syntax–information structure axis, the volume also makes a point of comparing and contrasting different languages with respect to the interplay between syntax and information structure. Since the creation of increasingly sophisticated annotated corpora of historical texts is on the agenda in many research environments, methods and schemes for information structure annotation and analysis of historical texts from a theoretical and applied perspective are discussed.

Diachronic Syntax

Diachronic Syntax
Author: Ian Roberts
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 523
Release: 2007
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0199283664

Download Diachronic Syntax Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

This text considers syntactic change from the perspective of generative theory. It explains how diachronic generative theory may be used in the study of linguistic change in different languages & shows how diachronic generative syntax links with the study of first-language acquisition, computional linguistics & sociolinguistics.

Focus and Background in Romance Languages

Focus and Background in Romance Languages
Author: Andreas Dufter
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 376
Release: 2009-06-18
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027289522

Download Focus and Background in Romance Languages Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Focus–background structure has taken center stage in much current theorizing about sentence prosody, syntax, and semantics. However, both the inventory of focus expressions found cross-linguistically and the interpretive consequences associated with each of these continue to be insufficiently described. This volume aims at providing new observations on the availability and the use of focus markings in Romance languages. In doing so, it documents the plurality of research on focus in Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, and Romanian. Topics covered include constituent fronting and clefting, the position of subjects and focus particles, clitic doubling of objects, and information packaging in complex sentences. In addition, some contributions explore focus–background structure from acquisitional and diachronic angles, while others adopt a comparative perspective, studying differences between individual Romance and Germanic languages. Therefore, this volume is of interest to a broad audience within linguistics, including syntacticians, semanticists, and historical linguists.

Manual of Romance Morphosyntax and Syntax

Manual of Romance Morphosyntax and Syntax
Author: Andreas Dufter
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 1104
Release: 2017-09-25
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3110393425

Download Manual of Romance Morphosyntax and Syntax Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

This volume offers theoretically informed surveys of topics that have figured prominently in morphosyntactic and syntactic research into Romance languages and dialects. We define syntax as being the linguistic component that assembles linguistic units, such as roots or functional morphemes, into grammatical sentences, and morphosyntax as being an umbrella term for all morphological relations between these linguistic units, which either trigger morphological marking (e.g. explicit case morphemes) or are related to ordering issues (e.g. subjects precede finite verbs whenever there is number agreement between them). All 24 chapters adopt a comparative perspective on these two fields of research, highlighting cross-linguistic grammatical similarities and differences within the Romance language family. In addition, many chapters address issues related to variation observable within individual Romance languages, and grammatical change from Latin to Romance.

Continuity and Variation in Germanic and Romance

Continuity and Variation in Germanic and Romance
Author: Sam Wolfe
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 623
Release: 2021
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0198841167

Download Continuity and Variation in Germanic and Romance Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

This volume offers a range of synchronic and diachronic case studies in comparative Germanic and Romance morphosyntax. These two language families, spoken by over a billion people today, have played a central role in linguistic research, but many significant questions remain about the relationship between them. Following an introduction that sets out the methodological, empirical, and theoretical background to the book, the volume is divided into three parts that deal with the morphosyntax of subjects and the inflectional layer; inversion, discourse pragmatics, and the left periphery; and continuity and variation beyond the clause. The contributors adopt a diverse range of approaches, making use of the latest digitized corpora and presenting a mixture of well-known and under-studied data from standard and non-standard Germanic and Romance languages. Many of the chapters challenge received wisdom about the relationship between these two important language families. The volume will be an indispensable resource for researchers and students in the fields of Germanic and Romance linguistics, historical and comparative linguistics, and morphosyntax.