Theory and practice in Romance linguistics today
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Jurgen Klausenburger
Abstract
Since its inception in 1971, the LSRL (Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages) has gained in prestige to become the foremost conference in Romance linguistics today. The papers given at this meeting distinguish themselves with as much originality as shown in any linguistics conference at present. This paper claims that such a state of affairs can be compared to the classical period of Romance linguistics in the second half of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century. Just as the latter constituted a very successful application of the dominant theoretical apparatus of the time, comparative historical linguistics based on Neogrammarian principles, today’s scholars are achieving great success by making use of current advances in linguistics. The positing of an “organic continuum” of the discipline derives from one of the three definitions of Romance linguistics offered by Malkiel (1961), but its essence was already captured in Schuchardt (1915).
Abstract
Since its inception in 1971, the LSRL (Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages) has gained in prestige to become the foremost conference in Romance linguistics today. The papers given at this meeting distinguish themselves with as much originality as shown in any linguistics conference at present. This paper claims that such a state of affairs can be compared to the classical period of Romance linguistics in the second half of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century. Just as the latter constituted a very successful application of the dominant theoretical apparatus of the time, comparative historical linguistics based on Neogrammarian principles, today’s scholars are achieving great success by making use of current advances in linguistics. The positing of an “organic continuum” of the discipline derives from one of the three definitions of Romance linguistics offered by Malkiel (1961), but its essence was already captured in Schuchardt (1915).
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- Foreword and acknowledgements ix
- Editor’s introduction xi
- Theory and practice in Romance linguistics today 1
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Part I. Morphophonology
- On the origins of /ɨ/ in Romanian 17
- An acoustic investigation of nasal place neutralization in Spanish 33
- An acoustic study of rhotics in onset clusters in La Rioja 49
- Mid front vowel lowering before rhotics in Ibero-Romance 63
- Plural formation in Galician 79
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Part II. Syntax
- On bare subject relative clauses in Old French 101
- Directed motion in Medieval French 117
- An ergative analysis of French valency alternations 137
- Peninsular Spanish pre-nominal possessives in ellipsis contexts 155
- On the nature of nominal features 177
- On the nature of bare nouns in Afro-Bolivian Spanish 191
- Negative imperatives in Portuguese and other Romance languages 205
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Part III. Semantic interfaces
- Another look at Italian generic sentences 223
- The agreement of collective DPS in Romanian 239
- A multidominance account for conjoined questions in Romanian 257
- The Romanian verbal cluster and the theory of head movement 271
- New challenges in the area of semantic dependencies 287
- Polarity particles in English and Romanian 303
- Index 329
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- Foreword and acknowledgements ix
- Editor’s introduction xi
- Theory and practice in Romance linguistics today 1
-
Part I. Morphophonology
- On the origins of /ɨ/ in Romanian 17
- An acoustic investigation of nasal place neutralization in Spanish 33
- An acoustic study of rhotics in onset clusters in La Rioja 49
- Mid front vowel lowering before rhotics in Ibero-Romance 63
- Plural formation in Galician 79
-
Part II. Syntax
- On bare subject relative clauses in Old French 101
- Directed motion in Medieval French 117
- An ergative analysis of French valency alternations 137
- Peninsular Spanish pre-nominal possessives in ellipsis contexts 155
- On the nature of nominal features 177
- On the nature of bare nouns in Afro-Bolivian Spanish 191
- Negative imperatives in Portuguese and other Romance languages 205
-
Part III. Semantic interfaces
- Another look at Italian generic sentences 223
- The agreement of collective DPS in Romanian 239
- A multidominance account for conjoined questions in Romanian 257
- The Romanian verbal cluster and the theory of head movement 271
- New challenges in the area of semantic dependencies 287
- Polarity particles in English and Romanian 303
- Index 329
