On the origins of /ɨ/ in Romanian
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Margaret E.L. Renwick
Abstract
The source of Romanian /ɨ/ is debated: did it come from a native vowel split, or was it imported through borrowings? I argue that Romanian /ɨ/ split from /6/ in native words under a definable set of phonological conditions, but that the influence of borrowings from other languages encouraged its eventual phonemicization. In native words, instances of /ɨ/ are predictable based on the surrounding phonological environment, indicating its original allophonic status. Borrowings from Slavic, however, show expansion of the phonological environments permitting /ɨ/; and in Turkish loanwords /ɨ/ appears in contexts lacking any phonological conditioning, indicating that at the time of borrowing, [ɨ] was on the verge of phonemic contrast. Despite the combination of forces that conspired to phonemicize /ɨ/ in Romanian, the result is a marginally-contrastive vowel with very low type frequency, which appears almost exclusively in predictable environments that reflect its phonologically-conditioned history as an allophone.
Abstract
The source of Romanian /ɨ/ is debated: did it come from a native vowel split, or was it imported through borrowings? I argue that Romanian /ɨ/ split from /6/ in native words under a definable set of phonological conditions, but that the influence of borrowings from other languages encouraged its eventual phonemicization. In native words, instances of /ɨ/ are predictable based on the surrounding phonological environment, indicating its original allophonic status. Borrowings from Slavic, however, show expansion of the phonological environments permitting /ɨ/; and in Turkish loanwords /ɨ/ appears in contexts lacking any phonological conditioning, indicating that at the time of borrowing, [ɨ] was on the verge of phonemic contrast. Despite the combination of forces that conspired to phonemicize /ɨ/ in Romanian, the result is a marginally-contrastive vowel with very low type frequency, which appears almost exclusively in predictable environments that reflect its phonologically-conditioned history as an allophone.
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
