Abstract
The present inquiry has been spurred by the observation of the morphological behaviour of nominal items in medieval Portuguese codices (the 13th and 14th centuries). Individuals subject to legal regulations, besides being denoted by various configurations of common nouns, are identified also by first-person pronouns. Both kinds of nominal items occur nearly exclusively in singular in defiance of the fact that norms are designed to apply to an unrestricted number of potential addressees. A series of parameters converge to explain this form-function mismatch: type of inflection (inherent vs. contextual), text genre characteristics and syntactic environment (conditional protases). The pervasiveness of the singular in each type of these nominal items is traced back to non-specificity. Out of two competing patterns accounting for instances of (non-) variation in nominal morphology, Definiteness Hierarchy is given preference over degrees of animacy: non-specifically used items, even if highly ranked on animacy scale (e.g. personal pronouns), are the least likely to surface as plural forms. Therefore, a slight modification to the inventory of elements listed in the Definiteness Hierarchy is proposed.
Supported by
The paper is part of the research project funded by the Polish National Centre of Science (decision: DEC-2012/07/B/HS2/00602, funding initiative OPUS4).
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© 2016 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Aufsätze
- Postnominal continuative markers in present-day Romance languages
- La syntaxe du Livre des epistres du debat sus le Rommant de la Rose de Christine de Pizan à la lumière de la typologie linguistique
- Exemplum sublimierter Leidenschaft oder Modell einer «natürlichen» Gemeinschaft?
- Libro de Alexandre: tres notas de critica textual
- Non-specificity in disguise: morphology – semantics mismatches in Old Portuguese nominal items
- Su filologia romanza ed epigrafia medievale
- Storia, grafia e fonetica del Condaghe di San Pietro di Silki
- Temporal and spatial sentence connectives: evidence from Old Romanian
- Besprechungen
- Olivier Delsaux / Tania Van Hemelryck, Les manuscrits autographes en français au Moyen Âge. Guide de recherches (Texte, Codex & Contexte, 15), Turnhout, Brepols, 2014, 286 p.
- Teija Haussalo, L’article zéro au XVIe siècle : les variantes manuscrites de l’« Heptaméron ». Une phase de l’évolution de la langue française, Helsinki, Publications romanes de l’Université de Helsinki, 2014, 191 p.
- Guillaume de Digulleville, Le Dit de la Fleur de Lis, édité par Frédéric Duval (Mémoires et documents de l’École des chartes, 95), Paris, École des chartes, 2014, 344 p.
- Valérie Guyen-Croquez, Tradition et originalité dans les «Croniques et Conquestes de Charlemaine» de David Aubert (Bibliothèque du XVe siècle, 79), Paris, Champion 2015, 466 p.
- Christiane Pérez González, Bilingualität auf der Jesuitenbühne. Latein und Volkssprache im spanischen Schultheater des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts (Symbolische Kommunikation und gesellschaftliche Wertesysteme, 45), Münster, Rhema, 2014, 419 p.
- Richard Brütting / Birgid Rauen (edd.), Italien-Lexikon. Schlüsselbegriffe zu Geschichte, Gesellschaft, Wirtschaft, Politik, Justiz, Gesundheitswesen, Verkehr, Presse, Rundfunk, Kultur und Bildungseinrichtungen, 2., völlig neu bearbeitete und wesentlich erweiterte Auflage, Berlin, Schmidt, 2016, 1256 p.
- Daniele Baglioni, L’etimologia (Bussole, 520), Roma, Carocci, 2016, 127 p.
- Nachruf
- Antonio Lupis (21 gennaio 1944–16 novembre 2015)
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Aufsätze
- Postnominal continuative markers in present-day Romance languages
- La syntaxe du Livre des epistres du debat sus le Rommant de la Rose de Christine de Pizan à la lumière de la typologie linguistique
- Exemplum sublimierter Leidenschaft oder Modell einer «natürlichen» Gemeinschaft?
- Libro de Alexandre: tres notas de critica textual
- Non-specificity in disguise: morphology – semantics mismatches in Old Portuguese nominal items
- Su filologia romanza ed epigrafia medievale
- Storia, grafia e fonetica del Condaghe di San Pietro di Silki
- Temporal and spatial sentence connectives: evidence from Old Romanian
- Besprechungen
- Olivier Delsaux / Tania Van Hemelryck, Les manuscrits autographes en français au Moyen Âge. Guide de recherches (Texte, Codex & Contexte, 15), Turnhout, Brepols, 2014, 286 p.
- Teija Haussalo, L’article zéro au XVIe siècle : les variantes manuscrites de l’« Heptaméron ». Une phase de l’évolution de la langue française, Helsinki, Publications romanes de l’Université de Helsinki, 2014, 191 p.
- Guillaume de Digulleville, Le Dit de la Fleur de Lis, édité par Frédéric Duval (Mémoires et documents de l’École des chartes, 95), Paris, École des chartes, 2014, 344 p.
- Valérie Guyen-Croquez, Tradition et originalité dans les «Croniques et Conquestes de Charlemaine» de David Aubert (Bibliothèque du XVe siècle, 79), Paris, Champion 2015, 466 p.
- Christiane Pérez González, Bilingualität auf der Jesuitenbühne. Latein und Volkssprache im spanischen Schultheater des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts (Symbolische Kommunikation und gesellschaftliche Wertesysteme, 45), Münster, Rhema, 2014, 419 p.
- Richard Brütting / Birgid Rauen (edd.), Italien-Lexikon. Schlüsselbegriffe zu Geschichte, Gesellschaft, Wirtschaft, Politik, Justiz, Gesundheitswesen, Verkehr, Presse, Rundfunk, Kultur und Bildungseinrichtungen, 2., völlig neu bearbeitete und wesentlich erweiterte Auflage, Berlin, Schmidt, 2016, 1256 p.
- Daniele Baglioni, L’etimologia (Bussole, 520), Roma, Carocci, 2016, 127 p.
- Nachruf
- Antonio Lupis (21 gennaio 1944–16 novembre 2015)