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Contact-induced change in personal pronouns: some Romance examples*

  • Michele Loporcaro
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Morphologies in Contact
This chapter is in the book Morphologies in Contact

Abstract

Several instances of changes in the system of personal pronouns observed in Italo-Romance dialects are reviewed, asking the questions a) whether they are contact-induced, and b) how it can be demonstrated that they are. The questions are particularly thorny for changes boiling down to the simplification of case contrasts like the ones considered here (sections 2–4), since this cross-linguistically frequent type of diachronic development is part and parcel of a common Romance drift that shaped, among others, the standard language which Italo-Romance dialects are in contact with. The conclusion reached here (section 5) is that external evidence (i.e. socio-historical evidence from language use, migrations etc.) is necessary, in order to pin down the contact-induced nature of such changes, for this specific grammatical domain within this specific historical context. While in most of the cases discussed here the contact language is standard Italian, some of the examples involve contact with other Romance dialects co-occurring within one and the same verbal repertoire. In section 6, one such example is discussed in detail, since the contact-induced reshaping of gender-marking in personal pronouns in Lurese (a northern Sardinian dialect) eloquently shows that contact-induced change does not reduce to mechanical replica but may result in reshaping of the system along lines hardly predictable from structural comparison of the model and replica languages.

Abstract

Several instances of changes in the system of personal pronouns observed in Italo-Romance dialects are reviewed, asking the questions a) whether they are contact-induced, and b) how it can be demonstrated that they are. The questions are particularly thorny for changes boiling down to the simplification of case contrasts like the ones considered here (sections 2–4), since this cross-linguistically frequent type of diachronic development is part and parcel of a common Romance drift that shaped, among others, the standard language which Italo-Romance dialects are in contact with. The conclusion reached here (section 5) is that external evidence (i.e. socio-historical evidence from language use, migrations etc.) is necessary, in order to pin down the contact-induced nature of such changes, for this specific grammatical domain within this specific historical context. While in most of the cases discussed here the contact language is standard Italian, some of the examples involve contact with other Romance dialects co-occurring within one and the same verbal repertoire. In section 6, one such example is discussed in detail, since the contact-induced reshaping of gender-marking in personal pronouns in Lurese (a northern Sardinian dialect) eloquently shows that contact-induced change does not reduce to mechanical replica but may result in reshaping of the system along lines hardly predictable from structural comparison of the model and replica languages.

Chapters in this book

  1. Front Matter 1
  2. Preface 9
  3. Part I: Amerindia
  4. Part I: Amerindia
  5. Morphologies in contact: form, meaning, and use in the grammar of reference 13
  6. Part I: Amerindia
  7. Borrowing of a Cariban number marker into three Tupi-Guarani languages 37
  8. Part I: Amerindia
  9. Spanish diminutive markers -ito/-ita in Mesoamerican languages: a challenge for acceptance of gender distinction 71
  10. Part II: Austronesia
  11. Part II: Austronesia
  12. Survival in a niche. On gender-copy in Chamorro (and sundry languages) 91
  13. Part III: Balkan (and beyond)
  14. Part III: Balkan (and beyond)
  15. Verb morphologies in contact: evidence from the Balkan area* 141
  16. Part III: Balkan (and beyond)
  17. Romani in contact with Bulgarian and Greek: replication in verbal morphology 163
  18. Part III: Balkan (and beyond)
  19. Morphology in language contact: verbal loanblend formation in Asia Minor Greek (Aivaliot)* 177
  20. Part III: Balkan (and beyond)
  21. Mood meets mood: Turkic versus Indo-European 195
  22. Part IV: Romance
  23. Part IV: Romance
  24. Contact-induced change in personal pronouns: some Romance examples* 205
  25. Part IV: Romance
  26. The influence of loanwords on Sardinian word formation 227
  27. Part IV: Romance
  28. Swinging back the pendulum: French morphology and de-Italianization in Piedmontese 247
  29. Part V: Slavic (outside the Slavic core area)
  30. Part V: Slavic (outside the Slavic core area)
  31. Contact phenomena in the Slavic of Molise: some remarks about nouns and prepositional phrases* 263
  32. Part V: Slavic (outside the Slavic core area)
  33. Language contact, language decay and morphological change: evidence from the speech of Czech immigrants in Paraguay* 283
  34. Part VI: Africa
  35. Part VI: Africa
  36. Roots and patterns in Beja (Cushitic): the issue of language contact with Arabic 309
  37. Part VI: Africa
  38. Back Matter 327
https://doi.org/10.1524/9783050057699.205

Chapters in this book

  1. Front Matter 1
  2. Preface 9
  3. Part I: Amerindia
  4. Part I: Amerindia
  5. Morphologies in contact: form, meaning, and use in the grammar of reference 13
  6. Part I: Amerindia
  7. Borrowing of a Cariban number marker into three Tupi-Guarani languages 37
  8. Part I: Amerindia
  9. Spanish diminutive markers -ito/-ita in Mesoamerican languages: a challenge for acceptance of gender distinction 71
  10. Part II: Austronesia
  11. Part II: Austronesia
  12. Survival in a niche. On gender-copy in Chamorro (and sundry languages) 91
  13. Part III: Balkan (and beyond)
  14. Part III: Balkan (and beyond)
  15. Verb morphologies in contact: evidence from the Balkan area* 141
  16. Part III: Balkan (and beyond)
  17. Romani in contact with Bulgarian and Greek: replication in verbal morphology 163
  18. Part III: Balkan (and beyond)
  19. Morphology in language contact: verbal loanblend formation in Asia Minor Greek (Aivaliot)* 177
  20. Part III: Balkan (and beyond)
  21. Mood meets mood: Turkic versus Indo-European 195
  22. Part IV: Romance
  23. Part IV: Romance
  24. Contact-induced change in personal pronouns: some Romance examples* 205
  25. Part IV: Romance
  26. The influence of loanwords on Sardinian word formation 227
  27. Part IV: Romance
  28. Swinging back the pendulum: French morphology and de-Italianization in Piedmontese 247
  29. Part V: Slavic (outside the Slavic core area)
  30. Part V: Slavic (outside the Slavic core area)
  31. Contact phenomena in the Slavic of Molise: some remarks about nouns and prepositional phrases* 263
  32. Part V: Slavic (outside the Slavic core area)
  33. Language contact, language decay and morphological change: evidence from the speech of Czech immigrants in Paraguay* 283
  34. Part VI: Africa
  35. Part VI: Africa
  36. Roots and patterns in Beja (Cushitic): the issue of language contact with Arabic 309
  37. Part VI: Africa
  38. Back Matter 327
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