Volume 72, Issue 1

This paper deals with properties and restrictions of progressive markers (Romance progressive verbal periphrases, PVP) and relates these to the question of the degree of grammaticality these constructions have reached in the respective languages. In analysing the process of grammaticalisation of PVP, a distinction is drawn on two levels: on the level of internal structure and the level of system. After introducing progressivity as a subcategory of imperfectivity, and progressive markers as the means of expressing it (§ 2), the (in)compatibility of Romance PVP with states is examined in more detail (§ 3). This investigation is based on French, Italian, (European and Brazilian) Portuguese and Spanish data elicited in several broad-based acceptability studies conducted as part of the SFB 833 project “Verbal and Nominal Aspectuality between Lexicon and Grammar” (2017–2020). As opposed to common interpretations, different states and state-types are shown to be compatible with progressive verbal periphrases to varying degrees. Romance languages differ in their levels of acceptability of states in PVP – and the degree of compatibility correlates with the degree to which the construction is integrated in their respective language systems. The concluding remarks (§ 4) summarise the theoretical implications of the data analysis, which can be seen as an empirical verification of existing theses concerning the degree of grammaticalisation of Romance PVP.

The migration of Romanian nationals to Germany has a rather long history, but it has gained intensity in the last fifty years. There are almost 780.000 Romanians now living in Germany making them the second-largest group of foreign EU citizens residing in this country. If we also include naturalised citizens as well as the “old” and “new” ethnic German immigrants (the German Romanians), the total number of immigrants originating from Romania exceeds one million individuals. Despite this, migratory linguistic studies are almost non-existent. This article examines the sociolinguistic situation of Romanian as an extraterritorial language in Germany and the discourse behaviour of Romanian migrants to which it correlates. Special attention is paid to the second generation. The focus is on the following aspects: the acquisition of the language of origin and the territorial language, the migrants’ language competence in Romanian compared to their language competence in German, the use of these languages by domains and the translinguistic markers in discourse. The empirical study — which is preceded by a brief description of Romanian migration to Germany — is based on data obtained using qualitative and quantitative methods.

This paper provides an overview of the recent developments in genre -related studies within the frameworks of Construction Grammar and Cognitive Grammar and compares them to the notion of discourse traditions , which is well-established in Romance linguistics but remains mostly unknown outside of it. It will be shown that, whereas the notion of discourse traditions finds its origins in Coseriu’s full-fledged general theory speaking, recent constructionist approaches to linguistic genres ( communicative genres , discourse genres , sedimented patterns , discourse patterns ) are merely on the verge of developing into an integrated theory of language. Conversely, this paper will point to those aspects of more recent theories that offer the advantage of focusing on the cognitive dimension of the production, reception and interpretation of linguistic genres. Finally, it will be argued that despite their similarities, each notion provides a distinct perspective on its object.

In this essay, the origin of poetry and its relationship to Holy Scripture as outlined by Boccaccio especially in the Genealogia deorum gentilium (GDG 14.8) are analyzed, both with a view to the reception of ancient authors and in particular against the background of the discourse on the relationship between poetry and theology since Thomas Aquinas. The article systematically examines the importance of the four characteristic features according to Boccaccio's understanding of poetry in the reconstruction of its origin: the special, metrically bound language, the divine object, allegory, and fiction.

This study analyses the contemporary narrator’s paradoxical legitimacy and reveals how it mirrors the equally paradoxical filiation that is taking on new shape in contemporary thought. It also addresses the ability of literature to form unexpected connections; sheds new light on the nature of contemporary filiation by linking it to the spiritual filiation in Christianity; and addresses the definition of filiation itself within literary texts as reflecting some of the main issues of contemporary filiation. The study begins with the examination of the status of the narrator in several contemporary works, revealing one of the most interesting paradoxes of contemporary literature, and going on to analyze the configuration of a conceptual model in which paradoxical filiation becomes the condition for the emergence of success from a narrative of failure.

In the following, the literary potential of a counterreformation-minded uncertainty will be in focus which in turn resulted from the distinction in orazione orale and orazione mentale made in the context of the Council of Trent. The differentiation of inner-mental and external-vocal voice as well as one’s own word and the prescribed or appropriated word was accelerated by the Council and lead to a self-reflection of prayer literature and meditations concerning their voice and voicing. Whose voice speaks in prayers and contemplation and by which aesthetic qualities are they characterized? The literary crystallisation of standardization, domestication but also the emancipating obstinacy of the meditation-voice ought to be made visible hereafter in an exemplary way. Promoted by the Council of Trent, the revaluation of the spiritual ‘inner’ prayer, in comparison to the textual prayer spoken with an external voice, has become effective in the Catholic counterreformation literature as creative-conceptual freedom, but also as a practical-aesthetic challenge. Literary and lyrical meditations – as will be shown here using the example of Antonio Grillo, Gabriele Fiamma and Loreto Mattei – not only implement the spiritual voice of contemplation discursively and thematically, but also textually and performatively. The specific relationship between production aesthetics (meditating lyrical self) and reception aesthetics (meditating contemplative poetry appropriating self) has a supporting function. Conflicting voice-discourses do not become effective in the sense of reciprocal prevention, but in the sense of symbiotic coexistence. The lyrical considerations analysed here do not solve the interferences of vocal regimes conceptually-fundamentally, but performatively-concretely.

The following paper undertakes the presentation and subsequent analysis of the initial section of an extended, although only partially preserved letter exchange between two salient German scholars settled in Argentina and Chile from the end of the 19th century on, and during the first decades of the 20th century: Rudolf Lenz, trained in linguistics and Romance languages at the renowned Romanistik School of Bonn, who worked at the Instituto Pedagógico in Santiago de Chile, and Robert Lehmann-Nitsche, a Prussian physician and anthropologist who was in charge of the Anthropological Section of a brand new modern Museum in Argentina’s recently founded city of La Plata. The letter exchange between them lasted from 1897 until 1928 and the analysis of its initial pieces (1897–1898) allows us to see how personal and scientific networks were constructed, and how German science and sociability managed to settle down in such distant locations and still remain connected with its system of origin.

In this paper, from the perspective of the migration context in Madrid, we look at the only officially Hispanophone country in Africa: Equatorial Guinea. After a detailed introduction to Equatorial Guinea’s history and languages, we offer an overview of the Equatoguinean migration to Spain and its current situation. In the main part of the article, we discuss three linguistic characteristics of Spanish spoken by people of Equatoguinean origin. In order to do so, we use a corpus of 24 sociolinguistic life-story interviews, conducted in Madrid in 2017 and 2018. The selected features represent different linguistic levels: syntax (variable use of prepositions in the construction ir ‘to go’ + preposition a or en + destination), semantics (use of the verbs oír ‘to hear’ and escuchar ‘to listen’), and pragmatics (discursive use of tío / tía ‘[literally:] uncle/aunt’). To gain a better understanding, we consider the sociolinguistic context of Equatorial Guinea and compare our results with other contact varieties of Spanish. Altogether, this study offers an insight into the Equatoguinean diaspora in Madrid and at the same time makes a contribution to the modern description of Equatoguinean Spanish.

This article examines the way in which Teresa de Cartagena builds and presents her literary self in her literary works, Arboleda de los enfermos and Admiración operum Dei. The examination of this literary self-fashioning (a concept based, but different from, the one coined under the same denomination by Stephen Greenblatt) of Teresa de Cartagena is conducted under the theoretical framework of intersectionality, which allows to see the multi-layered and dynamic complex nature of this author’s literary self, and the implications this has for the understanding of her work.

In this article, I study some aspects of the Spanish translation of Erasmus of Rotterdam’s De immensa Dei misericordia concio : the Sermón de la grandeza y muchedumbre de las misericordias de Dios . I review the context in which the three known editions (Logroño, 1528; Seville, 1544; Antwerp 1549) were produced in the light of other translations, such as the Italian one. I also examine the passages expurgated from the Latin text in Gaspar de Quiroga’s 1584 Inquisitorial Index and summarise critical opinion concerning the allegedly polemical nature of this pious work. According to some scholars, this apparently orthodox sermon by Erasmus may well have encouraged a rather heterodox interpretation in certain contexts.