Volume 140, Issue 2

This study describes the development of our thinking and of the analyses that we carried out while preparing the article */'ram‑u/ n.n. ‘branch; set of branches of a tree’ as part of the Dictionnaire Étymologique Roman (DÉRom) project. Throughout our contribution, we will focus our attention on the Romanian and Italian lexical items used to reconstruct the Proto-Romance etymon */'ram‑u/ n.n. and the other three morphologically evolved protoforms */'ram‑a/ f.n., */'ram‑ora/ n.pl.n. and */'ram‑u/ m.n. Indeed, the Romanian and Italian cognates have an increased importance in this case since their particularities allow (or even oblige) us to assign the neuter gender to the Proto-Romance etymon. It is not by chance that the same Romanian and Italian cognates posed the greatest difficulties during the elaboration of this article, given that the debates and commentaries carried out by Romanists concerning the neuter gender continue to be rather stormy without yet reaching a consensus.

The aim of the paper is to analyse the sociopragmatic evolution of the nominal treatments don and señor in primitive Iberoromance (10th–13th centuries). Through the search in the notarial documents of that period, extracted from CORDE, the author examines how the insertion of the new nominal treatment SENIORE, inexistent in classical Latin, spreads sociopragmatically causing the pragmatic corrosion of the initial treatment from DOMINUS.

This paper studies the graphemes <b> and <u, v> in a corpus of medieval Latin manuscripts from the 8th to the 12th centuries, containing texts by three Hispanic writers: Isidore of Seville († 636), Braulio of Zaragoza († 651), and Ildefonso of Toledo († 667). The manuscripts written in Hispania are compared with those produced outside the Iberian Peninsula to extract data about the graphic distribution of <b> and <u/v> in the textual transmission. After data annotation and statistical processing, the results are analyzed with two complementary objectives. Firstly, the mentioned graphemes are studied as evidence of the geographical distribution of the geographical distribution of the velar semiconsonant and the sonorous bilabial stop, and their Romance outcomes. Secondly, the results contribute to the phonetic and graphic characterization of Hispanic medieval Latin in the context of the emergence of Romance languages.

In this work, the diachronic perspective is used to explain the coexistence in current Spanish of three constructions: a) syntactic structures like a ver (si) + complement, integrated into the sentence framework, b) non-sentence fragments like a ver and c) independent structures, like a ver si + sentence complement. Out-side the sentence framework, both non-sentence fragments and independent sen-tences fulfil pragmatic values (interactive) or discursive values (favoring the construction of discourse). To carry out this diachronic investigation, we start from the syntactic insubordination hypothesis (cf. Evans 2007; Evans/Watanabe 2016), assuming that independence structures are the result of their insubordination from the governing nucleus of the sentence framework. In the first place, according to the documentation provided by the Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), it is verified when the integrated syntactic structures like a ver (si) + complement, which we call experimentation structures, begin to be documented and when they stabilize in the language. The body of documents is subsequently reviewed to verify the first cases of syntactic insubordination and to verify how these syntactic independence processes end up being conventionalized and start to function as procedural marks with pragmatic and discursive value.

Since Bosque (1982; 1984a) extrapolated to Spanish grammar the concept of concealed exclamation introduced by Elliot (1971; 1974) and Grimshaw (1979), the analysis of determiner phrases (DPs) such as los libros que le gustan in Ya te imaginas los libros que le gustan and la altura del edificio in Me sorprendió la altura del edificio has not been homogeneous. While some authors agree in analyzing both DPs as concealed exclamations (DPs semantically equivalent to indirect exclamative clauses and arguments of an explicit predicate), others confine this analysis to the latter DP. They analyze the former either as a clause with exclamative import subordinate to an explicit predicate (a quantified clause or a complement clause) or as a DP with exclamative import providing the argument for an explicit predicate which they do not consider a concealed exclamation, but a nominal exclamative structure or a nominal emphatic relative construction. Our goals are: 1) to review the analyses proposed so far for this type of structures, and 2) to put forward an analysis of these DPs characterizing them not as arguments of an explicit predicate, but as genuine DPs that are remnants of grammatical ellipsis. Specifically, they are argued to be subjects of elliptical clauses that are simultaneously indirect exclamatives and predicational copular clauses.

In this work, the symmetric comparative correlatives attested in the journalist Rubén Amón’s speech and writing are analysed. The interest of these constructions lies in the fact that they are virtually non-existent in European Spanish (and have very low frequency in American varieties, as I show). By exhaustively analysing the linguistic production of this journalist, I describe these idiolectal syntactic uses (which have not always been part of his grammar) and I propose a hypothesis about their origin, based on language contact with Italian and French. To understand how an individual feature persists despite not being shared by other members of the community, I examine the perceptions of European Spanish speakers of these constructions.

This article presents a case study on the differential marking of direct objects (DOM) in Balkan Judeo-Spanish, an endangered language (sub)group that still lacks detailed, systematic documentation of its (comparative) morphosyntax. Countering recent claims that the phenomenon is frequently absent in Judeo-Spanish, I demonstrate the robust presence of so-called a- marking as a highly systematic, multi-dimensional DOM strategy in early 20 th century fieldwork recordings from the understudied dialect of Monastir (present-day Bitola, North Macedonia). I show that, in our corpus, a- marking in transitive (S)V(S)O(S) structures is primarily regulated by (grammatical) animacy/person and (syntactic) definiteness, such that indefinite DOs are excluded and specificity plays no role. Theoretically, the empirical distribution of a- marking broadly conforms with, yet – crucially – cannot be fully subsumed under, scale-based hierarchies that model DOM in terms of referential prominence. Rather, our findings support the conclusion that a- marking of the DO occurs if and only if the argument is syntactically specified for animacy/person and definiteness. From the typological perspective, the (non-)coincidence of Monastirli a- marking with a co-referential accusative clitic exhibits a hitherto undescribed distribution distinct from other patterns documented for (Balkan) Romance. The present article thus not only advances description of, and inquiry into, the cross-linguistic landscape of DOM, but contributes more broadly to redressing the conspicuous absence of empirical and theoretical investigation into Judeo-Spanish dialect syntax.

The sermons preached in Valencia by Saint Vincent Ferrer during Lent in the year 1413 are an excellent model of the type of preaching carried out by the Valencian Dominican. This article offers a critical edition of one of these sermons (number XXVI, with the theme “Erat praedicans in synagogis Galilaeae”) accompanied by explanatory notes on its structure and content, as well as the identification of the theological sources used by the preacher. Thus, a model is offered for a complete reissue of the sermonary, the need for which is evident in the modifications introduced with respect to previous editions.

In the cantigas de amor – the main genre adopted by Galician-Portuguese troubadours – the speech uttered by the lyrical voice of the male lover in confessing his love or love-sorrow occasionally appears in alternation with the voice of the lady, who intervenes to offer her response. Our attention here will focus, in the first place, on the compositions in which a direct alternation of these voices can be found within the stanzas, as well as on Airas Moniz’s cantiga spoken in cobras . Due to the particularities of the latter at a structural and formal level, this alternation can be seen in relation to the definition of the tenção of the Galician-Portuguese poetic treatise Arte de Trovar , which indicates that cantigas of this type «se podem fazer d'amor ou d'amigo ou d'escarnho ou de maldizer» (can be used for love or friendship or to mock or curse). Our interest in the dialogic model extends to the non-fictional tenções between troubadours, since in several of these the adoption and/or recreation of motifs and topics equally associated with courtly love can be seen.

The origin of it. anche ‘also, too’ and of its Romance cognates is commonly traced back to Protoromance * anque , a reconstructed form, which is interpreted as a derivative of the dubitative Latin particle an . This explanation turns out to be untenable, because it does not account for the primitive meanings of anche and its Romance cognates, that is ‘still’ and ‘never’, as is evident from the oldest records of the Romance languages. Therefore, Nicholson’s hypothesis of a derivation from Latin antequam is reconsidered through the meanings of ‘before this time’, ‘up to this time’, which later evolved to ‘still, yet’ and ‘never’ in a negative context. The mechanism whereby a conjunction may become an adverb through the ellipsis of the verb is shown by quoting parallel examples in Italian.

The custom of breaking the table over which an insolvent or fraudulent money changer transacts his business, thereby making his insolvency obvious, was described in medieval times in Italy with the word field of It. rompere (il banco) (recorded since 1392) and Medieval Latin (bancherium) rumpere (c1407). That practice was adopted also in France where it was initially referred to with the phrase (faire) banque route or (much less frequently) (faire) banque rompue (both recorded for the first time in 1455). Subsequently, the French term entered German as Bankrott (first in 1530) and somewhat later Italian as bancarotta (1561).

Delocutives are normally formed from conventional phrases of the same language. However, due to the pervasive presence of Latin in cultivated and religious circles up to the 20th century, French borrowed from that language a small series of delocutives. Regional languages have been no less present as a source of delocutives, at least in the areas where they are spoken. This article studies three delocutives borrowed from Breton, a neo-Celtic language spoken in Western France. Two of them are new discoveries for French etymology; they shed light on a third delocutive, long known but of controversial origin.