On the history of Romanian genitives: the prenominal genitive
In this paper we focus on the behaviour of prenominal genitives in Old Romanian in contrast with Modern Romanian. In the old language, the prenominal genitive is more widely used and occurs in three distinct configurations: (i) it is a determiner genitive in DP-initial position and checks the defini...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Editura Universitatii din Bucuresti
2011-11-01
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| Series: | Bucharest Working Papers in Linguistics |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://bwpl.unibuc.ro/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/BWPL-_2011-_nr-2_-Cornilescu-Nicolae.pdf |
| _version_ | 1811278724549574656 |
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| author | Alexandra Cornilescu Alexandru Nicolae |
| author_facet | Alexandra Cornilescu Alexandru Nicolae |
| author_sort | Alexandra Cornilescu |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | In this paper we focus on the behaviour of prenominal genitives in Old Romanian in contrast with Modern Romanian. In the old language, the prenominal genitive is more widely used and occurs in three distinct configurations: (i) it is a determiner genitive in DP-initial position and checks the definiteness feature of D in a local configuration, (ii) it is a lower determiner genitive which checks the definiteness feature of D across an intervening constituent, and (iii) it is an attributive/property genitive, similar to the attributive genitive of English and to the genitival adjectives of (certain) Slavic languages. Of these three distinct configurations, only the first one is still available in Modern Romanian. In trying to provide an explanation for the loss of some of the prenominal genitive patterns, we relate this phenomenon to changes in the syntax of the definite article. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-13T00:41:04Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-4acbd8aaa3b74f04b09df178fda6d1f5 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2069-9239 2069-9239 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-13T00:41:04Z |
| publishDate | 2011-11-01 |
| publisher | Editura Universitatii din Bucuresti |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Bucharest Working Papers in Linguistics |
| spelling | doaj.art-4acbd8aaa3b74f04b09df178fda6d1f52022-12-22T03:10:08ZengEditura Universitatii din BucurestiBucharest Working Papers in Linguistics2069-92392069-92392011-11-01XIII23756On the history of Romanian genitives: the prenominal genitiveAlexandra CornilescuAlexandru NicolaeIn this paper we focus on the behaviour of prenominal genitives in Old Romanian in contrast with Modern Romanian. In the old language, the prenominal genitive is more widely used and occurs in three distinct configurations: (i) it is a determiner genitive in DP-initial position and checks the definiteness feature of D in a local configuration, (ii) it is a lower determiner genitive which checks the definiteness feature of D across an intervening constituent, and (iii) it is an attributive/property genitive, similar to the attributive genitive of English and to the genitival adjectives of (certain) Slavic languages. Of these three distinct configurations, only the first one is still available in Modern Romanian. In trying to provide an explanation for the loss of some of the prenominal genitive patterns, we relate this phenomenon to changes in the syntax of the definite article.http://bwpl.unibuc.ro/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/BWPL-_2011-_nr-2_-Cornilescu-Nicolae.pdfprenominal genitivedeterminer genitiveproperty genitivesyntactic variationsyntactic change |
| spellingShingle | Alexandra Cornilescu Alexandru Nicolae On the history of Romanian genitives: the prenominal genitive Bucharest Working Papers in Linguistics prenominal genitive determiner genitive property genitive syntactic variation syntactic change |
| title | On the history of Romanian genitives: the prenominal genitive |
| title_full | On the history of Romanian genitives: the prenominal genitive |
| title_fullStr | On the history of Romanian genitives: the prenominal genitive |
| title_full_unstemmed | On the history of Romanian genitives: the prenominal genitive |
| title_short | On the history of Romanian genitives: the prenominal genitive |
| title_sort | on the history of romanian genitives the prenominal genitive |
| topic | prenominal genitive determiner genitive property genitive syntactic variation syntactic change |
| url | http://bwpl.unibuc.ro/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/BWPL-_2011-_nr-2_-Cornilescu-Nicolae.pdf |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT alexandracornilescu onthehistoryofromaniangenitivestheprenominalgenitive AT alexandrunicolae onthehistoryofromaniangenitivestheprenominalgenitive |