Origins of Romance

doi:10.1017/9781108580410.003

2 - Origins of Romance

from Part One - What Is a Language?

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 June 2022

Nigel Vincent

Edited by

Adam Ledgeway and

Martin Maiden

Show author details

Adam Ledgeway: Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Martin Maiden: Affiliation:
University of Oxford

Book contents

Get access

Summary

This chapter explores the relation between textual attestation and comparative reconstruction in understanding the development of the Romance languages from Latin. It argues that both are required for a full understanding of the changes that have taken place, and that there are no grounds for prioritizing one above the other. The chapter reviews the debate around the Dictionnaire Étymologique Roman project and discussions concerning the periodization of Latin. It examines the relation between changes that emerge as a result of the internally motivated processes of grammaticalization and reanalysis and those induced by contact and borrowing. Attention is given to the special circumstances in which the emergent Romance vernaculars co-exist with and borrow from the standardized model of Classical Latin. Case studies discussed in this chapter include the development of grammatical gender and gender classes, perfect periphrases with the auxiliaries ‘be’ and ‘have’, constructions involving the verb ‘go’, the evolution of control and complementation with ‘want’ verbs, and the iteration of finite complementizers in the patterns which fall under the heading of recomplementation.

Keywords

reconstruction attestation language contact and borrowing grammaticalization gender periphrasis control recomplementation Latin (chronology of)

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge Handbook of Romance Linguistics , pp. 97 - 122

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108580410.003 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Selected References

Adams, J. (2013). Social Variation and the Latin Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRef Google Scholar

Buchi, E. and Schweickard, W. (2011). ‘Ce qui oppose vraiment deux conceptions de l’étymologie romane. Réponse à Alberto Vàrvaro et contribution à un débat méthodologique en cours’, Revue de Linguistique Romane 75: 628–35.Google Scholar

Corominas, J. and Pascual, J. A. (1991–97). Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico. Madrid: Gredos.Google Scholar

Dardel, R. (1965). Recherches sur le genre roman des substantifs de la troisième déclinaison. Geneva: Librairie Droz.Google Scholar

Drinka, B. (2017). Language Contact in Europe. The Periphrastic Perfect through History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar

Dworkin, S. N. (2016). ‘Do Romanists need to reconstruct Proto-Romance? The case of the Dictionnaire Étymologique Roman (DÉRom) project’, Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie 132: 1–19.CrossRef Google Scholar

Elcock, W. D. (1960). The Romance Languages. London: Faber & Faber.Google Scholar

Hall, R. A. (1974). Proto-Romance Phonology. New York: Elsevier.Google Scholar

Haverling, G. (2016). ‘On the use of habeo and the perfect participle in earlier and later Latin’. In Adams, J. and Vincent, N. (eds), Early and Late Latin: Continuity or Change? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 180–201.CrossRef Google Scholar

Lass, R. (2018). [Review of Buchi and Schweickard (eds) (2014) and (2016)], Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie 134: 580–87.Google Scholar

Ledgeway, A. (2012). From Latin to Romance: Morphosyntactic Typology and Change. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRef Google Scholar

Ledgeway, A. and Maiden, M. (eds) (2016). The Oxford Guide to the Romance Languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRef Google Scholar

Loporcaro, M. (2011a). ‘Syllable, segment and prosody’. In Maiden, M., Smith, J. C., and Ledgeway, A. (eds), The Cambridge History of the Romance Languages. Vol I: Structures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 50–108.Google Scholar

Loporcaro, M. (2018) Gender from Latin to Romance: History, Geography, Typology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

Maiden, M. (2016a). ‘Romanian, Istro-Romanian, Megleno-Romanian, and Aromanian’. In Ledgeway, A. and Maiden, M. (eds), The Oxford Guide to the Romance Languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 91–125.CrossRef Google Scholar

Meyer-Lübke, W. (1935). Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed. Heidelberg: Carl Winter.Google Scholar

Pfister, M. and Schweickard, W. (1979–). Lessico etimologico italiano. Mainz: Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur.Google Scholar

Rosén, H. (1999). Latine Loqui: Trends and Directions in the Crystallization of Classical Latin. Munich: Wilhelm Fink.Google Scholar

Sornicola, R. (2011). ‘Romance linguistics and historical linguistics: reflections on synchrony and diachrony’. In Maiden, M., Smith, J. C., and Ledgeway, A. (eds), The Cambridge History of the Romance Languages. Vol I: Structures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1–49.Google Scholar

Varvaro, A. (2011). ‘La ‘rupture étymologique’ del DÉRom. Ancora sul metodo dell’etimologia romanza’, Revue de linguistique romane 75: 623–27.Google Scholar

Weiss, M. (2017). [Review of Buchi and Schweickard (2014)], Kratylos 62: 127–53.Google Scholar