Romance Languages

Structural similarities in Romance languages - grammatical gender

-a stem mainly fem, -o/u stem mainly masc (but this all depended on which declension), neuter nouns ending in a C were randomly assigned fem/masc, doublets were made with different meaning (la/ il fronte It. La/ el frente sp), pronominal system remained

Diglossia

2 languages/ forms of the same languages being used at the same time

Latin nouns had __ genders, __ numbers and __ cases

3 2 6

Prothesis

Addition of an extra vowel to the beginning of a word

In present day Portugal, medieval people were

Bilingual

Celtic and Italic seem to have had

Close contact

Translations of words are often not

Exact replicas (mission vs objective on the google handout)

The development of negatives in romance languages

First just "non" derivative emphasised by another word (pas, rein...) which then looses its emphatic quality

1530

French as a language of instruction is allowed (college de France)

Crude version of the subtle method of killing a language

Humiliate individuals for the usage of a language (e.g. mid 20th century Catalonia)

Italian became a complete state

In the Risorgimento (1860-70)

Sardinian has

No formal written form

1951

Other language rather than just french are allowed as means of instruction

A language shift refers to the

Subtle method

Morphological changes in Latin - tenses

The PIE past merged with the PIE perfect (present remained the same-ish)

In the development of palatal consonants

The change is there but the results vary (k,g > ts,dz [french, Occitan, Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, some North Italian] or tʃ/dʒ [Italian, Romanian and Rhaeto-romance])

Internal History

The developments within a language

842 AD the Strasbourg oaths

The oldest attested written romance

Verbs take perfect be aux in some languages when

The verb is unaccusative (object isn't accusative)

In PD Spain and Portugal there were 3 major dialect groups

These correlated with the political divisions made by a king for his 3 sons-in-law

Structural similarities in Romance languages - definite articles

These developed from demonstrative Latin pronouns (reasonably conservative change) Romanian has a post-posed article (domni-lor - plenty « the lord »

Phonological changes in latin - syncope

*avicaps > auceps

Full pronouns in Latin only existed for

1st and 2nd person (singular and plural)

Language extinction is caused by

A language shift

1208-13

Albigensian Crusade meant more power to the Capetian king and oppressed language dialects like Provençal (there was varying territory)

Morphological changes in Latin - morphological future

Amā > Ama-bo - future became periphrastic

Doublets

Are common in Romance languages (twice borrowing the same word e.g. trahison vs tradition fr.)

Romanian national identity came later

Because the boundaries moved a lot

From latin to Proto-romance - morphology

Case reduction, neuter gender disappearance and intensification of diminutives (sol > soliculus > soleil for. - some languages have continued this)

Italic shares close affinities with

Celtic, not german

French after the Strasbourg oaths

Centralisation of power to the north of France and Paris (monarchy)

From latin to Proto-romance - lexicon

Changes in vocabulary (Equus > cavalus, magnus > grandis), some grammatical words disappear (autem, donec...) some derivational affixes become more popular than others (-bilis)

In romance languages (french is the exception (je peux le voir)

Clitics go on the 1st verb "l'ho fatto fare" it.

Phonological changes in Latin - assimilation

Consonantal assimilation (*inlegalis > illegalis)

External history

Developments outside of a language which may have impacted on language change

First all romance languages had prothesis

E.g. L'ecole fr but then it became unproductive in some of them la scelette fr.

Shifting a language doesn't take long

E.g. after 160 years of occupation (about 6 generations) the Romanians spoke late latin

Accusative and infinitive constructions in later romance languages (Proto-Romance?)

Extended further than simply perception and saying to factive/ causitive

From latin to Proto-romance - phonology

Extensive syncope, loss of long vowels, final consonants deleted/ reduced, palatalisation of velar stops before front vowels (king v Car), prosthesis of vowel before /sC/ initial clusters (esnob implies productive)

european languages through colonisation have made many indigenous languages

Extinct

476 AD

Fall of the Western Roman Empire

Accusative and infinitive constructions in latin

For verbs of saying/ precieving

1714

Foundation of Real Academia Española

753 BC

Founding of Rome (based on mythology but it's the date given)

116AD

Greatest extent of the roman empire

The influence of Entruscan in Italy

Is very small, only influence over political and religious organisations' structure

Within related languages

It is difficult to draw the boundary between where 1 starts and the other finishes

Crude method of killing a language

Kill the speakers

Early religious texts in Romania were written in OCS (cyrillic)

Later (1700s uniate church) they were written with the roman alphabet and developed into a standard

Ter the fall of the Roman Empire

Latin still remained the lingua Franca and was not replaced by further invasions (germanic and Hunnish tribes) [it was so institutionalised]

Languages spoken on the appenine penisular (before Latin dominance)

Latin, Oscan, Umbrian, Entruscan, greek and Celtic (last 3 aren't italic)

Because of globalisation

Many languages are becoming extinct (transmission becomes interrupted)

Prostesis is still active in

Many romance languages e.g. Spanisha dn portugese (esnob)

Italian from the 1200's a growth of regional littératures

Meant that the florentine dialect was seen as the standard

The Appenine peninsular

Modern day italy

In Romania the people were mainly

Nomadic

From latin to Proto-romance - syntax

OV > VO language, bleaching of demonstrative force, more extensive use of prepositions (instead of morphology), movement of unus (one) to mean some/ certain

For centuries, Italian was really a set

Of conservative dialects similar to latin

43%

Of core vocabulary is shared between romance languages

An extinct language

One which has no attested descendant language (e.g. Entruscan/ gothic)

Phonological changes in Latin - stress

Pitch accent > stress accent

The three criterion in defining when a language is a language

Political, mutual intelligibility and identity

Phonological changes in Latin - PIE voiced affricates

Realised as /f/

Phonological changes in latin - post stress vowels

Reduction of post stress vowels to i/e

Subtle version of the subtle method of killing a language

Reward the usage of the other language (e.g. computer games are almost always in English)

Luis de Camões 1500s

Sets a basis for standard Portuguese

Issues with the political criterion

Some countries have 2 languages (Spanish and Catalan) and 1 language can be shared between 2 countries (Brazil and Portugal)

Marjor factor limiting divergence

Stadardisation (pressure to understand latin)

After colonisation, speakers of Romance languages out side of europe

Still claim to speak the European language (even though they aren't always mutually intelligible)

Issues with the mutual intelligibility criterion

Swedish and Norwegian are mutually intelligible (and there are other cases where strong dialects are unintelligible)

Latin is a ___ language

Synthetic

43AD

The year Romans conquer Britain

From latin to the modern Romance languages

There has been a lot of morphological reduction

Historical development of languages can lead to morphological iregularities

These can be resolved through analogy (leveling or extension [using the regular form]) e.g. Only high frequency verbs have root vowel changes in french (peux vs pouvons) but was in other words like aimer before

Structural similarities in Romance languages - verbal morphology

Verbal morphology (all derived from latin), Latinate imperfect structure, periphrastic perfect (with have - sometimes with be too)

Changes seen in the Strasbourg oaths

Vowel apocope, frictivisation, loss of final consonant (though not as frequent as V apocope)

Comparative and superlative change

Went from morphologiacal to periphrastic in almost all of the languages

9-10th centuries

When people started identifying as speaking a different language

A dead language

Where it is spoken through descendant languages

There are external factors which affect

Whether a language will con/diverge

Past perfect auxiliaries in romance

Will either be a derived word from tenere or habere (sometimes accompanied by esse) (only brazilian protugese uses tenere)