Contemporary Studies In Romance Languages

This volume contains 23 papers selected from those presented at the 22nd Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages. The papers address issues in phonology, morphology, syntax/semantics from contemporary theoretical perspectives. In addition, in keeping with the symposium's US-Mexico location and commemoration of the twin quincentenaries of Columbus' first voyage and the publication of Nebrija's grammar, several papers focus on the history of linguistic theory, language contact, variation, and change.

This collection of twenty articles, selected from the 33rd annual Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages held at Indiana University in 2003, presents current theoretical approaches to a variety of issues in Romance linguistics. Invited speakers Luigi Burzio and Jose Ignacio Hualde contribute papers on the paradigmatics and syntagmatics of Italian verbal inflection and comparative/diachronic Romance intonation, respectively. The other papers, whose authors include both well-known researchers and younger scholars, represent such areas as French syntax (both synchronic and diachronic), second language acquisition (Spanish & English), Spanish intonation, phonology, syntax, and semantics, Italian semantics, Romanian morphology and syntax, Catalan phonology and morphology, and Galician phonology (two papers). The volume is rounded out by three explicitly comparative studies, one on proto-Romance phonology, one on microvariation in Romance syntax, and a third addressing syntactic microvariation among varieties of French and French-based creoles. Frameworks represented include Optimality Theory, Minimalism, and Construction Grammar.

This volume presents novel analyses of morphosyntax and phonology by well-known scholars in their respective fields. The book offers chapters on a range of Romance languages and dialects, including Canadian French, Standard French, Modern French, Sardinian, Sicilian, and Spanish. Other chapters focus on diachronic topics on French and Italian. The volume will be of interest to researchers looking for current research in linguistics on the Romance languages. It will also serve as a reference volume or supplemental reading for graduate students and advanced undergraduate students in linguistics.

What is a Romance language? How is one Romance language related to others? How did they all evolve? And what can they tell us about language in general? In this comprehensive survey Rebecca Posner, a distinguished Romance specialist, examines this group of languages from a wide variety of perspectives. Her analysis combines philological expertise with insights drawn from modern theoretical linguistics, both synchronic and diachronic. She relates linguistic features to historical and sociological factors, and teases out those elements which can be attributed to divergence from a common source and those which indicate convergence towards a common aim. Her discussion is extensively illustrated with new and original data, and an up-to-date and comprehensive bibliography is included. This volume will be an invaluable and authoritative guide for students and specialists alike.

This book describes the changes which led from colloquial Latin to the five major Romance languages: Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Romanian.

This volume contains 23 papers selected from those presented at the 22nd Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages. The papers address issues in phonology, morphology, syntax/semantics from contemporary theoretical perspectives. In addition, in keeping with the symposium's US-Mexico location and commemoration of the twin quincentenaries of Columbus' first voyage and the publication of Nebrija's grammar, several papers focus on the history of linguistic theory, language contact, variation, and change.