(Non-)Configurationality and the internal syntax of adjectives in old Romanian

(NON-)CONFIGURATIONALITY AND THE INTERNAL SYNTAX OF ADJECTIVES IN OLD ROMANIAN 1 Raluca Brăescu*, Adina Dragomirescu**, Alexandru Nicolae*** Abstract. This paper deals with three phenomena specific to old Romanian: prehead complements to adjectives (i.e. head-final adjectival structures), postadjectival degree markers, and discontinuous adjectival and degree phrases. Following recent work by Ledgeway, we defend the hypothesis that the old Romanian adjectival phrase preserves relics of the head-final and non-configurational syntax of Latin. The fact that prehead complements of adjectives and postadjectival degree markers represent a genuine instance of headfinality (i.e. roll-up movement) is reinforced by the existence of discontinuous adjectival phrases (the hallmark of non-configurationality), discontinuous structures being unavailable in harmonic head-initial systems (Ledgeway forthcoming b). Keywords: old Romanian, non-configurationality Adjectival Phrase, complementation, head-final grammar, roll-up, 1. Aim of the paper This paper analyses certain patterns specific to the old Romanian (OR) Adjectival Phrase (AP): the preadjectival position of the complement (1a), degree markers (such as foarte ‘very’) placed after the adjective (1b), and discontinuous APs, either with a dislocated complement (1c) or with a dislocated degree marker (1d). When compared to their canonically linearized counterparts, these structures appear not to involve semantic or pragmatic differences. They are all disallowed in modern Romanian (MR), at least in the standard language. (1) a. arme de moarte purtătoare poartă weapons of death.ACC carrying.F.PL carry ‘they carry lethal weapons (lit. death-bearing weapons)’ b. era amu bogat foarte was now rich.M.SG very ‘he was very rich’ (CII.~1705: 3) (CC2.1581: 482) c. poftitoriu mai multe decât atâtea a şti eager.M.SG more many than so.much A INF know.INF ‘eager to know more than this’ (CIst.1700–50: 35v) 1 Raluca Brăescu and Alexandru Nicolae acknowledge the support of the Sectorial Operational Programme Human Resources Development (SOP HRD), financed from the European Social Fund and by the Romanian Government under the contract number SOP HRD/159/1.5/S/136077. * Romanian Academy, “Iorgu Iordan – Alexandru Rosetti” Institute of Linguistics / Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest; . ** Romanian Academy, “Iorgu Iordan – Alexandru Rosetti” Institute of Linguistics / Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest; . *** Romanian Academy, “Iorgu Iordan – Alexandru Rosetti” Institute of Linguistics / Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest; . 56 R a l u c a B r ă e s c u , A d i n a D r a g o m i r e s c u and A l e x a n d r u N i c o l a e d. foarte ie drag very CL.DAT.3SG is dear.M.SG ‘he is very dear to him/her’ (PO.1582: 157) Following recent work on Latin and the passage from Latin to Romance (mainly Ledgeway 2012 and forthcoming b) we set our goal to show that the syntax of the AP in OR – similarly to the syntax of nominal phrase (Nicolae forthcoming) – displays a certain amount of head-finality and non-configurationality, most probably inherited from Latin. The paper is structured as follows: in section 2, we briefly illustrate the main features of the AP in OR, throwing into prominence the differences from MR; in section 3, we present the relevant data illustrating the phenomena investigated in our paper; in section 4, we compare the Romanian data to Latin and old Italian; in section 5, we present the analysis, while section 6 is dedicated to the conclusions. 2. The main features of the AP in OR In contrast to MR, the syntax of old Romanian APs shows a higher degree of variation. The main differences – relevant to our research − can be summarised as follows (see, for details, Brăescu forthcoming). (i) Definite article and case marking. In OR, the association of the adjective with the definite article did not observe strict rules. In MR definite DPs, the adjective occupying the first position of the nominal phrase obligatorily hosts the definite article; by contrast, in OR, the definite article may be enclitic either to the DP-initial adjective (2c) or to the postadjectival noun (2a, b); the latter construction has been dubbed the “low definite article” (Cornilescu and Nicolae 2011). The adjective may also appear in polydefinite constructions, some of which are only specific to OR ((2c, d); see Stan forthcoming); only relics of these constructions have been preserved in the passage to MR (see Nicolae 2013b); in the passage from its old to its modern stage, Romanian has been gradually drawn closer to the typological make-up of the other Romance languages in which the grammatical categories (case, number, definiteness) are typically marked on the constituent occupying the DP-initial position (Repina 1971, Stan 2013: 93). Moreover, agreement with the noun was not consistent in the OR AP (2e). (2) a. b. mare frâmseaţea ta great beauty-DEF your.F.SG ‘your great beauty’ supt putearnică mâna lui Dumnezău under strong-F.SG hand-DEF LUI.GEN God ‘under God’s strong hand’ (CP1.1577: 10r) (SA.1683: 10v) c. sfânta beseareca aceasta holy-DEF.F.SG church.DEF this.F ‘this holly church’ (CL.1570: 13r) (Non-)Configurationality and the internal syntax of adjectives in Old Romanian d. e. 57 fratele cela smeritul brother-DEF CEL(DEF)/that humble-DEF.M.SG ‘the/that humble brother’ învăţătura legiei creştinească teaching-DEF law-DEF.GEN Christian-F.SG.NOM≡ACC ‘the teaching of the Christian law’ (CV.1563–83: 56r) (CC2.1581: 6) (ii) Complementation and word order. In OR, complement-taking adjectives (heavy APs) are also attested in the prenominal position (3), whereas in MR complementation is authorised only if the adjective is postnominal. (3) a. [ascuţitele la auzire] urechi Keen-DEF.F.PL at hearing ears ‘the keen ears’ b. [făcătoare de minuni] icoane working-F.PL of miracles icons ‘miracle worker icons’ (CII.~1705: 41) (GCond.1762: 288) In contrast to MR, where relational adjectives are constrained to the postnominal position, in OR (as in other old Romance languages – Ledgeway 2012: 56), certain relational adjectives can also appear prenominally ((4); Brăescu and Dragomirescu 2014). (4) a. glăsi evreiasca limbă speak.PS.3SG Jewish-DEF language ‘he spoke in Hebrew’ (CV.1563–83: 18v) b. înnaintea alor noştri moldoveneşti boiari before AL-GEN.PL our Moldavian boyars ‘before our Moldavian boyars’ (Doc. Athos1.1669: 181) It is also worth mentioning that there are certain differences in the serialization of (relational) adjectives (see also Brăescu and Dragomirescu 2014). Example (5a) shows that in OR a qualifying adjective may precede a relational one, and (5b) demonstrates that two relational adjectives depending on the same noun may be placed on both sides of the noun. (5) a. vs un veşmentu mohorâtu împărătescu a robe sober royal ‘a sober royal robe’ MR: un veşmânt împărătesc mohorât (CS V .1590−602: 47r) 5 (...truncated)