On the history of Romanian genitives: the prenominal genitive

ON THE HISTORY OF ROMANIAN GENITIVES: THE PRENOMINAL GENITIVE Alexandra Cornilescu* and Alexandru Nicolae** Abstract: 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. Keywords: prenominal genitive, determiner genitive, property genitive, syntactic variation, syntactic change 1. Introduction From a diachronic point of view, the Romanian genitive raises at least three problems: (i) the rise of genitival morphology (a special point concerns the controversial origin and structure of the genitival article; see Găzdaru 1929, Densusianu 1961, Coteanu 1969, Ivănescu 1980, Rosetti 1926, 1986, Vasiliu and Ruxăndoiu 1986, Sala 2006, Giurgea forthcoming); (ii) the specialization of the genitive into a referential anchoring genitive co-occurring with the definite article and a non-anchored non-referential (prepositional) genitive (see Pană Dindelegan 2008, Cornilescu and Nicolae 2009); (iii) the evolution and interpretation of the prenominal genitive, which has not been discussed so far. The third problem represents the focus of the present study. In Modern Romanian (ModR)1, the prenominal genitive is a definite determiner, similar to the English Saxon genitive. However, in contrast to Modern Romanian, the prenominal genitive of Old Romanian (OldR) displayed a dual behaviour: it could be a definite determiner, as in ModR, or it could function attributively, similarly to the English attributive genitive or to * University of Bucharest, Pitar Moş 7-13, . ** “Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” Institute of Linguistics, Romanian Academy, 13 Septembrie 13, Bucharest, . † This work was supported by CNCSIS, project PN II − IDEI 1979/2008 and by the European Social Fund, project POSDRU 107/1.5/S/80765, Human Resources Sectoral Operational Program 2007 − 2013, priority axis 1, major domain of intervention 1.5. 1 We use the chronology proposed by Gheţie (1975: 86-87): Old Romanian (OldR) 16th – 18th c; Modern Romanian (ModR) 19th – present day. A l e x a n d r a C o r n i l e s c u and A l e x a n d r u N i c o l a e 38 Slavic adjectival genitives. By investigating an extended OldR corpus, we show that the second (attributive) reading of the prenominal genitive was lost in the transition from OldR to ModR. Prenominal genitives are attested as early as the first Romanian texts (the 16th c.) and continue to be available in ModR. In OldR, the prenominal genitive is much more frequent than in ModR. The difference in frequency and usage of this constituent in these two periods of Romanian is considerably more than a matter of style and register. In order to understand the evolution of the prenominal genitive from OldR to ModR, it is incumbent on us to briefly review the behaviour of the prenominal genitive in ModR. 2. The prenominal genitive in Modern Romanian: a determiner genitive In ModR the prenominal genitive has several characteristic obligatory properties. It is the initial constituent of the DP, as in (1), (3)−(5). The prenominal genitive is always headed by the genitival article AL. It is followed by adjectives, including quantifying adjectives, as in (3). The nominal head is determinerless, so that the genitive is the only bearer of definiteness in the whole DP. The prenominal genitive always confers a definite interpretation to the DP it is a member of, being a determiner genitive (Cornilescu 1995, GBLR 2010), very similar to the English Saxon genitive (2) (Lyons 1986). Finally, even if it presumably sits in [Spec, DP], an A’-position and an escape hatch in Romance languages, the Romanian prenominal genitive cannot be extracted, much like its English counterpart, again. These properties are illustrated by the examples below. (1) a. b. (2) (3) a. b. a. (4) a. b. (5) a. b. al ţării steag AL country-DEF GEN flag ‘the country’s flag’ al casei prag AL house-DEF GEN threshold ‘the house’s threshold’ the country’s flag the house’s threshold ale turnurilor negre umbre AL towers-DEF GEN black shadows ‘the towers’ black shadows’ ai mei doi fii AL my two sons ‘my two sons’ *doi ai mei fii two AL my sons Pe ale cui studente leai văzut la concert? PE AL whose students CL ACC 3SG FEM have seen at concert ‘Whose students did you see at the concert?’ *Pe ale cui leai văzut la concert studente? PE AL whose CL ACC 3SG FEM have seen at concert students On the history of Romanian genitives: The pronominal genitive 39 The prenominal genitive in (6a), (7a) can be preceded only by the definite quantifiers toţi ‘all’ and amândoi ‘both’ which are prenominal constituents that obligatorily take a definite DP complement – see (6b) vs. (6c); (7b) vs. (7c). This may be taken as a hint that the prenominal genitive occupies the [Spec, DP] position, checking the [+def] feature of the DP. (6) a. b. c. (7) a. b. c. toţi ai ţării ostaşi all AL country-DEF GEN soldiers ‘all the soldiers of the country’ toţi ostaşii all soldiers-DEF ‘all soldiers’ *toţi ostaşi all soldiers amândoi ai ţării duşmani both AL country-DEF GEN enemies ‘both enemies of the country’ amândoi duşmanii both enemies-DEF ‘both enemies’ *amândoi duşmani both enemies From a Romance comparative perspective one may wonder why AL-genitives may occur prenominally, unlike their Romance counterparts. An obvious difference between Romanian and Romance is that Romanian AL-genitives are DPs, not PPs like their Romance counterparts. Romanian prenominal are thus similar to prenominal English Genitives which are DPs as well, and contrast with the postnominal prepositional ones. A second question is what allows these genitives to check definiteness, a question which is sharpened by the observation that definiteness is checked even if the complement of AL is indefinite: (8) a. b. c. a multor mândre fete soartă AL many- GEN beautiful-GEN girls-GEN fate ‘the fate of many beautiful girls’ Nu ştiam nimic de a niciunui prieten soartă. not knew nothing of AL no-GEN friend.GEN fate ‘I didn’t know anything about the fate of any friend.’ Nu ştiam nimic de a vreunui prieten soartă. not know nothing of AL any-GEN friend.GEN fate ‘I didn’t know anything about the fate of any friend.’ Given such examples, the constituent that incorpora (...truncated)