Diachronic Studies in Romance Linguistics. Papers presented at a Conference on Diachronic Romance Linguistics, University of Illinois, April 1972 [Reprint 2010 ed.] 9027934738, 9789027934734

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JANUA LINGUARUM STUDIA M E M O R I A E NICOLAI VAN WIJK DEDICATA edenda curat C. H. VAN SCHOONEVELD Indiana University

Series practica, 207

DIACHRONIC STUDIES IN ROMANCE LINGUISTICS Papers presented at the Conference on Diachronie Romance Linguistics University of Illinois, April 1972 edited by MARIO SALTARELLI and DIETER WANNER University of Illinois

1975

MOUTON THE HAGUE · PARIS

© Copyright 1975 Mouton & Co. B.V., Publishers, The Hague No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publishers.

ISBN£9027934738

Printed in The Netherlands by Zuid-Nederlandsche Drukkerij N.V., 's-Hertogenbosch

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to express our thanks to all the persons and institutions that made the venture of the Conference on Diachronie Romance Linguistics possible. In the first place, thanks are due to the participants in CDRL, especially to those who presented papers and thereby created this volume; thanks are also due to the organizers of the Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages I (University of Florida, Gainesville; February 17-21, 1971) for creating this forum, and to the organizers of LSRL III (Indiana University, Bloomington; March 29-31, 1973) for carrying on this tradition. The generous efforts of the following departments and centers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign provided the necessary financial resources for CDRL: The Department of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese; The Department of The Classics; The Department of French; The Department of Linguistics; The Center for Latin American Studies. We would like to thank them for their support. We also wish to thank the Center for Advanced Study for its hospitality. Finally, our thanks go to the graduate students of the Department of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese for their help in the organization of the meetings, and to Saul Wax for his assistance in the preparation of the abstracts of the papers published in this volume. For constant aid in editing the manuscript we wish to thank Susan Gonzo. M.S. D.W.

CONTENTS

Preface Abstracts

EX l

FREDERICK B. AGARD

A New Look at Linguistic Split in Romance

11

JEAN CASAGRANDE

Fossilization in French Syntax

23

JAMES FOLEY

Latin Origin of Romance Rules

37

GEORGIA M. GREEN

Tracing the Source of a Lexical Gap

55

DANIEL E. GULSTAD

Syntactico-Semantic Reconstruction in Romance

63

JAMES W. HARRIS

Diphthongization, Monophthongization, Metaphony Revisited

85

HENRY KAHANE

The Etymologist as a Transformationalist

99

JÜRGEN KLAUSENBURGER

Latin Vocalic Quantity to Quality: A Pseudo-Problem?

107

ROBIN LAKOFF

Contextual Change and Historical Change: The Translator as Time Machine

119

3. PETER MÄHER

The Situational Motivation of Syntax and the Syntactic Motivation of Polysemy and Semantic Change: Spanish-Italian Bravo, etc 135 CARLOS OTERO

The Development of the Clitics in Hispano-Romance

153

REBECCA POSNER

Semantic Change or Lexical Change?

177

SANFORD A. SCHANE

Some Diachronie Deletion Processes and Their Synchronic Consequences in French 183

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CONTENTS

ROYAL SKOUSEN

The Verbal System of French

195

PAOLO VALESIO

Hysteron Proteron and the Structure of Discourse

207

BRUCE WILLIS

That Erudite Enigma Revisited

235

PREFACE

The papers contained in this volume were presented at the Conference on Diachronie Romance Linguistics held at the University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois, on April21-22, 1972. The conference, directed by the editors of this volume, was sponsored by The Department of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese, The Department of The Classics, The Department of French, The Department of Linguistics, and the Center for Latin American Studies. The idea behind the conference was not entirely new, but was, rather, a continuation of the notion set forth at the first Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages which was held at the University of Florida, Gainesville, in February 1971. The meeting was very well attended, drawing scholars from all over North America and Europe as well. Its proceedings, Generative Studies in Romance Languages, edited by J. Casagrande and B. Saciuk, were published in 1972. The general philosophy behind the renewed interest in romance languages which has prompted the institution of these symposia was recently described by Jean Casagrande as follows: The Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages... is aimed at encouraging studies of and providing a forum for exchanges of ideas about the area of linguistic research defined loosely as the intersection of current theoretical thought and the Romance languages. There is not a priori exclusion of any of the Romance languages, or any areas of studies such as synchronic, diachronic, descriptive or applied. Any of the modern competing theories, revision of theoretical views, and the like should be welcome. The overriding principle is that work presented at LSRL's should be novel. The success of LSRL I led both the organizers and participants to consider the possibility of repeating such a meeting in the following year, and with the organization of LSRL II at the University of Illinois began the establishment of the Linguistic Symposia on Romance Languages as an annual tradition. In the planning of CDRL the editors felt it would be advisable not only to repeat an event like LSRL I, but also to try to expand its formula in such a way that the two meetings together could cover the potential range of interests represented in the field of Romance linguistics. As a result, LSRL II concentrates on questions of historical linguistics, an aspect of Romance linguistics which has been the dominant direction of research for a long

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time. Since the focus of the conference was on historical problems, LSRL II became known as the Conference on Diachronie Romance Linguistics. It is evident from a superficial inspection of the table of contents of this volume that CDRL follows the tradition begun by LSRL I in that it focuses on the Romance languages in their linguistic implications. But in order to counterbalance the restriction on diachrony it was decided to interpret the two delimiting bounds of the LSRL idea — the Romance languages and generative transformational grammar — in a somewhat broader sense than had been the case for LSRL I. In terms of Romance languages, this meant that Latin could be included within the scope of the conference. In terms of generative grammar it was felt that the focus in LSRL I should be broadened for this conference to make room for other theoretical approaches. The editors believed that the newness of the generative transformational approach to historical questions, especially in contrast with the long-standing tradition of Romance philology and linguistics, is an open invitation to try a multifaceted approach which would hopefully prove fruitful. As has long been recognized, the important aspect is not the technique producing the results nor the formalism expressing them, but the degree to which linguistic analyses and theoretical constructs are amenable to significant questioning. Thus, questions dealing with etymology, a field which is non-existent in transformational theory, share equal status with syntactic or phonological problems. The offical call for abstracts for CDRL stated with emphasis that since recent studies have dealt primarily with phonology and morphology, this conference wished to encourage investigations in syntax and semantics from a diachronic point of view as well. In addition it was hoped that attention would be directed to lately neglected areas of study such as Classical and Vulgar Latin, Sardinian, Provengal, Latin American dialects, Catalan, Rheto-Romance, and Macedo-Romanian. The response to this was clearly positive as the reader may see in running through the titles of the published contributions. The fact that the papers in this volume are arranged in alphabetical order is not intended to reveal a failure to detect a common denominator or to find some more expressive principle of sequencing the individual papers. But given the structure of the field, the openness of most of the questions, and the diversity of the approaches to a given problem, it seemed to the editors that they should not impose a premature classification and evaluation of the ongoing, or even barely beginning, process of investigation. The written versions of the conference papers, including additions and corrections made after the meeting, are published as prepared by the authors except for minor editorial adjustments. Professor Eric P. Hamp's paper on "Relatives in Albanian and Latin" did not reach us in time for inclusion in the volume. Professor James A. Foley could not be present to read his paper but sent the text for inclusion in the proceedings. In addition to the formal reading and discussion of papers, CDRL also featured a panel discussion by invited speakers on a number of prominent topics in general and Romance historical linguistics. The record of the discussions that took place after

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XI

each paper and during the workshop is on tape. Because of the expense and the difficulty involved in transcribing the material, it is not included in this volume. An abstracted version of each paper is provided at the beginning of the book for the reader's convenience. The sixteen papers gathered here do not constitute an organic whole to any higher degree than do the Romance languages and their historical evolution. The editors feel that the value of this collection will stem primarily from the continuation of the tradition of Romance linguistics in its many shapes, and from the attempts to probe into new territory. The purpose of CDRL is fulfilled if it can serve to stimulate renewed interest in forgotten topics as well as promoting interest in topics not yet discovered, and if it can provide some new insights in previously well investigated areas. February 1973 University of Illinois

Mario Saltarelli Dieter Wanner

ABSTRACTS

A NEW LOOK AT LINGUISTIC SPLIT IN ROMANCE

Agard refers to the second and fifth postulates of his article "Language and dialect: some tentative postulates" Linguistics 65 (1971) as his starting point. The first of the two states: "any two coexisting linguistic systems... are BY STRUCTURAL CRITERIA either dialects of the same language or separate languages." If structural parameters can be developed and validated, then the means of differentiation will have diachronic implications, allowing a linguistic change to be identified as the creation of two or more languages from two or more dialects of one language. Historical linguists have long tried to do this, constructing Stammbaüme on the general look of comparative data, but they have confused the concepts of language and dialect. Thus there are no objective bases for their geneologies. One way the data can impose an empirically determined solution is illustrated, based on phonological data. The second of the relevant postulates identifies the mechanism by which an antecedent language with two dialects splits into two descendent languages. Two languages result when different synchronic rules trigger a restructuring of the set of underlying phonemes in each dialect so they do not meet the criteria of the first postulate of interest here. This split may then be reformulated in terms of diachronic phonological rules. Agard considers the split of (1) Latin into Insular and Mainland Romance, (2) Mainland into Eastern and Italo-Western, (3) Italo-Western into Northern and Southern Romance, (4) Southern into Italo- and Southwestern Romance, (5) Southwestern into South-Gallo, East Ibero-, Central Ibero- and West Ibero-Romance, and (6) West Ibero-Romance into Galician and Portuguese.

FOSSILIZATION IN FRENCH SYNTAX

Casagrande proposes that the notion of fossilization be included among the categories relevant for both diachronic and synchronic description of language: "Fossilization is a trend towards the freezing-up, the coagulation into a rigid form of one or more

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otherwise viable items." An example of what Casagrande understands as a synchronic (= derivational) fossil is si 'if. It is argued that this surface conjunction is best viewed as an underlying world-creating verb, which, however, in contradistinction to most other such verbs fails to undergo a number of rules, surfacing therefore in the invariable shape si which has no superficial formal traits of a verb. The nature of a diachronic fossil, on the other hand, can be illustrated by the evolution of void/voila. These now rigid forms derive historically from normally inflected verbal constructions vois ci (sg.), voyez ci (pi.) 'look here!' which subsequently lost most of their syntactic freedom in the evolution of French. Although the synchronic and diachronic fossils are not identical, they would, according to Casagrande, be treated identically in a synchronic grammar since both are the result of a failure to undergo general rules. The adoption of fossilization as a grammatical process would then provide a natural way to incorporate into a synchronic grammar of language those elements which are the result of synchronically opaque diachronic events. On the same scale, this mechanism would explain the parallelism of items which do not have earlier non-fossilized manifestations. It is also speculated that the concept of fossilization correlates significantly with the availability of lexical items for borrowing from one language into another: Fossilized forms (mainly adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions) are the least likely to be transmitted among languages, whereas free forms (nouns, adjectives, verbs) could flow unhindered. Casagrande finally points out some difficulties which remain with the concept of fossilization.

LATIN ORIGIN OF ROMANCE RULES

Foley claims that the phonological processes responsible for the historical evolution from Latin to Romance did not come into being de novo but that they belong to a universal set of rules: "Since the set of universal rules is a small subset of the set of possible rules, the universal rules of Language occur repeatedly in particular languages." He illustrates the relation between the Latin and Romance grammars with representative examples of various types of rule repetition, rule generalization, and rule persistence. The reoccurrence of rules can take many forms: (a) simple repetition (h deletion in Latin and French); (b) repetition with a different phonetic manifestation (the inchoative suffix *tk becomes, through the operation of the same rule, but resulting in different realizations, sk in Latin and &k in Castilian); (c) repetition involving different elements (Grassmann's Law eliminates consecutive aspirates in Latin; in Spanish consecutive labiovelars were changed as in quinque to *kinkwe); (d) restricted repetition (Early Romance underwent gradation of geminates, intervocalic voiceless and voiced obstruents; later on Spanish underwent gradation again which affected only voiced obstruents). Rules may also generalize in different ways: (a) The rule itself generalizes (in Latin z before a voiced consonant deletes; in French s and z before any consonant are dropped); (b) the rule environment may generalize

ABSTRACTS

3

(Lt. Vns > Vs (> Vs), Fr. VNC > VC); (c) the rule environment generalizes by dropping an intervening morpheme boundary (Lt. #s+C becomes #es+C by prothesis; in Spanish the rule applies to all #sCyielding #esC); (d) the generalization can affect the similarity requirement (in Latin only like vowels are contracted, e.g. a + o > o, but not e+o, i+o; in Spanish all these vowel sequences contract to o). Finally a rule may persist rather than being repeated or generalized. This also means that it is possible for a rule not to operate in Latin but to be documented in an earlier and again in a later phase. (Labial dentalization is attested for Greek and Spanish, -m# > -n#, but it is apparently absent from Latin.) Such rules are to be considered not absent from, but rather latent in the intermediary stage.

TRACING THE SOURCE OF A LEXICAL GAP

Green observes that French lacks the instrumental causative type of adjective complement construction which is very common in English. The claim is that there is a gap, perhaps lexical, derivational, or syntactic between some French words and their English counterparts. English also has instrumental constructions with adverbs and particles, and other causative or resultative idiomatic expressions, similar to the instrumental causative constructions with adjectives. French has few of these constructions. If this gap is not coincidental, and a lack of coincidence is suggested by similar gaps in Spanish and Italian, but not in German or Danish, then it must be explained by systematic differences between Romance and Germanic languages. Latin lacks the instrumental causative construction too, further indicating a lack of coincidence for the gap between French and English. In Green (1970), it is suggested that the existence of numerous particle and adverb constructions in the three Germanic languages mentioned above makes it natural that adjectives could be used with instrumental verbs in a parallel causative construction. In this paper it is suggested that this relationship is a consequence of still to be understood principles of derivational morphology peculiar to the language family, and that the instrumental causative S-V-O-Adj constructions in the Germanic languages have nothing to do with other S-V-O-Adj constructions which are common to both Germanic and Romance languages.

SYNTACTICO-SEMANTIC RECONSTRUCTION IN ROMANCE

The three areas of greatest success in 19th-century comparative linguistics were phonology, morphology, and semantics. Apart from the identification of case inflections and other functives, however, little progress has been made in comparative syntax. In semantics, too, progress was limited to the sort discussed by Breal in 1897 and catalogued in Buck's monumental Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the

4

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Principal Indo-European Languages, which are masterly works but not at all formalized. Since syntax implies synchrony and semantics is equally synchronic, it is reasonable that both should have defied previous comparative efforts, which were surfacestructure oriented. When we apply modern linguistic insight, however, the circumstances are reversed. Despite the abundance of exciting reconstructions that have resulted from the comparison of lexical and morphological elements among the Romance languages, there is reason to doubt that the surface case system, the system of synthetic passives, the synthetic future, and so on could be deduced without the aid of intermediate or ultimate documentation. On the other hand, with the aid of deep grammar and discourse-sensitive semantic primes, it is possible to synthetically reproduce a reasonable facsimile of the Latin system. [Author's abstract]

DIPHTHONGIZATION, MONOPHTHONGIZATION, METAPHONY REVISITED

Harris refers to Malkiel's article "Diphthongization, monophthongization, metaphony: studies in their interaction with the paradigm of Old Spanish -ir verb". Harris concentrates on three related points: the role of metaphony in the history of Spanish third conjugation, the genesis of a rule of dissimilation, and the cleavage into diphthongizing and non-diphthongizing stems from Vulgar Latin. Approaching metaphony first, the Vulgar Latin paradigm ofmetio, metire 'to measure' is posited. At the earliest stage the stem vowel was invariably long e. This paradigm was replaced in early Spanish by one in which e is replaced by i in the subjunctive and first person singular of the indicative, where the raising phenomenon is attributed to the effect of Phonetic Metaphony. Harris posits, in addition, a Third Conjugation Metaphony rule which accounts for the divergence between third conjugation forms and other forms. The account presented is supported by the fact that modern Spanish second conjugation may be viewed as a generalization of Third Conjugation Metaphony presented as Stem-Theme Harmony. The Old Spanish dissimilation class of verbs consisted of stems with etymological mid-vowels and reflexes of long i and u. Malkiel considers a change in the paradigm of Old Spanish due to analogical diffusion. Harris adds an Analogical Metaphony rule, in addition to Phonetic Metaphony which cannot account alone for the high vowels of the new paradigm. At this stage, it is posited, the grammar is restructured in terms of a single general rule of Third Conjugation Metaphony plus a Dissimilation rule. Finally, diphthongs and monophthongs are considered. They coexisted for a considerable period in Old Spanish. Malkiel claims that diphthongs were converted to monophthongs by sound change. Harris discusses difficulties in this analysis and concludes that sound change is not involved. Rather, at one time there were two variant pronunciations one of which simply disappeared.

ABSTRACTS

5

THE ETYMOLOGIST AS A TRANSFORMATIONALIST

Kahane presents a tongue-in-cheek redefinition of etymology into transformational terminology, where an underlying form, or an historically antecedent form is called deep structure, and the latest stage which one is interested in is called surface structure. This recasting of etymology is presented by Kahane in a wonderfully entertaining and erudite manner. An outline of the paper follows. (1) In spite of the humble role that this subfield plays in present-day linguistics, etymology has remarkable vitality; it involves the transformationalist's steps that relate the deep structure to surface structure. (2) Empirically the etymologist starts from the surface forms and arrives at the underlying forms; theoretically 'elegance' or simplicity but not directionality is the relevant criterion. (3) The mechanism connecting etyma to present-day forms is a function of phonological, semantic and cultural phenomena, (4) where the relevant development is from culture to meaning to symbolization. (5) The identification of the phonological components is prior: from a posited Latin etymon to a proto-Romance canon to a present-day form. In the process, the concepts of exception and interference are developed. (6) The semantics of the etymon follows according to developments in semantic fields and actual word usage. (7) The language-culture link is studied through linguistic geology, geography and sociology. (8) In conclusion etymology is in accordance with linguistic transformationalism, which is only one facet of intellectual history.

LATIN VOCALIC QUANTITY TO QUALITY: A PSEUDO-PROBLEM?

Klausenburger reopens the question of the Vulgar Latin vowel shift from distinctive vocalic length in Classical Latin to distinctive vocalic height in Vulgar Latin by contending that the question does not amount to more than a pseudo-problem once it is translated from the wrong taxonomic formulation aiming at the phonemic distinctiveness into the more relevant category of the phonetic reality of Latin. On the basis of data from all stages of Latin evolution Klausenburger argues that it is fully sufficient to posit one abstract feature of tenseness which, through the mediation of two conversion rules, is able to specify two phonetic features, vocalic length and openness, expressing thereby the concomitance of these phonetic properties for all stages of Latin. He quotes as evidence the inscriptional data of Old Latin which show frequent merger of Cl.Lt. / and u with e and ä respectively. Similarly, the other italic dialects, especially Oscan, demonstrate the same mergers in their sound and writing systems. On this basis it is possible, according to Klausenburger, to include Classical Latin into the data relevant for the natural evolution of Latin and to solve the puzzle of the Vulgar Latin vowel shift within a framework of phonetic plausibility.

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CONTEXTUAL CHANGE AND HISTORICAL CHANGE: THE TRANSLATOR AS TIME MACHINE

In addition to the traditionally recognized areas of historical change — phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics — Lakoff argues that contextual change is also of relevance to the historical and synchronic researcher. She states that in the same way that non-denotative, 'psychological' factors (such as presuppositions, implications) actually are at the base of many syntactic peculiarities of a language, the changes in the material, cultural, emotional, intellectual space ('context') surrounding a language may have an effect on the language. Consequently this aspect of change cannot be disregarded by linguistics because it has its direct repercussions on the meaning of the utterances made in a given language. Thus, since meaning is very much a part of language, context is also a part of it and therefore must be incorporated into any relevant linguistic theory. The aim of historical linguistics is to provide a model of how language changes in and through its context. Lakoff illustrates the need for the inclusion of contextual dimensions with the problems confronting a translation of the Aeneidby Virgil. Through its heavy reliance on contextual assumptions relating to the Roman culture of the first century B.C. this work constitutes a particularly thorny problem. The translations usually fail on the same problems since it is not possible to translate the context. If translation difficulties arise on the phonological, syntactic, and lexical levels through the operation of linguistic change, it is compelling, according to Lakoff, to view the contextual problems as being on the same linguistically significant level. Since the work of poetry, here the Aeneid, exists through language, the inability to recreate it in and through another linguistic medium is a problem which concerns linguistics directly. The field of contextual change and its function in language change awaits, therefore, systematic exploration.

THE SITUATIONAL MOTIVATION OF SYNTAX AND THE SYNTACTIC MOTIVATION OF POLYSEMY AND SEMANTIC CHANGE: SPANISH-ITALIAN BRAVO, ETC.

Mäher discusses the etymology of Spanish and Portuguese bravo, Italian bravo, Provencal brau, Catalan brau, and congeners as a problem not yet resolved. The likeliest etyma are Latin barbarus and prauus. Bravo a barbarus exacts too high a price on both the phonological and syntactic-semantic scales. Bravo a prauus is salvageable, but Meyer-Lubke's account is wrong. It is shown that the contention that prauus nowhere means 'untamed' is wrong. Prauus is embedded deep in a stratum of words that relate to horse-raising. In reference to humans, it is as much like bravo as it is in reference to animals. The syntactic-semantic plausibility of the etymology bravo a prauus established, the phonological relationship is established if the relevant syntax and morphology is considered. In the Ibero-Romance and Italian section of the derivation there is simple continuity of the Latin system. No satisfactory theory

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7

exists to establish the relationship between bravo in Ibero-Romance and in Italian. Mäher thus examines the views of semantics held by Chomsky, and by Breal, Paul, and Jesperson. He argues that there is leakage of semantic features across the syntagmatic axis; that deletion of one of the terms of the syntagma with retention of its semantic reading is possible; that syntax precipitates change in the semantic reading of lexical items; and that, most importantly, lexical items normally receive their full complement of semantic features only in syntax.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CLITICS IN HISPANO-ROMANCE

Otero examines critically what seems to be the most reliable evidence for the evolution of the Hispano-Romance pronominal and articular clitics and the relation of this evolution to the deep structure of the Romance verb phrase. In the first section the author argues that the clitic pronouns developed at a stage that can be characterized as SOV (i.e. subject-object-verb), with the verb in final position (as is generally assumed for Latin), and that the clitic articles developed at a later stage, properly Romance stage, which can be characterized as SVO, with the verb in medial position (as is generally assumed for the Romance languages). Since present-day forms of Galego-Portuguese dialects and the oldest Castilian records reveal a situation of general enclisis, the second section deals with some of the rules that might account for the basic difference between the Enclisis Phase of the SOV stage and the present day or Proclisis Phase of Castilian. Finally, a concluding section outlines some possible implications of the paper's findings for the theory of language in general. The data presented in this paper are examined in view of some controversial questions of the day: the question of the surface constraint on clitics (Emonds vs. Perlmutter), the question of the so-called pronouns (Delorme-Dougherty vs. Postal), and the question of the relation between the syntactic and the phonological components (Bresnan and Maling vs. others).

SEMANTIC CHANGE OR LEXICAL CHANGE?

Posner examines views of semantic change through history. Recent theories of generative semantics which throw out the lexeme as the basic unit by implication discard the whole idea of semantic change. Semantic configurations do not by definition change, all that can change are the superficial abbreviations (the lexical items) sometimes mapped onto one configuration, sometimes onto another. The author expresses a sense of dejä vu toward these analyses which are roughly equivalent to the 'ideas' of Locke and the eighteenth-century thinkers. It was maintained that a linguistic item is an abbreviation for an arbitrary configuration of semantic primes. The author continues with a historical discussion of homonymic versus polysemic

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models of explanation for the usage and acquisition of lexical items. The doctrinal differences which influence a preference for one or the other are briefly explored with reference to Saussureans. The only way it can be studied in linguistic terms, Posner says, is to acknowledge the synchronic vagueness of a lexical item, and then attempt to ascertain an item's limits of extension, in accordance with the structural semantics of John Lyons. Diachronie study of semantics should also emphasize limits by tracing loss of semic content. This approach favors the lexical rather than the semantic model. How and why a word loses an effet de sens may be explained functionally, or by replacement by a more attractive item. Two additional factors operate: the tendency to use as vague a term as possible in a context which elucidates the effet de sens, and the tendency of the two forms in free variation to specialize in different contexts.

SOME DIACHRONIC DELETION PROCESSES AND THEIR SYNCHRONIC CONSEQUENCES IN FRENCH

Schane investigates some aspects of the relation between diachronic processes in phonology and their subsequent synchronic reflections. He distinguishes between two typical situations. First in the case of Old French imparisyllabic nouns (e.g. nom. sg. cuens vs. nom. pi., ace. sg. and pi. conte(s)) the conditioning of the vowel alternation was originally dependent on the openness vs. closedness of the stressed syllable (*comes vs. *conte). But this cannot be recovered uniquely in Old French. Therefore it becomes necessary to express the alternation in terms of morphological conditions. Second, the historical deletion of initial h creates for Modern French a group of words (with so-called h aspire) which are phonetically vowel initial but which act phonologically as if they were consonant initial since they trigger schwa- and final consonant deletion of the preceding word as consonant initial words do. A satisfactory description will have to state that these words indeed have underlyingly an initial consonant, not fully specified, which then can explain the behavior of such items. The statement of this problem in terms of morphological conditions will, however, not reveal the true character of this case. Third, another case involving consonant deletion (infinitives of the third conjugation, /ekriv + re/ -» [ekrir], but /viv + re/ -> [vivr]) seems to be amenable to both types of solutions, morphological and phonological. Schane concludes from such cases that a morphological solution seems to be motivated in those cases where the affected forms are held together by strong paradigmatic bonds (Old French imparisyllabics), whereas in the other cases (e.g. with h aspire) a phonological solution seems to be more appropriate. A principled decision on the third type (third conjugation infinitives) with both open-ended and paradigmatic aspects must be postponed until more such cases can be investigated systematically.

ABSTRACTS

9

THE VERBAL SYSTEM OF FRENCH

Skousen presents evidence from French that speakers do not (exclusively) account for morphological regularities along the lines assumed in generative phonology, i.e. by postulating unique underlying representations and by the application of phonetically plausible rules. He demonstrates on the basis of data drawn from diachronic evolution and language acquisition by children that the patterning of morphological systems according to surface forms has psychological validity. As an example, the statistically overwhelming identity between the infinitive and the future/conditional stem has led speakers to restructure cases of etymologically justified differentiation of the stem on the two functions along the line of the surface regularity of identity: An original croire vs. crerr- has given way to the Mod. Fr. coire, croir-. Similarly, in the case of the unstressed present indicative and subjunctive stems, the majority of cases with superficial identity have brought original voul- vs. veuill- to the modern voul-, VOM/- in 1st and 2nd plural. Clear support for such a position comes from the fact that the expected parallelism between a noun and verb from the same stem is not preserved: In the case of Old Fr. je parole/ nous parlons and la parole the evolution affected the verb stem exclusively but left the noun intact (Mod. Fr. pari- invariable verb stem vs. unchanged la parole). This indicates that not all forms related in the generative sense stand in a psychologically real paradigm. In such a way, Skousen argues, it is possible to constrain analogy to mean that a speaker gives up a surface alternation within a paradigm in favor of an actually perceived pattern of surface identity.

HYSTERON PROTERON AND THE STRUCTURE OF DISCOURSE

Linguistic change, Valesio argues, cannot be confined to changes manifested in specific entities of a language, but it must also include the evolution undergone by the whole set of traits characterizing a language which may differ interestingly from one period to another. An example of such change which in this view is directly relevant to linguistics and not just to 'style', is the complex of the so-called figures (of speech). According to Valesio they are universal to language such that their evolution cannot be studied in terms of their discrete presence vs. absence but only with respect to their continuity and specific manifestation. He then presents evidence for the independent status of Hysteron Proteron ('the last [is put] first') in Latin and Old Proven?al. The separation of those aspects of HP which merely duplicate otherwise needed processes of the language makes evident the incorrectness of equating HP with the directionless process of permutation, since HP is characteristically direction specific (from right to left). The importance of the unidirectionality of HP can be shown in three areas: (1) If HP moves a constituent out of its originating clause into a higher structure the case assigned to the shifted element corresponds to its function in the higher clause (e.g. scio equidem te animatus ut sis for ...animatus tu...); (2) In

10

ABSTRACTS

structures affected by conjunction reduction/gapping the shared element should come at the end of the compound sentence; however HP may bring it back to the middle of the compound sentence. Only the assumption of HP allows the preservation of an unmodified conjunction reduction/gapping process (e.g. volfe refranh ez aplana son dous chantar et afina for ...ez aplana et afina son dous chantar); (3) The application of HP may result in the secondary assignment of a semantic feature [+emphasis] to the constituent shifted from its normal position into prominence (e.g. sai venc lo reis, domes aunitz, esser soudadier logaditz for sai venc lo reis esser soudadier logaditz, don es aunitz). Valesio concludes that HP has a separate status in syntax and that it is more than a 'stylistic' figure since it interacts significantly with syntax and semantics.

THAT ERUDITE ENIGMA REVISITED

Since the phonological relation between learned and popular words (in Spanish e.g. apertura vs. abrir) has been treated in generative studies of Spanish only in its synchronic aspects, Willis proposes to consider the effects which the introduction of an increasing number of learned words must have had on the grammar of speakers of Spanish at any given time. Starting from the assumption that a child learning his native Spanish would relate the conflicting surface manifestations of a given stem in a linguistically significant way, Willis presents a descriptive device which postulates that the speaker sets up categories in the lexicon reflecting the individual applicability of a phonological rule to a given word, thereby translating the extralinguistic categories of 'learned' vs. 'popular' into grammar specific ones. The description requires that each lexical entry be individually marked with arbitrary morphological features. A combined reading of the mutually independent specifications on the component morphemes of a word would then be interpreted by a general convention in terms of rule applicability features to which the phonological rules would be sensitive. In this way, Willis claims, it was possible for speakers of any stage of Spanish to systematize the varying surface representations and thus effectively to learn the newly entering Latinisms.

FREDERICK B. AGARD

A NEW LOOK AT LINGUISTIC SPLIT IN ROMANCE

The present paper takes as its starting point the writer's recent article "Language and Dialect: some Tentative Postulates" (Linguistics 65 [1971]). I am concerned for the moment with two of the postulates — the first and the fifth. The first states that "any two coexisting linguistic systems, regardless of whether their speakers are in contact, are BY STRUCTURAL CRITERIA either dialects of the same language or separate languages." If such structural parameters can be developed and validated, then the means of differentiation will have diachronic implications. That is to say, linguistic changes can be identified as constituting actual splits of one language with two or more dialects into two or more separate languages. More precisely, a sequence of linguistic changes observed within a given system through time can be sorted into those which merely alter the rules operating within a language and those which actually bring about a new language with new rules. Let me say right here that this study has no psycholinguistic interest or implication at all; it is intended entirely as a methodological contribution to Romance historical linguistics and does not aim beyond 'descriptive adequacy'. I would agree that we must view linguistic change as a vast continuum, over which every individual child learns to speak by rules most probably somewhat different from those of the older speakers who are his models. But if there is such a reality as a 'generation of speakers', each adding, dropping or reordering rules, a model of this process1 is not presently relevant to my quest for a model which will discretize (if 1 may add a rule) the longterm continuum of linguistic change, that is to say LANGUAGE change in the sense that one language with a given structural description becomes a new language with a new structural description. Actually, this sort of search has long been the preoccupation of historical linguists, who have constructed Stammbäume on the theory that the nodes in it represent discrete language branchings along the continuum. But in my opinion they have mixed up the basic concepts of language and dialect and have therefore been unable to discover truly objective bases for their genealogies. They have merely tried to 1

Like that in Otero, "Modelo del cambio lingiiistico" (1971: 110).

12

FREDERICK B. AGARD

decide, from the general look of comparative data, which of these should weigh most heavily in determining splits and relationships. So for example (Hall 1950; Leonard 1960; Hall 1964); and what linguist has ever constructed a tree for any family of languages that some other linguist has not found fault with? What I am doing now is finding fault with them all for trying to speak for the data instead of letting the data speak for themselves. It is therefore my purpose here to illustrate one way in which the data can impose an empirically determined solution upon the investigator. Once again the exercise will be the construction of a Stammbaum for Romance, based on phonological data only. This brings us then to my fifth postulate, "the phonological criterion", which says that "a pair of systems whose cognate lexical items can be represented uniformly with a single set of morphophones, not exceeding in size the inventory required to represent either one of them singly, meet the phonological criterion for being dialects of a single language." (p. 7) In the ensuing paragraph I equate the term "morphophone" with "underlying phonological unit", and I think we can now safely say that what we mean is SYSTEMATIC (as distinguished from AUTONOMOUS) phoneme. With this criterion as a point of departure, I later (p. 22) go on to identify the mechanism by which an ANTECEDENT language with two dialects SPLITS into two DESCENDENT languages: "It is to be seen as a process of partially intersecting merger, such that the morphophones required for each descendent language are reduced to the same stock... Thus from the moment two intersecting mergers have been completed — with identical reduction of the stock2 — one language has become two: the original single language has become an antecedent language and the resulting two have become descendent languages. As soon as the split has occurred, each descendent language is to be rewritten [i.e. restructured, relexified] in terms of its own systematic requirements." It is, then, these moments of the completion of two intersecting mergers3 — these 'moments of truth' as it were — that we shall seek as we work our way downward in time from Latin as our first antecedent language (itself a descendent, of course, of an earlier antecedent), constructing our Stammbaum as we go, establishing every node and illustratively tracing the restructurings down one branching — arbitrarily, the one that leads to modern Portuguese. The basic assumption is that each new (descendent) language in its turn develops dialects, each dialect having an ever-growing number of ordered SYNCHRONIC phonological rules (P-rules, of the type /X/ -» [Y]), many of them shared of course by two or more of the dialects, reflecting phonetic changes that have succeeded one another until the last ones trigger the split. The subsequent restructurings of the antecedent dialects as descendent languages may then be 2 I shall now add that the condition "identical reduction of the stock" may be revised to include reduction IN A PARTICULAR ENVIRONMENT — e.g. that of final vowels, medial clusters or the like — even when the phonemes eliminated in that environment may persist in other environments. The reason for this restatement will become apparent in the course of the paper. 3 For example, that of Old Spanish /z/ with /z/ in Judeo-Spanish versus that of /z/ with /c/ in New Castilian.

A NEW LOOK AT LINGUISTIC SPLIT IN ROMANCE

13

formulated in DIACHRONIC P-rules — i.e. phonemic changes, also ordered at least partially, specifying mergers, splits, shifts and the rest.4 We may now position ourselves at Latin, noting first its phonemic inventory: Vowels

Consonants

i u e o a + [long]

pb td kg f s h m n w 1 j r

1. THE SPLIT OF LATIN INTO INSULAR AND MAINLAND ROMANCE

When, in insular varieties of Latin, a SYNCHRONIC P-rule is eventually added to the grammar, which specifies that (1) fi:lu -» ['filu] like pilu -> ['pilu]5 as part of the general process whereby all long vowels become short, i.e. Ã+voc] -» Ã+voc], 6 thus falling together with their respective short correlates, L+lngJ L-lngJ insular has come to need only /i/ to underlie both ['filu] and ['pilu]. And when, in Mainland varieties of Latin, a synchronic rule is sooner or later added which states that (2) pilu ->· ['pelu] like welu -> ['velu] as a result (after the feature [long] has become the feature [tense]) of non-tense [i] lowering and tensing to fall together with tense [e], Mainland has come to need only /e/ to represent both ['pelu] and ['velu], while /i/ becomes sufficient for ['filu] since the tenseness there is now redundant. Thus insular ['pilu] and mainland ['pelu] constitute a correspondence without an available underlying stressed-vowel phoneme. In other words we have: (3)

4

Insular ['filu] ['belu] but ['pilu]

Mainland ['filu] celu, brakkju > braocu/)10 (IW3) The split of /n/, adding the palatal nasal /ft/ (e.g. /legnu > lennu, winja > winna/) (IW4) Various redistributions (e.g. /odje > odje, kwetu > ketu/).

3. THE SPLIT OF ITALO-WESTERN INTO NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN ROMANCE In the splits thus far described we have seen nothing essentially new: do we not all 10

See note 9.

16

FREDERICK B. AGARD

know that this was the way Italo-Western came to be? The split about to be detailed, however, hinges upon factors more complicated than simple coalescences of X with Õ in one dialect and with Z in another. When, in Northern varieties of Italo-Western Romance, a synchronic rule is ultimately added which says (8) oelu -> [ce:l] like fele -> [fe:l] as part of the general truncation process wherein all post-tonic vowels except /a/ are deleted, Northern obviously needs no final vowel to represent all items of the sort illustrated, including those in which an earlier rule has fronted the stressed vowel [o] in the environment of a high vowel (or glide) in the following syllable, for example (9) nowu -» ['n0:vu] -> [n0:f] or folja -> [T01ja] or oklu -» [0jlu] -» [0jl] as opposed to nowe -» ['no:ve] -» [noif] 11 or okto -> [Ojtu] -» [ojt] or nokte -» ['nojte] -> [nojt]. Now then, when in Southern varieties of Italo-Western Romance a rule is added which says that (10) oklu -> [Oklo] like okto -> [Okto] as a result of post-tonic [u] lowering to [6] in that position, Southern needs only /o/ to represent both [Oklo] and [Okto]. Thus Northern [0jl] and Southern [Oklo] constitute a correspondence without an available underlying stressed-vowel phoneme. We note that /0/ is not accessible, as it was not in the IW inventory to begin with. In other words we have: (11)

Northern [nojt] [ojt] but [0jl]

Southern ['nokte] [Okjo] as part of the general yodization of/!/ [1] after an obstruent (cf. also klawe -> ['klave] -»· ['kjave]), IR needs no /Cl/ clusters at all. And when in SW varieties of Southern a P-rule is added which states that (13) oklo ->· [Olio] like folja -» ['folia]12 as a result of the assimilation of both [jl] (from [kl], parallel to [jt] from [kt]) and [Ij], SW needs only /Ð/ to represent both [Olio] and ['folia] and has no use for medial /kl/. Thus IR [Okjo] and SW [¼ÚÚï] constitute a correspondence without an available underlying medial cluster. In other words we have (14) IR ['kjave] ['folia] [Okjo]

SW ['klave] bracco, celo > celo/) (SW2) The splits of /w d g s c/, adding the respective voiced obstruents /v d z z z/. Three of these splits are occasioned by the redistributions resulting directly or indirectly from two sweeping phonetic changes: (1) the lenition, and ultimate voicing, of post-vocalic voiceless obstruents; (2) the subsequent reduction of geminate obstruents to singles. I see no way to locate this dual phenomenon, which is also operative in Gallo- and Rhaeto-Romance, prior to the split of Italo-Western, structurally speaking, given the failure of Italo-Romance to share fully in it. Moreover, it is alleged (cf. Bourciez 1946: 165) to have been a 5th century innovation, out of Southern territory, which lost little time in penetrating across the Southern-Northern language boundary in France. (Examples: nudu > nu4u, mutu > mudu; mese > meze, esse > ese; ratjone > razöne, fattjone > facöne). As for /z/: the velar /g/ had long been phonetically [g] before front vowel (or yod), but there is insufficient motivation for lexifying this in Italo-Western along with the voiceless correlate /k > c/. Now it emerges without affrication after coalescing with a /z/ resulting from the fusion of /dj/ (as [4j] if after the spirantization of post-vocalic [d]); e.g. /geNte > zeNte/, /odje > oze/). And as for /v/, the sole motivation for splitting /w/ is one of patterning: pre-vocalic /w/ had long been [v], but there was no point in lexifying it until an entire class of voiced fricatives had emerged, namely at the stage in view with its /\4zz/.13

5. THE SPLIT OF SOUTHWESTERN INTO SOUTH-GALLO (SG), EAST IBERO- (Elb), CENTRAL IBERO- (Clb) AND WEST-IBERO-ROMANCE (Wlb)14

At this stage the data do not, to the best of my observation, give evidence for a less than four-way split of SW — i.e. there is no way of uniting any three varieties (the Iberian ones, for example) as separate from the fourth, nor of uniting any two (say Clb and Wlb) against the other two. This is very enlightening in view of the gallons of ink that have been let flow over the question of where Catalan belongs; even Otero (1971) says resignedly (p. 146): "En cuanto al Catalan, no puede ser incluido en el romance lingiiisticamente hispano mientras no se demuestre que la inclusion 13 Actually, /v/ may be seen as resulting from the split of both /w/ and /f/, since we also find a few items like /defesa > deveza/ (Port, devesa). 14 Our Southwestern is to be equated with Leonard's "Proto-Isochronic Romance", which includes Venetian because of its vocalism. I suspect, however, that it will eventually prove out as a descendent of Italo-Romance. As for Mozarabic, the meager evidence points to its being an extinct dialect of Southern, not of Southwestern, Romance.

A NEW LOOK AT LINGUISTIC SPLIT IN ROMANCE

19

estä justificada." The data looked at from the present point of view seem to reflect the historical fact that Northeastern Iberia in Charlemagne's day was politically the Spanish Marches, was culturally facing north across the Pyrenees, and surely was sharing dialectal innovations with Provence; then a few centuries later, with Charlemagne's empire long gone and the Reconquest on, Catalonia about-faced politicoculturally and continued its linguistic developments in common with expanding Castile-Aragon. In any case our four-way split is based on the four different coalescences of the Southwestern phoneme /4/, as follows: (15) SW

SG

SW

Elb

SW

Clb

SW

Wlb

4_ A

w Random examples are the following: (Old) Provencal lauzar, suzar, cazer, vezer, auzir; Catalan cau, creu, riu, niu, pen; Spanish sudar, yedra, nido, nudo, grado, merced; Portuguese suar, grau, merce, mi, km, era 'ivy'. 15 Time or lack of data requires us to pass over in silence the question of how many languages SG and Elb and Clb have by now split into — though let me mention in passing that my postulates article demonstrated illustratively the separation of present-day Madrid standard and Judeo-Spanish (Sephardic). The relexification of Wlb involves: (Wlbl) The fusion-and-merger of/pi fl kl/ as / /, adding a new palatal consonant (e.g. /plujva > 2ujva, afla > aoa, klama > cama/) (WIb2) Redistributions in two major domains. (1) The raising of the diphthongs /aw > ow/ and /aj, ej > ej/ — the latter merger being part of a larger merger with the existing diphthong in, say, SW /strejto/, but the former being wholly new. (Examples: SW awro > Wlb öwro, lajte > lejte, lejto > lejto.) This is of course shared with Clb and (partially) with Elb. (2) Loss of intervocalic /!/ and /n/, and reduction of the geminates /ll nn/ to the corresponding singles. The case of the lost /n/ is complicated, accompanied as it is by the development of a vowel nasalization that cannot be analyzed out at the deep level. I shall represent this nasal element by /N/, profiting by the same symbol which I use from Latin down to represent a nasal consonant assimilated to a following obstruent, with its own other phonetic features redundant. Thus, while we may have an item like /aNte/ unchanged all the way from Latin to Wlb, ignoring the phonetic nasalization that ultimately penetrates the vowel in [?"te], I shall also say that we may write /sono > SONO/ [SQO] in contrast to /sonno > sono/ and of course /sonno > sono/. Whether or not there is phonetic nasalization in the stressed vowels of the latter items, I take to be a question of little or no impor15

There are reasons for holding that the /v/ in Port, /löwva-/ or /öwvi-/ is not a direct phonetic reflex of the SW /4/.

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FREDERICK B. AGARD

tance. As a consequence of the reduction of all other geminate resonants to singles, we may rewrite /rr/ [f] as /f/ (e.g. karro > kafo). 16

6. THE SPLIT OF WEST-IBERO-ROMANCE INTO GALICIAN AND PORTUGUESE

The triggering coalescences for this split are those of SW [z] with [z] in Portuguese, as in (16) veze+z -> ['vezes] like meze + z -» ['mezes] and with [£] in Galician, as in (17) veze+z -» ['vejfes] -> ['be6es] like parece -» [pa'rSGe] which is part of the unvoicing of Galician voiced sibilants to merge with their voiceless correlates. This change within Wlb evidently radiated out from its true focal area of innovation in Clb, where it first spread from Castilian dialects to Asturo-Leonese ones and thence moved on across the language boundary into Wlb, thereby causing the split of that sister language — an arresting aspect of languages in contact: the case of a sound-change originating in Language A and overlaying a dialect of neighboring Language B and, by doing so, causing Language B to split. * 7 The relexification of Portuguese entails the merger of /c/ with /§/ (e.g. oaNo > saNo). Otero (1971) says of this "proceso tardio" that it "contribuye a separar el portugues del gallego"; but it does not do so in the sense that I wish to insist on: until the antecedent language split on the basis indicated above, the synchronic rule /c/ -» [s] for Portuguese dialects of Wlb was perfectly viable; Galician dialects needed (and the Galician language still needs) the /c/. Redistributions are numerous — as for example in root vowels of verbs: /deve > deve/ (despite ['devu] or ['devs], which is predictable morphophonemically) or /köre > kofe/. I no longer hold as I used to that /a/ as a systematic phoneme is necessary for Portuguese, even though its occurrence in lexical items will in fact make stress-placement far more predictable (e.g. in /passro/ or /bNpada/ stress would be automatically assignable but not in /pasaro/ or /laNpada/ (see Agard 1967). 7. Grammatical parameters for the uniting of dialects versus the separation of languages were also postulated in my (1971) article, and the stipulation was made that two systems must meet both the phonological and the grammatical criterion to qualify as dialects of a single language. Actually I have not yet applied the gram16

Word-initial [t] — dating from far back in the Romance stream? — can remain represented by underlying /r/, valid for all other positions and in opposition to the trill intervocalically only. 17 Galician remains separate from Clb because of other persisting zigzags, e.g. vino, baüo—s^—-—vino ano—-—^=»afio, bafio

A NEW LOOK AT LINGUISTIC SPLIT IN ROMANCE

21

matical criterion to Romance in any concerted way, and therefore have no notion as to how the results would correlate with the splits posited on phonological grounds. I now hypothesize that an 'either-or' requirement will prove more fruitful than a 'both-and' one. But I am unable to elaborate on this at the moment. It will doubtless take us several life-times more to validate, or invalidate, the method here proposed, and I permit myself the hope that younger scholars will have the curiosity, backed perhaps by an intuition that this just could be the right track, to undertake some serious following up. Cornell University

REFERENCES Agard, Frederick B. 1967 "Stress in Four Romance Languages", Glossa 1, 150-200. 1971 "Language and Dialect: Some Tentative Postulates", Linguistics 65, 5-24. Appel, Carl 1920 Provenzalische Chrestomathie (Leipzig: O. R. Reisland). Bourciez, Edouard 1910 Elements de linguistique romane (Quatrieme edition, Paris: Klincksieck, 1946). Elcock, W. D. 1960 The Romance Languages (London: Faber & Faber). Entwhistle, W. J. 1936 The Spanish Language (Second edition, London: Faber & Faber, 1962). Hall, Robert Á., Jr. 1950 "The reconstruction of Proto-Romance", Language 26, 6-27. 1964 Introductory Linguistics (Philadelphia: Chilton). Leonard, Clifford S., Jr. 1960 "Proto-Rhaeto-Romance and French", Language 40, 23-32. 1969 "A reconstruction of Proto-Lucanian", Orbis 18, 439-471. 1970 "The Romance 'Stammbaum' in the West", Romance Philology 23, 261-276. Moulton, William G. 1967 "Types of Phonemic Change", To Honor Roman Jakobson (The Hague: Mouton), 1393-1407. Otero, Carlos-P. 1971 Evolution y revolution en romance (Barcelona: Seix Barral). Walls, William R. 1971 "A Historical Phonology of Proto-Rumanian and Four of Its Descendants", Ph. D. dissertation (Cornell University). Williams, E. B. 1938 From Latin to Portuguese (Second edition, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1962).

JEAN CASAGRANDE

FOSSILIZATION IN FRENCH SYNTAX1

1. Fossilization is a trend towards the freezing-up, the coagulation into a rigid form of one or more otherwise viable items. Evidence for the rigidity of fossils can be found in the inability of these forms to undergo rules which they would undergo if they were not fossilized. This paper is concerned with both diachronic and derivational fossilization. A derivational fossil will be shown to be the exclusive product of derivation in a grammar while diachronic fossils will be identified as fossils whose rigidity is due to mutation in time. These two concepts of fossilization will be shown to be closely related. The problem of est-ce que will be reviewed in light of fossilization. Finally, fossilization will be suggested to have bearing on borrowing.

2. DERIVATIONAL FOSSILIZATION

Linguists who assume a highly abstract underlying structure for language also assume derivational fossilization. In this section I would like to consider one particularly clear case of derivational fossilization and to mention a number of other possible fossils. I will not develop arguments for the latter cases. 2.1. In her paper on conditionals in Spanish, Maria-Luisa Rivero (1972) claims that si 'if is a world-creating verb. She gives eleven arguments in support of that claim. I will only outline three of them. Also, since this paper is concerned with French syntax, I will provide French examples for Rivero's arguments. One of Rivero's arguments in favor of si as a world-creating verb is based on the behavior of si and world-creating verbs with respect to sentence pronominalization. (1) Si tes parents arrivaient a l'improviste et t'attrapaienf a faire de telles chases, fa ne te fer ait pas de mal. 1

I wish to thank Donald Albury, Chauncey Chu, Thomas Pyles and Thomas Weeks who were kind enough to discuss with me some of the topics of this paper. I am thankful to Jean-Hugues Boisset, Ronald W. Langacker, Marie-Louise Moreau, John R. Ross, and Susan Schmerling who made very helpful comments on the conference version of this paper.

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JEAN CASAGRANDE

'If your parents came unexpectedly and caught you doing such things, it would do you some good.' (2) A supposer que tes parents arrivent l'improviste et t'attrapent faire de telles choses, òá ne teferait pas de mal. (3) Imagine que tes parents arrivent l'improviste t'attrapent faire de telles choses, òá ne te fer ait pas de mal. (4) Supposons que tes parents arrivent a l'improviste et fattrapent a faire de telles choses; òá ne teferait pas de mal. The pronoun òá does not refer to si or to the world-creating verbs. Rather, it refers to the S embedded in si, which in (l)-(4) stands for two conjoined S's. Contrast to (l)-(4) sentences like (5) and (6) (5) Pourquoi il est alle en Chine, voila ce que je voudrais savoir. 'Why he went to China, that's what I'd like to know.' (6) Ou eile a passe la nuit, voila ce qui m'Interesse. 'Where she spent the night, that's what I am interested in.' where S-Pronominalization applies to pourquoi and ou. The difference between sentences (l)-(4) on the one hand, and (5) and (6) on the other, is easily explained if we assume that si is a world-creating verb. Rivero's claim about the relation of si to the S which can be pronominalized is that si, a verb, is followed by an NP: "the conditional particle is a verbal form with transitive complementation". The S dominated by that NP is pronominalized. Another argument given by Rivero to show that si is a world-creating verb is concerned with factive verbs. Factive verbs are known to loose their factivity when embedded in an S with a world-creating verb. The same is true of factive verbs embedded into the protasis of a conditional structure. (7) Imaginez que je me rende compte qu'ils mentaient. 'Imagine that I realize that they lied.' (8) Supposons qu'il soit evident qu'ils copiaient. 'Suppose that it is evident that they copied.' (9) Je me rends compte qu'ils mentaient. º realize that they lied.' (10) // est evident qu'ils copiaient. 'It is evident that they copied.' (11) Sijamaisje me rends compte qu'ils mentaient je le leur ferai savoir. 'If I ever realize that they lied I will let them have a piece of my mind.' (12) S'il etait certain qu'ils mentaient je les punirais. 'If it were certain that they lied I would punish them.' The two sentences of (9)-(10) presuppose that some people lied and copied, but si and world-creating verbs in (7)-(8) and (11)-(12) neutralize the factivity of the verbs

FOSSILIZATION IN FRENCH SYNTAX

25

se rendre compte, evident, and certain. Rivero concludes that treating si and worldcreating verbs as a unique phenomenon will simplify the task of the grammar. The third of Rivero's arguments which I will outline here has to do with the semantic similarity of si and world-creating verbs. She points out that it would be incorrect to assume a deep structure with si to account for the behavior of worldcreating verbs. She shows that such a solution would be incorrect by contrasting (13X15). (13) A supposer que Jean soit venu, nous aurions ete preis. 'Supposing that John had come, we would have been ready.' (14) Si Jean etait venu, nous aurions ete preis. 'If John had come we would have been ready.' (15) Si nous avions suppose que Jean etait venu nous aurions ete prets. 'If we had supposed that John had come we would have been ready.' (13) and (14) are paraphrases of each other but (15) is not a paraphrase of (13) and (14). It is clear, then, that much can be gained in terms of simplicity and naturalness by assuming that si is a world-creating verb. 2.2. In the preceding section, we found good reasons to claim that si is a verb. It should be noted that the very reason that we argued that si is a verb in semantic structure is that it does not look like a verb in surface structure. Linguists who emphasize language diversity, language-specific rather than universal processes, or strictly syntactic rather than syntactico-semantic relations will object to this view. They will argue that si does not behave like a verb in all instances. They will show that the b sentences of (16)-(18) are ill-formed because si fails to be a verb. (16a) Je suppose que Pierre arrivera bientot. º suppose Pierre will arrive soon.' (16b) *Je si que Pierre arrivera bientot. (17a) En imaginant qu'il arrivera tard ... 'Imagining he will arrive late ...' (17b) *En si (ant) qu'il arrivera tard ... (18a) J'ai souvent imagine ... º have often imagined ...' (18b) *J'ai souvent si... They will argue that si cannot take a subject, that it cannot be used as participle, that it cannot take an auxiliary or have adverbial modification, and they are right. One might then conclude that there is no way to decide for either alternative. Suppose, however, that we assume a process of fossilization. Then we can maintain that si is a verb as shown by Rivero. This verb is fossilized, hence it loses some of its freedom, thus accounting for (16)-(18). In other words, arguments for verbhood are

26

JEAN CASAGRANDE

maintained (si is a verb) and arguments for non-verbhood are also maintained (si is a fossilized verb). 2.3. Other derivational fossils A number of other cases of derivational fossilization can be drawn from recent work in linguistic theory by generative semanticists. Arguments have been given pointing to the belief that prepositions which need to figure in semantic structure are treated as predicates (V's) in semantic structure. The same holds true for adverbs which are the intransitive equivalents of prepositions and for quantifiers. The claim of verbhood has also been made for auxiliaries (Ross 1969), and for conjunctions like et and ou (McCawley 1971). All the above derived items are limited syntactically. Since similar arguments can be given for the following as were given for si, I suggest that adverbs, prepositions, auxiliaries, quantifiers, syntactic markers and conjunctions are fossils.2

3. DIACHRONIC FOSSILIZATION

In essence, diachronic fossils are the historical parallels of derivational fossils. A diachronic fossil is an item for which the form it is derived from can be shown to have been a non-fossil in a stage of the language previous to the fossilization of the item in question. It goes without saying that a grammar which is aimed at reflecting natural processes of language will reflect this diachronic change in the derivation of the fossil in question. Let us consider a concrete example of diachronic fossilization, the case of voici/voilä. 3.1. Void and voila 3.1.1. Void/voila is a verb.3 First, voici/voilä can be shown to be transitive, taking sentence complementation and NP's of various sorts as objects. (19a) Voilä que V komme s'approcha d'elle. 'The man came closer to her.'

2

Actually, this is too strong a claim. There are degrees of fossilization, and adverbs, prepositions, auxiliaries, quantifiers, conjunctions, syntactic markers, etc., are not fossilized to the same degree. 3 John R. Ross pointed out to me another piece of evidence showing that voicijvoila shares another quality with verbs: it takes the repetitive prefix re-. (i) Revoir Paris! (ii) Refais ce lit! (in) Les revoilä!

FOSSILIZATION IN FRENCH SYNTAX

27

(19b) Void I'homme. 'Here is the man.' (19c) Voila Pierre. 'Here is Pierre.' (19d) La dame que voila s'appelle Mme Latomate. 'This (here) woman is Mme Latomate.' As can be done with other transitive verbs, the object may be deleted. (20a) Va ehereher! 'Fetch!' (20b) Donne I 'Give!' (20c) Voila! 'Here you are!' Voici/voila is generally used sort of imperatively, which accounts for its having no subject (cf. 21) and for its not being questioned (cf. 22). (2la) Regardez! 'Look!' (21 b) Tenez! 'Here you are!' (21c) Voila! 'Here you are!' (22a) *Est-ce que regardez ce que vous faites! (22b) *Est-ce que voila ce que vous faites! Voici/voila also has another function. It can serve to cleft sentences somewhat like c'est. (23a) Voila que I'homme s'approcha (Teile. 'The man came closer (to her).' (23b) C'est que I'homme s'approcha d'elle. 'The man came closer (to her).' This is a non-imperative use of voici/voila. As such, voici/voila cannot occur alone (24a, b) nor can it be embedded in a question (contrast 25a with 22b). (24a) (24b) (25a) C25b)

*Voici * C'est *Est-ce que voila que vous faites des affaires? *Est-ce que c'est que vous faites des affaires?

Note that (25b) is grammatical only in the causative meaning and not in the clefted meaning.

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JEAN CASAGRANDE

At any rate, voici/voilä has at least two functions: one as an imperative-like verb, the other as a clefting construction. We will now concentrate our attention on the former type, namely the fake imperative voici/voilä. 3.1.2. Voici/voila is a fossil. As in the case of si, voici/voilä can be shown to be a verb (cf. 3.1.1.) but it can also be shown to have lost some features of verbhood. Its syntax does not reflect the imperative word order. On the one hand, there is no subject but, on the other, clitics occur in the declarative word order. (26a) Le void. 'Here he is.' (26b) *Voici-le. (21 a) Regardez-le! 'Look at him!' (27b) *Leregardez! (28a) Les voilä! 'There they are.' (28b) Je les vois la. see them there.' (28c) Vous voilä enfin! 'You're here at last.' (28d) Je vous vois enfin. see you at last.' Voicijvoilä cannot take negatives, which also distinguishes it from verbs. Hence in (29) entrez can be negativized but in (30) and (31) voici/voilä cannot. (29a) Entrez! 'Come in!' (29b) N''entrez pas! 'Don't come in!' (30a) Void le sei et le poivre. 'Here is the salt and pepper.' (30b) *Ne void pas le sei et le poivre. (3la) Les voilä. 'There they are.' (31b) *Ne les voilä pas. Furthermore, voici/voilä is morphologically invariant. Consequently it cannot take tense, mood, or aspect inflections, which are characteristic properties of French verbs. I conclude that voilä/voici is a fossil.

FOSSILIZATION IN FRENCH SYNTAX

29

3.2. Now to the claim that it is a diachronic fossil. First, consider imperativeness. It is not possible to claim that voici/voilä is derived from the verb voir + ci/lä because voir cannot be imperativized. (32a) * Vois ce verre plein. (32b) Regarde ce verre plein. 'Look at this full glass.' This is due to a restriction which applies to all stative verbs. (33a) Ecris ä tes parents. 'Write to your parents.' (34) *Coüte eher a tes parents. This restriction is often blurred when stative and non-stative verbs are homophonous. (35a) Think! Reflechissez! (35b) *Think that Paul will come. In Old French, voir was used in the sense of 'look' as well as in the sense of 'see'. Due to homonymy voir could be imperativized. (36) Ves moi chi (Courtois d'Arras, v. 610) 'see me here' Ves in 36 is a second person form, it has no subject, and it is followed, as are all imperatives, by the clitic pronoun. (37a) *Tu ves moi chi! (37b) * Ves chi moi! (37c) *Moi ves chi! Nyrop (1925) notes that, as the imperative meaning of ves (voi) was lost, the clitic hopped over to its declarative-sentence position, accounting for the change from (36) to (38). (36) Ves moi chi! (38) Me void! 'Here I am!' Further evidence of the diachronic nature of the voici/voilä fossil can also be found in the application of the number agreement rule. (39a) Voyez-cy le contract! (Rabelais, I, 32) 'see here the contract' (39b) * Voyez-ci, Mesdames et Messieurs, le president de notre club, M. Mediterrannee.

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JEAN CASAGRANDE

(39c) Void, Mesdames et Messieurs, le president de notre club, M. Mediterrannee. 'Here is, Ladies and Gentlemen, the president of our club, Mr. M.' Middle French allowed voici/voila to inflect, indicating through agreement that this modern fossil was then still conceived as an imperative. I conclude that voici/voilä is a diachronic fossil because its syntactic and morphological freedom was lost over a period of time. 3.3. A number of similar cases of diachronic fossilization come to mind. I will not attempt here to develop arguments to show them as such. I will simply mention some of them. It is likely that the metatag n'est-ce pas is a diachronic fossil. I haven't yet been able to find evidence of greater freedom in Middle or Old French for this modern fossil. Another candidate for the honor of diachronic fossilization is the question marker //, which is found in a number of (geographic and social) dialects of French. Vive, in Modern French, and more clearly Viva, in Modern Italian, also seem to be resulting from diachronic fossilization. Note that viva in (40b) is not inflected for number agreement. (40a) Viva la patriot 'Long live our country!' (40b) Viva i nostri soldati! 'Long live our soldiers!' The meaning of Vive and Viva has evolved from a strict wish of long life to an exclamation of support, of admiration, like Hourra "Hurrah", etc... Example (41) would not be inappropriate, in a certain context. Imagine, for example, a medical school which, after a particularly wanting period, receives a large allotment of corpses for the purpose of dissection. Elated, the students might cheer: (41) Vive les macchabees! 'Long live the stiffs!'4 3.4. Let us return to the distinction between diachronic and derivational fossils. Derivational fossils will be marked (somehow) to fail to undergo some rules. They are the product of grammar: predicates in logical structure, they become fossils in the derivational process. An interesting question which poses itself regarding diachronic 4

Another example which shows that the v/ve-type does not carry a literal meaning: (i) Long live the eternal triangle. Chauncey Chu tells me that in Chinese long live is a fixed expression too. It literally calls for a life of a thousand years, but its syntax is fossilized. It cannot occur with a first person subject in Chinese, English or French. (i) "Long live me! (ii) *Vive moi!

FOSSILIZATION IN FRENCH SYNTAX

31

fossils is whether there is anything in their derivation which distinguishes them from derivational fossils. The only evidence that has been shown in this paper between the two types of fossils derives from the history of the language: diachronic fossils are historical reflexes of non-fossilized forms. Only this distinction can be drawn in light of present evidence. As illustration, consider the case of vive. This fossil will be a predicate in logical structure but it will fail to undergo a number of rules and will therefore become fossilized. That this modern fossil fails to have the same restriction as the verb (vivre) from which it is fossilized diachronically is a fact that need not be reflected in the grammar. Present evidence, then, leads one to conclude that the grammar will not formally distinguish between diachronic and derivational fossils. This conclusion sounds right intuitively (1) because knowledge of previous stages is limited to scholars and not available to the average speaker and (2) because otherwise the diachronic/derivational distinction would depend on how well earlier stages are known, thus varying with our knowledge of earlier stages of different languages and language families.

4. EST-CE QUE

French interrogatives have occasioned a particular fascination among transformationalists (cf. Langacker 1965, 1966, forthcoming, Hirschbuhler 1970, Kayne forthcoming, Casagrande 1969, Roulet 1969). Although qu'est ce-que, qui est-ce qui, etc... are also interesting from the point of view of partial fossilization, I will address myself to the problem of est-ce que only. Langacker has maintained (1965, 1966, forthcoming) that est-ce que and other similar forms of the question markers of French are to be derived transformationally. To him, the sentences of (42) are to be related by rule. (42a) C'est que vous avezfini. 'It's that you are finished.' (42b) Est-ce que vous avezfini? 'Are you finished ?' This claim has been criticized (Roulet 1969, Hirschbuhler 1970, Huddleston and Uren 1969). Criticism of Langacker's rule solution as opposed to a solution which would give est-ce que as a deep structure interrogative marker, appears to be based on the fossilized nature of est-ce que. Among the various arguments leveled at Langacker's proposal is one pertaining to the types of answers one may expect from est-ce que questions. If an appropriate answer to a question like (43) is (44) (43) Ted porte-t-il des calecons? 'Does Ted wear undershorts ?' (44) Oui, il en ports. 'Yes, he does.'

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JEAN CASAGRANDE

then one would expect (45) to be an appropriate answer to (46). (45) C'est que Ted porte des calefons. (46) Est-ce que Ted porte des calefons? But it isn't appropriate. Instead, (44) is an appropriate answer to (46). In his (1972) paper, Langacker admits to having no principled explanation for this phenomenon. The problem which now poses itself to us is similar to the one about si. There are arguments in favor of the transformational analysis (i.e. Langacker's) and arguments in favor of est-ce que as a deep structure marker for yes/no questions (Roulet's). There appears to be no empirical way out of this dilemma, unless... one assumes fossilization. Assume then that, operative in a grammar, there exists a process of fossilization which makes rigid (i.e. less or not at all affected by rules) certain otherwise free constructions. The rules of semantax will provide its interrogative meaning to the construction in question, effect the inversion which relates sentences like (45) and (46), etc..., and language specific rules of fossilization, quite possibly lexical rules, will freeze-up the est-ce que construction. The fossilization of a construction, a process similar to what happens to idioms, will require special rules. One of the effects of these rules on an idiom or on a fossilized construction will be such that none (or fewer) of its nodes can be referred to in rules. From this, it follows that partial idiomatization and partial fossilization can be characterized by the number, or percentage, of nodes which can be referred to in these forms. With such an apparatus in a grammar of French, (44) and not (45) is an appropriate answer to (46).

5. FOSSILS AND BORROWING

One of the extras that the notion of fossilization may buy us is a principled way of predicting what may or may not be borrowed.5 For some reason, which may or not be dependent on fossilization, those items which I have characterized as fossils may not be borrowed. The relationship between fossilization and borrowing is a paper in itself, and a detailed account of that relationship is outside the scope of this survey. I will therefore simply make a few remarks about this topic. Examples of borrowed vocabulary abound. Bloomfield, for example, devotes three chapters of his Language to the topic. Most, if not all borrowing applies to nouns, adjectives and verbs. Under nouns I am including also derived nominals. If my hunch is right, no conjunction, 5

Susan Schmerling pointed out to me at the Conference that there are cases of borrowing of prepositions. She referred in particular to a case where a post-positional language borrowed the whole prepositional system of Spanish. Ronald Langacker also pointed out (personal communication) that similar facts exist in Yaqui, Cupeno, and Luiseno. I have no explanation to offer for these facts. Although productive processes are more likely to be generalized there are cases of very limited classes which have generalized. These are puzzling and unexplained facts. One thing is clear: more work is needed on the hierarchy of fossilization and on its relationship to borrowing.

FOSSIL1ZATION IN FRENCH SYNTAX

33

prepositions, adverbs, auxiliaries, quantifiers, or markers like inflections are borrowed as such. In other words, fossilized items are not borrowed. Some apparent counterexamples come to mind. They are of two types: one type is borrowed in specialized vocabulary. Examples in English are via, per, qua as in (47)-(49). (47) John came from California via Boston. (48) Let's bomb this tiny country at a rate of no more than five tons of explosives per person. (49) Italian qua Neo-Latin. Per is limited to expressions of ratio and qua and via are not likely to replace as and by way of in everyday speech. The other type of apparent counterexample to the claim about borrowing is that illustrated by during, pending, except, etc... These are forms which were borrowed as verbs or adjectives from forms like durant, pendant, exceple, and given their gerund ending by calquing the French. It seems then that borrowing may be predicted on the basis of how fossilized a form is.

6. DEGREES OF FOSSILIZATION

Another large topic into which we will have to dip quickly is the matter of degrees of fossilization. It is clear that fossils derived from a V in logical structure will fossilize to various degrees. For example, auxiliaries will be less fossilized than the conditional particle si. Auxiliaries, for example, are subject to agreement, to negative placement, and to conjunction deletion but si is not. A hierarchy of syntactic freedom should be established on which all categories might be placed. The result would likely be a scale going from verbs or nouns to syntactic markers via adjectives, auxiliaries, adverbs, etc... This project is also outside the scope of this paper. 7. In conclusion let us review the motivations for a grammar that incorporates fossilization. (1) The degrees of fossilization are inversely proportional to the likelihood of borrowing. The more fossilized a form, the less likely it is to be replaced. Borrowing always takes place in the least fossilized or the non-fossilized forms. (2) If we assume fossilization, we can explain the development of prepositions like durant, pendant as historically derived from a V. Similarly, during and pending, which are said to be borrowed, can be explained as borrowed V's which have undergone fossilization. That they first had to be integrated in the English system is evident from their ending in ing; borrowed directly from French as prepositions they could not have had -ing as their gerundive inflectional marker.6 (3) To claim that there is a synchronic derivational process called fossilization is to * I owe this observation to Donald Albury.

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JEAN CASAGRANDC

make more natural the grammar of language by allowing it to reflect, as do rules like assimilation, metathesis, epenthesis, etc..., the diachronic processes of language. In connection with this point, it is instructive to contrast one of the differing claims of generative semantics and of interpretive semantics, namely the question as to the place and form of the lexicon. Because it maintains the lexical information as a subcomponent before syntax, the interpretive approach in its present form cannot provide a conciliatory and intuitively satisfactory solution to the problem of est-ce que and of idioms in general. Generative semantics on the other hand because it assumes prelexical syntax lends itself to accounting easily for fossilization.

8. ADDITIONAL REMARKS

I will now turn to some doubts I have about fossilization as a means of predicting borrowing and as a unified process. Recently, a number of people have turned their attention to the degree of particular entities in individual items. In particular, Ross has been identifying degrees in what are referred to as our traditional parts of speech. In a paper (Ross forthcoming) he shows degrees of nouniness and in another read at the 8th meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, he identified degrees of syntactic freedom between verbs, adjectives and nouns. Squishiness is the technical term given by Ross for hierarchy in syntactic freedom. The present paper has been an effort in the same direction, but as I conceived of fossilization it differs from squishiness. For one, I tried to show that fossilization may well provide criteria for distinguishing borrowable from non-borrowable vocabulary. I ran into a problem with regard to derived nominale, which are derived forms of S's, and with abstract nouns, which are also derived, because they can be borrowed just as easily as can concrete nouns. Since there is, in traditional terms, a change from one part of speech to another between the deep and surface structure of si, void, est-ce que, etc., I felt that another requirement for fossilization would be a change of category. I now think that nominals are high enough in the scale of fossilization to be borrowed. The lower on the scale, the more fossilized and the more unlikely an item is to be borrowed. My other problem with fossilization is that I cannot find a general principle to account for processes like the derivation of si, on the one hand, and processes like the derivation of est-ce que on the other. Si, it seems, might be a squished predicate. No structure is altered (i.e. deleted or added) in the portion of trees that dominate si. The same is true of other cases of fossilization which involve the derivation of a fossil from a single node in logical structure. On the other hand that there is a loss (or coagulation) of structures taking place in the derivation of est-ce que is clearly shown by examples (42)-(46). In other words, it is necessary to block the C'est que S sentence from being an answer to Est-ce que S. Fossilization (i.e. the coagulation of est + ce + que into a single question marker)

FOSSILIZATION IN FRENCH SYNTAX

35

accomplishes just that. It isn't clear to me how these two types of fossilization (i.e. the s/ type and the est-ce que type) can be treated similarly. Further investigation may show the present proposal to be wrong on this very point. The obvious alternative to my proposal would make si the result of a squish and est-ce que a special case of idioms.7 Unfortunately such a proposal would not provide a singulary means of predicting likelihood of borrowing.8 University of Florida.

REFERENCES Casagrande, Jean 1969 "On the Source of Some Universals", PJL l, 76-90. Casagrande, Jean, and Bohdan Saciuk (eds.) Forthcoming Generative Studies in Romance Languages (Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House). Fräser, Bruce 1970 "Idioms within a Transformational Grammar", Foundations of Language 6, 22-42. Hirschbuhler, Paul 1970 Traitement transformationnel de interrogation et de quelques problemes connexes enfranfais (Bruxelles: these Universite Libre de Bruxelles). Huddleston, Rodney, and Ormond Uren 1969 "Declarative, Interrogative and Imperative in French", Lingua 22, 1-26. Kayne, Richard S. Forthcoming "Subject Inversion in French Interrogatives", in Casagrande and Saciuk (Forthcoming). Langacker, Ronald W. 1965 "French Interrogatives: a Transformational Description", Language 41, 587-600. 1966 A Transformational Syntax of French (Urbana: University of Illinois thesis). Forthcoming "French Interrogatives Revisited", in Casagrande and Saciuk (Forthcoming). Newmeyer, Frederick J. Forthcoming "The Insertion of Idioms", Papers from the Eighth Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society. Nyrop, Kr. 1925 Grammaire historique de la langue francatse (Paris: Alphonse Picard & fils). Rivero, Maria-Luisa. Forthcoming "On conditionals in Spanish", in Casagrande and Saciuk (Forthcoming). Ross, John R. 1969 "Auxiliaries as main verbs", in Todd (1969). Forthcoming a "Nouniness". Forthcoming b "The category hierarchy: Endstation Hauptwort", Papers from the Eighth Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society. Roulet, Eddy 1969 Syntaxe de la proposition nudeaire enfranfais parle (Bruxelles: AIMAV). Todd, William (ed.) 1969 Studies in Philosophical Linguistics, Series One (Evanston, 111.: Great Expectations). 7 In connection with this, it might be instructive to review the pioneering work of Frazer (1970) on idioms, and to examine closely Newmeyer's proposal (Newmeyer forthcoming) about the derivation of idioms. 8 A word of caution about this paper. This paper is to be viewed more as a blueprint for further work than as a formal proposal. The road to a clearly elaborated theory of fossilization is a long one.

JAMES FOLEY

LATIN ORIGIN OF ROMANCE RULES

The continuity of modern Romance Languages with Latin is reflected in the utilization of Latin rules in the modern languages. Latin rules are repeated or generalized to give the modern Romance rules. The types of repetition are: (1) (2) (3) (4)

simple repetition repetition with different phonetic manifestation repetition to different elements restricted repetition

The types of generalization are: (5) (6) (7) (8)

generalization of rule generalization of environment generalization of environment (morpheme boundary) relaxation of similarity requirement

We consider also: (9) persistence of rules The rules of a language must belong to the set of universal phonological rules. They cannot be created ad hocally and justified by workability or simplicity. Since the set of universal rules is a small subset of the set of possible rules, the universal rules of Language occur repeatedly in particular languages. The emphasis in this paper is not a detailed treatment of Latin or Romance phonology, but the relations between the two. Hence many of the processes will be discussed only in enough detail to show the relationship. A more complete discussion of the Latin and Romance phonological processes which is beyond the scope of this paper can be found in James Foley "Prothesis in the Latin verb sum" (Language 1965), "An interpretation of Lachmann's Law" (Proceedings of the 10th International Congress of Linguists, Bucharest 1967), "A systematic phonological interpretation of the Germanic consonant shifts" (Language Sciences 1970). For the theoretical basis of the phonological system used in this paper consult Foley Theoretical Phonology (unpublished).

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JAMES FOLEY

1. SIMPLE REPETITION

The modern Romance rule h -» 0 (Lt. habere, Sp. haber, FT. avoir) repeats the identical Latin rule nihil > nil, *ne-hemo > nemo, *hanser (Skt. hansah) > anser, bihimus > bimus. The Romance rule // -> kl (Lt. vetulus > *veklo > Sp. viejo) repeats the Latin rule (*potlom > poculum). The Spanish rule uo -> ue (med. Sp. puodo > Sp. puedo) repeats the Latin rule (vor t o > vert ï). The Latin Reverse Holtzmann gy -> y (*magior > maior) repeats itself in Spanish (*hugyo (cf. fugaz) > huyo). In Spanish the Romance cluster dg (from tk) inserts z: portaticu > portazgo ('toll'), judicare > juzgar ('judge'). This repeats the Latin rule which inserts s in the inchoative suffix: *cogno-tk-o > cognotsko > cognosce. The rule tk -» tsk applies in both Latin and Spanish, with the voicing of the sibilant determined by the voice of the neighboring elements.

2. REPETITION WITH DIFFERENT PHONETIC MANIFESTATION

Sometimes the repetition of a rule is disguised by differing phonetic manifestations. Latin and Romance kt clusters both insert an epenthetic element, though the element differs. The Latin cluster inserts a glide (y) while the Romance cluster inserts a sibilant (z), as in nocte > nokyte > Fr. nuit, butplacitu > plagdo > plag'do > plazdo > Sp. plazo. The rule is kt -» k"t where ÷ = y for Latin clusters where ÷ = z for Romance clusters. The Romance rule is a repetition of the earlier Latin rule (epenthesis in kt cluster), though this similarity is obscured by different epenthetic elements. Spanish medieval sibilant devoicing is a repetition with different phonetic manifestation of the Latin rhotacism rule (tempus, temporis), which occurs in two stages: 1. s -> z 2. z-> r The stage z -> r is in turn analyzable into two stages 1. strengthening

LATIN ORIGIN OF ROMANCE RULES

39

2. phonetic manifestation z+ -> r After z strengthens, it is manifested phonetically as r. In the medieval Spanish sibilant devoicing (dezir > desir) s arises from z by the same process that Latin r arises from z: strengthening phonetic manifestation z + -» s 5 and r are both strengthened reflexes of z. In medieval Spanish z does not undergo rhotacism, but rather devoices to s. This phonetic devoicing is a phonological strengthening, substituting for the Latin rhotacism which no longer applies in Spanish: strengthening phonetic manifestation z+ ->· r for Latin z + -» s for Spanish Corresponding to the Latin inchoative suffix in sk (cognosce) is the Castilian inchoative suffix in Qk (conozco), illustrating the general principle that the Latin phonetic output is not the source of the modern Romance phonetic output, for Latin sk does not normally become Castilian Qk (scala > escala). The Castilian phonetic form does not come from the Latin phonetic form, but rather both come from an abstract underlying form which appears in neither language. The inchoative suffix is -tk- (as appearing phonetically in Tocharian). To this form applies the rule tk -» t"k

where Ë: is a release on the t. This rule applies both in Latin and in Castilian, but with different manifestations of x. For Latin ÷ = s but for Castilian ÷ = h: Latin tk -»· tsk Castilian tk -» thk followed by phonetic manifestations of t" as s and of th as È: tsk -» sk t h k -»· 6k

The Castilian Qk suffix results from the repetition of a Latin rule with different phonetic manifestation.

40

JAMES FOLEY 3. REPETITION TO DIFFERENT ELEMENTS

Sometimes the repetition of a rule is obscured by its application to different elements. The Spanish rule which deletes w in cinco from Latin quinque is a repetition of a Latin rule which deletes h as in Lt. barba from *bhardha. Spanish cinco is anomalous, for from Latin qu we do not expect a Spanish assibilated reflex (quintus > quinto, quern > quien), and from a Spanish assibilated reflex we do not expect a Latin form with qu, for normally only Latin k appears as s in Spanish (centum -» ciento). The assibilation in Spanish cinco results from deletion of the first w under the influence of the second: *kwinkwe (quinque) -* kinkwe -» sinko (Grassmann's Law). The deletion of w is a repetition of the same rule in Latin, though the Latin rule applies to different elements, as in barba from *bhardha (Eng. beard) with first *bhardha -» bardha, or else initial bh -»/ (Skt. bharami, Lt. fero). For Spanish and Latin we have the same rule C" -> C / _ VC1

but with ÷ = h for Latin x = w for Spanish

4. RESTRICTED REPETITION

Rules commonly start in a restricted form and then generalize. The development of the Latin intervocalic occlusives into Spanish is analyzable into two stages. In the first shift geminate voiceless stops degeminate (bucca > boca, mittere > meter, cuppa > copa), voiceless stops devoice (amicus > amigo, vita > vida, sapere > saber), and voiced stops spirantize (lego > *leyo, credo > * credo, h here > ha er). With reference to the á and â parameters 4

kk

tt

ÑÑ

3

k

t

Ñ

2

g

d b

1

ã

â

1

2 3 á

LATIN ORIGIN OF ROMANCE RULES

41

these shifts represent a weakening of one position on the â parameter; âç -» âç-1 where 1 < n < m for the first lenition m = 4 In the second shift voiced stops spiranize (amigo > amiyo, vida > vioa, saber > sa er) and (with the exception of â) voiced continuants are elided (*leyo > lea, * credo > creo). The second lenition represents a weakening of one position on the â parameter: âç -* âç-1 where 1 < n < m for the second lenition m = 2 The second shift is an incomplete repetition of the first shift. Though it does not yet apply to 3 we predict that in the future it will generalize to include m = 3 with boca > *boga, meter > *meder, copa > *coba.

5. GENERALIZATION OF RULE

Many rules which have a restricted application in Latin generalize to a more extensive application in Romance. We consider A. B. C. D. E. F.

Spanish diphthongization French s deletion rhotacism origin of lenition vocalization (generalization of consonant) vocalization (generalization of glide) vowel shortening

5.1. Spanish diphthongization In Spanish short stressed mid vowels diphthongize: terra > tierra, nova > nueva. The interpretation of diphthongization is: (1) Short vowels move down one position: cibum > cebo, bucca > boca, terra > tarra, nova > nova. This is a strengthening on the ê parameter êç -» êç+1 with reference to the ê and ë parameters of Romance vowel strength,

42

JAMES FOLEY l

U

e

o

l

2 ë

(2) Stressed vowels of ê strength 3 diphthongize ê3, ã3 -» ê3, ã3Ç—» ê3ã4 -+ ê3ã! That is

£ -» ia ü -»· ua There is no requirement that these vowels be short. Note for example that Sp. cielo is from Lt caelus with ae -» & -> ßá with long