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Space in Diachrony
Edited by Silvia Luraghi, Tatiana Nikitina and Chiara Zanchi
[Studies in Language Companion Series 188] 2017
► pp. 207–240

Spatial interrogatives

Typology and dynamics (with special focus on the development from Latin to Romance)

| University of Bremen, Germany
| University of Bremen, Germany
| University of Bremen, Germany
This paper explores the diachronic behavior of the paradigms of the spatial interrogatives where, whither, and whence in forty-five contemporary Romance varieties by way of comparing them to the facts reported for their common ancestor: Latin. It is shown that the vast majority of the paradigms have undergone leveling in the sense that the erstwhile (phonological) suppletion of the Latin paradigm was replaced by ternary sets of word-forms sharing the same stem. This shared stem is identical to that of Latin ubi ‘where’ (= locative) in many of the sample languages. At the same time, an almost equally strong group of Romance varieties has generalized Latin unde ‘whence’ (= ablative) over the paradigm. These facts are inquired into against the backdrop of the general linguistic discussion about the nature of syncretism of spatial relations in language.
Keywords: interrogatives, paradigms, syncretism, Latin, Romance
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theory, methodology, and basic notions
  • 3.Typology – synchronic and diachronic data
  • 4.Indo-European
    • 4.1From Latin to Romance
    • 4.2Reinforcement and renovation
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • Sources [Le Petit Prince]
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 14 August 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.188.08sto
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