This paper discusses divergences and significant typological correlations found in the family of Romance languages, specifically French, Italian and Spanish. It proposes to reinterpret the complex system of indefinite nominal determination in two central Romance languages, viz. French and Italian, which both feature an indefinite article and a partitive article, as a device of nominal classification in a broad sense, marking the conceptually important distinction between a single, contoured referent and a non-contoured substance. It is argued that this classification system arose when nominal declension in Latin, which differentiated these two referentially highly relevant cognitive concepts via overt gender and number affixes, was partially or completely lost. In contrast to modern central Romance languages, which require obligatory (indefinite) determination in almost every argument position, modern peripheral Romance languages like Romanian or Spanish, possessing a simpler and more flexible system of determination, developed a system of differential object marking in order to unambiguously indicate contoured and highly individualized referents in direct object position.
2022. Preverbal Subjects with a Partitive Article: A Comparison Between Aosta Valley Francoprovençal and French*. Studia Linguistica 76:1 ► pp. 130 ff.
Ihsane, Tabea & Elisabeth Stark
2020. Introduction: Shades of partitivity: Formal and areal properties. Linguistics 58:3 ► pp. 605 ff.
2019. DP Structure: From Multiple Determiners to Just One. In Language Structure, Variation and Change, ► pp. 123 ff.
Manzini, M. Rita & Leonardo M. Savoia
2017. Enclisis/Proclisis Alternations in Romance: Allomorphies and (Re)Ordering. Transactions of the Philological Society 115:1 ► pp. 98 ff.
Mihatsch, Wiltrud & Désirée Kleineberg
2024. The Interaction of Morphosyntax and Semantics in Romance Object Mass Nouns. In Nouns and the Morphosyntax / Semantics Interface, ► pp. 153 ff.
Pinzin, Francesco
2024. What’s hidden below definiteness and genitive: on indefinite partitive articles in Romance. Linguistics 0:0
Roehrs, Dorian
2010. Demonstrative-reinforcer constructions. The Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 13:3 ► pp. 225 ff.
Stark, Elisabeth & Jan Pavel Davatz
2022. Unexpected Partitive Articles in Francoprovençal*. Studia Linguistica 76:1 ► pp. 101 ff.
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