Vol. XXVII Nr. 2
DOI: 10.31178/BWPL.27.2
Blanca Croitor and Ion Giurgea
On the diachrony of article drop in Romanian
Abstract: Romanian has a peculiar rule which prohibits the overt realization of definiteness marking in DPs consisting only of D0 and N0 in the complement position of most prepositions, called “article drop”. We investigate this phenomenon from a diachronic and comparative point of view. Similar phenomena are found in Albanian, Macedonian and some Rhaeto-Romance varieties, but in these varieties the rule is more limited in scope (it is restricted to locative PPs, and also to certain nouns in Rhaeto-Romance). Article drop is a common Romanian phenomenon, being found in the South-Danubian Romanian dialects as well as since the oldest attestations of Romanian. In the other Balkan languages, it may be a structural borrowing from Aromanian (Prendergast 2017). In Romanian, the prepositions exempt from article drop are those that never had locative uses or had predominant non-locative uses, which indicates an origin in locative PPs. Moreover, person-referring nouns are sometimes exempt from article drop, to a larger extent in Old Romanian and Aromanian than in Modern Romanian (where only name-like definites are exempt from the rule). We propose that article drop emerged from the reanalysis of a semantically-conditioned phenomenon into a syntactically-conditioned rule. We identify the origin of article drop in an oscillation between definite marking and zero marking in ‘weak definites’ (in the sense of Carlson & Sussman 2005; cf. Engl. at school, in jail). Weak definites often occur in locative PPs, tend to disallow modification and are usually inanimate. These properties correspond to the conditions of application of the article drop rule, as evinced by our diachronic and diatopic survey.
Keywords: article drop, prepositions, definiteness, locatives, weak definites
Emil Ionescu
On the origin of negative concord in Romance languages. The case of Balkan Romania
Abstract: The purpose of the article is to contribute to the explanation of the emergence of negative concord in Romance languages. We discuss the hypothesis of Chiara Gianollo (2018) who shows that the relevant factors are the projection NegP (which emerged in Late Latin) and the new properties (also from Late Latin) of the negative indefinites (i.e. scalarity, emphasis of focus and suspension of the negation force). Gianollo shows that the loss of both focus emphasis and scalarity, coupled with, the grammaticalization of the negative feature of indefinites, produced in the early stages of most Romance languages indefinites that are existentials in the scope of negation. We show that this is just one evolution in the Romance area, because in Balkan Romania, negative indefinites in negative concord are universal quantifiers that outscope negation. This presupposes that negative indefinites in Balkan Romania did not lose scalarity or the focus emphasis. The necessary and sufficient conditions for the emergence of negative concord in Romance are therefore only two: the existence of the NegP projection and (in the case of negative indefinites) the grammaticalization of their negative feature. Scalarity and emphasis of focus, instead, are factors of variation in the realization of negative concord, as they may or may not be preserved by Romance languages.
Keywords: Latin, Romance languages, negative concord, Balkan Romania
Christine van Putten, Martine Coene, Petra Bos and Annemiek Hammer
Advancing vocabulary acquisition through morphological instruction: Evidence from Dutch EFL learners
Abstract: This study investigates the effects of explicit instruction in derivational morphology on English vocabulary acquisition among Dutch high school students. Forty-two learners participated in a pre-test/post-test intervention comparing two approaches: Focus on Forms (FoFs), emphasizing systematic teaching of ffixes, and Focus on Form (FoF), embedding affixes in communicative contexts. Mixed-factor ANOVA analyses revealed no significant overall effects of instructional type or time, though task type significantly influenced outcomes. Students consistently performed worse on derivation tasks than on decomposition or sentence completion, with prefixes posing greater challenges than suffixes. These findings highlight the cognitive complexity of productive morphological tasks and the need for more targeted, sustained instruction.The study underscores that while explicit morphological teaching may not yield immediate gains across all tasks, it illuminates task- and affix-specific difficulties that must be addressed in vocabulary pedagogy.
Keywords: derivational morphology, morphological awareness, vocabulary acquisition, English as a foreign language (EFL), instructional approaches
Ibrahim Eshlash Odeh Almomany
Acoustic correlates of emphasis among Jordanian Arabic-speaking children
Abstract: This study explores segmental emphasis in Ajlouni Jordanian Arabic. It addresses the lack of research on children’s production of emphatic segments. Twenty schoolchildren read 48 minimal pairs thrice, with 96 tokens analyzed per child. The study used F1, F2, and F3 at vowel onset, middle, and offset, confirming that emphasis is marked by higher F1 and lower F2. Emphasis interacts with target consonant position (PTC), vowel quality, and length. Emphasis is influenced by the segment’s proximity to vowels. Emphasis affects the low vowel /a/ with significant F2 lowering; back vowels show less F2 lowering. Short vowels exhibit more pronounced emphasis than long ones, visible in F1 and F2 changes. Other interactions support these findings: front vowels have more effect on F2 onset, and short vowels consistently have a greater F2 effect at offset than long vowels, particularly for PTC by vowel length interaction, highlighting greater acoustic prominence for short vowels.
Keywords: emphasis, Ajlouni Jordanian Arabic, formant frequencies, vowel quality, vowel length
R E V I E W S
Diana Ștefan-Dinescu. On the Syntax of Deverbal Nominalizations in English and Romanian. (Reviewed by Imola-Ágnes Farkas)
Ioana Stoicescu. Telicity in Child Romanian. Theoretical and Developmental Insights. (Reviewed by Veronica Tomescu)