Linguistic Theory and the Romance Languages

254 Pages·1995·19.204 MB·

by  John Charles Smith, Martin Maiden (Eds.)

LINGUISTIC THEORY AND THE ROMANCE LANGUAGES
AMSTERDAM STUDIES IN THE THEORY AND
HISTORY OF LINGUISTIC SCIENCE
General Editor
E. F. KONRAD KOERNER
(University of Ottawa)
Series IV - CURRENT ISSUES IN LINGUISTIC THEORY
Advisory Editorial Board
Henning Andersen (Los Angeles); Raimo Anttila (Los Angeles)
Thomas V. Gamkrelidze (Tbilisi); John E. Joseph (Hong Kong)
Hans-Heinrich Lieb (Berlin); Ernst Pulgram (Ann Arbor, Mich.)
E. Wyn Roberts (Vancouver, B.C.); Danny Steinberg (Tokyo)
Volume 122
John Charles Smith and Martin Maiden (eds)
Linguistic Theory and the Romance Languages
LINGUISTIC THEORY
AND THE
ROMANCE LANGUAGES
Edited by
JOHN CHARLES SMITH
University of Manchester
MARTIN MAIDEN
University of Cambridge
JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY
AMSTERDAM/PHILADELPHIA
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences — Permanence of
Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Linguistic theory and the Romance languages / edited by John Charles Smith, Martin Maiden,
p. cm. — (Amsterdam studies in the theory and history of linguistic science. Series
IV, Current issues in linguistic theory, ISSN 0304-0763 ; v. 122)
Chiefly updated versions of papers presented at a conference on Romance linguistics held
at the Manoir de Brion in Dragey, Manche, May 1989
Includes index.
1. Romance languages-Congresses. I. Smith, John Charles, 1950- . II. Maiden, Martin,
1957- . III. Series.
PC11.L54 1995
440--dc20 95-280
ISBN 90 272 3625 9 (Eur.) / 1-55619-576-1 (US) (alk. paper) CIP
© Copyright 1995 - John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any
other means, without written permission from the publisher.
John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O.Box 75577 · 1070 AN Amsterdam · The Netherlands
John Benjamins North America · P.O.Box 27519 · Philadelphia PA 19118-0519 · USA
In memoriam
Adrian C. Battye

Contents
Introduction ix
f ADRIAN C. BATTYE
Aspects of quantification in French in its regional
and diachronic varieties 1
MICHAEL ALLAN JONES
The prepositional accusative in Sardinian: its distribution
and syntactic repercussions 37
CHRISTOPHER LYONS
Voice, aspect, and arbitrary arguments 77
MARTIN MAIDEN
Evidence from the Italian dialects for the internal
structure of prosodic domains 115
M. MAIR PARRY
Some observations on the syntax of clitic pronouns
in Piedmontese 133
JOHN CHARLES SMITH
Perceptual factors and the disappearance of agreement
between past participle and direct object in Romance 161
JEAN-PHILIPPE WATBLED
Segmental and suprasegmental structure in
Southern French 181
MAX W. WHEELER
'Underspecification' and 'misagreement' in
Catalan lexical specifiers 201
Index 231
Contributors' Addresses:
Michael Allan Jones
Department of Language and Linguistics
University of Essex
Wivenhoe Park
COLCHESTER C04 3SQ
U.K.
Christopher Lyons
Department of Modern Languages
University of Salford
SALFORD M5 4WT
U.K.
Martin Maiden
Downing College
CAMBRIDGE CB2 1DQ
U.K.
M. Mair Parry
Department of European Languages
University of Wales Aberystwyth
Hugh Owen Building
ABERYSTWYTH SY23 3DY
U.K.
John Charles Smith
Department of Linguistics
University of Manchester
Oxford Road
MANCHESTER M13 9PL
U.K.
Jean-Philippe Watbled
Département d'Études du monde anglophone
Université de Provence (Aix-Marseille I)
Centre d'Aix
29 avenue Robert Schuman
13621 AIX-EN-PROVENCE CEDEX
FRANCE
Max W Wheeler
School of Cognitive & Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Falmer
BRIGHTON BN1 9QH
U.K.
Introduction
The Manoir de Brion, situated in the commune of Dragey, département of
the Manche, in the Basse-Normandie region of France, began life in 1066 as
a Benedictine priory founded by the abbot of the nearby Mont-Saint-Michel.
Over the years, it came to serve as a summer residence for the abbots, and as
a guest house, where distinguished visitors to the abbey were received. It
was greatly extended in the early sixteenth century, assuming something like
its present appearance. This period also saw one of the most significant
events in the Manoir's history, when Jacques Cartier, the discoverer of
Canada, came for an audience with the French king François Ier before one
of his voyages. The Manoir is now owned by Vincent and Chantai Cronin,
who generously made it available to us for a three-day conference on
Romance Linguistics in May 1989. We thank them for allowing us to
invade their home.
The participants, with one exception, held appointments at universities in
Great Britain. Their enthusiastic participation in the conference reflects the
vigour of the discipline in the United Kingdom. In a period of decline in