The Transformational Syntax of Romanian

201 Pages·1972·13.19 MB·English

by  Emanuel Vasiliu, Sanda Golopenţia-Eretescu

JANUA LINGUARUM
STUDIA MEMORIAE
NICOLAI VAN WIJK DEDICATA
edenda curai
C. H. VAN SCHOONEVELD
Indiana University
S er i e s P r a c t i c a, 195

THE TRANSFORMATIONAL SYNTAX
OF ROMANIAN
EMANUEL VASILIU SANDA GOLOPENTIA-ERETESCU
FACULTY OF ROMANIAN CENTRE OF PHONETICS
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE AND DIALECTOLOGY
BUCHAREST BUCHAREST
1972
MOUTON
THE HAGUE • PARIS
Translated from the Romanian by Hinca Constantinescu
This is the revised version of
S1NTAXA TRANSFORMATIONALA A L1MB1I ROMANE
EDITURA ACADEMIEI REPUBLIC» SOCIALISTE ROMANIA
Str. Gutenberg 3 bis, Bucure?ti, 1969
All rights reserved
© by EDITURA ACADEMIEI and MOUTON & CO. N. V. PUBLISHERS, 1972
PRINTED IN ROMANIA
THE TRANSFORMATIONAL SYNTAX
OF ROMANIAN

PREFACE TO THE ROMANIAN EDITION
The transformational syntax of Eomanian represents one of the few works
of transformational orientation existent at the present moment which
makes an attempt to encompass a given language in its ensemble. Up to
now, most transformational grammars are built up with a view to de-
scribing (more or less extended) stretches of concrete languages (the nomi-
nalization in English, the negation in English, the coordination, etc.).
As a matter of fact, a transformational grammar conceived to cover a
language as a whole should rely on a sufficiently large number of detailed
grammars devoted to the main compartments of the respective language
(the grammar of the noun phrase, of the verb phrase, of the adverbial
phrase, of nominalization, etc.). Under such circumstances the grammar
of "the whole" would operate the 'fitting together' of these fragmentary
grammars and would represent first of all an act of choice and generaliza-
tion of those solutions (put forward by the slice grammars) that prove
to be more adequate to the entire domain represented by the language
under consideration, or which are compatible with solutions suggested
for other fragments of the same language. It is obvious that under such
circumstances, the building up of an integral grammar would be a prima-
rily theoretic operation.
The situation the authors had to face was substantially different.
There are very few studies on different stretches of Eomanian (Liliana
Ionescu 1965, 1967 ; Mihaela Manca§ 1965, 1967 ; Gabriela Pana 1966,
Laura Yasiliu 1965,1967). The authors had therefore to build up an almost
entirely new grammar. What had to be done first was not the theoretical
evaluation of existent solutions and piecing them together, but finding
new solutions. And finding new solutions adequate to a greater number
of facts (the whole domain of a language) is obviously more difficult than
finding solutions adequate to a smaller number of facts (a limited portion
of a language). Likewise, confining the study to a language fragment per-
mits the solutions to account for a larger number of details; restricting
the domain represents a possibility to refine the description. At the same
time its extension (to the entire language) involves an inherent (and
deliberate) overlooking of details.
8 THE TRANSFORMATIONAL SYNTAX OF ROMANIAN
In spite of the mentioned difficulties (of which we had been permanently
aware), we do not consider this grammar to be "premature". On the
contrary. If it is true and evident that the existence of slice grammars
makes possible the evaluation of partial solutions and their ulterior inte-
gration into an ensemble with big possibilities of refining the description,
it is equally true that the existence of a first approximation in terms of
an ensemble description (unavoidably less refined) constitutes a sort of a
reference system for the evaluation of further solutions with an increased
explanatory power, or/and a greater descriptive force.
Therefore, we conceive the present work as a starting point for future
researches in the transformational grammar of Eomanian. To begin the
study of a subject matter with a general characterization liable of further
progressive refinements is as justified as to begin the study with partial
but profound approaches which are to be unified later on in a refined
overall characterization. The procedure is a matter of decision and neither
of the approaches may unarbitrarily be qualified "better" than the
other one.
Our work reflects the state attained by transformational theory in
1965, that is with the progress that had been achieved since 1957, but
also the known, or unknown, flaws persisting in the '1965 state'. Our
work reflects also these flaws as its authors did not set the aim to
contribute to the solving of some theoretical problems. In this sense, men-
tion should be made firstly of the fact that in transformational theory the
transformational component proper is on a rather low level of formaliza-
tion. For this reason it is difficult to "reckon" all the transformations
possible in the grammar of a concrete language, the generative limits of
this component being hard to specify.
On the other hand, while working out the present study certain theo-
retical difficulties arose, as far as we know — not tackled before — and
which the authors did not aim to solve. Such is the case of the inversion
transformation —, where the outcome of the transformations does not seem
to be safe of an unarbitrary structural description.
Furthermore, no theoretic statement is made either on the nature of
the relationship between grammar and semantics, or on the extent to which
semantics intervenes in the formulation of grammatical rules. The selec-
tion rules are considered in Chomsky (1965) as belonging to grammar,
and in Katz-Postal (1966), as belonging to the semantic component.
Weinreich (1966) introduces semantic elements even in the rewriting of
some categorial symbols of great generality such as S, NT, etc.
We tried to avoid certain consequences of these theoretic shortcomings.
To this end the chapter devoted to the transformational component com-
PREFACE 9
prises almost exclusively obligatory rules ; we have listed — without any
claim to completeness, and mainly in order to account for the existence
of some constructions possibly more frequent than those generated only
through obligatory rules — a series of ellipsis rules in relation to the com-
parative and the superlative. We have not dealt in detail with questions
raised by the selective restrictions and by subcategorizations since these
matters evidently have theoretic implications of a semantic nature. This
is also the reason why a series of transformations too closely connected
with these aspects have been only briefly mentioned (pronominalization,
reflexivization, the repositioning of formatives within various modal
constructions, etc.).
As the title shows, the study does not encompass the morphophonemic
component or the semantic one either.
However it contains certain suggestions with respect to the sense in
which rules of this nature could be formulated, that might be incorporated
into an integral description of the Romanian language.
The research was achieved through the collaboration of the two authors
at the section devoted tosrtuctural linguistics of the "Centrul de cerce-
tàri fonetice §i dialectale" in Bucharest.
The chapter on nominalizations had been worked out in a first
form by Ileana Vincenz. As now included in the present work this
chapter underwent substantial modifications.
The introductory chapter and the one dealing with constituent rules
were written by Sanda Golopen^ia-Eretescu ; the chapter devoted to
transformation rules was written by Emanuel Yasiliu. Obviously, this
division regards the wording exclusively. Both the general conception of
the work, as well as its concrete accomplishment, are common to the two
of them, the collaboration being imposed by the very nature of the model
utilised : the transformation rules are being formulated starting from struc-
tures arrived at through constituent rules, and the constituent rules are
being formulated without loosing sight of the transformations that have
to convert the abstract, deep structure into surface structure.
The authors acknowledge their sincere gratitude to Professor Al. Rosetti,
member of the Academy of the Socialist Republic of Romania and director
of "Centrul de cercetâri fonetice §i dialectale" for his steady interest and
enthusiastic support all along the carrying out of this research.