LINGUIST List 25.2314
Tue
May 27 2014
Review: Romance;
Historical Linguistics; Typology: Labeau &
Bres (2013)
Editor for this issue:
Rajiv Rao <rajivlinguistlist.org>
Date: 19-Mar-2014
From: Paul Isambert
<zappathustra
free.fr>
Subject: Evolution in Romance
Verbal Systems
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Book announced at
http://linguistlist.org/issues/24/24-4775.html
EDITOR: Emmanuelle Labeau
EDITOR: Jacques Bres
TITLE: Evolution in Romance Verbal Systems
SERIES TITLE: Sciences pour la communication -
Band 108
PUBLISHER: Peter Lang AG
YEAR: 2013
REVIEWER: Paul Isambert, Université de
Tours
SUMMARY
In their introduction, Emmanuelle Labeau and
Jacques Bres stress the importance of a
cross-linguistic and diachronic approach to
linguistic phenomena, relating the book to
Bybee et al. (1994) and similar works. They
then introduce the following papers.
Aude Rebotier's ''The 'passé simple' takes a
step back; who steps in?'' is a study of the
use of the ''passé simple'' in French compared
to the similar yet more frequent ''passato
remoto'' in Italian. Working with a corpus of
Wikipedia articles, the author shows that
several variables, for example, the verbal
lexeme, the animacy of the subject, the
presence of some adverbials or prepositions,
(dis)favor the use of concurring tenses, and
that as a whole, the present and ''passé
composé'' are the more frequent replacements,
but with different profiles: the present is an
alternative for the ''passé simple'' in
general, while the ''passé composé'' takes over
some of its uses only.
Mary T. Copple's ''Following the path: An
emerging perfect(ive) viewed through temporal
reference'' describes the evolution of the
present perfect (PP) into a perfective
(competing with the preterit). Texts from the
15th, 17th and 19th centuries are studied
according to three main criteria: increase in
frequency (i.e., the proportion of PP forms
versus preterit forms), syntactic
rigidification (i.e., fusion of the auxiliary
and the participle), and semantic
generalization (i.e., larger range of temporal
reference). They all point to the same
conclusion: the PP experiences the well-known
evolution from resultative to perfective.
In ''Towards an unified account of the present
perfect in Catalan and English'', Teresa Maria
Xiqués addresses the difference between the use
of the PP in the two languages: it has a
hodiernal past interpretation in Catalan, which
is impossible in English. Using Reichenbach's
(1947) framework, the author argues that the
temporal configuration of the PP is identical
in all uses, although it remains unexplained
why English prevents punctual time adverbials
with this tense.
''French participle agreement with 'avoir':
Current trends as an indication of
grammaticalization'', Rebotier's second
contribution to the volume, investigates the
factors contributing to proper agreement
(according to normative grammar) between the
past participle and its pre-posed object; among
others, the audibility of the agreement (the
study is based on a written corpus) and the
speech situation matter most, but
interestingly, some factors inhibiting
agreements also prevent a resultative or
passive reading, hinting at the parallel
development of form and function in the ongoing
grammaticalization of the perfect with 'avoir'
('to have').
In ''Non-conventional uses of the pluperfect in
Italian (and German) literary prose'', Pier
Marco Bertinetto examines the aoristic
interpretation of the pluperfect and its
exploitation by writers as a replacement for
the simple past. While the study focuses on
literary use, the author hypothesizes that the
evolution is parallel to the present perfect
becoming a perfective, so languages missing the
latter (like English) would be less likely to
exhibit the aoristic pluperfect.
Bres and Lebeau's ''About the illustrative use
of the 'aller' + periphrasis in French''
studies a frequent yet little studied use of
the French 'go'-periphrasis (whose most common
interpretation is future). This use often
illustrates a fact and marks iteration
(preventing any semelfactive interpretation),
and, more generally, is clearly modal. The
authors also claim that all the uses of the
'go'-periphrasis stem from a common,
fundamental value, despite the apparent
variety.
''The 'aller' perfect'', by Marianne Collier,
compares the French future with its
periphrastic counterpart when used with the
perfective. Both tenses can be used for
temporal reference (locating a process in the
future before another one) or modality
(expressing past probability); however, with
'aller' ('to go'), the latter use is much
restricted (except in Canadian French).
Moreover, when 'aller' itself is in the
imperfect, it does not take over the modal
values of the conditional.
In ''Indirect evidentiality and related
domains: Some observations from the current
evolution of the Romanian presumptive'',
Monica-Alexandrina Irimia investigates how
Romanian expresses indirect evidentiality with
a modal auxiliary followed by 'be' and the
present or past participle. The complex
morphological data allow the author to study
the evolution of tense/aspect/mood notions and
how they are mapped onto particular structures.
Despite highly idiosyncratic patterns, the
semantics of indirect evidentials can be
decomposed, showing that their main import is
that an eventuality does not hold at the
speaker's deictic center.
In ''Modals and tense in Contemporary European
Portuguese and in Old Portuguese'', Alexandra
Fiéis and Ana Madeira claim that, despite
unchanging semantics, some Portuguese modal
verbs have undergone degrammaticalization, as
evidenced by syntactic considerations
pertaining to the following infinitival phrase.
Because of this structural change, the modals
have acquired characteristics associated with
lexical verbs, even though no difference in
interpretation follows.
In ''Portuguese temporal expressions with
'haver' and their Romance counterparts --
Semantic interpretation and
grammaticalization'', Telmo Móia tracks the
current development of a modal into a
preposition-like connective; this evolution,
found in several other languages (see English
'ago'), can be explained by the fact that the
(originally verbal) constructions have a
meaning typically expressed by prepositional
phrases, which they formally resemble at the
discourse level.
EVALUATION
As stated by the editors in their introduction,
this volume takes diachrony seriously as an
explicative factor in language structure: ''[A]
diachronic approach significantly enhances the
explanatory power of linguistic theory by
showing how a specific form came to convey a
certain function [...]'' (p. 1). Also crucial
is the idea that a language is not ''a neat
system'', but rather a complex layering of
interacting sub-systems (Hopper, 1991).
Finally, many -- if not all -- papers compare
similar phenomena in several languages, thus
offering interesting cross-linguistic
insights.
Interestingly, most evolutions studied in this
volume are quite recent, and actually, often
still ongoing. As such, it stresses the fact
that diachronic approaches do not deal with the
past, but with change, and that change may be
better grasped in the present (Janda &
Joseph, 2003), if only because data are much
more available. It also serves as a constant
reminder that diachronicians study the same
phenomena as other linguists; the papers on
French, for instance, offer excellent insights
into the most contemporary grammatical
facts.
That said, the approaches in this volume vary
widely, from the variationist, quantitative
methodology of Rebotier's two papers to Fiéis
and Madeira's strong generative stance. Again,
this stresses that diachrony is not a theory,
but rather a point of view -- actually, a
linguistic phenomenon in itself, in need of
explanation like any other linguistic
phenomenon. Hence, despite the theoretical
diversity, much can be learned from this book
about the evolution of a language family.
Verbal systems, even restricted to Romance
languages and considered only in diachrony,
won't be exhausted by a single volume, and this
book doesn't pretend to do so. Instead, it
includes a set of contributions focusing on
very precise issues (as opposed to more
abstract theorizing). Theoretical
considerations aren't absent, but they are
played down in favor of data, which is actually
the feature that makes this book stand out.
Consequently, it will be of use to anybody
interested in Romance linguistics (not only
historical Romance linguistics), as it offers
hard facts on quite complex systems.
The book could have benefited from a more
thorough introduction strengthening the
importance of diachrony; here, the editors
mostly refer the reader to Bybee et al. (1994),
and similar works, and then present the rest of
the volume. Finally, more care could have been
brought to the editing of figures, as most of
them are screenshots that are, in some cases,
not very legible, and in some cases, even
including the spellchecker's wiggly underline.
These are minor defects, though, and do not
decrease the book's value.
REFERENCES
Bybee, Joan, Revere Perkins & William
Pagliuca (1994), ''The evolution of grammar:
Tense, aspect and modality in the languages of
the world.,'' The University of Chicago Press,
Chicago.
Hopper, Paul J. (1991), On some principles of
grammaticalization, in ''Approaches to
grammaticalization,'' E.C. Traugott and B.
Heine (eds.), vol.1, 17-35, John Benjamins,
Amsterdam.
Janda, Richard D. & Brian D. Joseph (2003),
On language, change, and language change -- Or,
of history, linguistics, and historical
linguistics, in ''The handbook of historical
linguistics'', B.D. Joseph and R.D. Janda
(eds), 3-180, Blackwell, Oxford.
Reichenbach, Hans (1947), ''Elements of
symbolic logic'', Macmillan, New York.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Paul Isambert holds a PhD from the University
of Paris 3, France. He is currently working on
grammaticalization in French and teaches at the
University of Tours, France.
Page Updated: 27-May-2014