The Rhaeto-Romance Languages

Romance Linguistics Editorial Statement Routledge publish the Romance Linguistics series under the editorship of MartinS Harris (University of Essex) and Nigel Vincent (University of Manchester). Romance Philogy and General Linguistics have followed sometimes converging sometimes diverging paths over the last century and a half. With the present series we wish to recognise and promote the mutual interaction of the two disciplines. The focus is deliberately wide, seeking to encompass not only work in the phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexis of the Romance languages, but also studies in the history of Romance linguistics and linguistic thought in the Romance cultural area. Some of the volumes will be devoted to particular aspects of individual languages, some will be comparative in nature; some will adopt a synchronic and some a diachronic slant; some will concentrate on linguistic structures, and some will investigate the sociocultural dimensions of language and language use in the Romance-speaking territories. Yet all will endorse the view that a General Linguistics that ignores the always rich and often unique data of Romance is as impoverished as a Romance Philogy that turns its back on the insights of linguistics theory. Other books in the Romance Linguistics series include: Structures and Transformations Christopher J.Pountain Studies in the Romance Verb eds Nigel Vincent and Martin Harris Weakening Processes in the History of Spanish Consonants Raymond Harris-Northall Spanish Word Formation M.F.Lang Tense and Text Dulcie Engel Variation and Change in French John Green and Wendy Ayres-Bennett Latin Syntax and Semantics Harm Pinkster Thematic Theory in Syntax Robin Clark Tense and Narrativity Susanne Fleischman Comparative Constructions in Spanish and French Syntax Susan Price Latin and the Romance Languages in the Early Middle Ages Roger Wright Also of interest: The Romance Languages Martin Harris and Nigel Vincent The Rhaeto-Romance Languages John Haiman and Paola Beninca First published 1992 by Routledge Published 2017 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © 1992 John Haiman and Paola Beninca Typeset in 10/12 Times by Megaron, Cardiff. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.tandfebooks.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Haiman, John The rhaeto-romance languages. -(Romance Linguistics) I. Title II. Beninca, Paola, III. Series 450 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for ISBN 978-0-415-04194-2 (hbk) Contents Acknowledgements vi List of abbreviations vii Introduction 1 1 Phonology 22 2 Morphology 64 3 Lexicon 139 4 Syntax 148 Appendix: some irregular verbs 212 References 222 Index 231 Acknowledgements Stephen Leacock wrote that, having once spent a night at the Mitre Hotel in Oxford in 1907, and then revisited the University in 1921, his views on Oxford were based on observations extending over fourteen years. My relationship with Rhaeto-Romance is even deeper. In 1969, I spent a year as a graduate student in Chur, learning Surselvan and Vallader. Since 1987, I have started to learn (the Passariano di Codroipo dialect of) Friulian from expatriates in Winnipeg. When I add that I have on two occasions gone on hiking trips with my family through the Swiss Alps and the Dolomites, it will be seen that my impressions of RhaetoRomance are based directly on observations extending over a period of eighteen years. To my teachers, both inside and outside of the classroom ‘over’ this respectable span, my humble and hearty thanks. I am grateful to Professor Clifford Leonard, for his careful reading and penetrating criticisms of chapter 1, which amounted almost to a chapter in themselves; and to Dr Christine Kamprath for checking the Surmeiran data and informing me about the latest attempt to create a unified ‘Romantsch grischun’ on the 2,000th anniversary of the arrival of the Roman legions in Switzerland. For perceptive comments on portions of chapter 4, my thanks to Professors Dwight Bolinger and Knud Lambrecht. Finally, I am most grateful to my co-author, Dr Paola Benincà, whose collaboration on this project began when she served as the outside reader for the original manuscript. Her comments were so rich and detailed that I asked her to acknowledge them by appearing on the cover of this book. After a satisfying correspondence over two years, I look forward finally to meeting her this year. John Haiman This is one of those works which, by its very nature, is certain to attract criticism before it is even begun: due to the vastness of the area dealt with, errors and omissions are almost sure to occur. None the less, I am happy to have contributed to it, because I think that the set of languages described here represents one of the most interesting linguistic groups in the world, for many reasons, some of which we hope will appear to the readers of this book. After a hiatus of many decades, the area is once again described in its entirety, and for the first time equal space is devoted to phonology, morphology, and syntax. My contribution to Professor Haiman’s project was mainly to supply additional information regarding ‘Italian Rhaeto-Romance’ (i.e. Ladin and Friulian). In the best tradition, we still do not totally agree with each other in our respective interpretation of all the data presented here: I hope, however, our collaboration has proved as pleasant and stimulating to him as it has to me. I thank Laura Vanelli, who kindly read the final version and provided useful comments and encouragement, and Gian Paolo Salvi, who read the proofs and suggested various improvements. Paola Benincà Abbreviations acc. accusative AIS see Jaberg and Jud 1928–40 Amp. Ampezzan ASLEF Atlante storico-linguisticoetnografico friulano attr. attributive Bad. Badiot c. common (gender) dat. dative DESF Dizionario etimologico storico friulano dim. diminutive DRG see Schorta and Decurtins 1939– Eng. Engadine f. feminine Fr. French Frl. Friulian Gard. Gardena ger. gerund Goth. Gothic i.i. imperfect indicative imp. imperative impf. imperfect ind. indicative inf. infinitive inter. interrogative i.s. imperfect subjunctive Lat. Latin Liv. Livinallongo Long. Longobardian LRL see Holtus et al. 1989 m. masculine ME Middle English MFr. Middle French MHG Middle High German n. neuter nom. nominative OHG Old High German pl. plural poss. possessive p.p. past participle pred. predicative pres. present prf. perfect PRR proto-Rhaeto-Romance RR Rhaeto-Romance REW see Meyer-Lübke 1935 sg. singular Slov. Slovenian subj. subjunctive Surm. Surmeiran Surs. Surselvan Suts. Sutselvan T topic Val. Vallader Ven. Venetian VL Vulgar Latin Introduction If the Romance languages can be compared to a solar system—with Latin shining in the centre, surrounded by its offspring—then the Rhaeto-Romance (RR) dialects are truly, in D.B.Gregor’s vivid metaphor, among the asteroids. Unlike familiar members of the family such as Spanish, French, and Italian, they are not even visible to the layman’s naked eye, and their discovery is comparatively recent. In 1873, the Italian linguist Graziadio Ascoli introduced the study of Romance dialects into the research framework of comparative linguistics, analysing the historical phonology of the present group of Romance dialects. He pointed out that they shared a number of characterizing phenomena and constituted a linguistic group, which he named ‘Ladino’. Since 1883, with the appearance of Theodor Gartner’s classic Raetoromanische Grammatik on the same topic, the name ‘RhaetoRomance’ has been associated with these dialects. They are spoken in three separated areas located along a narrow strip of land running almost west to east, from the headwaters of the Rhine and along the valley of the Inn in southern Switzerland, over the Dolomitic Alps of northern Italy, to the drainage basin of the Tagliamento river, which flows into the Adriatic Sea between Venice and Trieste. As indicated on map 1, these enclaves are separated by areas where German or northern Italian dialects are spoken. The Swiss or Rhenish and Engadine dialects, known collectively as Romansh, and spoken by no more than 50,000 people, are officially recognized as a single language: in 1938 accorded institutional status as the fourth national language of Switzerland (no doubt to counter Mussolini’s pretensions to ‘Italian’ territories in Switzerland): nevertheless, under the impetus of the Reformation, five separate Swiss dialects (Surselvan, Sutselvan, Surmeiran, Puter, and Vallader) had acquired distinct orthographies and normative gram- The rhaeto-romance languages 2 Map 1 The distribution of Rhaeto- Romance matical traditions (embodied in pedagogical grammars dating back to the eighteenth century), and attempts to create a single ‘Romonsch fusionau’ have failed. The half- dozen Dolomitic dialects, herein collectively named Ladin, and spoken by perhaps 30,000 people, have no official or literary status, except in the province of Bolzano, where instruction in Ladin has been given for one or two hours per week since 1948. Even less recognition is accorded to the easternmost dialects, known as Friulian, and spoken by as many as 500,000 people today. One index of the uncertain and peripheral status of all of these dialects is the fact that there is hardly a single speaker of any of them at this time who is not also fluent in a major local ‘prestige’ language. In Switzerland and in part of the Dolomites (in the area which was Austrian until 1919), this language is usually German, while in the Friulian plain, it is either Venetian (Francescato 1956; 1966:8) or (some version of) standard Italian, generally (at least until several decades ago) both. The first comparative Romanist, Friedrich Diez, mentioned Romansh (Churwaelsch) in his survey of 1843, but decided that since this dialect had no literary language, it could not be accorded status as a full-fledged Romance language.

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