book review doi:10.17684/i1A11en DIACRONIA ISSN: 2393-1140 Impavidi progrediamur! www.diacronia.ro

Adrian Chircu–Buftea, Précis de morphologie romane, Casa Cărții de Știință, Cluj-Napoca, 2011, 184 p.

Anda Bratu∗ Faculty of Letters, “Babeș–Bolyai” University, Str. Horea 31, 400202 Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Written in the , this volume brings el (elo, lo) / pl. los (elos) vs. esp. mod. masc. (sing.) an important contribution to the study of Romance el (lo) / pl. los”) (p. 39). The declared aim of the languages, which lately have not aroused so much ten chapters is to illustrate the main changes that had the interest of Romanian linguists. In the foreword, taken place in the approached discourse categories in the author confesses that: “le manque d’ouvrages de all the seven and, additionally, morphologie romane, surtout en Roumanie, nous a the specificity of each of them. déterminé à concevoir un livre synthétique facile à The approach of this book is based on a great consulter et source de nombreux enseignements lin- variety of examples taken from all the analysed Ro- guistiques” (p. 5). mance languages, examples about which the author This work has an illustrative character and offers claims that are generally constructed. Some of them to those interested information about the evolution are presented within a context “port. Não mani- of the morphological system, from the lan- festou nenhuma surpresa. [Il ne manifeste aucune guage, towards Romance languages. It consists of surprise.]” (p. 78), the others are presented independ- ten synthetic chapters which describe the so-called ently “it. pochino ‘un tout petit peu’” (p. 134), but, for “parties du discours”: noun, adjective, , pro- the both, a translation in French is provided. noun, , verb, adverb, preposition, conjunc- Structurally, each chapter contains a definition tion and interjection. The length of these chapters of the approached part of discourse and an analysis varies depending on the distinctions that occur when of its particular grammatical categories, in evolving approaching a part of discourse. For example, the from Latin, towards Romance languages. These cat- ones dedicated to the pronoun or the verb are the egories are illustrated using different and well picked most extensive ones (and this is due to the variety of examples, the aim of which is, as mentioned above, types of pronoun: personal, reflexive, indefinite, etc. highlighting the specificity or, sometimes, the re- or due to different aspects concerning verbs: conjug- semblance between the discussed languages. ations, moods and tenses, voices, etc.). In contrast The first of the ten synthetic chapters, called “Le with these ones, the chapters about interjections and nom”, discusses about the noun and its particular conjunctions are less extensive. In the volume’s struc- grammatical categories: gender, number, case. In ture, there is also included a very rich bibliography what concerns the gender, is the which shows an up to date reading of the literature only one, from the family of Romance languages, and an index of authors. which still has the neuter gender, inherited from Being specialized in Romance languages but also Latin (p. 10). The second grammatical category, the in Romanian language, the author analyses seven number, is conveyed in Romance languages through of these: Romanian, French, Italian, Spanish, Por- plural inflections of vowel type (the case of Ro- tuguese, Catalan, Provençal, and sometimes also manian and Italian) or consonantal type for the other refers to Sardinian, Dalmatian and Rhetoroman. Romance languages (p. 15). Regarding the case, the There must be also stated that sometimes he uses author underlines that in Latin there were six cases: examples not just from the modern aspect of these Nominative, Accusative, Genitive, Dative, Romance languages but also from the ancient one and Vocative but, in the evolution towards Romance (e.g., the article in Spanish “anc. esp. masc. (sing.) languages, these had reduced first to five and then ∗Email address: [email protected].

© 2015 The Authors. Publishing rights belong to the Journal. Diacronia 1, January 13, 2015, A11 (1–3) 2 Anda Bratu to three (in Vulgar Latin) and in the Romance lan- inforcement, possessive, negative and all together, guages it arrived to two cases: “cas sujet et cas régime” relative, interrogative, and “exclamatif ”. From all (p. 17–18). Romanian language represents the ex- of these, the forms of the pronoun of politeness ception because it kept from Latin three case forms. from Romanian have their source in the Latin nouns In the second part of the book, dedicated to ad- “dŏmĭnus et dŏmĭna” (p. 49), whereas the other Ro- jectives, it is insisted upon the grammatical category mance languages express politeness through forms of comparison, since it is through it “l’adjectiv se that belong to different types of pronouns or even différencie des autres parties de discourse variables” different parts of discourse (p. 50). The pronoun (p. 24), in spite of the fact that in Romance languages of reinforcement is specific to Romanian and comes there are few adjectives that do not posses grades of from the demonstrative ĭpse to which the reflexive comparison “it. eterno, rom. perfect” (p. 34). The pronoun is added (p. 60). From all the types of comparison has three grades: positive, comparative, pronoun, the possessive one proves to be the most and superlative. The author considers that the posit- conservative in relation to Latin (p. 61). The relative, ive should not be counted as a grade of comparison, interrogative and “exclamatifs” pronouns are treated since it does not express any idea of comparison, together due to the formal resemblances between but represents “une catégorie comparative neutre” them (p. 67), and the last two are specific to spoken (p. 24). In , the comparative was ex- language (p. 72). The most frequently used relative pressed synthetically with the help of some suffixes pronoun in the oriental part of the Roman Empire (–ior, –ius) (p. 26), but in Vulgar Latin analytical was qualem and its descendants can be found today in forms started to be used and Romance languages Romance languages. Among the interrogative pro- preserved the last ones “fr. – infériorité: Michel est nouns the most spread was quis (p. 72). moins grand que Georges” or “cat. superiorité: És The fifth chapter, the numeral, describes inde- més car que l’e-mail” (p. 27–28). The preference of tail the two major types of numerals: cardinal and Romance languages for analytical forms instead of ordinal which characterize all Romance languages synthetic ones (specific for Classical Latin) can be but also their source, Latin (p. 79). Regarding the encountered also in the case of superlative “port. – cardinal ones, the authors again observes several new superlatif relatif de supériorité: Este aluno é o mais aspects specific to Romanian, among which we bring estudioso do Colégio” (p. 32). into discussion only one referring to the numerals The chapter “L’article” discusses about three from 11 to 19. These are formed from elements types of articles: definite, indefinite and partitive. of Latin origin but they represent structural calques Latin language did not posses an article (p. 36), this after a Slavic model (p. 83). All the subtypes of car- began to appear in Vulgar Latin, and the forms from dinal numerals (collective, fractional, multiplicative, the Romance languages of today are descendents of distributive and adverbial) are illustrated through a the Latin demonstratives ipse, but, especially, ille great variety of examples from all Romance languages (p. 37). The great majority of Romance languages (p. 86–87). The ordinal numerals are not insisted prefers the analytical definite articulation, only in upon since are formed from the cardinal ones but, Romanian it is synthetic (p. 38). Generally, the in- again, the Romanian is individualized through the definite articles from Romance languages come from analytical structure of it (rom. al doilea, a doua vs. the Latin numerals: unus, una, unum, but also from it. secondo, cat. segon, port. segundo) (p. 85–86). other parts of discourse (p. 41). From all the Ro- Almost as vast as the one dedicated to the pro- mance languages, French uses most frequently par- noun, the chapter about the verb contains the ana- titive articles “fr. du, de la, des” (p. 42). In addition lysis of: conjugations, number and person, personal to the three types, the linguist brings into question and impersonal moods, and voices. The Latin verbs two more, specific to Romanian “l’article possessif were separated into 4 conjugations but over time ou génitif ” and “l’article démonstratif ou adjectif ” several crossings from one conjugation to another (p. 43). have taken place (p. 91–92), and in the end it came “Le pronom”, one of the two larger chapters, to 3 conjugations in the majority of Romance lan- deals with 9 types of pronoun: personal, of po- guages and 4 conjugations in Romanian (p. 93). In liteness, reflexive, demonstrative, indefinite, of re- the bulk of Romance languages, the distinction sin- A. Chircu–Buftea, Précis de morphologie romane 3 gular/plural is pertinent; the exception is French verbial suffix –ește (p. 125–126). The author con- which has homonymic forms (p. 94). In the dis- cludes that, in spite of the heterogeneity of this part cussion regarding the verbal moods and tenses, we of discourse (resulted from the diversity of forms), insist only upon: the inexistence of conditional in comparing Romance languages proves the contrary, Latin (p. 103); the “prezumtiv” mood specific to Ro- meaning a certain unity (p. 134). manian (p. 95); the existence of imperfect and past The last three chapters are not so vast and the first perfect subjunctive in the other Romance languages one of them is dedicated to prepositions which ori- and their absence from Romanian (p. 107); the ex- ginate from Latin. The linguist makes an inventory istence of two terms for imperative (in Romanian of these prepositions both for Latin and Romance and Spanish), in comparison to the other Romance languages, and for the ones from Romanian and languages which have up to five terms (p. 110); the Latin, he also mentions the case regime (p. 138–142). existence of supine mood only in Romanian (p. 113). The same descriptive character may be observed also In the Romance languages there are generally three in the chapter about conjunctions which contains a voices (active, passive and reflexive), but French is list of them for each Romance language, to which an exception since it owns a fourth type, “factitive” Latin is added. Regarding the interjections, there is a (p. 119). classification of them not dependent on the language In the chapter dealing with the adverb, the lin- they belong to, but dependent on their semantics guist highlights the fact that, in Romance languages, (expressing pain, calling, joy, outrage, admiration, there is a tendency of replacing the synthetical forms etc.) (p. 152–154). with the analytical ones formed “à l’aide des pré- positions ou de particules qui entrent généralement Even though it has a synthetic character and, con- en relation avec un adverbe pour le «soutenir», sequently, does not exhaustively treat all the aspects autant de points de vue phonétique que sémantique” (as the author himself admits in the foreword), the (p. 124). In the majority of Romance languages book approaches the most representative ones and the affix –mente (originating from a noun) helps the these are sufficient for shaping the complete portrait formation of adverbs, but Romanian prefers the ad- of the Romance morphological system.