Martin-Dietrich Glessgen, Lingvistică Romanică. Domenii Și Metode În
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book review doi:10.17684/i3A43en DIACRONIA ISSN: 2393-1140 Impavidi progrediamur! www.diacronia.ro Martin-Dietrich Glessgen, Lingvistică romanică. Domenii și metode în lingvistica franceză și romanică, Cuvînt înainte și traducere de Alexandru Gafton, Editura Universității „Alexandru Ioan Cuza”,Iași, 2014, 652 p. Cosmin Căprioară˚ Faculty of Letters, “Ovidius” University of Constanța, Aleea Universității 1, 900472 Constanța, Romania The first edition of Martin-Dietrich Glessgen’s work, sity and utility, which the discussions with his own Linguistique romane. Domaines et méthodes en lin- students, and his own analysis of previous Romance guistique française et romane, appeared in 2007; five linguistics textbooks—occasioned by a seminar con- years later, in 2012, a second, revised edition was vened at the University of Jena—only helped to published by the prestigious Armand Colin Publish- strengthen. He too notes that “the text is rather dense ing House in Paris. Weowe it to the “Alexandru Ioan and challenging for an introduction to linguistics, Cuza” University Press of Iași to have a Romanian demanding of the reader intensive study, while still version of the book (2014), a welcomed and neces- preserving the qualities of a one-volume text, as com- sary publication, all the more so as no other import- pared to other specialized multi-volume textbooks” ant Western work in linguistics has been translated (p. 23). The author modestly admits the comple- into Romanian for decades. mentarity of his textbook with those of C. Tagliavini M.-D. Glessgen is an eminent contemporary Ro- (Le origini delle lingue neolatine) and P. Bec (Manuel mance languages scholar, Professor of Romance Lin- pratique de philologie romane), and expresses his ap- guistics and French Historical Linguistics at Zürich preciation for the work of H. Lausberg in the field University, director of the Institute of Romance Lin- of phonetics and Romance historical morphology guistics from the same city, secretary-administrator (Romanische Sprachwissenschaft), as well as his wish of Societé de Linguistique Romane and editor in to urge readers to study other recent Romance text- chief of Revue de Linguistique Romane. At the same books: Lexikon der Romanistischen Linguistik (LRL; time, he is one of the editors of the textbook Histoire G. Holtus, M. Metzeltin, C. Schmitt editor, 12 linguistique de la Romania (3 vols., De Gruyter, Ber- vols., Niemeyer, Tübingen, 1988–2005), Romanis- lin/New York, between 2004 and 2008). che Sprachgeschichte / Histoire linguistique de la Ro- The translation was accomplished by Professor mania (RSG; G. Ernst, M.-D. Glessgen, C. Schmitt, Alexandru Gafton from the “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” W. Schweickard editors, 3 vols., De Gruyter, Ber- University of Iași, a well-known personality of Ro- lin/New York, 2003–2008) or Cambridge History of manian diachronic linguistics, who also signs the Romance Languages (CambrHist; M. Maiden, J.C. Foreword, in which he deplores the “decreasing in- Smith, A. Ledgeway authors, Cambridge/New York, terest in Romance linguistics and the study of lan- 2 vol., 2011–2013). guage from a diachronic perspective, in general” The textbook is structured in four chapters, pre- (p. 13) in Romanian linguistics. Its value and signific- ceded by an introduction and followed by a so-called ance do not pass unnoticed: the book may “serve as fifth chapter, which includes abbreviations and an a model, and has all the qualities of a model” (p. 14). up-to-date bibliography of the domain. The translator, himself an academic specialist, fully In the introductory section, Limbile romanice understands the meaning of the hard work carried by și lingvistica [Romance Languages and Linguistics] the author and renders its subtleties and complexities (p. 35–69), Romance languages are placed in their in a fluent, coherent and elegant Romanian. proper context, by means of an illustrative table of As the author states in the Preface, the book was the Indo-European Languages, after which, in a pre- born out of his lifetime conviction as to its neces- liminary chapter, Lingvistica romanică și structura ˚Email address: [email protected]. © 2016 The Authors. Publishing rights belong to the Journal. Diacronia 3, February 12, 2016, A43 (1–8) 2 Cosmin Căprioară manualului [Romance Linguistics and the Struc- with language and society, and its main branches— ture of the Textbook], the scientific and methodo- systematic and variational linguistics—find their ap- logical foundations of the textbook are laid, and the plicability in the study of particular languages or great truths of the discipline are reiterated. Start- in comparing different languages, either synchron- ing from the well-known fact that Romance lan- ically or diachronically. Professor Glessgen insists guages “emerged from the same basis, namely from that the comparison of languages, from a typolo- variants of the Latin spoken in the Late Antiquity gical perspective included, as well as their diachronic (spoken Late Latin), as a result of differentiation study are essential for the understanding of linguistic and divergence” (p. 35), he underlines the import- phenomena. He does not ignore the more recent ance of studying them. The place the Romance developments in the study of creole languages, the languages family occupy within the family of Indo- language of dumb people, or in such border sciences European languages, is central, not so much because as psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics. of its dimensions, but because researchers could sub- Extremely useful for a textbook, in the tradition stantially benefit from the unrivalled knowledge of of Tagliavini, yet up to date and modern, is the Latin, their common mother language, their evolution insertion of a subchapter on Lucrările de referință în well-documented by written sources throughout the lingvistica romanică [Reference Works in Romance second millennium; nowadays, when less than 10% Linguistics]: the great textbooks and introductory of the world’s languages are satisfactorily described studies, Romance encyclopædias (no reference how- and very few of them are historically documented, ever is made to Enciclopedia limbilor romanice [The they constitute an unique observable laboratory, an Encyclopædia of Romance Languages], București, aspect which is by no means negligible. The great 1989, published under the supervision of M. Sala). strength of Romance linguistics consists in the large The great working bibliographies of Romance stud- amount of historical, comparative and variational ies, such as Romanische Bibliographie, Bibliographie thought it has generated, which could make “an romane, Romance Bibliography (RB), published an- invaluable contribution to the way we understand nually since 1878, as well as an online version of it, the functioning of linguistics, in general” (p. 36). are all effectively signalled. Moreover, many of the observations on Romance › languages are scientifically valid for other languages The first of the four sections, entitled Limbile și vari- too. In this line of thought, one of the stated ob- etățile romanice actuale [Today’sRomance Languages jectives of the textbook is to raise the “Romance con- and Their Varieties] (p. 71–185), provides readers sciousness” of students of French, Italian, Spanish or with relevant and accurate information, in a highly Romanian, who thus could acquaint themselves with legible manner (Prezentarea limbilor romanice [An neo-Latin idioms, and gain a better understanding of Introduction to Romance Languages]). So do all the them. other introductory units, in which M.-D. Glessgen The following four sections successively describe does his best to facilitate our thorough understand- the main domains of contemporary Romance lan- ing of the topics explored. The terminology used— guages (phonetics / phonology, morphology, syntax language, dialect, idiom, variety—is carefully defined and lexis) from a variational and pragmatic view- and explained, within the Romance context. Worth point, from the perspective of linguistic change, with retaining is the typology of Romance languages, de- direct reference to Romania’s history, to the socio- veloped by the author, depending on the presence linguistic context, to some practical and theoretical or absence of internal criteria (such as distance – aspects of Romance languages research, to its philo- differentiation between one variety and another) and logical foundations, and to the history of Romance external ones (linguistic elaboration), in line with the linguistics. To give the student a comprehensive terminology used by H. Kloss (Abstandssprache – view of the field, its fundamental concepts, such ‘language through distantiation’,and Ausbausprache – as speech, language, linguistics, the functions of lan- ‘language through elaboration’,respectively). Thus, in guage, according to K. Bühler and R. Jakobson, are Romania, one may distinguish: languages through presented, as well other problems that linguists are distantiation and elaboration (French, Italian, Ro- usually faced with. Linguistics is seen in its relations manian), distanced languages, with no systematic M.-D. Glessgen, Lingvistică romanică 3 elaboration (Franco-Provençal), dialectal varieties, Italo-Romanic” (p. 122) and “Daco-Romanic” (for lacking a high degree of elaboration and distanti- “South-eastern Romania”), today represented only by ation (such as the Venetian dialect) and languages or the Romanian language. The latter theme examines varieties resulting from ‘pure’