The Romance languages and dialects constitute a treasure trove of linguistic data of profound interest and significance. Data from the Romance languages have contributed extensively to our current empirical and theoretical understanding of phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, and historical linguistics. Written by a team of world-renowned scholars, this Handbook explores what we can learn about linguistics from the study of Romance languages, and how the body of comparative and historical data taken from them can be applied to linguistic study. It also offers insights into the diatopic and diachronic variation exhibited by the Romance family of languages, of a kind unparalleled for any other Western languages. By asking what Romance languages can do for linguistics, this Handbook is essential reading for all linguists interested in the insights that a knowledge of the Romance evidence can provide for general issues in linguistic theory.
1. Data, theory, and explanation: The view from Romance Adam Ledgeway and Martin Maiden; Part I. What is a language?: 2. Origins of Romance Nigel Vincent; 3. Documentation and sources Alive Andreose and Laura Minervini; 4. Variation in Romance Diego Pescarini and Michele Loporcaro; Part II. Phonetics and phonology: 5. Structure of the syllable Giovanna Marotta; 6. Sandhi phenomena Max W. Wheeler and Paul O'Neill; 7. Effects of stress Judith Meinschaefer; 8. The notion of the phoneme Benedetta Baldi and Leonardo M. Savoia; 9. Typologically exceptional phenomena in romance phonology Eulàlia Bonet and Francesc Torres-Tamarit; Part III. Morphology: 10. Phonological and morphological conditioning Franck Floricic and Lucia Molinu; 11. The autonomy of morphology Louise Esher and Paul O'Neill; 12. Suppletion Martin Maiden and Anna M. Thornton; 13. Inflexion, derivation, compounding Chiara Cappellaro and Judith Meinschaefer; 14. Evaluative suffixes Antonio Fortin and Franz Rainer; 15. Counting systems Brigitte L.M. Bauer; Part IV. Syntax: 16. Argument structure and argument realization Víctor Acedo-Matellán, Jaume Mateu and Anna Pineda; 17. Agreement Roberta D'Alessandro; 18. Alignment Sonia Cyrino and Michelle Sheehan; 19. Complex predicates Adina Dragomirescu, Alexandru Nicolae, and Gabriela Pană Dindelegan; 20. Dependency, licensing, and the nature of grammatical relations Anna Cardinaletti and Giuliana Giusti; 21. Parametric variation Adam Ledgeway and Norma Schifano; Part V. Semantics and pragmatics: 22. Word meanings and concepts Steven N. Dworkin; 23. Key topics in semantics: Presupposition, anaphora, (in)definite nominal phrases, deixis, tense and aspect, negation Chiara Gianollo and Giuseppina Silvestri; 24. Speech acts, discourse, and clause type Alice Corr and Nicola Munaro; 25. Address systems and social markers Federica Da Milano and Konstanze Jungbluth; 26. Information structure Silvio Cruschina, Ion Giurgea, and Eva-Maria Remberger; Part VI. Language, society, and the individual: 27. Register, genre, and style in the Romance languages Christopher Pountain and Rodica Zafiu; 28. Contact and borrowing Francesco Gardani; 29. Diamesic variation Maria Selig; 30. Social factors in language change and variation John Charles Smith; Index.
Adam Ledgeway is Professor of Italian and Romance Languages at the University of Cambridge. Recent publications include The Cambridge History of the Romance Languages. Vols 1-2 (2011-13), The Cambridge Handbook of Historical Syntax (2017) and The Oxford Guide to the Romance Languages (co-edited with Maiden, 2016). Martin Maiden is Professor of the Romance Languages at the University of Oxford. Recent publications include The Cambridge History of the Romance Languages, Vols 1-2 (2011-13) and The Oxford Guide to the Romance Languages (co-edited with Ledgeway, 2016).
