Revue Romane. Langue et littérature - Volume 54, Issue 1, 2019

In this paper, we develop a new method of identification of complex prepositions, in French. We include well-known semantic and morpho-syntactic tests, and introduce a few others – together, these tests make up a multi-variable grid which we believe can help identify complex prepositions. We run these tests on a list of 75 sequences, most of which are considered to be complex adpositions. We also include sequences which share the same patterns of word formation but do not have prepositional uses, in order to check the validity of our grid. Our results show that the semantic and morpho-syntactic clues used to identify complex adpositions, combined with corpus data exploration, are on the whole quite effective, but to varying degrees depending on the pattern of formation.

This contribution presents a comparison of the French prepositional expressions en voie de on the one hand and en route / en chemin (pour) on the other. We aim to show that être en route and être en chemin can be used as complex predicates resulting from a lexicalisation process, whereas être en voie de has been transformed into a marker of grammatical aspect as a consequence of a grammaticalization process. We then propose that the different evolution of both expressions can be explained by the fact that voie had already in Old French a more abstract meaning than chemin and route, which allowed it to designate a series of actions in direction of an objective. Finally, we propose to explain the emergence of en voie de + deverbal noun / infinitive as an aspectual marker by noticing that it was created at the moment French developed other analytic aspectual expressions in accordance with an abstract constructional pattern ‘expression/verb of movement + infinitive’.

After listing, in the first part of this study, all complex prepositions instantiated in the Lengadocian subcorpus of the textbase BaTelÒc, we focus on structures of the type [Prep + Det + Noun + Prep] and apply a range of tests to these, in order to assess the degree to which they are fossilised. We further investigate cases in which word strings with the same base form differ in structure, and cases in which synonymous or near-synonymous word strings have different base forms. We conclude that the categorisation of prepositional expressions is only problematic for structures whose form is compositional but whose meaning can be either compositional or non-compositional.

From among the various processes that form prepositions in the history from Latin to Castilian, the investigation concentrates on the formation of prepositional adverbs like Spanish delante (de) ‘in front (of)’. There are two mechanisms for their formation: (a) An adverb or a preposition is preceded by a superordinate simple local preposition which initially specifies a local relation, but ends up as a reinforcing expansion of its base; and (b) an adverb is converted into a preposition by a following functional preposition which serves as a relationalizer.

In case #a, the syntactic structure is often destroyed by univerbation, and the resulting reinforced preposition is lexicalized. In case #b, the alternation between adverb and relationalized preposition is regular and bidirectional, so that the combination of adverb and relationalizer is normally not univerbated. The exception desde is given some attention.

As a result, the formation of prepositions of this structure is, at the outset, not a matter of word formation, and such complex prepositions are therefore not compound prepositions, but instead lexicalized univerbations.

Some complex prepositions (CPs) have long stories of grammaticalization behind them. In Portuguese, such is the case of the CPs that have started from simple elements such as ante or trás. In the present paper, I will observe the changes that have given rise to present-day Pt diante de, perante, atrás de, detrás de, among other complex formations. It will be seen that spatial signaling (place or direction) plays an important role on the development of these prepositions, but that a tendency to neutralization of semantic differences may lead more recent forms to convey meanings already expressed by older forms, which in turn may spur the emergence of even more complex formations (de diante de, por detrás de, …). Increased complexity, however, seems to bring redundancy with it, a fact that calls for a satisfactory explanation. The complexification process is accompanied by context extension, from spatial to the temporal, and from these to more abstract realms (cause, condition, circumstance, …). As is to be expected from prepositions that are frequently used, they compete with other units, with which they may at first be in a complementary relation, but whose affinities in distribution and meaning may cause their replacement in the long run (diante de versus em face de, face a). Finally, another important phenomenon concerning these formations is their capacity to expand beyond their category, giving rise to morphologically related nouns and verbs.

This paper takes into account a particular set of Italian Complex Prepositions signaling the agent of an action (e.g. da parte di ‘by’, a nome di ‘by’). Italian exhibits several types of complex prepositions revealing a different involvement of the Agent: in particular, these complex lexemes can introduce and distinguish the participants who (i) plan and intentionally conceive an action, (ii) perform it and/or (iii) have a coercive power over its performing.

The contribution aims to: (i) distinguish these Italian complex prepositions according to their functions, meanings, and the degree of involvement of the participant they introduce; (ii) analyze the collocational features and the syntactic environments where these lexemes occur; (iii) individuate possible correlations between their frequency of occurrence and the grammatical value; (iv) analyze their diachronic evolution across different historical phases; (v) put into relation the synchronic restrictions with the original syntactic environment within which the complex prepositions have been reanalyzed.

In this paper, we investigate complex adpositions in Romanian, on the basis of a corpus study. Our goal is to provide an extensive list of complex adpositions and analyze the productivity of various patterns. In order to do so, we selected a number of candidate sequences, applied semantic and morpho-syntactic tests, and evaluated their frequency. Our results confirm the importance of two patterns: [Preposition + Noun + Determiner] followed by a genitive, and [Preposition + Noun + Preposition]. Though there are a few other patterns (such as [(Preposition +) Adverb (+ Preposition)]), these two are the most productive, making up a core of relatively frequent sequences with low variability, which pattern with simple prepositions.