Revue Romane. Langue et littérature. International Journal of Romance Languages and Literatures - Online First

In several varieties of Catalan, Valencian and Occitan, inflectional exponents originating in the imperfect subjunctive (reflex of Latin pluperfect subjunctive) are analogically extended into the first and second person plural present subjunctive forms, resulting in syncretism between present and imperfect subjunctive forms for the relevant persons. The scope and directionality of such extensions are remarkably consistent, and are indicative of a change driven by the structure of the inflectional paradigm in the relevant varieties. A significant consequence of this development, which fits into a general Romance tendency for analogical remodelling of first and second person plural forms, is alignment between previously overlapping distributions of stem allomorphs and stress placement, and thus greater predictability of inflected forms.

A la nuit la nuit de François Billetdoux est une pièce de théâtre écrite presque tout entière au conditionnel et avec des structures verbales et discursives du mode irréel. L’emploi de cette stratégie linguistique, qui fait le principal objet des analyses effectuées dans le présent travail (à la fois littéraire, linguistique et théâtrologique), est corrolaire d’une intention de fragiliser les bases ’’factuelles’’ sur lesquelles se fonde la construction de l’univers représenté dans l’œuvre. La pièce de Billetdoux s’inscrit ainsi dans la lignée de la Sonate des spectres, de l’Annonce faite à Benoît et d’autres textes littéraires et dramatiques qui montrent une certaine relativité des histoires individuelles.

This article contributes to the historical study of intercomprehension between speakers of closely related languages by focusing on Italy in the period up to the mid-fifteenth century. After an introduction to the topic, the second section will be devoted to methodological questions, including certain differences between research based on experimental testing and research based on historical evidence. The third section of the article reports opinions by medieval speakers about the intelligibility of different Italo-Romance varieties, and then compares them to opinions about genealogically and/or geographically more distant languages. While the dominant view among experts on Italy’s linguistic history is that speakers were trapped within mutually unintelligible vernaculars, this review of the extant evidence suggests a greater degree of intercomprehension than is usually supposed.

This article contributes to the study of the relationship between Latin and Tuscan vernacular in the 16th century. We examine a set of almost neglected grammatical works (the Concetti, Supplimento, and Il grammatico) published between 1557 and 1567, and related to the Italian humanist Aonio Paleario. We adopt both a linguistic and literary approach to shed light particularly on the humanistic perspectives on language education and proficiency. After presenting a brief outline of the content of the three works and their problematic authorship, we focus on the dialogue Il grammatico. We conclude that, within the discussion on method for teaching Latin, the dialogue defines the humanist as the guardian of the best language for both Latin and vernacular.

According to normative descriptions of Italian future-framed adverbial clauses, the future tense is the only option (Quando verrai [F], ti presterò il libro ‘When you come, I’ll lend you the book’). However, the present tense may also be used (Quando vieni [P], ti presto il libro). I demonstrate that choice and acceptance of the present in future-framed adverbials are conditioned by the speaker’s presumption of settledness; that is, in every future world compatible with the speaker’s beliefs the eventuality necessarily occurs. The data come from an online questionnaire consisting of a forced-choice and an acceptability judgment task completed by 429 native speakers of Italian, and were analyzed using mixed-effects regression. Results show that the present is chosen most and rated highest when the future eventuality is presumed settled ([+certain, +immediate, +temporally specific]). These findings demonstrate that speakers use the present to express confidence in the realization of future eventualities.

The future tense in the Ibero-Romance languages swings between temporal and modal readings. Despite the fact that all the varieties of the Iberian Peninsula possess various strategies that compete with the morphological future, there is no consensus on pinpointing which alternative refers to each of the possible readings. The only thing all authors agree on is the current decline of the morphological future tense with temporal value. In this article, current dialect data of the Romance languages of the Iberian Peninsula have been collected with the aim of analysing the contemporary and oral usage of this verbal tense in order to verify whether it still maintains its temporal or modal uses, or whether, as the latest research points out, it has become an evidentiality strategy.

A long-lasting debate within creole studies concerns the scarcity of Spanish-based creoles and the theoretical implications this may have. However, there is no agreement as to how many genuinely Spanish-based creoles there are in the world, and identifying the size of that group can generate controversies. Papiamentu, for instance, is canonically classified as a Spanish-based creole, even though most scholars at present seem to agree its origins are Creole Portuguese. A Portuguese lineage has on various occasions and by various authors also been claimed for Chabacano (Philippine Creole Spanish) and Palenquero (spoken in Colombia). These creoles, too, were supposedly once Portuguese-based, only to subsequently be ‘relexified’ towards Spanish. This paper argues that there is little linguistic basis for that claim. Although both creoles do indeed seem to have received some Portuguese (Creole) input, we maintain that this input was limited and substratal in nature, and thus has no bearing on the classification (whether diachronic or synchronic) of the two creoles as truly Spanish-based.

This article considers the Francophone literary canon based on a transnational reception study. It focuses on the circulation of French language literature within the Swedish academic system during the last thirty years. A longitudinal empirical study of bachelor and doctoral dissertations in French between 1986 and 2016 allows the author to examine the dynamics of canon formation and renewal, as well as the role of universities in this process, particularly in regard to the creation of a canon of Francophone literary works. In response to recent scholarly anthologies which have debated the Francophone canon, this study is able to confirm the existence of Francophone classics. Finally, it is argued that further reception studies focusing on areas outwith the Francophone literary system will be of prime importance if the question of the Francophone canon is to be fully assessed beyond the immediate context of the Hexagone.