Scida The Inflected Infinitive in Romance Languages

Erscheinungsjahr 2004
ISBN: 978-1-135-87607-4
Verlag: Taylor & Francis
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 176 Seiten

Reihe: Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics

This book investigates two prominent issues with regard to the inflected infinitive-the syntactic distribution of the Portuguese inflected infinitive, and its origin and development from Early Romance. The syntactic analysis offered here differs from traditional descriptions of the inflected infinitive in that it uses a theoretical approach to propose one concise condition which predicts all possible occurrences of the Portuguese inflected infinitive within the framework of relational grammar. While the first section of this book offers a synchronic study of the use of the inflected infinitive, the second section examines the theories previously posited to explain its origin and provides additional evidence from Latin and other Romance languages to support the proposal that the inflected infinitive was a historical development rooted in the Latin imperfect subjunctive. This study presents a detailed comparison of the syntactic environments common to both the imperfect subjunctive and the inflected infinitive, and examines the survival of an inflected infinitive in other Romance varieties as well as the existence of other inflected non-finite forms in these languages.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Scida, Emily E.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Sprachwissenschaften

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Biographical Sketch
Dedication
Acknowledgments
I. Introduction
II. The Syntactic Distribution of the Inflected Infinitive
III. Previous Accounts of the Distribution of the Inflected Infinitive
IV. Theories of the Origin of the Portuguese Inflected Infinitive
V. The Imperfect Subjunctive in Latin
VI. Distribution of the Inflected Infinitive in the Romance Languages
VII. Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Emily E. Scida is currently Assistant Professor of Spanish Linguistics at the University of Virginia, where she is also Director of the Spanish and Italian language programs.