In:Romance Linguistics 2013: Selected papers from the 43rd Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), New York, 17-19 April, 2013
Edited by Christina Tortora, Marcel den Dikken, Ignacio L. Montoya and Teresa O'Neill
[Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 9] 2016
► pp. 1–20
Root gerunds in Old Romanian
Published online: 3 February 2016
https://doi.org/10.1075/rllt.9.01alb
https://doi.org/10.1075/rllt.9.01alb
Gerund verbs generate root clauses in Old Romanian (OR), but not in Modern Romanian (MR). We argue that the root clause phenomenon arises from the presence of a null Assertion Operator in OR, which has been lost in MR. This Operator originates from the mapping of discourse features to syntax, but involves a marked option for feature checking (i.e., pragmatic versus syntactic), so it is easier for it to disappear in the process of language acquisition.
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