Talk:Romanian grammar
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This article needs filling in a lot of blanks (obviously). Be sure to mention clitic doubling and compare to other Romance languages. --Pablo D. Flores 15:40, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
- Yes, we badly need some Romanian speakers here. Maybe they're just too poor to waste their time on online encyclopaedias over there. — Chameleon 13:56, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
Hmm... that's an interesting theory Chameleon, because the Romanian Wikipedia is well-over the 10,000 articles figure, while the Greek Wiki, the Hungarian Wiki, the Lithuanian Wiki, the Icelandic Wiki and so on are all still below 10,000 articles. There's plenty of Romanian users on this English Wiki also---it's just that there are too many other articles that attract attention. A Romanian grammar article reminds too many Romanians of those boring high school classes. Alexander 007 15:22, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
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[edit] cases
i've changed some stuff related to the cases, of which there should be 3, not 5... i'm using the terms 'Direct' for nominative/accusative and 'Indirect' for dative/genitive, as was put on the Latin page... this better reflects the current situation for Romanian cases Exit 06:04, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Definite article in Romanian
It is often said that the definite article in Romanian is a clitic (an enclitic to be specific). However, I wonder if this is correct, as it seems to me that it behaves more like an affix. I am a native Romanian speaker, but I can't figure this one out. --AdiJapan 05:53, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
- according to the definitions, i think it appears that the definite article is definitely enclitic, especially since the definite article can combine with adjectives as well as nouns The fact that it is written as part of the word it attaches to is merely an orthographic convention... also, it confirms that the definite article is syntactically free, if it were an affix, it would be bound to the noun and only the noun.. not sure of the latin origins, but i'm guessing in contexts of NOUN + ADJECTIVE, the article must intercede? c.f. (Ştefan cel Mare = Stephen the Great)
omul = man.DEF = the man bunul om = good.DEF man = the good man *bun omul
this could possibly have implications for the romanian case system as really the bulk of case marking (except feminine singular genitive/dative) is on the cliticized definite article
Exit 17:24, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
I don't think the definite article in Romanian is a clitic. It is part of the noun declension. A clitic is a word that doesn't have its own accent, but is attached to the following or preceding word, in the sense that they are pronounced as a single word. However, a clitic is an independent word morphologically and syntactically. The Romanian definite article changes its form according to the noun it determines, compare om - omul with munte - muntele. Both nouns are masculine singular, so if the article were a clitic, it should have had the same form in both cases. In linguistics, this declension category is called spesies (the same way as case stands for nominative, accusative, etc., spesies stands for definite and indefinite). About the example of bunul om, the explanation is that Romanian has no spesies congruence - that is, in one constituent, only one element receives the spesies marker (article), and that element is the first one. In Basque there is the same situation, except that the spesies, case and number markers go to the last element of the noun phrase. Compare:
gizon = man,
gizona = the man,
gizon on = good man,
gizon ona = the good man.
On the other hand, Swedish does have spesies congruence:
man = man,
mannen = the man,
god man = good man,
den goda mannen = the good man.
So I think the Romanian definite article is not a clitic, but part of the noun (and adjective) declension. Dumiac 20:04, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
- Do you have a reference on this? It would be interesting to mention it in the article. However, most grammarians (at least all sources I've read) agree that the Romanian definite article is a clitic, so we'll have to stick to that. --AdiJapan 03:10, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
- I'm sorry, but that's incorrect. Clitics are known to change according to the head/dependent they refer to; you can see that in the Hindi Genitive clitic, which alternates between "kaa", "ko", "ke" and I think "kii" according to the gender and number of the noun before it. The exact same thing occurs with the Romanian article. That's why it is definitely a clitic. —N-true 12:50, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Cacophony
There is no mention of cacophony. Besides, from DEX Online:
- Documentul ăsta e plin de cacofonii!
- Da. Autorul acestui document nu crede în cacofonii. Dacă alăturarea a două cuvinte inofensive îi duce pe unii cu gândul la trivialităţi, este problema lor. De multe ori, construcţiile la care ajungem încercând să evităm o cacofonie zgârie urechea mai rău decât cacofonia însăşi. Alte limbi nu se străduie deloc să le evite şi autorul crede că spaima pe care cacofoniile le provoacă vorbitorilor de limbă română se datorează numai automatismelor învăţate în şcoala primară.
Is this attitude common?
- That is the personal opinion of the person who created the website, and it does not come from the DEX itself. Actually he states somewhere that he is not a linguist, but a programmer. Although I tend to agree that his attitude is reasonable and sane, the majority of native Romanian speakers are aware of cacophonies (in particular those word pairs which by joining create sound sequences such as /kaka/, /kakə/, /kəka/ etc.) and try to avoid them. Romanian linguists, such as George Pruteanu (see here), say that cacophonies should be avoided, especially in formal writing/speeches or poetry, but that we should not get too paranoid about them. — AdiJapan ☎ 04:09, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Pronouns in Latin
At the moment, there is utter nonsense about the Latin pronoun 'ille'. It goes like this if my brain's right:
sg.
N. ille, illa, illud
G. illius, illius, illius
D. illi, illi, illi
A. illum, illam, illud
Ab. illo, illa, illo
pl.
N. illi, illae, illa
G. illorum, illarum, illorum
D. illis, illis, illis
A. illos, illas, illa
Ab. illis, illis, illis
As I don't really know what the etymology is, I haven't corrected the article. It's not correct at the moment, this is for sure. 217.50.143.160 21:35, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
- I added a new reference in the article, an article by Maria Aldea. See page 24 there for the etymology. I have seen this table also in other sources. I'm not a specialist either, but my understanding is that the Romanian definite and indefinite articles derive not from classical Latin, but vulgar Latin, which might explain the differences. — AdiJapan ☎ 02:41, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
