In Modern Sardinian the gerund of the type arrivande, Italian arrivando, is extraordinarily productive also with respect to the other Romance languages where this verbal form is used, i.e. French, and especially Spanish and Catalan. Interestingly enough this form is also used, even though to a limited degree, in Rumanian. What makes particularly interesting the Sardinian gerund is that it can be used both in attributive and predicative function. This phenomenon could possibly be an innovation, whose traces are already found in two Medieval documents: the Condaghe di San Nicola di Trullas (XII c.) and the Statuti della Repubblica di Sassari (1316). Given however the long period when the Kingdom of Spain ruled over Sardinia, it is very likely that the high productivity of gerund in Sardinian is due to the contact with Spanish in a situation of bilingualism/diglossia.
Some remarks on gerund in Sardinian
CUZZOLIN, Pierluigi
2005-01-01
Abstract
In Modern Sardinian the gerund of the type arrivande, Italian arrivando, is extraordinarily productive also with respect to the other Romance languages where this verbal form is used, i.e. French, and especially Spanish and Catalan. Interestingly enough this form is also used, even though to a limited degree, in Rumanian. What makes particularly interesting the Sardinian gerund is that it can be used both in attributive and predicative function. This phenomenon could possibly be an innovation, whose traces are already found in two Medieval documents: the Condaghe di San Nicola di Trullas (XII c.) and the Statuti della Repubblica di Sassari (1316). Given however the long period when the Kingdom of Spain ruled over Sardinia, it is very likely that the high productivity of gerund in Sardinian is due to the contact with Spanish in a situation of bilingualism/diglossia.Pubblicazioni consigliate
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