Overview

This book examines the grammatical changes that took place in the transition from Latin to the Romance languages. The emerging language underwent changes in three fundamental areas involving the noun phrase, verb phrase, and the sentence. The impact of the changes can be seen in the reduction of the Latin case system; the appearance of auxiliary verb structures to mark such categories tense, mood, and voice; and a shift towards greater rigidification of word order. The author considers how far these changes are interrelated and compares their various manifestations and pace of change across the different standard and non-standard varieties of Romance. He describes the historical background to the emergence of the Romance varieties and their Latin ancestry, considering in detail the richly documented diachronic variation exhibited by the Romance family. Adam Ledgeway reviews the accounts and explanations that have been proposed within competing theoretical frameworks, and considers how far traditional ideas should be reinterpreted in light of recent theoretical developments. His wide-ranging account shows that the transition from Latin to Romance is not only of great intrinsic interest, but both provides a means of challenging linguistic orthodoxies and presents opportunities to shape new perspectives on language change, structure, and variation. His fascinating book will appeal equally to Romance linguists, Latinists, philologists, historical linguists, and syntacticians of all theoretical persuasions.

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9780199584376

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Reviews

Ledgeways exposition is lucid and engaging. The technicalities of the analysis should not deter the inexperienced reader, in that every step of the argumentation is expounded meticulously and exhaustively, and supported with extraordinarily accurate and varied evidence from early, classical, and late Latin, on the one hand, and main and lesser known Romance languages, on the other. From Latin to Romance is a rare example of intellectual acumen married with scholarly attention to detail. It will be eagerly read by Classicists, and Romance and theoretical linguists alike. It should be listed in undergraduate and postgraduate Romance linguistics syllabi. Delia Bentley, Italian Studies The argumentation is expertly presented Ledgeway provides the very best in synchronic and diachronic descriptions of the behaviour of Latin and its descendant languages, a wide-ranging study [that] represents an excellent example of the application of a model of formal analysis. Paolo Ramat, Archivio Glottologico Italiano a model of how modern diachronic syntax can re-think the traditional descriptive distinctions and can incorporate the latest benefits of generative grammar theorizing, without throwing into relief the theory at the expense of the data Adina Dragomirescu, Revue Roumaine de Linguistique

This essay is a fundamental contribution for everyone interested in to study the relationship between old and modern languages [] This books new features are important and will be a milestone in the studies regarding the subject. Renato Oniga, Lingue antiche e modern 2 Ledgeway's exposition is lucid and engaging. The technicalities of the analysis should not deter the inexperienced reader, in that every step of the argumentation is expounded meticulously and exhaustively, and supported with extraordinarily accurate and varied evidence from early, classical, and late Latin, on the one hand, and main and lesser known Romance languages, on the other. From Latin to Romance is a rare example of intellectual acumen married with scholarly attention to detail. It will be eagerly read by Classicists, and Romance and theoretical linguists alike. It should be listed in undergraduate and postgraduate Romance linguistics syllabi. Delia Bentley, Italian Studies The argumentation is expertly presented ... Ledgeway provides the very best in synchronic and diachronic descriptions of the behaviour of Latin and its descendant languages ... a wide-ranging study [that] represents an excellent example of the application of a model of formal analysis. Paolo Ramat, Archivio Glottologico Italiano a model of how modern diachronic syntax can re-think the traditional descriptive distinctions and can incorporate the latest benefits of generative grammar theorizing, without throwing into relief the theory at the expense of the data Adina Dragomirescu, Revue Roumaine de Linguistique

Author Information

Adam Ledgeway is University Senior Lecturer in Romance Philology in the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages of the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Downing College, Cambridge. His publications include A Comparative Syntax of the Dialects of Southern Italy (Wiley-Blackwell, 2000); Sui dialetti italoromanzi. Saggi in onore di Nigel B. Vincent (Biddles 2007, co-edited with D.Bentley); Grammatica diacronica del napoletano (Niemeyer 2009); Syntactic Variation: The Dialects of Italy (CUP 2010, co-edited with R.D'Alessandro and I.Roberts); In and Out of Italy: Lingua e cultura della migrazione italiana (Guerra 2010, co-edited with A.L.Lepschy); The Cambridge History of the Romance Languages (CUP 2011, co-edited with M. Maiden and J.C. Smith).

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