Romance articles It is difficult to place the point in which the
definite article, absent in Latin but present in all Romance languages, arose, largely because the highly colloquial speech in which it arose was seldom written down until the daughter languages had strongly diverged; most surviving texts in early Romance show the articles fully developed. Definite articles evolved from demonstrative
pronouns or
adjectives (an analogous development is found in many Indo-European languages, including
Greek,
Celtic and
Germanic); compare the fate of the Latin
demonstrative adjective , , "that", in the
Romance languages, becoming French and (Old French
li,
lo,
la), Catalan and Spanish , and , Occitan and , Portuguese and Galician and (elision of -l- is a common feature of Galician-Portuguese) and Italian , and .
Sardinian went its own way here also, forming its article from , an intensive adjective (
su, sa); some Catalan and Occitan dialects have articles from the same source. While most of the Romance languages put the article before the noun, Romanian has its own way, by putting the article after the noun, e.g.
lupul ("the wolf" – from *
lupum illum) and
omul ("the man" –
*homo illum), possibly a result of being within the
Balkan sprachbund. The term may have evolved from its initial demonstrative function, broadening to convey
semantic prominence by directing the attention of the audience towards particular referents which the speaker intended to highlight. This usage of the term is found in the , which recounts the travels of the
Christian pilgrim—and the author—
Egeria: the author utilizes the demonstrative to mark words that are crucial to the meaning of the text. For instance, when noting the location of a cave by a church, Egeria clarifies that she is referring to "" ("that church"). The usage of typically occurs alongside nouns that have previously been identified with the text: Egeria, when describing a church near
Mount Olivet, initially describes it merely as an "," but later refers to it as "." The usage of the demonstratives to denote prominent parts of discourse may have predicated the eventual transformation of the term into a definite article. Once speakers began prefacing sentences with the term, they began utilizing it in a manner similar to an article; therefore, the article-like features of the word eventually become normalized and then incorporated into the standard grammar of the language. In Late Latin writings, was often used by writers in
relative clauses to establish the identity of subjects not previously mentioned in the text. The 7th-century
Chronicle of Fredegar clarifies that it is discussing "" ("those men") before introducing a relative clause in which they are the subject. During this time period, the term also developed
anaphoric functions as an extension of the original demonstrative usage: Late Latin authors would substitute more basic mentions of a referent with and added more descriptive information. For instance, the
Chronicle of Fredegar refers to a "" ("queen") as "," meaning "that relative of the
Franks. From this usage of the , in which it functioned help identify a specific referent, the term may have generalized to adopt more features associated with definite articles. One example of such a development appears in the writings of the 6th-century
Gallo-Roman historian
Gregory of Tours, who wrote "," meaning "The holy
Eugenius was led to the king, and debated with that Arrian
bishop in defense of the
Catholic faith." Within this passage, the
ablative form of the pronoun, , is utilized to denote the Arrian bishop, however it appears to function for more like the English article "the" rather than the original Classical Latin : the sentence could be understood equally as well if rendered as "The holy Eugenius was led to the king, and debated with the Arrian
bishop in defense of the
Catholic faith." Another indication of the weakening of the demonstratives can be inferred from the fact that at this time, legal and similar texts begin to swarm with , , and so forth (all meaning, essentially, "aforesaid"), which seem to mean little more than "this" or "that". Gregory of Tours writes,
Erat autem... beatissimus Anianus in supradicta civitate episcopus ("Blessed Anianus was bishop in that city.") The original Latin demonstrative adjectives were no longer felt to be strong or specific enough. The Latin pronoun , which was initially used to emphasize specific referents, also developed functions similar to a definite article. However, it retained some of its original emphatic properties: it was also used anaphorically to highlight prominent referents. In one 9th-10th century text from the
Diocese of Urgell they utilize the phrase to identify the church the entire paragraph referred to while identifying a unique river, not mentioned previously in the text, as "" ("that river"). Alongside its emphatic usage, the original Classical Latin was also used to clarify referents if the text risked introducing ambiguity regarding the subjects and objects involved. However, in Late Latin literature appears in scenarios in which its presence was not necessary: In the
Chronicle of Fredegar, a character is introduced as "" ("
Waiofar) before—in the next sentence—being described as "" ("the very same Waiofar"). Other documents suggest that and may have eventually assumed practically identical meanings: the 11th-12th century text, the utilizes both terms like definite articles, mentioning "" and "," both meaning "the authority." In the less formal speech, reconstructed forms suggest that the inherited Latin demonstratives were made more forceful by being compounded with (originally an
interjection: "behold!"), which also spawned Italian through , a contracted form of
ecce eum. This is the origin of Old French (*
ecce ille), (*
ecce iste) and (*
ecce hic); Italian (*
eccum istum), (*
eccum illum) and (now mainly Tuscan) (*
eccum tibi istum), as well as (*
eccu hic), (*
eccum hac); Spanish and Occitan and Portuguese (*
eccum ille); Spanish and Portuguese (*
eccum hac); Spanish and Portuguese (*
eccum hic); Portuguese (*
eccum illac) and (*
eccum inde); Romanian (*
ecce iste) and (*
ecce ille), and many other forms. On the other hand, even in the
Oaths of Strasbourg, dictated in Old French in AD 842, no demonstrative appears even in places where one would clearly be called for in all the later languages (
pro christian poblo – "for the Christian people"). Using the demonstratives as articles may have still been considered overly informal for a royal oath in the 9th century. Considerable variation exists in all of the Romance vernaculars as to their actual use: in Romanian, the articles are suffixed to the noun (or an adjective preceding it), as in other languages of the
Balkan sprachbund and the
North Germanic languages. The numeral , (one) supplies the
indefinite article in all cases (again, this is a common semantic development across Europe). This is anticipated in Classical Latin;
Cicero writes
cum uno gladiatore nequissimo ("with a most immoral gladiator"). This suggests that '''' was beginning to supplant in the meaning of "a certain" or "some" by the 1st century BC.
Loss of neuter gender The three
grammatical genders of Classical Latin were replaced by a two-gender system in most Romance languages. The neuter gender of classical Latin was in most cases identical with the masculine both syntactically and morphologically. The confusion had already started in
Pompeian graffiti, e.g.
cadaver mortuus for
cadaver mortuum ("dead body"), and
hoc locum for
hunc locum ("this place"). The morphological confusion shows primarily in the adoption of the nominative ending
-us (
-Ø after
-r) in the
o-declension. In
Petronius's work, one can find
balneus for ("bath"),
fatus for ("fate"),
caelus for ("heaven"),
amphitheater for ("amphitheatre"),
vinus for ("wine"), and conversely,
thesaurum for ("treasure"). Most of these forms occur in the speech of one man: Trimalchion, an uneducated Greek (i.e. foreign)
freedman. In modern Romance languages, the nominative
s-ending has been largely abandoned, and all substantives of the
o-declension have an ending derived from
-um:
-u,
-o, or
-Ø. E.g., masculine ("wall"), and neuter ("sky") have evolved to: Italian , ; Portuguese , ; Spanish , , Catalan , ; Romanian ,
cieru>; French , . However, Old French still had
-s in the nominative and
-Ø in the accusative in both words:
murs,
ciels [nominative] –
mur,
ciel [oblique]. For some neuter nouns of the third declension, the oblique stem was productive; for others, the nominative/accusative form (the two were identical in Classical Latin). Evidence suggests that the neuter gender was under pressure well back into the imperial period. French
(le) , Catalan
(la) , Occitan
(lo) , Spanish
(la) , Portuguese
(o) , Italian language
(il) ,
Leonese (el) lleche and Romanian
(le) ("milk"), all derive from the non-standard but attested Latin nominative/accusative neuter or accusative masculine . In Spanish the word became feminine, while in French, Portuguese and Italian it became masculine (in Romanian it remained neuter, /). Other neuter forms, however, were preserved in Romance; Catalan and French , Leonese, Portuguese and Italian , Romanian ("name") all preserve the Latin nominative/accusative
nomen, rather than the oblique stem form *
nomin- (which nevertheless produced Spanish ). Most neuter nouns had plural forms ending in -A or -IA; some of these were reanalysed as feminine singulars, such as ("joy"), plural
gaudia; the plural form lies at the root of the French feminine singular
(la) , as well as of Catalan and Occitan
(la) (Italian
la is a borrowing from French); the same for ("wood stick"), plural
ligna, that originated the Catalan feminine singular noun
(la) , Portuguese
(a) , Spanish
(la) and Italian
(la) . Some Romance languages still have a special form derived from the ancient neuter plural which is treated grammatically as feminine: e.g., : BRACCHIA "arm(s)" → Italian
(il) :
(le) braccia, Romanian :
brațe(le). Cf. also
Merovingian Latin
ipsa animalia aliquas mortas fuerant. Alternations in Italian
heteroclitic nouns such as ''l'uovo fresco
("the fresh egg") / le uova fresche
("the fresh eggs") are usually analysed as masculine in the singular and feminine in the plural, with an irregular plural in -a
. However, it is also consistent with their historical development to say that is simply a regular neuter noun (, plural ova
) and that the characteristic ending for words agreeing with these nouns is -o
in the singular and -e'' in the plural. The same alternation in gender exists in certain Romanian nouns, but is considered regular as it is more common than in Italian. Thus, a relict neuter gender can arguably be said to persist in Italian and Romanian. In Portuguese, traces of the neuter plural can be found in collective formations and words meant to inform a bigger size or sturdiness. Thus, one can use
(s) ("egg(s)") and
(s) ("roe", "collection(s) of eggs"),
(s) ("section(s) of an edge") and
(s) ("edge(s)"),
(s) ("bag(s)") and
(s) ("sack(s)"),
(s) ("cloak(s)") and
(s) ("blanket(s)"). Other times, it resulted in words whose gender may be changed more or less arbitrarily, like / ("fruit"), / ("broth"), etc. These formations were especially common when they could be used to avoid irregular forms. In Latin, the names of trees were usually feminine, but many were declined in the second declension paradigm, which was dominated by masculine or neuter nouns. Latin ("
pear tree"), a feminine noun with a masculine-looking ending, became masculine in Italian
(il) and Romanian ; in French and Spanish it was replaced by the masculine derivations
(le) ,
(el) ; and in Portuguese and Catalan by the feminine derivations
(a) ,
(la) . As usual, irregularities persisted longest in frequently used forms. From the fourth declension noun
manus ("hand"), another feminine noun with the ending
-us, Italian and Spanish derived
(la) , Romanian
mânu>, pl. / (reg.)
mâni, Catalan
(la) , and Portuguese
(a) , which preserve the feminine gender along with the masculine appearance. Except for the Italian and Romanian heteroclitic nouns, other major Romance languages have no trace of neuter nouns, but still have neuter pronouns. French / / ("this"), Spanish / / ("this"), Italian: / / ("to him" /"to her" / "to it"), Catalan: , , , ("it" /
this /
this-that /
that over there); Portuguese: / / ("all of him" / "all of her" / "all of it"). In Spanish, a three-way contrast is also made with the definite articles , , and . The last is used with nouns denoting abstract categories:
lo bueno, literally "that which is good", from : good.
Loss of oblique cases The Vulgar Latin vowel shifts caused the merger of several case endings in the nominal and adjectival declensions. Some of the causes include: the loss of final
m, the merger of
ă with
ā, and the merger of
ŭ with
ō (see tables). Thus, by the 5th century, the number of case contrasts had been drastically reduced. There also seems to be a marked tendency to confuse different forms even when they had not become homophonous (like the generally more distinct plurals), which indicates that nominal declension was shaped not only by phonetic mergers, but also by structural factors. As a result of the untenability of the noun case system after these phonetic changes, Vulgar Latin shifted from a markedly
synthetic language to a more
analytic one. The
genitive case died out around the 3rd century AD, according to
Meyer-Lübke, and began to be replaced by "de" + noun (which originally meant "about/concerning", weakened to "of") as early as the 2nd century BC. Exceptions of remaining genitive forms are some pronouns, certain fossilized expressions and some proper names. For example, French ("Thursday") Sp
vengo ("I come"). In French, however, all the endings are typically homophonous except the first and second person (and occasionally also third person) plural, so the pronouns are always used (
je viens) except in the
imperative. Contrary to the millennia-long continuity of much of the active verb system, which has now survived 6000 years of known evolution, the synthetic
passive voice was utterly lost in Romance, being replaced with
periphrastic verb forms—composed of the verb "to be" plus a passive participle—or impersonal
reflexive forms—composed of a verb and a passivizing pronoun. Apart from the grammatical and phonetic developments there were many cases of verbs merging as complex subtleties in Latin were reduced to simplified verbs in Romance. A classic example of this are the verbs expressing the concept "to go". Consider three particular verbs in Classical Latin expressing concepts of "going": , , and *
ambitare. In Spanish and Portuguese
ire and
vadere merged into the verb
ir, which derives some conjugated forms from
ire and some from
vadere.
andar was maintained as a separate verb derived from
ambitare. Italian instead merged
vadere and
ambitare into the verb . At the extreme French merged three Latin verbs with, for example, the present tense deriving from
vadere and another verb
ambulare (or something like it) and the future tense deriving from
ire. Similarly the Romance distinction between the Romance verbs for "to be", and , was lost in French as these merged into the verb . In Italian, the verb inherited both Romance meanings of "being essentially" and "being temporarily of the quality of", while specialized into a verb denoting location or dwelling, or state of health.
Copula The
copula (that is, the verb signifying "to be") of Classical Latin was . This evolved to *
essere in Vulgar Latin by attaching the common infinitive suffix
-re to the classical infinitive; this produced Italian and French through Proto-Gallo-Romance *
essre and Old French as well as Spanish and Portuguese (Romanian
a derives from
fieri, which means "to become"). In Vulgar Latin a second copula developed utilizing the verb , which originally meant (and is cognate with) "to stand", to denote a more temporary meaning. That is, *
essere signified the
essence, while
stare signified the
state. Stare evolved to Spanish and Portuguese and Old French (both through *
estare), Romanian "a sta" ("to stand"), using the original form for the noun ("stare"="state"/"starea"="the state"), while Italian retained the original form. The semantic shift that underlies this evolution is more or less as follows: A speaker of Classical Latin might have said:
vir est in foro, meaning "the man is in/at the marketplace". The same sentence in Vulgar Latin could have been *
(h)omo stat in foro, "the man stands in/at the marketplace", replacing the
est (from
esse) with
stat (from
stare), because "standing" was what was perceived as what the man was actually doing. The use of
stare in this case was still semantically transparent assuming that it meant "to stand", but soon the shift from
esse to
stare became more widespread. In the Iberian peninsula
esse ended up only denoting natural qualities that would not change, while
stare was applied to transient qualities and location. In Italian,
stare is used mainly for location, transitory state of health (
sta male 's/he is ill' but
è gracile 's/he is puny') and, as in Spanish, for the eminently transient quality implied in a verb's progressive form, such as
sto scrivendo to express 'I am writing'. The historical development of the
stare + ablative gerund progressive tense in those Romance languages that have it seems to have been a passage from a usage such as
sto pensando 'I stand/stay (here) in thinking', in which the
stare form carries the full semantic load of 'stand, stay' to
grammaticalization of the construction as expression of progressive
aspect (Similar in concept to the Early Modern English construction of "I am a-thinking"). The process of reanalysis that took place over time
bleached the semantics of
stare so that when used in combination with the gerund the form became solely a grammatical marker of subject and tense (e.g.
sto = subject first person singular, present;
stavo = subject first person singular, past), no longer a
lexical verb with the semantics of 'stand' (not unlike the auxiliary in compound tenses that once meant 'have, possess', but is now semantically empty: ''j'
ai écrit
, ho scritto
, he escrito
, etc.). Whereas sto scappando'' would once have been semantically strange at best (?'I stay escaping'), once grammaticalization was achieved, collocation with a verb of inherent mobility was no longer contradictory, and
sto scappando could and did become the normal way to express 'I am escaping'. (Although it might be objected that in sentences like Spanish
la catedral está en la ciudad, "the cathedral is in the city" this is also unlikely to change, but all locations are expressed through
estar in Spanish, as this usage originally conveyed the sense of "the cathedral
stands in the city").
Word order typology Classical Latin in most cases adopted an
SOV word order in ordinary prose, although other word orders were employed, such as in poetry, euphony, focus, or emphasis, enabled by
inflectional marking of the grammatical function of words. However, word order in most of the modern Romance languages generally adopted a standard SVO word order. Relics of SOV word order still survive in the placement of
clitic object pronouns (e.g. Spanish 'I love you'). == Vocabulary ==