Lunchtime Seminar, IRH-ICUB, March 16 2017 [603406]

1
Lunchtime Seminar, IRH-ICUB, March 16 2017

Language Contact and Convergence:
Old Church Slavonic and Old Romanian

Adina Dragomirescu
“Iorgu Iordan ‒ Al. Rosetti” Institute of Linguistics / Department of Linguistics, University of Bucharest /
The Research Institute of the University of Bucharest
[anonimizat]

Before introduction

● This presentation is part of the research project Foreign features in the syntax of old
Romanian. Cross-linguistic analogies, awarded a Young Researcher Grant (2016-2017) by The
Research Institute of the University of Bucharest.

● My aim is to revisit several syntactic features of old Romanian considered by previous
literature to be of foreign (especially Slav(on)ic) origin. Many of these features have been
considered to be of Slav(on)ic origins mainly for ideological reasons, i.e. in the Communist
period, the Slavic/Russian influence was overstated not only in linguistics, but also in Romanian
historiography and culture. Another explanation for this misleading state of affairs is the fact
that, at the time, not many studies on Latin and (Old) Romance syntax were available, and
consequently, the common features of (Old) Romanian and Latin/Old Romance were mostly
ignored.

● The (preliminary) list of syntactic features explained as foreign influence is extracted
from:
(i) books dedicated to the history of Romanian (Densusianu 1961, Rosetti 1968, Ivănescu
[1979] 2000, Gheție (ed.) 1997);
(ii) special studies devoted to the Slavic influence on the syntax of Romanian (Seidel
1958, Beneș 1955, Copceac [1963] 1998);
(iii) linguistic studies accompanying the philologically edited texts (Mareș 1969, Rizescu
1971, Costinescu 1981, Teodorescu and Gheție 1977, Chivu 1993, Gheție and Teodorescu 2005);
(iv) other studies dedicated to specific topics (e.g. Ciompec 1969).

● The list consist of the following sintactic features:
− subject positions and nominal phrase-internal word order;
‒ clausal/verb word order;
− (non-)doubling of the direct and indirect objects;
− differential object marking with prepositional pe (< lexical pe ‘on’);
– the ellipsis of the copula a fi ‘be’;
− the predicative (i.e. main clause predicate) usage of the infinitive and of the gerund;
− the emergence of the “short” infinitive (without the ending – re, inherited from Latin);
− the usage of the infinitive in contexts specific to the subjunctive;
− auxiliary and pronominal clitic inversion;

2
− scrambling in compound verbal forms;
− absence of negative concord, i.e. simple negation, sporadically attested in 16th century-
texts;
− the reflexive form of many verbs ( a se căi ‘to repent’, a se griji ‘to take care’, etc.);
− the dative indirect object / accusative direct object alternation ( a crede cuiva/pe cineva
‘believe + dative/accusative’, a iubi cuiva/pe cineva ‘love + dative/accusative’).

● I have already developed and applied a precise working algorithm (consisting mainly in
the comparison of old Romanian translations to data from Late Latin, Old Romance, dialectal
Romanian, and original old documents directly written in Romanian) (see Dragomirescu 2015),
which is meant to help us distinguish the syntactic features which are the genuine result of
Slav(on)ic influence from the features which are found in Late Latin/Old Romance/dialectal
Romanian/original documents and, consequently, cannot be considered to result from any sort of
foreign influence.

● From a theoretical point of view, given that many of the syntactic features have been
subject to extensive parametric change, the project reinforces the idea that similar parametric
changes can happen independently in different languages / even language families – in this
situation, in different (old, medieval and early modern) Romance and Slavic languages.

1. Introduction

● Today’s topic: word order in old Romanian and its relation to the word order in Latin
and Old Church Slavonic.

● As already mentioned, the current view on the syntax of Old Romanian, and
particularly on word order, is that it has been strongly influenced by the syntax of Old Church
Slavonic, from which many old texts were translated, especially in the 16th century.

● More recent research (Dragomirescu 2015, Nicolae 2015, 2016, Brăescu, Dragomirescu
and Nicolae 2015) has shown that the phenomena concerning word order reflect an old (on its
way since Latin) and general (common for both Romance and Slavic) tendency of the languages
spoken in the area: an ongoing change in the head-directionality parameter, from head-final to
head-initial (Ledgeway 2012, 2014, in press).

Head-directionality = a linguistic parameter ‒ languages differ according to the position of the
head in the phrase ‒> head-initial languages (English, the Romance languages, etc.), with the
head preceding its complements and adjuncts and head-final languages (Japaneese, Turkish,
Ambai, etc.), with the head following its complements and adjuncts (see section 2 below).
Ex.:
Engl. these theree brown books
Dem Num Adj N
Ambai (Indonesia) dian katui siri nani
fish small one that
N Adj Num Dem

3
● In this talk, I would like to show that the head-final structures of old Romanian are not
the result of the Old Church Slavonic influence, but a state-of-art characterizing the passage from
Latin to old Romance (including old Romanian), and more generally, the passage from Proto-
Indo-European to the daughter languages. From this perspective, one can explain the existence of
head-final structures not only in (late) Latin and in old Romance, but also in Old Church
Slavonic and in the old Slavic languages.

● To explain the similarities between Old Romanian and Slavonic I will use the concept
of convergence , defined by Hickey (2010: 19) as follows: a feature in language X has an internal
source, i.e. there is a systemic motivation for the feature within language X, and the feature is
present in a further language Y with which X is in contact; both internal and external sources
“converge” to produce the same result; therefore, convergence refers to the coming together of
internal and external factors to produce the same output, but the term can also be used to mean
that the two languages become more similar in structure, usually by one language approximating
the other.

● The data examined in this presentation are collected from old Romanian texts. For the
comparison with Old Church Slavonic, I have investigated the Slavonic texts in Pleter, Lambru
and Puiu (2005) and their corresponding fragments from old Romanian texts. It is worth
mentioning that there are very few old Romanian texts (CC1.1567, CC2.1581) for which the
direct Slavonic source is known (Olteanu 1969, Mareș 1994: 30) and that sometimes there is no
direct relation between the old Romanian text and the Slavonic one.

2. The head parameter

● Tesnière (1966 [1959]) ‒> Greenberg (1966) ‒> subsequent work (such as Dryer 2007)
‒> Consistent Head Serialization (CHS): For all phrasal categories X, the head of X
either precedes of follows all dependents. (Primus 2001: 855)

● Greenberg’s major contribution: the insight that the basic order of the major
constituents of the clause (subject, object, and verb) correlates with the basic order of minor
elements relative to each other, such as noun and genitive, noun and adjective, adposition and
noun (Primus 2001: 855).

● Kayne (1994): the Universal Base Hypothesis ‒ when a complement surfaces to the
left of the head, it must have moved leftwards, i.e. rolled up , across the latter from its base-
generated position to a derived (inner) specifier:

(1) XP
3
YP X’
3
X0 YP

4

● Unfortunatelly, evidence for head-final universal base (Haider 1993) competes with
evidence for a head-initial universal base (Zwart 1997) (Primus 2001: 859). Moreover, there are
many languages where the basic word order is less clear-cut and even languages where there is
no basic word order (e.g. the Slavic languages; Comrie 1989: 88).

● Romanian vs Latin and Slavic
‒ Romanian ‒ a head-initial language; Old Romanian ‒ certain features associated with
head-final languages
‒ Latin: an ongoing change from archaic head-final patterns to innovative (Romance)
head-initial patterns (Ledgeway 2012, in press)
‒ Old Slavonic : head-initial language (Willis 2000, Migdalski 2016), head-final
(Pancheva 2005) or, in a more moderated perspective, a language showing a competition
(indicative of a change in progress) between the head-initial grammar and the head-final one, at
least in the verbal domain (Pancheva 2008)
‒> the Latin scenario seems to have happened in Old Church Slavonic as well
‒ but in contrast to the Romance languages, in which the shift to head-initial was
complete, it seems that the Slavic languages are still un(der)specified for directionality: a verb
may not only precede or follow its arguments, it may also be sandwiched by its objects (Haider
2015: 73); Slavic languages share more syntactic properties with OV than VO languages:
scrambling, absence of the edge effect, order variation of auxiliaries, no Superiority effect for in-
situ wh-subjects, no freezing of preverbal phrases (Haider 2015: 88)

● The head parameter and configurationality
‒ Haider (2015: 79) noticed that head-initial phrases are compact, whereas head-final
phrases are not compact.
‒ This empirical observation is formally captured by Ledgeway (2012, in press):
discontinuous constituents and head-final structures are tightly connected, representing actually
different sides of the same phenomenon ‒ the availability of antilocal movement; roll-up
movement is a “too-short”, antilocal type of movement by default (Comp-to-Spec):
discontinuous structures are derived by the exploitation of the edge of individual functional
projections via antilocal (Comp-to-Spec) steps of movement.
‒ Ledgeway’s (in press) conclusion: antilocal movement (roll-up) should be
parameterized as being available only in head-final configurations.

3. The diachronic story: from Proto-Indo-European to Latin and
Romance

● The grammatical development from Proto-Indo-European to Latin to modern
Romance is characterized by several intertwined changes (Bauer 2009: 241):
‒ a change in the basic linear ordering of elements that are in hierarchical relationship
(OV > VO in some Indo-European languages)
‒ an important loss of word order variation as word order became “stricter”
‒ a growing tendency to juxtapose those elements between which there is a syntactic
relation.

5
● Proto-Indo-European and the head parameter
‒ Proto-Indo-European was a head-final language ‒ evidence both from the NP word
order and from the word order in the clause
NP ‒ in noun phrases, the genitive precedes the noun in unmarked order in Proto-
Indo-European (Bauer 2009: 252)
‒ the position of the adjective in Proto-Indo-European depends on its syntactic
function: in predicative use it follows the noun, whereas it precedes in attributive
use; yet emphasis on the noun or the adjective could create the reverse order
(Bauer 2009: 252)
Clause ‒ Proto-Indo-European was basically an OV language (Watkins 1998: 68, earlier
Lehmann 1974); all daughter languages allow variation: the basic word order is
OV, but variation is found and may have syntactic and pragmatic motivation
(Bauer 2009: 254)
‒ the shift SOV > SVO seems to be the most widespread in the daughter
languages (Bauer 2009: 255)

● The Latin-Romance transition and the head parameter (Ledgeway, in press)
‒ in its first attestations, Latin was predominantly head-final, whereas modern Romance
is head-initial; Classical Latin = transitional stage
‒ all Romance varieties tend towards the same basic linguistic ‘type’, namely head-initial,
configurational, accusative, non-polysynthetic (with strong analytic tendencies) and subject-
prominent
‒ the great “leap” = the reversal in the head and configurationality parameters
‒ the Romance languages lost roll-up movement from the grammar and left-edge
fronting, syntactic mechanisms which derives head-final structures
‒ head-initiality = the unmarked and least costly option; the derivationally more complex
nature of head-finality obtained through roll-up = the more marked option
‒ the roll-up movement in the verbal domain ‒ still systematic in Latin embedded
contexts
‒ whereas Latin typically spells out left-peripheral specifier positions through roll-up and
edge-fronting, Romance typically spells out the corresponding head positions with functional
categories

● The noun phrase
‒ in the NP, the change of the head directionality took place earlier than in VP/Clause
‒ the position of the adjective in relation to their head noun is perhaps one of the most
debated topics in Romance syntax1; the use of AN sequences survives today under given
semantic and pragmatic conditions (Bauer 2009: 263); whereas the adjective in present-day
Romance languages in marked use still precedes the noun, it was one of the early elements in the

1 While traditional scholarship generally takes the NA/AN orders as indicative of a head-initial/head-final
parametric setting, in current theoretical thinking agreement has not been reached as to whether the noun and the
adjective stand in a relation of complementation (a diagnostic for the head-directionality parameter) or in a relation
of specification (NA vs AN orders derive from different N-raising options ‒ Crisma and Gianollo 2006). While the
second theoretical choice had lately gained more ground (see Cinque 2010), typological studies have revealed that
there is a strong correlation between the NA/AN ordering and other phenomena related to the head-directionality
parameter. The NA/AN ordering remains a controversial diagnostic in relation to the head-directionality parameter.

6
history of Latin to change branching: from the early Italic period onwards, the adjective followed
the noun in unmarked order (Bauer 2009: 263)
‒ a more accurate test for the head-parameter in the NP: the position of genitives; as
Ledgeway (2012: 213-218) shows surveying previous literature, while Early Latin exhibits a
preference for prenominal genitives, in Classical Latin both positions are equaly available; in
Late Latin and early Romance, prenominal genitives became exceptional

● The verb phrase
‒ the verb phrase underwent its typological reorganization in Latin at a relatively late
stage: it not only started later than changes affecting the noun phrase or comparative
constructions, it went on well into the Romance period (Bauer 2009: 268)
‒ Latin inherited the unmarked verb-final and marked verb-initial patterns from Proto-
Indo-European; it also developed a third variety early on in which the verb is followed by a
(in)direct complement or a prepositional phrase, but does not occur in clause-initial position
(Bauer 2009: 268)
‒ the loss of OV sequences was slower in embedded clauses (Bauer 2009: 269), most
probably because the relaxed V2 rule does not apply in embedded clauses (Ledgeway 2012)
‒ the verb-medial position was an innovation in Latin ‒ it did not express any specific
value or function of the verb (Bauer 2009: 269)

‒> many of the changes described here seem to be common to the Indo-European languages;
therefore, even if there is no agreement as to the head parameter in Old Church Slavonic and no
analysis of this language in terms of configurationality, one can suggest that Latin and Slavonic
underwent similar changes
‒> old Romanian can be a mirror-image of the convergent changes occurring both in Latin and
in Old Church Slavonic

4. The view from Old Romanian

● The passage from old Romanian to modern Romanian (Nicolae 2016: 563):
‒ rigidification of word order and strengthening of locality conditions
‒ stabilization of the position of the verb on the clausal spine
‒ elimination of the residual head-final structures
‒ disappearance of discontinuous structures

‒> all this changes are somehow related to the head parameter
‒> this is a natural continuation of the changes which took place in the transition from Latin to
Romance.

● In previous literature, it has been claimed that the syntax of old Romanian was strongly
influenced by the syntax of (Old Church) Slavonic.
Radical views:
‒ Densusianu (1961 I: 161) showed that it is only when the Slaves entered this area that
the Balkan Romance became Romanian, as we know it today; until then the local language was a
sort of dialect of Italian; the contact with the Slavs transformed this variety into an independent

7
language, which was certainly Romance in his internal structure, but really different from the
other Romance languages
− the majority of the old Romanian texts before 1640 were translated from Slavonic and
their direct source is rarely known (Mareș 1994: 30); many texts are word-by-word translations
closely following their source (Mareș 1994: 35)
‒ the translated texts often contain constructions which do not exist in the language of
that period (Avram 2007: 313); for the 16th century it is crucial to identify the foreign syntactic
features which can be explained by the influence of their source (Avram [1975] 2007: 93)

A less radical perspective ‒ Stan (2013: 21): the old period of Romanian is characterized
by the interference between the syntax of the spoken language and, to a certain extent, of the
nonstandard language with the foreign syntactic patterns (Slavonic, Latin, Hungarian, German,
Greek, Romance, etc.).

My claim: the Syntax of old Romanian was influenced not only by Slavonic, but also,
naturally, by Latin (in two ways: by the inherited patterns and by translations).

5. (Old Church) Slavonic vs old Romanian vs Latin

● This section: the previous literature which compared Old Romanian to Slavonic or
Latin texts ‒> the same feature has been explained either as a influence of Slavonic or of Latin; I
have selected only the information which can be relevant for the head parameter.

5.1. The noun phrase

● In Old Slavonic, adjectives display free word order but the prenominal position is more
frequent (A. Vaillant, apud Djamo-Diaconiță 1975: 337); Latin also had both prenominal and
postnominal adjectives and genitives (Ledgeway 2012: 39)
‒> this feature is most probably inherited from Proto-Indo-European (Bauer 2009: 248).

● For Romanian, the ordering of adjectives has been explained either as having a Latin
source or a Slavonic origin; Stan (2013: 59, 66) mentions that in the 16th century, the
postnominal position of classifiying adjectives (i.e. the Romance word order) is general in
original texts, but it is also attested in translations; one can also find examples with the opposite
order, non-Romance, probably following the Slavonic pattern, but this ordering has also been
explained as a specific feature of the writing at that time.

● In CV.1563‒83, adjectival modifiers and possessives have a variable word order
following the one of the Slavic sources (Costinescu 1981: 173); in (2) and (3) the adjectives, the
genitive and the possessive adjectives precede the noun.

(1) a. fratele cela smeritul (CV.1563‒83: 56r) [ORom]
brother. DEF that humble. DEF
‘that humble brother’
b. bra(t) smirenyi [OSl]
brother humble

8
(2) a. în mierurata a lui lumiră (CV.1563‒83: 74r) [ORom]
in divine ALGEN his light
‘in his divine light’
b. vŭ divinii ego světĭ [OSl]
in divine his light
(3) a. a noastră parte (CV.1563‒83: 5r) [ORom]
ALGEN our part
‘our part’
b. naša častŭ [OSl]
our part

● Head-final NPs (more accurately: non-head-initial NPs) have been also identified in
CL.1570 (Mareș 1969: 78‒79, 97), in PH.1500‒10 (Gheție and Teodorescu 2005: 58), in
CC2.1581 (Rădulescu 1963), i.e. texts translated from Slavonic (4)‒(8), and in CIst.1700‒50
(Dragomir 2006: 127‒128), a text with Latin sources (9)‒(12):

(4) a. multă slava ta (CL.1570: 2v) [ORom]
much. F.SG glory. DEF your
‘your great glory’
b.

[OSl]
much your glory your
(5) a. sfânta casa aceasta (CL.1570: 12r) [ORom]
holy. DEF house. DEF this
b.

[OSl]
holy house this
(6) răsădeaște întru noi și [fericata învățăturiei
instil. IMP.2SG in us and happy. DEF teaching. F.SG.DEF.GEN
tale frică] (CL.1570: 19v) [ORom]
your fear
‘Instil in us the fear of your helpful teaching as well’
(7) Și [această folositoare de sufletu carte] (CC2.1581: 2/35)
and this useful for soul book [ORom]
‘and this book useful for the soul’
(8) De [această purtătoare de lumină săptămână ] (CC2.1581: 126/3)
of this carrying. F.SG of light week [ORom]
‘Of this light-carrying week’
(9) de [ale altora cuvinte] (CIst.1700‒50: 39v) [ORom]
of AL.F.PL other. GEN words
‘of the words of the others’
(10) la a noastră de rumâni istorie iară [ORom]
at AL.F.SG our of Romanians history again
mă întorc (CIst.1700‒50: 44v)
CL.REFL.1SG come.back. PRES.1SG
‘I come back again to our Romanian history’

9
(11) din [grecii istorici ] (CIst.1700‒50: 8v) [ORom]
form Greek. PL.DEF historians
‘from the Greek historians’
(12) sânt supuși [varvarei și turceștii
be. PRES.3SG obedient. M.PL barbarous. F.SG.DEF.GEN and Turkish. F.SG.DEF.GEN
puteri] (CIst.1700‒50: 44r) [ORom]
power
‘They are obedient to the barbarous Turkish power’

● In Table 1, I present the result of a quantitative analysis of samples from three types of
texts: translated from Latin (PO.1582), translated from Old Church Slavonic (CC2.1581) and
original documents from the 16th century (DÎ). What this table shows is that both the head-final
(very restricted) and the head-initial NP order were possible in all types of texts.

The text Prenominal possessives and genitives Postnominal possessives and genitives
PO.1582 2,33% 97,67%
CC2.1581 6,88% 93,12%
DÎ 3,68%2 96,32%
Table 1. The position of the possesives and gentitives in the Old Romanian nominal phrase

● An important argument for head-finality comes from relative clauses. In general, even
in head-final languages, relative clauses tend to follow their antecedent (Bauer 2009: 249); in
Latin, the structures with relative clause modifiers were among the first structures which already
underwent the change from the head-final to the head-initial grammar in an early period (Bauer
2009: 258, Ledgeway 2012: 203‒205); however, head-final structures are still attested in Latin
(13) (see Ledgeway 2012, 209‒210, ex. (33)).

(13) [quaei arida erunt ( . . . ) ] eai omnia eximito [Lat]
those. NOM dry. NO will.be those. ACC all. ACC remove. FUT.IMP.2SG
‘those which are dry, you have to trim them all’
(Lat., Cato Agr. 44, in Ledgeway 2012: 209)

● Moreover, relative clauses preceding their antecedent are rarely attested even in old
Romanin, both in CV.1563‒83 (Costinescu 1981: 174), a text influenced by Slavonic (in which
the relative clause translates a participle) (14) and in CIst.1700‒50 (Dragomir 2006: 128), a text
influenced by Latin (15). Therefore, this is a very convincing argument for the existence of head-
finality in Romanian, at some point.

(14) a. Destulu e noao [ceia ce i au trecutu ]
enough is us. DAT that which AUX.PERF.3PL pass.PPLE
anii i viiației (CV.1563‒83: 79) [ORom]
years. DEF life. DEF.GEN
‘The years which passed are enough for us’

2 All the prenominal genitives are realized by pronouns.

10
b. mimoše(d)šee lěto žitia [OSl]
pass. PPLE years life

(15) Și de toate [câtei mai întâi au avut ] slavei
and of all how.many first AUX.PERF.3PL have.PPLE glory. PL
s-au dezbrăcat (CIst.1700‒50: 42r) [ORom]
CL.REFL=AUX.PERF.3SG divest. PPLE
‘And he lost all the glory he had before’

5.2. The verb phrase

● The V-final order in old Romanian is explained in the literature both as a Latin
influence or as a Slavonic influence: Stan (2013: 119) shows that authors such as Miron Costin,
Constantin Cantacuzino, Dimitrie Cantemir use the V-final order because of the Latin influence;
Stan (2013: 120) also mentions that rarely, in coordinated structures, the verb is expressed only
once, in the final conjunct, and that this construction is influenced by the Slavonic source but the
authors influenced by the Latin syntax also use this pattern (see also Frâncu 1997: 372‒373,
2009: 403).

● Therefore, we find verb final structures in CV.1563‒83 (Costinescu 1981: 174) (16), in
CL.1570 (Mareș 1969: 96) (17)‒(18), in PH.1500‒10 (Gheție and Teodorescu 2005: 58) (19)‒
(20), texts translated from Slavonic, and in CIst.1700‒50 (Dragomir 2006: 126, 128) (21)‒(22),
and PO.1582 (23)‒(24), texts translated from Latin:

(16) a. Eu nu numai legatu se fiu ,
I not only imprison. PPLE SĂSUBJ be.SUBJ.1SG
ce și se moriu gata sântu
but also SĂSUBJ die.SUBJ.1SG ready be. PRES.1SG
întru Ierusalim (CV.1563‒83: 14v) [ORom]
in Jerusalem
‘I am ready not only to be emprisoned but also to die in Jerusalem’
b. Az bo ne tŭčiȩ svȩzanĭ byti, nọ i umrěti
I only not punish emprisoned be not and die
vŭ Ier(s)lmě gotovĭ esmŭ [OSl]
in Jurusalem ready be
(17) și toată viața noastră Hristos Domnului
and all life. DEF our Christ God. GEN
pre ea să o dăm (CL.1570: 28v) [ORom]
DOM it SĂSUBJ CL.ACC.F.3SG give.SUBJ.1PL
‘we shall give our our live to Christ’
(18) De dulce-cinstiții și de Dumnezeu păziții împărații
for sweet-honour. PPLE.M.PL and by God protect. PPLE.M.PL emperors. DEF
noștri, de toate curțile și de voinicii lor, Domnului
our for all courts. DEF and for heros. DEF their Lord. DEF.DAT

11
să ne rugăm (CL.1570: 12r) [ORom]
SĂSUBJ CL.REFL.1PL pray. SUBJ.1PL
‘We should pray to the Lord for all our honoured emperors protected by God’
(19) numele Domnului chemu (PH.1500‒10: 100v) [ORom]
name. DEF God. DEF.GEN call.PRES.1SG
‘I call the name of God’
(20) A face voia ta, Dzeul mieu, vrui (PH.1500‒10: 34r) [ORom]
AINF do.INF will.DEF your God my want. PS.1SG
‘I wanted to do your will’
(21) frumos lucru iaste (CIst.1700‒50: 3v) [ORom]
beautiful thing is
‘this is a beautiful thing’
(22) și acolo mult foarte într-însa aur, argint și alte scule
and there much very in=in gold silver and other tools
ce știia că de apă
which know. IMPERF.3PL that from water
nu să strică, punea (CIst.1700‒50: 19v) [ORom]
not CL.REFL.3PL damage. PRES.3PL put. IMPERF.3PL
‘They put there a lot of gold, silver and other tools which they knew cannot be damaged
by water’
(23) numai noi românii pre limbă nu avem (PO.1582: 10)
only us Romanians. DEF on language not have. PRES.1PL
‘Only us Romanians we don’t have it in our language’
(24) Ce avea duh viu în sine spre pământ
what have. IMPERF.3SG soul alive in himself on earth
muriră (PO.1582: 31)
die. PS.3PL
‘All who had a living soul on earth, they all died’

● For CV.1563‒83, it was also noticed that the direct object can precede the verb (i.e. the
(S)OV order), as in the Slavonic version (25), but the anteposition of the direct object does not
always reflect the word order in the Slavonic version (Costinescu 1981: 172); the (S)OV order is
also frequent in CIst.1700‒50 (Dragomir 2006: 127) (26)‒(27), a text translated from Latin:

(25) a. nu că limba mea avea ceva
not that language my have. IMPERF.3SG something
a cleveti (CV.1563‒83: 51r) [ORom]
AINF gossip. INF
‘not because I had something to gossip about’
b. ne jako ȩzykĭ moi iměọ čto oklevetati [OSl]
not that language my have something gossip
(26) biruințele romanii împărații le-au
victories. DEF Roman. PL.DEF emperors. DEF CL.ACC.F.PL=AUX.PERF.3PL
ridicat (CIst.1700‒50: 11v) [ORom]
gain. PPLE
‘the Roman emperors gained the victories’

12
(27) unii și această țară Musia o chiamă (CIst.1700‒50: 9r) [ORom]
some also this country Moesia CL.ACC.F.3SG call.PRES.3PL
‘Some people also call this country Moesia’

● As in the Slavonic version, the direct object can be placed between the elements of a
compound verb form (Costinescu 1981: 172) (28). But it is well known that discontinuous
structures are also attested in Latin (Ledgeway 2012: 43‒45). See also Dragomirescu (2013) and
Nicolae (2015: 205‒218) for Old Romanian and Dragomirescu and Nicolae (2016) for Istro-
Romanian, which most probably preserved from Old Romanian the interpolation and scrambling
pattern.

(28) a. cum se rrugăciuri facă (CV.1563‒83: 67v/9-10) [ORom]
how SĂSUBJ prayers do. SUBJ.3SG
‘he sould do prayers’
b. da mltvọ sŭtvorȩtĭ [OSl]
SUBJ prayers do

● It is also worth mentioning that not only the V-final structures or the OV order were
explained as the influence of Slavonic, but also the V1 structures, which Teodorescu and Gheție
(1977: 115) claim imitate to imitate the Slavonic order in MI.~1630. However, it is well-known
that Latin also inherited from Proto-Indo-European verb-initial clauses, which were marked, in
opposition to the verb-final ones, which were unmarked (Bauer 2009: 268, 275‒282).

(29) a. Cădzu o piatră (MI.~1630: 170v) [ORom]
fall. PS.3SG a stone
‘A stone fell’
b. pa(d) kame(n) [OSl]
fall stone
(30) a. binevesti arhanghel Gavriil (MI.~1630: 173r) [ORom]
good.announce. PS.3SG archangel Gabriel
‘Archangel Gabriel brought the good news’
b. blagovĕsti arhaagglo(m) Gavriilo(m) [OSl]
good.announce archangel Gabriel
(31) a. dzise Dumnedzeu (MI.~1630: 177r) [ORom]
say. PS.3SG God
‘God said’
b. re(č) gǐ [OSl]
say God

● In Table 2, I present the result of a quantitative analysis of samples from three types of
texts: translated from Latin (PO.1582), translated from Old Church Slavonic (CC2.1581) and
original documents from the 16th century (DÎ). What this table shows is that in all three types of
text all the superficial word order patterns (verb initial, verb medial and verb final) were attested,
a fact which supports our claim that the word order in old Romanian is the result of the
‘convergence’ between the Latin word order and the Old Slavonic word order.

13

The text Main clause Embedded clause
V1 V med Neg-V
med Vfinal3 V1 V med Neg-V
med/Rel-
Vmed Vfinal
PO.1582 36,26% 26,80% 0,92% 3,68% 8,28% 12,75% 8,54% 1,57%
CC2.1581 8,85% 28,23% 0,72% 12,90% 9,33% 21,53% 10,04% 8,37%
DÎ 11,52% 34,18% 0,59% 1,95% 13,47% 22,07% 19,33% 0,78%
Table 2. The position of the verb in the clause in Old Romanian texts

6. The corpus study: Old Church Slavonic texts vs their old Romanian
counterparts

● In this section I will present some examples extracted from the Slavonic texts included
in Pleter, Lambru and Puiu (2015), which I have compared to their old Romanian counterparts
with respect to word order. I aim to show that in certain cases the old Romanian word order is
the same as in Slavonic, whereas in other cases, the ordering of elements is different.

6.1. The noun phrase

● adjective‒noun (same order in both languages)

(32) a. sããvàșù doroe sãmæ na selã svoemà
seed. ACTIVE.PPLE good seed in land his
‘who seeded good seed in this land’
( Undolsky sheets , 11th c., fol. 5/p. 15)
b. ce seamânâ bunâ sămânțâ spre agrul lui (CT.1560‒1: 27v)
who seeds good seed in land his
‘who seeds good seed in this land’

● noun‒adjective (same order in both languages)

(33) a. cl(ovã)kà eterà sátvorĨ vecerå velĨå
man certain make. AOR.3SG dinner big
‘a certain man gave a big dinner’
(Codex Assemanianus, 10-11th c., fol. 61d-62b/p. 24)
b. Om neștine făcu cină mare
man certain make. PS.3SG dinner big
‘a certain man gave a big dinner’
(CC1.1567: 144v , CC2.1581: 463, CT.1560‒1: 153r)

3 I considered a clause to be verb-final when the verb was the last constituent of the clause and it was preceded by at
least one constituent which was not a clitic or a wh- element.

14

● adjective‒noun in Slavonic, noun‒adjective in Old Romanian

(34) a. vásãkà c(á)lov(ã)kà prãjde dobroe vino
any people first good wine
polagaatà
put
‘anyone would first put the good wine (on the table)’
(Codex Marianus, 11th c., Io., II, 1-10/p. 19)
b. Tot omul mainte vin bun pun (CT.1560‒1: 184v)
all people. DEF before wine good put
‘anyone first puts the good wine’

● adjective‒noun in Slavonic, nominal ellipsis in old Romanian
(35) a. i rece mániĨ snà ego oțò
and say. AOR.3SG younger son his father
‘and the younger son said to his father’
(Sava’s book, 11th c., f. 67-69/p. 27)
b. și zise cel mai tânăr părintelui
and say. PS.3SG CEL more young father. DEF.DAT
‘and the younger [son] said to his father’
(CC1.1567: 168v, CC2.1581: 11, CT.1560‒1: 154v‒155r)

● postnominal possessive adjectives in both languages

(36) a. váĨ jitànițâ moâ (Undolsky sheets, 11th c., fol. 5/p. 15)
in barn my
‘in my barn’
b. în jitnița mea (CT.1560‒1: 28r)
in barn. DEF my
‘in my barn’

● prenominal possessive adjective in Slavonic, postnominal possessive adjective in old
Romanian

(37) a. izãdàĨ tvoe imãnie sà lòbodãĨțami
waste.PRES.PPLE your fortune with prostitutes
‘who wasted your fortune with prostitutes’
(Sava’s book, 11th c., f. 67-69/p. 28)
b. răsipi avuția ta cu curvele (CC1.1567: 169v)
waste. PS.3SG fortune. DEF your with prostitutes. DEF
‘(who) wasted your fortune with the prostitutes’

15
6.2. The verb phrase

● same position of the verb in both languages: V1 (38), V-medial (39), V-final (40)

(38) a. Rece g(ospod)à pritàcâ siâ
say. AOR.3SG god parable this
‘God said this parable’
(Undolsky sheets, 11th c., fol. 5/p. 15)
b. zise domnul (CT.1560‒1: 27v)
said God
‘God said’
(39) a. Ĩ v
tretii deni brak
bàĨstà và
and in third day wedding be. AOR.3SG in
kana galeisțãi Ĩ bã mati is(ùso)va tù .
Cana Galilee. GEN and be.IMPERF.3SG mother Jesus. GEN there
‘And the third day, a wedding took place in Cana and Jesus’ mother was there’
( Codex Marianus, 11th c., Io., II, 1-10/p. 19)
b. În vreamea aceaea nuntă fu în Cana Galileiului.
in time. DEF that wedding be. PS.3SG in Cana Galilee. GEN
Și era muma lu Isus aciia (CT.1560‒1: 184r)
and be. IMPERF.3SG mother. DEF GEN Jesus here
‘And then a weeding took place in Cana and Jesus’ mother was here’
(40) a. vásãkà c(á)lov(ã)kà prãjde dobroe vino
any people first good wine
polagaatà
put
‘anyone would first put the good wine (on the table)’
(Codex Marianus, 11th c., Io., II, 1-10/p. 19)
b. Tot omul mainte vin bun pun (CT.1560‒1: 184v)
all people. DEF before wine good put
‘anyone puts the good wine first’

● V-final in Slavonic but V-medial in old Romanian (I have noticed a general tendency
for V-final structures to be translated as V-medial structures)

(41) a. egda je proxæbe trãva i plod
sàtvori
when and sprout. AOR wheat and fruit make. AOR
‘when the wheat sprouted and made fruit’
( Undolsky sheets , 11th c., fol. 5/p. 15)
b. Cănd înfrunzi iarba și feace plod (CT.1560‒1: 27v)
when spring. PS grass and make.ps fruit
‘when the grass sprang and made fruit’

16
(42) a. azà je sáde gladomà izgàĨbaå
I and here of.hunger die. PRES.1SG
‘and I am dying of hunger here’
(Sava’s book, 11th c., f. 67-69/p. 27)
b. eu pieri de foame (CC1.1567: 169r, CC2.1581: 11, CT.1560‒1: 155r)
I dye. PRES.1SG of hunger
‘I am dying of hunger’

7. Conclusions

● Old Romanian has residual head-final structures both in nominal domain and at the
clausal level. These structures have been eliminated in the passage to the modern language.

● In the previous literature there are contradictory claims: in most of the cases, the head-
final/initial order is explained as resulting from Old Church Slavonic influence (because most of
the old text were translated from Slavonic) or, in a few situations, from Latin influence (either
because certain texts were translated from Latin or because certain authors were willing to mimic
the Latin syntax).

● I have shown that head-final structures are equaly found in the texts translated from
Slavonic and from Latin and the “convergence” between the two source languages can be seen in
old Romanian. Following Bauer (2009), Ledgeway (2012, 2014 and in press), and Pancheva
(2008), I argued that:
(i) as well as Classical Latin, Old Church Slavonic illustrates the shift from the head-final
syntax of Proto-Indoeuropean to the head-initial syntax of the modern European languages, and
(ii) in the syntax old Romanian, relics of the head-final syntax (of both Old Church
Slavonic and Latin) are still visible.

● The more general conclusion is that (all) the languages in the area underwent, at a
certain moment, the change from a head-final to a head-initial syntax. But whereas in modern
Romance the shift is complete, the modern Slavic languages are still underspecified for the head
parameter (Heider 2015: 73), i.e. the shift is not complete, as it was in old Romanian.

17
CORPUS

CC1.1567 ‒ Coresi, Tâlcul Evangheliilor . Ed.: Coresi, Tâlcul evangheliilor și molitvenic românesc , ed.
V. Drimba, București, Editura Academiei Române, 1998, 31–187.
CC2.1581 ‒ Coresi, Evanghelie cu învățătură. Ed. S. Pușcariu, Al. Procopovici: Diaconul Coresi, Carte
cu învățătură (1581) , vol. I, Textul, București, Socec, 1914.
CIst.1700‒50 ‒ Constantin Cantacuzino, Istoria Țării Românești . Ed.: Istoria Țărâi Rumânești atribuită
stolnicului Constantin Cantacuzino , ed. O. Dragomir, București, Editura Academiei Române,
2006, 145–202.
CL.1570 ‒ Coresi, Liturghier. Ed. Al. Mareș, București, Editura Academiei, 1969, 127–148.
CT.1560‒1 ‒ Coresi, Tetraevanghel. Ed.: Tetraevanghelul tipărit de Coresi. Brașov 1560 – 1561 ,
comparat cu Evangheliarul lui Radu de la Mănicești. 1574 , ed. F. Dimitrescu, București, Editura
Academiei, 1963.
CV.1563‒83 ‒ Codicele Voronețean. Ed. M. Costinescu, București, Editura Academiei Române, 1981,
229–400.
DÎ ‒ Documente și însemnări românești din secolul al XVI-lea , text stabilit și indice de Gh. Chivu, M.
Georgescu, M. Ioniță, Al. Mareș, Al. Roman-Moraru, București, Editura Academiei Române,
1979.
MI.~1630 ‒ Manuscrisul de la Ieud. Ed. M. Teodorescu, I. Gheție, București, Editura Academiei, 1977,
153–170.
PH.1500‒10 ‒ Psaltirea Hurmuzaki , ed. I. Gheție and M. Teodorescu, București, Editura Academiei
Române, 2005.
PO.1582 ‒ Palia de la Orăștie. Ed. V. Pamfil, București, Editura Academiei, 1968.
Pleter, T., R. Lambru, C. Puiu, 2005, Limba slavă veche. Culegere de texte , București, Editura
Universității din București.

REFERENCES

Avram, M., [1975] 2007, “Particularități sintactice neromânești în diferite momente ale evoluției limbii
române literare”, in: Studii de sintaxă a limbii române, București, Editura Academiei Române,
93−103.
Avram, M., 2007, “Concluzii la sintaxă”, in: M. Avram (coord.), Sintaxa limbii române în secolele al
XVI-lea – al XVIII-lea, București, Editura Academiei Române, 313‒317.
Bauer, B., 2009, “Word order”, in: P. Baldi, P. Cuzzolin (eds), New Perspectives on Historical Latin
Syntax, I. Syntax of the sentence, Berlin/New York, Mouton de Gruyter, 241‒316.
Beneș, P., 1955, “Încrucișarea slavo-română în forma infinitivului românesc”, Studii și cercetări
lingvistice , LVI, 3‒4, 255‒263.
Brăescu, R., A. Dragomirescu, A. Nicolae, 2015, “(Non-)configurationality and the internal syntax of
adjectives in old Romanian”, Bucharest Working Papers in Linguistics , XVII, 2, 55‒74.
Chivu, G., 1993, “Studiu lingvistic”, in Codex Strurdzanus , București, Editura Academiei Române, 142‒
230.
Cinque, G., 2010, The Syntax of Adjectives, Cambridge, Mass., The MIT Press.
Ciompec, G., 1969, “Observații asupra exprimării negației în limba română din secolele al XVI-lea – al
XVIII-lea”, Studii și cercetări lingvistice , XX, 2, 197‒209.
Comrie, B, 1989, “Word order”, in: Language Universals and Linguistic Typology, 2nd edn., Chicago,
The University of Chicago Press, 86‒103.
Copceac, D., [1963] 1998, “Paralele slavo-române în sintaxa prepozițiilor”, in Tipologia limbilor
romanice , Cluj, Clusium, 198‒229.
Costinescu, M., 1981, “Studiu lingvistic”, in: Codicele voronețean, Ediție critică, studiu filologic și studiu
lingvistic de Mariana Costinescu, București, Editura Minerva, 89−213.

18
Crisma, P., C. Gianollo, 2006, “Where did Romance N-raising come from? A parallel study of parameter
resetting in Latin and English”, in: J. Doetjes, P. González (eds), Romance Languages and
Linguistic Theory 2004, Amsterdam, Benjamins, 71‒93.
Densusianu, O., 1961, Istoria limbii române, I. Originile, II. Secolul al XVI-lea, București, Editura
Științifică.
Djamo-Diaconiță, L., 1975, “Aspects de la place de l’adjectif dans la langue des chartes slavo-roumaines
de la Valachie (XIVe – XVIe s)”, Revue roumaine de linguistique, XX, 4, 337−340.
Dragomir, O., 2006, “Studiu lingvistic”, in: Istoriia Țărâi Românești atribuită stolnicului Constantin
Cantacuzino, Ediție critică, studiu filologic, studiu lingvistic, glosar și indice de nume proprii de
Otilia Dragomir, București, Editura Academiei Române, 39−135.
Dragomirescu, A., 2013, “O schimbare parametrică de la româna veche la româna modernă în sintaxa
formelor verbale compuse cu auxiliar”, Limba română , LXII, 2, 225−239.
Dragomirescu, A., 2015, “Există trăsături slavone în sintaxa limbii române? Două studii de caz / Are there
Slavonic Features in the Syntax of Romanian? Two case studies”, Diacronia 1, 1
http://dx.doi.org/10.17684/i1A3ro /
Dragomirescu, A., A. Nicolae, 2016, “Interpolation in Old Romanian and Istro-Romanian”, talk given at
LSRL 46, Stony Brook University, New York, March 31 martie ‒ April 3.
Dryer, M. S., 2007, “Word Order”, in: T. Shopen (ed.), Language Typology and Syntactic Description,
2nd end., vol. I. Clause structure, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 61‒131.
Gheție, I. (ed.), 1997, Istoria limbii române literare. Epoca veche (1532−1780), București, Editura
Academiei Române.
Gheție, I., M. Teodorescu, 2005, “Studiu lingvistic”, in: Psaltirea Hurmuzaki, I, Studiu filologic, studiu
lingvistic și ediție de Ion Gheție și Mirela Teodorescu, București, Editura Academiei Române,
23‒83.
Greenberg, J. H., 1966, “Some Universals of Grammar with Particular Reference to the Order of
Meaningful Elements”, in: J. H. Greenberg (ed.), Universals of Language, 2nd edn., Cambridge,
Massachussetts/London, England, The MIT Press, 73‒113.
Haider, H., 1993, Deutsche Syntax ‒ Generativ , Tübingen, Narr.
Haider, H., 2015, “Head directionality”, in: A. Fabregas, J. Mateu, M. Putnam (eds), Contemporary
Linguistic Parameters, Bloomsbury Academic, 73‒97.
Hickey, R., 2010, “Language Contact: Reconsideration and Reassessment”, in: R. Hickey (ed.), The
Handbook of language contact, Wiley-Blackwell, 1‒28.
Ivănescu, G., 22000 [1979], Istoria limbii române , Iași, Editura Junimea.
Ledgeway, A., 2012, From Latin to Romance. Morphosyntactic Typology and Change , Oxford, Oxford
University Press.
Ledgeway, A., 2014, “Parametrul poziției centrului și efectele sale pragmatice în trecerea de la latină la
limbile romanice”, in: R. Zafiu, A. Dragomirescu, A. Nicolae (eds), Limba română: diacronie și
sincronie în studiul limbii române, I, București, Editura Universității din București, 11‒26.
Ledgeway, A., in press, “From Latin to Romance syntax: the great leap”, in: P. Crisma, G. Longobardi
(eds), The Oxford Handbook of Diachronic and Historical Linguistics , Oxford, Oxford
University Press.
Lehmann, W., 1974, Proto-Indo-European Syntax, Austin, Texas, University of Texas Press.
Mareș, A., 1969, “Studiu de limbă”, in: Liturghierul lui Coresi, Text stabilit, studiu introductiv și indice
de Al. Mareș, București, Editura Academiei, 47−123.
Mareș, A., 1994, “Introducere”, in: A. Mareș (coord.), Crestomația limbii române vechi, Volumul I
(1521−1639), București, Editura Academiei Române, 17−39.
Migdalsky, K., 2016, “Head Directionality in Old Slavic”, 12th European Conference on Formal
Description of Slavic Languages, Berlin, December 8-10.
Nicolae, A., 2015, Ordinea constituenților în limba română: o perspectivă diacronică. Structura
propoziției și deplasarea verbului , București, Editura Universității din București.

19
Nicolae, A., 2016, “Word order and configurationality”, in: G. Pană Dindelegan (ed.), The Syntax of Old
Romanian , Oxford, Oxford University Press, 562‒575.
Olteanu, P., 1969, “Adjectivul în Cazania I a Diaconului Coresi și în versiunea slavă de Neagovo”, Studii
și cercetări lingvistice, XX, 2, 183‒195.
Pancheva, R., 2005, “The Rise and Fall of Second-Position Clitics”, Natural Language & Linguistic
Theory, 23, 103‒167.
Pancheva, R., 2008, “Head-Directionality of TP in Old Church Slavonic”, in: A. Antonenko, J. Bailyn,
C. Bethin (eds), Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics: The Stony Brook Meeting,
2007, Michigan Slavic Publications, Ann Arbor, 313‒332.
Primus, B., 2001, “Word order typology”, in: M. Haspelmath, E. König, W. Oesterreicher, W. Raible
(eds), Language typology and Language Universals, Berlin/New York, Mouton de Gruyter, 855‒
873.
Rădulescu, M., 1963, “Topica atributului adjectival în Evanghelia cu învățătură a Diaconului Coresi”,
Studii și cercetări lingvistice, XIV, 2, 233−258.
Rizescu, I., 1971, “Studiu de limbă”, in Pravila ritorului Lucaci , București, Editura Academiei, 35‒145.
Rosetti, Al., 1968, Istoria limbii române de la origini până în secolul al XVII-lea , București, Editura
pentru Literatură.
Seidel, E., 1958, Elemente sintactice slave în limba română , București, Editura Academiei.
Stan, C., 2013, O sintaxă diacronică a limbii române vechi, București, Editura Universității din București.
Teodorescu, M., I. Gheție, 1977, “Studiu de limbă”, in: Manuscrisul de la Ieud , text stabilit, studiu
filologic, studiu de limbă și indice de M. Teodorescu și I. Gheție, București, Editura Academiei,
59−141.
Tesnière, L., 1966 [1959], Éléments de syntaxe structurale , 2nd edn., Paris, C. Klincksieck.
Watkins, C., 1998, “Proto-Indo-European: comparison and reconstruction”, in: A. Giacalone Ramat,
P. Ramat (eds), The Indo-European languages, London, New York, Routledge, 25‒73.
Willis, D., 2000, “Verb movement in Slavonic Conditionals”, in: S. Pintzuk, G. Tsoulas, A. Warner (eds),
Diachronic Syntax: Models and Mechanisms, New York/Oxford, Oxford University Press, 322‒
348.
Zwart, J.-W., 1997, “The germanic SOV languages and the universal base hypothesis”, in: L. Haegeman
(ed.), New comparative syntax , London, Longman, 246‒267.