In this study, a substantial introduction has been designed to familiarize the reader with the main characteristics of the philological discipline. Substantive sections have been devoted to Vulgar Latin as the parent tongue of the Romance languages, to the history of the discipline, and to the historical comparative method. This is followed by a sustained study of the sound changes that eventually lead from the relative unity of Vulgar Latin to the diversity of the Romance languages. Sound laws are clearly formulated and each rule is illustrated by examples. Factors that interfere with regular developments are discussed: analogies; learned Latinizing influence; borrowings; etc. The presentation of phonology is coupled with an important lexical dimension, which serves primarily to illustrate the fragmentation process that has shaped the vocabulary of each individual Romance language.

The architecture of the human language faculty has been one of the main foci of the linguistic research of the last half century. This branch of linguistics, broadly known as Generative Grammar, is concerned with the formulation of explanatory formal accounts of linguistic phenomena with the ulterior goal of gaining insight into the properties of the 'language organ'. The series comprises high quality monographs and collected volumes that address such issues. The topics in this series range from phonology to semantics, from syntax to information structure, from mathematical linguistics to studies of the lexicon.

This volume provides a detailed account of verb movement across more than 20 standard and non-standard Romance varieties. Norma Schifano uses extensive empirical data to demonstrate that, contrary to traditional assumptions, it is possible to identify at least 4 distinct macro-typologies of verb movement in the Romance languages.

This thesis comparatively examines a selection of twenty-first century sheikh romances and Middle English romances from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that imagine an erotic relationship occurring between east and west. They do so against a background of conflict, articulated in military confrontation and binary religious and ethnic division. The thesis explores the strategies used to facilitate the cross-cultural relationship across such a gulf of difference and considers what a comparison of medieval and modern romance can reveal about attitudes towards otherness in popular romance. In Chapter 1, I analyse the construction of the east in each genre, investigating how the homogenisation of the romance east in sheikh romance distances it from the geopolitical reality of those parts of the Middle East seen, by the west, to be "other". Chapter 2 examines the articulation of gender identity and the ways in which these romances subvert and reassert binary gender difference to uphold normative heterosexual relations. Chapter 3 considers how ethnic and religious difference is nuanced, in particular through the use of fabric, breaking down the disjunction between east and west. Chapter 4 investigates the way ethnicity, religion and gender affect hierarchies of power in the abduction motif, enabling undesirable aspects of the east to be recast. The key finding of this thesis is that both romance genres facilitate the cross-cultural erotic relationship by rewriting apparently binary differences of religion and ethnicity to create sameness. While the east is figured differently in Middle English and modern sheikh romance, the strategies they use to facilitate the cross-cultural erotic relationship are similar. The thesis concludes that the constancy of certain attitudes towards the east in both medieval and modern romance reveals a persistence of conservative values in representations of the east in romance.

Pre-University Paper from the year 2014 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Literature, Works, grade: 15, , language: English, abstract: “O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?“ This quote might be the most famous one from the love story of Romeo and Juliet. It is known by many people around the globe and translated into various languages. It is also known, that the tragedy deals with the ideal of true love and attends to the contact with insurmountable disparities. Down to the present day they are numerous variations of the original plot, for instance in ballet, classic theatre or movies. The tragedy ́s popularity is not deniable, and wittingly or unwittingly the story seems familiar to almost every reader or viewer. This has the cause that in almost everybody ́s life there is or was at least one point, where most of the people can relate their personal love-fate to this of Romeo ́s and Juliet ́s; A loving couple separated by the hate-filled relationship of their families. At that point, it is nonessential if the separating barrier is represented by parental home, origin, social class, religion, or financial background. Due to this, Romeo and Juliet still is of current interest and affects readers emotionally even centuries after its publishing. This is, for me personally, fascinating, and I want to research into the play to understand Shakespeare ́s way of thinking and intentions as well as to explore the limitations and possibilities when it comes to transfer this demanding work by Shakespeare into twenty-first century scenarios.