This dissertation is a historical examination of the distribution patterns of copulae, specifically ser, estar, and haber/haver, within the context of Ibero-Romance languages. Employing a multidimensional qualitative approach, the study conducts an in-depth analysis of their usage across various grammatical structures, encompassing sentences, phrases, and clauses. The theoretical framework primarily adopts a functional perspective centred around information structure and information status whilst also incorporating semantics, morphology, and syntax considerations. The investigation strategically focuses on the Castilian (Spanish), Portuguese, Catalan, and Aragonese languages. Chapter one is an inductive exploration of influential syntax, semantics, and pragmatics studies, establishing the theoretical foundations underpinning subsequent data analysis. Chapter two initiates with a brief discussion on existential and locative constructions in Latin, followed by a qualitative analysis of early Castilian and early Portuguese samples. Chapter three parallels the structure of chapter two by presenting data from early Catalan and early Aragonese. Throughout chapters two and three, relevant theoretical notions, including those previously introduced in chapter one, are integrated into the discussion. Finally, chapter four expands upon previous observations and proposals, offering avenues for further investigation and consolidating the principal conclusions derived from the preceding chapters. This research advances the field of Romance linguistics by conducting a re-evaluation of the taxonomy concerning locative and existential constructions within the framework of Ibero-Romance languages. Our argument asserts that despite their apparent differences in informational status, these constructions inherently share a common underlying informational structure and historical foundation. Moreover, we propose that the disappearance of the proform in Western Ibero-Romance catalysed a significant transformation in the usage of copulae for expressing existence and location in modern varieties. As a result, we identify three distinct categories: 1) General Presence, 2) Stage-level, and 3) Locative Presence, which present a novel model for the unification of presence expression.

This volume features fourteen papers by leading specialists on various aspects of historical morpho-syntax in the Ibero-Romance languages. In these papers, fine-grained analyses are developed to capture the richness of undiscussed or —often— previously unknown data. Comparative across the (Ibero-)Romance languages and diverse in terms of the approaches considered, ranging from cognitive-functionalist to generativist to variationist, they combine in this volume to showcase the merits of different, yet complementary, perspectives in understanding linguistic variation and language change. The gamut of phenomena scrutinised varies from morpho-phonological puzzles and word-formation to syntax and interface-related phenomena to, as a coda, methodological suggestions for future research in old Ibero-Romance; thus making it ideal reading for scholars and postgraduate students alike.

This volume brings together contributions by researchers focusing on personal pronouns in Ibero-Romance languages, going beyond the well-established variable of expressed vs. non-expressed subjects. While factors such as agreement morphology, topic shift and contrast or emphasis have been argued to account for variable subject expression, several corpus studies on Ibero-Romance languages have shown that the expression of subject pronouns goes beyond these traditionally established factors and is also subject to considerable dialectal variation. One of the factors affecting choice and expression of personal pronouns or other referential devices is whether the construction is used personally or impersonally. The use and emergence of new impersonal constructions, eventually also new (im)personal pronouns, as well as the variation found in the expression of human impersonality in different Ibero-Romance language varieties is another interesting research area that has gained ground in the recent years. In addition to variable subject expression, similar methods and theoretical approaches have been applied to study the expression of objects. Finally, the reference to the addressee(s) using different address pronouns and other address forms is an important field of study that is closely connected to the variable expression of pronouns. The present book sheds light on all these aspects of reference to discourse participants. The volume contains contributions with a strong empirical background and various methods and both written and spoken corpus data from Ibero-Romance languages. The focus on discourse participants highlights the special properties of first and second person referents and the factors affecting them that are often different from the anaphoric third person. The chapters are organized into three thematic sections: (i) Variable expression of subjects and objects, (ii) Between personal and impersonal, and (iii) Reference to the addressee.

Intonational Grammar in Ibero-Romance: Approaches across linguistic subfields is a volume of empirical research papers incorporating recent theoretical, methodological, and interdisciplinary advances in the field of intonation, as they relate to the Ibero-Romance languages. The volume brings together leading experts in Catalan, Portuguese, and Spanish, as well as in the intonation of Spanish in contact situations. The common thread is that each paper examines a specific topic related to the intonation of at least one Ibero-Romance language, framing the analysis in an experimental setting. The novel findings of each chapter hinge on critical connections that are made between the study of intonation and its related fields of linguistic inquiry, including syntax, pragmatics, sociophonetics, language acquisition and special populations. In this sense, the volume expands the traditional scope of Ibero-Romance intonation, including in it work on signed languages (LSC), individuals with autism spectrum disorder and individuals with Williams Syndrome. This volume establishes the precedent for researchers and advanced students who wish to explore the complexities of Ibero-Romance intonation. It also serves as a showcase of the most up-to-date methodologies in intonational research.

The reflexive constructions that are the focus of this book are the constructions broadly described with the term “middle”: i.e., those that can appear in all persons, and in which the reflexive marker (RM) cannot be understood as a full referential pronoun. One goal of this study is to provide a corpus-based typology of middle and related uses that allow us to compare the behaviour of the RM in these constructions with previous typological accounts, where competing models (based either on changes of diathesis or on the semantics of the verbal event) can be found. A second goal is to shed light on the evolution of the different functions of the RM, by exploring the factors that affect its productivity, with a specific focus on those verbs where reflexive marking is most variable, that is, anticausative verbs and verbs with no change of valency. These reflexive constructions show a notable difference in productivity in Spanish and Galician, although the languages are closely related and contiguous. The languages are thus good candidates for a contrastive and variationist analysis serving these two goals. The semantic class of the predicate, its aspectual properties and the animacy of the subject are some of the most relevant factors that are taken into account to understand the motivations behind the presence (or absence) of the RM. By relying on a corpus of interviews from rural communities across peninsular Spain (except Catalonia), space as a relevant extra-linguistic variable is taken into account, helping uncover previously unknown geographical patterns.

This book aims to provide a better understanding of convergence and non-convergence phenomena, such as divergence, from different theoretical perspectives. It brings together nine case studies that deal with contact between languages found in the Iberian Peninsula (Castilian, Catalan, Portuguese and Basque), between Spanish or Portuguese and another language (such as English), and between different varieties from Europe and other continents. The volume thus unites views from two fields that rarely interact: contact linguistics and dialectology. It discusses the mechanisms and consequences of language contact within the Ibero-Romance world, a geographical space characterised by a high rate of multilingual speakers and settings. The contributions deal with various combinations of convergence and divergence, for example between different varieties of the same language, language stability despite contact, as well as less studied aspects, such as the relation between language contact and second language acquisition, the linguistic landscape perspective of language contact, and divergence in linguistic identity construction.

"This series of HANDBOOKS OF LINGUISTICS AND COMMUNICATION SCIENCE is designed to illuminate a field which not only includes general linguistics and the study of linguistics as applied to specific languages, but also covers those more recent areas which have developed from the increasing body of research into the manifold forms of communicative action and interaction.For "classic" linguistics there appears to be a need for a review of the state of the art which will provide a reference base for the rapid advances in research undertaken from a variety of theoretical standpoints, while in the more recent branches of communication science the handbooks will give researchers both an overview and orientation."--

Classical Latin appears to be without regional dialects, yet Latin evolved in little more than a millennium into a variety of different languages. This book argues comprehensively that Latin in fact never lacked regional variations and examines the changing patterns and causes of this diversity throughout the Roman period.

This book examines how speakers of Ibero-Romance 'do things' with conversational units of language, paying particular attention to what they do with i) vocatives, interjections, and particles; and ii) illocutionary complementizers, items that look like subordinators but behave differently. Alice Corr argues that the behaviour of these conversation-oriented items provides insight into how language-as-grammar builds the universe of discourse. The approach identifies the underlying unity in how different Ibero-Romance languages, alongside their Romance cousins and Latin ancestors, use grammar to refer - i.e. to connect our inner world to the one outside - and the empirical arguments are underpinned by the philosophical position that the configurational architecture of grammar also configures the architecture of the mind. The book thus builds on existing work on the syntax of discourse not only by contributing new empirical and theoretical insights, but also by pursuing explanatory adequacy via a so-called 'un-Cartesian' grammar of reference. In so doing, it formalizes the intuition that language users do things not with words, but with grammar. Drawing on a wealth of naturalistic data from social media and online corpora, augmented by elicited introspective judgements, The Grammar of the Utterance offers new insights into the colloquial grammar and morphosyntactic variation of (Ibero-)Romance, and showcases the utility of comparative work on this language family in advancing our empirical and conceptual understanding of the organization of grammar.

The author uses linguistic, ethnographic, and historical evidence to support his theory that the origins of Sephardic Jews are predominantly Berber and Arab.