The study discusses the position of the protolanguage in the hierarchy formed by idiolect, dialect, and diasystem. The article emphasizes that linguistic study contains a great many diachronic events and hypothesized synchronic features that are implausible, yet possible. (30 references) (CK)

This paper presents an overview of current trends in a new discipline called diachronic sociolinguistics. This perspective leads to an original retrospective look on a thousand years of linguistic evolution, from classical spoken Latin to protoromance. The article exhorts romanists to consider the research carried out by sociolinguists who study…

Covering a 500-year span, this article traces the changes in and evolution of the Spanish language from its earliest written accounts in the eleventh century to the Spanish that was brought by the Conquistadores to the New World. (DS)

Discusses the historical role of the Romance languages and the practical value of Spanish in today's world. (NCR)

A discussion of Occitan, a Romance language spoken in a large portion of France, looks at the history; irregular characteristics; orthographic and morphophonemic variations across dialects; and present status, which is in danger of becoming extinct because of neglect, of the language. (MSE)

A discussion of techniques for assisting native English-speaking students in understanding the concept of gender in such languages as French, German, Italian, and Spanish considers three issues: (1) What is gender? (2) What is a good way to learn the gender of nouns? and (3) How did the concept of gender develop and how can the concept help one to…

Reexamines the work of earlier scholars on the circumstances accompanying the changes in the names of the days of the week. Syntactic changes as well as the Church's struggle to eradicate the names of the pagan divinities played a great role in effecting these changes. Dual designations, full forms, and condensed ones existed side by side in some…

This third section of the research project, "The Syntax of Contemporary Brazilian Portuguese," presents a descriptive and historical survey of the evolution of the language. Included in the work are: (1) a summary of historical concern with this subject reflecting literary and linguistic interest, (2) classification and discussion of…

Derivations of the term "gerund" are examined as they pertain to native English speakers learning French, Italian, and/or Spanish. The form's etymology is chronicled from Latin, and its current usage in student textbooks in the three languages is examined. A solution to the terminological confusion surrounding the term is proposed. (41…

Throughout the centuries in Spain, the Castilians and Catalans have shared cultural, social, political, generational, and human experiences. This exchange was bound to have a linguistic influence of the Castilian on the Catalan language. (In Catalonia bilingualism is prevalent, and in Castile it is not.) While there have been lexical changes, the…

Many speakers of Modern Greek have an exaggerated notion of the superiority of their language vis-a-vis Turkish and the languages of Southeastern Europe. It would therefore come as a surprise to some Greeks that Modern Greek lexical elements in Romanian have undergone a substantial stylistic demotion during the past century or so. In this paper…

Old French for undergraduates, as it is offered to students at the University of Minnesota, Morris, represents a break with tradition. A rationale for the program and course descriptions accentuate benefits accrued from undergraduate medieval studies. Syllabuses for French 80, The History of the Language; French 90, Directed Medieval Studies; and…

Sometimes descriptions of known facts about a language fail to be explanatory in a satisfying way, because they ignore parallelisms in related languages, including chronologically earlier stages of the same language. This article examines several Romance languages and dialects in terms of similarities in morphological evolutionary development.…

Difficulties in organizing and conducting an Old French course at the undergraduate level are commented on in this article. A section treating the basis of the difficulties focuses on content in literature and language areas. Time factors and traditional coursework accreditation are discussed. A general statement of problems mentions three areas…

This issue contains the following articles: "Resumption and Last Resort" (Joseph Aoun); "Existentials, A-Chains, and Reconstruction" (Norbert Hornstein); "How Long Was the Nineteenth Century" (David Lightfoot); "Formal Features and Parameter Setting: A View From Portuguese Past Participles and Romance Future…