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Part of
Romance Linguistics 2013: Selected papers from the 43rd Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), New York, 17-19 April, 2013
Edited by Christina Tortora, Marcel den Dikken, Ignacio L. Montoya and Teresa O'Neill
[Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 9] 2016
► pp. 1–20

Root gerunds in Old Romanian

| York University
| University of New Brunswick
Gerund verbs generate root clauses in Old Romanian (OR), but not in Modern Romanian (MR). We argue that the root clause phenomenon arises from the presence of a null Assertion Operator in OR, which has been lost in MR. This Operator originates from the mapping of discourse features to syntax, but involves a marked option for feature checking (i.e., pragmatic versus syntactic), so it is easier for it to disappear in the process of language acquisition.
Published online: 3 February 2016
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https://doi.org/10.1075/rllt.9.01alb
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