Romani: A Linguistic Introduction

by Yaron Matras

• ISBN13: 9780521631655
• ISBN10: 0521631653
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-07-01
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Romani is a language of Indo-Aryan origin which is spoken in Europe by the people known as 'Gypsies' (who usually refer to themselves as Rom). There are upwards of 3.5 million speakers, and their language has attracted increasing interest both from scholars and from policy-makers in governments and other organizations during the past ten years. This book is the first comprehensive overview in English of Romani. It provides a historical linguistic introduction to the structures of Romani and its dialects, as well as surveying the phonology, morphology, syntactic typology and patterns of grammatical borrowing in the language. This book provides an essential reference for anyone interested in this fascinating language.

Table of Contents

List of figures	viii
List of tables	ix
Acknowledgements	xi
List of abbreviations	xii
Introduction	1	(4)
Romani dialects: a brief overview	5	(9)
Historical and linguistic origins	14	(35)
Theories on the origins of the Romani population	14	(4)
Proto-Romani and Early Romani	18	(2)
The Romani lexicon	20	(10)
Core and inherited lexicon	20	(2)
Loan components in the inherited lexicon	22	(3)
Semantic domains of the inherited lexicon	25	(5)
Historical phonology	30	(12)
Changes shared with subcontinental MIA and NIA	30	(3)
Conservative features of Romani	33	(1)
Romani innovations	34	(8)
Historical morphology	42	(3)
Direct continuation of OIA/MIA productive morphology	42	(1)
Innovations shared with other NIA languages	43	(2)
Romani-specific innovations	45	(1)
The position of Romani, Domari, and Lomavren	45	(4)
Descriptive phonology	49	(23)
Consonants	49	(9)
Stop positions and articulation	49	(1)
Sonorants	50	(1)
Fricatives and semivowels	51	(1)
Affricates	52	(1)
Voicing	53	(1)
Aspiration	54	(1)
Geminates	54	(1)
Consonant clusters	55	(1)
Types of consonant systems	56	(2)
Vowels	58	(6)
Vowel quality	58	(1)
Vowel length	59	(1)
Other processes affecting vowels	60	(1)
Diphthongs	61	(1)
Types of vowel systems	61	(1)
Stress	62	(2)
Phonological and morpho-phonological processes	64	(8)
Historical nd	64	(1)
Prothesis and truncation	65	(2)
Jotation	67	(1)
s/h alternation in grammatical paradigms	68	(2)
Final -s	70	(2)
Nominal forms and categories	72	(45)
Inherent properties of the noun	72	(2)
Derivation patterns of nouns and adjectives	74	(4)
Nominal derivation affixes	74	(2)
Nominal compounding and genitive derivations	76	(1)
Adjectival derivation	77	(1)
Nominal inflection	78	(16)
Case layers	78	(2)
Layer I declension classes	80	(5)
The independent oblique	85	(2)
Forms and functions of Layer II markers	87	(4)
Layer III adpositions	91	(1)
The stability of synthetic case markers	92	(2)
Adjective inflection	94	(2)
Deictics and related forms	96	(21)
Definiteness and indefiniteness	96	(2)
Personal pronouns	98	(3)
Clitic pronouns	101	(2)
Demonstratives	103	(3)
The historical development of deictic and anaphoric expressions	106	(6)
Other pronouns	112	(5)
Verb morphology	117	(48)
The basic blueprint for the Romani verb	117	(2)
Verb derivation	119	(9)
Word formation and compounding	119	(1)
Transitivity and intransitivity	119	(3)
The historical development of valency-alteration markers	122	(6)
Loan-verb adaptation	128	(7)
Stem formation and inflection class	135	(8)
Present stems	136	(2)
Perfective stems	138	(5)
Person concord	143	(8)
Tense-aspect-modality categories	151	(8)
Inherited categories	151	(4)
Innovations and restructuring	155	(4)
Non-finite forms	159	(3)
Modal expressions	162	(3)
Syntactic typology	165	(26)
The noun phrase	165	(2)
Constituent order in the verb phrase	167	(7)
Possession and external possession	174	(2)
Complex clauses	176	(13)
General features of clause linking	176	(1)
Relative clauses	176	(3)
Complementation and purpose clauses	179	(6)
Adverbial subordination	185	(4)
Negation	189	(1)
The areal position of Romani	190	(1)
Grammatical borrowing	191	(23)
General considerations	191	(5)
Structural borrowing	192	(1)
Borrowing hierarchies	193	(1)
L2 stratification	194	(2)
Historical layers of grammatical borrowings	196	(13)
The pre-European and Greek component	196	(3)
Widespread patterns of borrowing following the Early Romani period	199	(8)
Rare instances of borrowing	207	(2)
An assessment of grammatical borrowing	209	(5)
Dialect classification	214	(24)
Methodological considerations	214	(4)
A history of classification schemes	218	(7)
Diagnostic isoglosses	225	(10)
Innovations	225	(4)
Option selection	229	(2)
Simplification	231	(3)
Archaisms	234	(1)
Implications of the geographical diffusion model	235	(3)
Romani sociolinguistics	238	(13)
Aspects of language use	238	(4)
Para-Romani	242	(7)
Romani influence on other languages	249	(2)
Language planning and codification	251	(9)
Models of language planning	251	(3)
Codification contexts and strategies	254	(3)
Issues of status	257	(3)
References	260	(19)
Index of dialects	279	(3)
Index of names	282	(4)
Index of subjects	286