Alice Bodoc | Transylvania University of Brasov (original) (raw)
Papers by Alice Bodoc
Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov, Jan 20, 2020
Studia Universitatis Babeş-Bolyai, Mar 25, 2022
Clausal Adjuncts of Romance Languages-a Corpus-Driven Comparison 2. Continuing the traditional co... more Clausal Adjuncts of Romance Languages-a Corpus-Driven Comparison 2. Continuing the traditional comparative analysis of Romance languages, the present paper brings evidence for the fact that the syntactic configuration (the word order) of a Romance complex sentence (henceforth CS) with clausal adjuncts is the result of many competing forces. The analysis is based on an original media discourse corpus, collected from three Romance varieties (Romanian, Italian, and French), and the focus will be both on the word order of the temporal, causal, and concessive adjuncts (their occurrence in sentence-initial, in sentence-final position, sometimes even in sentencemiddle position), and on the comparative analysis of the results. What I intend to prove is that the ordering of a CS in the three Romance languages is motivated by three types of factors: discourse pragmatics, semantics, and parsing.
PEOPLE: International Journal of Social Sciences
Based on an original corpus, and also on the important contributions of Haegeman 2012, Pană Dinde... more Based on an original corpus, and also on the important contributions of Haegeman 2012, Pană Dindelegan & Maiden 2013, and Lahousse 2010, I intend to demonstrate in this article that there are specific factors that influence the VS syntactic configurations of Romance languages (Romanian, Italian, and French), and these factors are directly connected to the internal information structure. From a methodological point of view, this is an empirical study, combining comparative and corpus analyses, qualitative and quantitative observations, and using the instruments of Morphosyntax and Pragmatics. In the end, the results of the analysis highlight the idea that both information structure and the “pro-drop” feature have a big impact on the word order of the constituents, generating a significant discrepancy between Romanian and Italian, on the one hand, and French, on the other hand.
Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Brașov, Series IV: Philology. Cultural Studies, 2020
Starting from Alanen’s remark that “actions (exercises of capacities) are found throughout the na... more Starting from Alanen’s remark that “actions (exercises of capacities) are found throughout the natural world; and so is agency” (2018, 2), the present paper aims at describing the influence of these two fundamental concepts – action and agency – on the structure of Romanian complex sentences. More precisely, I am interested in providing evidence of a linguistic phenomenon that has received far less attention in the literature, i.e. the semantic restrictions imposed by the matrix verb over the embedded adverbial clause. As concerns the methodology, both qualitative and quantitative analyses will be conducted on an extensive online Romanian corpus (CoRoLa), and will be based on the semantic typologies of the verb included in some of the reference Romanian grammars (GALR 2008, 326; GBLR 2010, 279). One of the most important results of the analysis was the phenomenon of agentivity
PEOPLE: International Journal of Social Sciences, 2022
The present paper presents some important aspects concerning the syntactic configuration of Roman... more The present paper presents some important aspects concerning the syntactic configuration of Romanian, Italian, and French clausal adjuncts, as they appear in the articles from the presentday media. I have chosen two international magazines and three representative daily newspapers for each of the three languages. The elements investigated in this paper relate to the syntaxinformation structure interface, such as scrambling, interpolation, left dislocations, and these are going to be discussed, by comparison, for the complex sentences with temporal and causal adjuncts. Although there are authors arguing that French has a fixed word order (Manoliu, 2011, pp. 505-507, among others) or that "pro-drop languages" (Romanian and Italian) behave differently than "non-pro-drop" language (French) as concerns the relationship between
PEOPLE: International Journal of Social Sciences, Nov 27, 2019
The starting point of the present paper is a simple question: To what extent do linguistic facts ... more The starting point of the present paper is a simple question: To what extent do linguistic facts encountered in Romanian exist in other Romance varieties? In order to answer this question, I put forward a cross-linguistic study of the Romance languages that aims at an interdisciplinary effort, a perspective that is going to add new and useful information to the literature, especially at the international level, that lacks, in many cases, examples from Romanian. On the basis of an original media discourse corpus, collected from three Romance varieties (Romanian, Italian and French), I advance a comparative perspective, focused on the connectors of the complex sentences. Since the aim of this paper is neither to defend/to contradict some linguistic theory of the syntactic variation, nor to develop a new grammatical theory, the focus will be on the description of the identified linguistic data, and on the motivation of their existence/absence in the three related languages.
Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, 2016
Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, 2016
PEOPLE: International Journal of Social Sciences
Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie
The present paper aims to present an inventory of Romanian middle contructions (se‑verbal constru... more The present paper aims to present an inventory of Romanian middle contructions (se‑verbal constructions), and to extend the analysis to other structures (with or without se) that were not previously investigated, but exhibit the same characteristics, and seem to allow middle reading (adjunct middles). Since Jespersen (1927), middles were attested cross-linguistically, and the focus on middles is justified if we consider the fact that this is an interesting testing ground for theories of syntax, semantics and their interaction (Fagan 1992). Starting from Grahek’s definition (2008, 44), in this paper, middles are a heterogeneous class of constructions that share formal properties of both active and passive structures: on the one hand, they have active verb forms, but, on the other hand, like passives, they have understood subjects and normally display promoted objects. The corpus analysis will focus on the particular contexts in which the middle reading is triggered: i) the adverbial ...
Limba română veche, ce cuprinde o perioadă de mai bine de două sute de ani, s-a bucurat în ultimu... more Limba română veche, ce cuprinde o perioadă de mai bine de două sute de ani, s-a bucurat în ultimul deceniu de o atenție deosebită din partea multor cercetători, care au înțeles că timpul ascunde multe adevăruri și fenomene lingvistice, încă nevalorificate corespunzător. Astfel, încercând să mă sincronizez cu acești cercetători, îmi propun ca în lucrarea de față să descriu structurile sintactice complexe din limba română veche, cu scopul de a demonstra că jonctivul CUM are un statut polifuncțional, putând apărea atât în ipostaza de complementizator, cât și în cea de relativ, relativ-interogativ sau de subordonator. Mai mult chiar, acesta are și alte întrebuințări, cum ar fi aceea de marcă citantă, exclamativ sau interogativ. Un alt obiectiv major al acestei lucrări este urmărirea procesului de gramaticalizare a adverbului CUM, adică utilizarea acestui adverb relativ ca subordonator sau ca „marcator modal suplimentar” (Gheorghe 2015– trad. n.).
Din punct de vedere metodologic, optez pentru o descriere în termenii sintaxei moderne, generative, dar cu siguranţă că acest cadru va fi completat şi de fructificarea unor sugestii metodologice tributare structuralismului sau chiar gramaticilor clasice. Corpusul pe care îl voi folosi în demersul meu cuprinde un număr de 25 de texte (1260 de pagini) din secolele al XVI-lea și al XVII-lea, pe care le voi organiza astfel: texte originale vs. texte traduse și texte religioase vs. texte laice.
The present work is devoted to the historical evolution of Romanian sentence connectors (SCs), ba... more The present work is devoted to the historical evolution of Romanian sentence connectors
(SCs), based on the concepts formulated in the grammaticalization theory, a useful
framework for an understanding of the development of syntactic structures (Hoffmann
2005: 2). The main objective of the study is to examine the grammaticalization processes
of three connectors: UNDE/WHERE, CÂND/WHEN, CUM/HOW, starting from their
usage as interrogative adverbs, then as relative adverbs, and finally as subordinators or
expletives. The perspective of the research will be both diachronic and synchronic,
attempting to clarify aspects regarding the use of SCs in the 16th and the 17th centuries,
their frequency, and variability.
The present paper aims to explore, and address some issues concerning the Romance diachronic morp... more The present paper aims to explore, and address some issues concerning the Romance diachronic morphosyntax in the light of theoretical and methodological considerations on the grammaticalization and pragmaticalization phenomena, and the question of linguistic change. Building on the previous work concerning grammaticalization, we intend to reveal a pragma-linguistic scenario that accounts for the actual situation of the Romanian indefinite compounds. We consider this subject to be very particular, meaning that the historical development of these pro-forms is not a canonical case of grammaticalization or pragmaticalization.
Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov, Jan 20, 2020
Studia Universitatis Babeş-Bolyai, Mar 25, 2022
Clausal Adjuncts of Romance Languages-a Corpus-Driven Comparison 2. Continuing the traditional co... more Clausal Adjuncts of Romance Languages-a Corpus-Driven Comparison 2. Continuing the traditional comparative analysis of Romance languages, the present paper brings evidence for the fact that the syntactic configuration (the word order) of a Romance complex sentence (henceforth CS) with clausal adjuncts is the result of many competing forces. The analysis is based on an original media discourse corpus, collected from three Romance varieties (Romanian, Italian, and French), and the focus will be both on the word order of the temporal, causal, and concessive adjuncts (their occurrence in sentence-initial, in sentence-final position, sometimes even in sentencemiddle position), and on the comparative analysis of the results. What I intend to prove is that the ordering of a CS in the three Romance languages is motivated by three types of factors: discourse pragmatics, semantics, and parsing.
PEOPLE: International Journal of Social Sciences
Based on an original corpus, and also on the important contributions of Haegeman 2012, Pană Dinde... more Based on an original corpus, and also on the important contributions of Haegeman 2012, Pană Dindelegan & Maiden 2013, and Lahousse 2010, I intend to demonstrate in this article that there are specific factors that influence the VS syntactic configurations of Romance languages (Romanian, Italian, and French), and these factors are directly connected to the internal information structure. From a methodological point of view, this is an empirical study, combining comparative and corpus analyses, qualitative and quantitative observations, and using the instruments of Morphosyntax and Pragmatics. In the end, the results of the analysis highlight the idea that both information structure and the “pro-drop” feature have a big impact on the word order of the constituents, generating a significant discrepancy between Romanian and Italian, on the one hand, and French, on the other hand.
Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Brașov, Series IV: Philology. Cultural Studies, 2020
Starting from Alanen’s remark that “actions (exercises of capacities) are found throughout the na... more Starting from Alanen’s remark that “actions (exercises of capacities) are found throughout the natural world; and so is agency” (2018, 2), the present paper aims at describing the influence of these two fundamental concepts – action and agency – on the structure of Romanian complex sentences. More precisely, I am interested in providing evidence of a linguistic phenomenon that has received far less attention in the literature, i.e. the semantic restrictions imposed by the matrix verb over the embedded adverbial clause. As concerns the methodology, both qualitative and quantitative analyses will be conducted on an extensive online Romanian corpus (CoRoLa), and will be based on the semantic typologies of the verb included in some of the reference Romanian grammars (GALR 2008, 326; GBLR 2010, 279). One of the most important results of the analysis was the phenomenon of agentivity
PEOPLE: International Journal of Social Sciences, 2022
The present paper presents some important aspects concerning the syntactic configuration of Roman... more The present paper presents some important aspects concerning the syntactic configuration of Romanian, Italian, and French clausal adjuncts, as they appear in the articles from the presentday media. I have chosen two international magazines and three representative daily newspapers for each of the three languages. The elements investigated in this paper relate to the syntaxinformation structure interface, such as scrambling, interpolation, left dislocations, and these are going to be discussed, by comparison, for the complex sentences with temporal and causal adjuncts. Although there are authors arguing that French has a fixed word order (Manoliu, 2011, pp. 505-507, among others) or that "pro-drop languages" (Romanian and Italian) behave differently than "non-pro-drop" language (French) as concerns the relationship between
PEOPLE: International Journal of Social Sciences, Nov 27, 2019
The starting point of the present paper is a simple question: To what extent do linguistic facts ... more The starting point of the present paper is a simple question: To what extent do linguistic facts encountered in Romanian exist in other Romance varieties? In order to answer this question, I put forward a cross-linguistic study of the Romance languages that aims at an interdisciplinary effort, a perspective that is going to add new and useful information to the literature, especially at the international level, that lacks, in many cases, examples from Romanian. On the basis of an original media discourse corpus, collected from three Romance varieties (Romanian, Italian and French), I advance a comparative perspective, focused on the connectors of the complex sentences. Since the aim of this paper is neither to defend/to contradict some linguistic theory of the syntactic variation, nor to develop a new grammatical theory, the focus will be on the description of the identified linguistic data, and on the motivation of their existence/absence in the three related languages.
Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, 2016
Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, 2016
PEOPLE: International Journal of Social Sciences
Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie
The present paper aims to present an inventory of Romanian middle contructions (se‑verbal constru... more The present paper aims to present an inventory of Romanian middle contructions (se‑verbal constructions), and to extend the analysis to other structures (with or without se) that were not previously investigated, but exhibit the same characteristics, and seem to allow middle reading (adjunct middles). Since Jespersen (1927), middles were attested cross-linguistically, and the focus on middles is justified if we consider the fact that this is an interesting testing ground for theories of syntax, semantics and their interaction (Fagan 1992). Starting from Grahek’s definition (2008, 44), in this paper, middles are a heterogeneous class of constructions that share formal properties of both active and passive structures: on the one hand, they have active verb forms, but, on the other hand, like passives, they have understood subjects and normally display promoted objects. The corpus analysis will focus on the particular contexts in which the middle reading is triggered: i) the adverbial ...
Limba română veche, ce cuprinde o perioadă de mai bine de două sute de ani, s-a bucurat în ultimu... more Limba română veche, ce cuprinde o perioadă de mai bine de două sute de ani, s-a bucurat în ultimul deceniu de o atenție deosebită din partea multor cercetători, care au înțeles că timpul ascunde multe adevăruri și fenomene lingvistice, încă nevalorificate corespunzător. Astfel, încercând să mă sincronizez cu acești cercetători, îmi propun ca în lucrarea de față să descriu structurile sintactice complexe din limba română veche, cu scopul de a demonstra că jonctivul CUM are un statut polifuncțional, putând apărea atât în ipostaza de complementizator, cât și în cea de relativ, relativ-interogativ sau de subordonator. Mai mult chiar, acesta are și alte întrebuințări, cum ar fi aceea de marcă citantă, exclamativ sau interogativ. Un alt obiectiv major al acestei lucrări este urmărirea procesului de gramaticalizare a adverbului CUM, adică utilizarea acestui adverb relativ ca subordonator sau ca „marcator modal suplimentar” (Gheorghe 2015– trad. n.).
Din punct de vedere metodologic, optez pentru o descriere în termenii sintaxei moderne, generative, dar cu siguranţă că acest cadru va fi completat şi de fructificarea unor sugestii metodologice tributare structuralismului sau chiar gramaticilor clasice. Corpusul pe care îl voi folosi în demersul meu cuprinde un număr de 25 de texte (1260 de pagini) din secolele al XVI-lea și al XVII-lea, pe care le voi organiza astfel: texte originale vs. texte traduse și texte religioase vs. texte laice.
The present work is devoted to the historical evolution of Romanian sentence connectors (SCs), ba... more The present work is devoted to the historical evolution of Romanian sentence connectors
(SCs), based on the concepts formulated in the grammaticalization theory, a useful
framework for an understanding of the development of syntactic structures (Hoffmann
2005: 2). The main objective of the study is to examine the grammaticalization processes
of three connectors: UNDE/WHERE, CÂND/WHEN, CUM/HOW, starting from their
usage as interrogative adverbs, then as relative adverbs, and finally as subordinators or
expletives. The perspective of the research will be both diachronic and synchronic,
attempting to clarify aspects regarding the use of SCs in the 16th and the 17th centuries,
their frequency, and variability.
The present paper aims to explore, and address some issues concerning the Romance diachronic morp... more The present paper aims to explore, and address some issues concerning the Romance diachronic morphosyntax in the light of theoretical and methodological considerations on the grammaticalization and pragmaticalization phenomena, and the question of linguistic change. Building on the previous work concerning grammaticalization, we intend to reveal a pragma-linguistic scenario that accounts for the actual situation of the Romanian indefinite compounds. We consider this subject to be very particular, meaning that the historical development of these pro-forms is not a canonical case of grammaticalization or pragmaticalization.