AUFSÄTZE

STEVEN N. DWORKIN
Do Romanists need to reconstruct Proto-Romance? The case of the Dictionnaire Étymologique Roman (DéRom) project

This paper discusses and evaluates the role of the Dictionnaire Étymologique Roman (= DÉRom) project in reintroducing the rigorous use of comparative reconstruction in the practice of Romance etymology. It describes and discusses critically such issues as the DÉRom’s conception of Proto-Romance, the place of written Latin in the reconstructive process, the relationship of Proto-Romance to spoken Latin, and the DÉRom’s contribution to our knowledge of the semantics and linguistic variation of Proto-Romance. It reviews some of the critiques leveled against the DÉRom by several veteran specialists in Romance etymology, and concludes with a discussion of certain features of Proto-Romance as reconstructed by the members of the DÉRom team.

JOSE M. VALLEJO
Caracterización fonológica del protorromance

This paper aims to retrace the series of phonetic and phonological processes that Latin had undergone before developing into common Romance. Furthermore, differences and similarities in the methodological approach of Latin and Romance linguistics will be outlined.

MELANIE UTH
La concurrence des procédés de nominalisation événementielle en français, en comparaison avec l’allemand

This article provides a semantic comparison of several of the most common event nominalization procedures of French and German. It is based on the hypothesis that each language disposes of a unique paradigm of event nominalization procedures, which differ slightly with regard to certain semantic-pragmatic features. The nominalization procedures which are taken into consideration for French are -age, -ation, -ment, -ée and the nominalized infinitive, while -ung, the nominalized infinitive, and root conversions are discussed for German. The paradigmatic oppositions existing between the corresponding procedures are defined for each language using an inventory of six distinct semantic-pragmatic features. Four of these features relate to aspectual values, while the two remaining features deal with distinctions relating to the perspectivation of the events denoted by the base verbs (i.e. active or passive perspective, demotion of event participants).

MARLIES JANSEGERS, RENATA ENGHELS, IRASEMA CRUZ DOMINGUEZ
El carácter multimodal del verbo sentir: polisemia y transitividad

Within the domain of perception verbs, the Spanish sentir constitutes an interesting case because of its rich polysemy. The verb is not only used to denote several modalities of direct physical perception (tactile, olfactory, gustative and auditory), but it also extends towards the semantic domains of cognition and emotion. This article examines to what extent this multimodal character of the verb sentir influences on its degree of transitivity. It is well known that perception verbs in general do not respond to the definition of prototypical transitive verbs, given that the perception process represents a mental rather than a physical contact between the perceiver/subject and the stimulus/object. It is shown, however, that the verb sentir can be situated on different positions on the scale of transitivity, ranging from high transitivity to low transitivity, in function of the semantics it conveys. The validity of the elaborated hierarchy of transitivity is verified by means of empirical data.

ALFREDO HERRERO DE HARO
Four mid front vowels in Western Almería. The effect of /s/, /r/, and /θ/ deletion in Eastern Andalusian Spanish

Eastern Andalusian Spanish neutralises consonants in coda, although despite the neutralisation of most coda consonants, phonemic value has only been given to vowels preceding deleted /s/. The present paper expands on this traditional view and shows a more complex reality. This study will analyse differences between word-final /e/ and /e/ preceding deleted word-final /s/, /r/, and /θ/ in Western Almería (Eastern Andalusia) to determine if the deletion of each of these consonants causes consistent changes of quality to /e/, creating a system of four mid front vowels. A perception analysis will then determine if Western Almería speakers can distinguish between each of those vowels, which will confirm whether these realisations of /e/ have allophonic or phonemic value. An analysis shows consistent F1 and F2 values depending on whether /e/ is in coda or whether it precedes word-final /s/, /r/, or /θ/ deletion. Furthermore, perception tests show an ability to distinguish between some of those four mid front vowels.

MILAGROS ALEZA-IZQUIERDO
El uso del posesivo perifrástico en un corpus oral de jóvenes de La Habana (Cuba)

This article analyzes the use of the possessive forms in first person (plural), second and third person (singular and plural) in an oral corpus of young Cubans from La Habana (El habla culta de la generación joven de La Habana, Cuba. Materiales para su estudio). The object has been to explore the factors contributing to the use of the periphrastic possessive construction de + pronoun and to contrast the results with those obtained in other studies of current day Spanish-American speech.

WOLFGANG SCHWEICKARD
Giovan Antonio Menavinoʼs account of his captivity in the Ottoman Empire: a revaluation

The study deals with Giovan Antonio Menavinoʼs account on his captivity in the Ottoman Empire (from 1504 through about 1514). A manuscript version (“Liber de rebus et moribus Turcarum”), dated 1519, is kept in the Biblioteca dellʼAccademia Nazionale dei Lincei e Corsiniana in Rome (Fondo Nicola Rossi 35 E 18). Despite the Latin title, the text is in Italian. The work was printed for the first time in 1548 in Florence. In the same year a pirated edition with a lot of stylistic adjustments, prepared by Apollonio Campano, appeared in Venice. In contrast to what has often been assumed, Menavino was no longer alive when his work came to print. This fact is proved by the large number of mistakes contained in the printed versions and especially by the dedication of the edition Florence 1548. A detailed analysis makes it unambiguously clear that it has been written during the reign of Sultan Selim I (1512–1520), and thus long before 1548. As between 1519 and 1548 no historical information on Menavino can be found, it may be assumed that the author had died soon after having finished his account. Besides the vicissitudes of Menavinoʼs biography and the peculiarities of the textual tradition, the “Liber de rebus et moribus Turcarum” is of great interest for historical linguistics and lexicography. This fact is illustrated by an exemplary analysis of the Turkish loanwords that appear in the text.

ELWYS DE STEFANI
Niente nel parlato conversazionale. Pratiche interazionali e processi di grammaticalizzazione di un segnale discorsivo

This article focuses on the Italian discourse marker niente. Drawing on conversation analytic principles, it first discusses current uses in naturally occurring interaction. In present-day conversational Italian, «niente» is commonly used as a response to ‘sorry’ (mi) scusi, scusa(mi) and ‘thank you’ grazie, but also as a resource that allows speakers to organize their talk, i.e. to manage the topical and sequential unfolding of conversation. While these uses have traditionally been described as recent developments, in the second part of the article evidence is provided for similar uses in literary works of the 18th century. The subsequent analysis focuses on the process of grammaticalization that led from «niente» ‘nothing’ to its use as a discourse marker, which originated in spontaneous interaction.

PRZEMYSŁAW DĘBOWIAK
O Dicionário da czarina Catarina a Grande. Análise dos elementos portugueses

In 1787–1789 two volumes of a huge lexicographic work were published, with the title Linguarum totius orbis vocabularia comparativa […], commonly called Catherine the Great’s Dictionary. The dictionary contains 273 Russian entries from different thematic groups, each one with semantic equivalents in two hundred European and Asiatic languages. All the words, with no exception, are transcribed in the Russian Cyrillic alphabet, independently from the language they represent. The paper gives a detailed analysis of Portuguese words included in the dictionary.

MISZELLE

ANGELO VARIANO
Tagliagarretti / coupe-jarrets. Un francesismo caro a Prezzolini

The brief note shows that Italian tagliagarretti ʻsoldier mercenary; killerʼ that first occurs in Raccolta dʼalcune scritture pubblicate in Francia… (1594) is a borrowing from French coupe-jarrets.

BESPRECHUNGEN

Annette Gerstenberg (ed.), Verständigung und Diplomatie auf dem Westfälischen Friedenskongress. Historische und sprachwissenschaftliche Zugänge (MICHAEL SCHREIBER)

Salvador Pons Bordería (ed.), Discourse Segmentation in Romance Languages (EDUARDO BLASCO FERRER)

Elsa Kammerer, Jean de Vauzelles et le creuset lyonnais. Un humaniste catholique au service de Marguerite de Navarre entre France, Italie et Allemagne (1520–1550) (BERNHARD HUß)

Thorsten Roelcke, Französisch in Barock und Aufklärung. Studien zum Sprachdenken im Deutschland des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts (GERDA HAßLER)

Gilles Forlot / Fanny Martin (edd.), Regards sociolinguistiques contemporains. Terrains, espaces et complexités de la recherche (FRANK JABLONKA)

Jan Jaap De Ruiter / Karima Ziamari, Le marché sociolinguistique contemporain du Maroc (FRANK JABLONKA)

Hélène Stoye, Les connecteurs contenant des prépositions en français. Profils sémantiques et pragmatiques en synchronie et diachronie (URSULA WIENEN)

Mari C. Jones, Variation and Change in Mainland and Insular Norman. A Study of Superstrate Influence (IAN SHORT)

Christian Timm, Französisch in Luxemburg (JOHANNES KRAMER)

Éva Feig, Der Tesoro (1611) als Schlüssel zu Norm und Usus des ausgehenden 16. Jahrhunderts. Untersuchungen zum sprachhistorischen, lexikographischen und grammatikographischen Informationspotential des ersten einsprachigen spanischen Wörterbuchs, 2 vol. (BARBARA VON GEMMINGEN)

Bonvesin da la Riva, Libro delle Tre Scritture, Introduzione, testo e commento, a cura di Matteo Leonardi (RAYMUND WILHELM)

Katharina Kerl, Die doppelte Pragmatik der Fiktionalität: Studie zur Poetik der Gerusalemme Liberata (Torquato Tasso, 1581) (BETÜL DILMAC)

Enrico Testa, L’italiano nascosto. Una storia linguistica e culturale (GERHARD ERNST)

Lidia Flöss (ed.), Dizionario toponomastico trentino (JOHANNES KRAMER)

NACHRUFE

Wulf Oesterreicher (2. Dezember 1942 – 7. August 2015) (MARIA SELIG)

David Trotter (27 July 1957 – 24 August 2015) (DARON BURROWS)

Reinhard Kiesler (18. Januar 1960 – 9. September 2015) (ROBERT HESSELBACH)