About the Journal
Bucharest Working Papers in Linguistics publishes novel contributions of current interest in all areas of theoretical and applied linguistics. It aims to offer a platform for synchronic and diachronic research, with no specific theoretical or trend bias. The only criteria applied in the selection of papers are research quality and scholarly integrity.
The journal publishes articles, review articles and book reviews of recently published titles. Themed special issues are also welcomed.
From 2020, all papers are assigned a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) at the time of publication.
Bucharest Working Papers in Linguistics is a fully open access journal. It is published in print and online twice a year by the Centre for the Study of Language Development and Linguistic Communication, University of Bucharest. It has been continuously published since 1999.
Bucharest Working Papers in Linguistics is a double-blind peer-reviewed journal. The reviewers are experts in the domain of the paper which they are invited to evaluate.
The journal has no submission charges and no article processing charges for authors. Financial support (DOI registration, web hosting, printing, and distribution) is provided by The University of Bucharest.
Current Issue
Vol. 26 No. 1 (2024): Bucharest Working Papers in Linguistics
The journal publishes articles, review articles and book reviews of recently published titles. Themed special issues are also welcomed.
Published:
2024-12-20
Full Issue
Articles
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INTRODUCTION
Abstract
The current issue includes several papers on modification, some of which were presented at th e Workshop on Modification , co organized by the University of Bucharest and the University of Massachusetts Amherst during 27 28 November 2021
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RESULTATIVES WITH STATIVE ROOTS
Abstract
An important restriction has been pointed out regarding resultative secondary predicates, namely their impossibility with stative roots (Dowty 1979, Levin & Rappaport Hovav 1995, a.o.). This paper addresses resultative verbal complexes from Mandarin Chinese, which can be constructed from statives; these examples raise important questions regarding their precise nature and the differences from languages like English where stative roots are banned from resultatives. The diagnostics examined here demonstrate that the Mandarin Chinese constructions are indeed true resultatives built from stative roots. However, only certain types of statives are permitted, more precisely those that contain complex internal structure, as contributed by a Davidsonian event argument (Maienborn 2003, 2007), a causative head, or a scalar change component. As opposed to English which can only construct resultatives from bases that exclude statives, Mandarin Chinese permits resultatives built on scalar predicates, irrespective of their stativity.
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ON SILENT COLOR IN ROMANIAN
Abstract
The main aim of the present paper is to show that there is a silent noun COLOR in Romanian (following Kayne 2005), in constructions such as stiloul e COLOR roșu pen.DEF is COLOR red. Silent COLOR is a qualitative classifier, occupying therefore the head of the Classifier Phrase. This silent noun can thus be added to the inventory of silent nouns in Romanian, such as NUMBER, AMOUNT and TYPE (see Tănase-Dogaru 2008, 2009, 2013, Constantinescu & Tănase-Dogaru 2007).
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ADJECTIVE ORDERS IN ENGLISH AND ROMANIAN: AN EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION
Abstract
The paper investigates experimentally the order of adjectives in British English and Romanian through Likert acceptability judgments. We focus on three categories of adjectives (Quality, Size, Color) and all their possible combinations in both languages. We show that there is a rigid ordering of adjectives in British English, i.e. the adjectival combinations of Quality-Size (beautiful big family), Quality-Color (special blue flowers), Size-Color (tiny blue butterfly) are natural for native English speakers, but the reverse adjectival orders Size-Quality (little special girl), Color-Quality (blue special flowers), Color-Size (blue tiny butterfly) were judged to be unnatural. In contrast, we found that in Romanian, a language where adjectives typically occur post-nominally, adjectives are more freely ordered, as the orders Size-Quality, Color-Quality, Color-Size were judged by participants as equally natural as the reverse adjective orders Quality-Size, Quality-Color, and Size-Color, e.g. the Color-Size order fluture albastru mititel, lit. ‘butterfly blue tiny’ was judged as equally natural by participants as the reverse Size-Color adjective order fluture mititel albastru, lit. ‘butterfly tiny blue’.
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HOW ARE SIZE, AGE, SHAPE, AND COLOR ADJECTIVES ORDERED IN ENGLISH AND ROMANIAN? AN EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION
Abstract
The current study investigates experimentally whether the General Adjective Hierarchy Size > Age > Shape > Color holds for British English and Romanian native speakers alike, and whether Romanian exhibits a mirror order of English, as argued in Cinque (1994, 2005, 2010) or whether Romanian exhibits a more flexible ordering than English (Cornilescu & Nicolae 2016, Cornilescu & Cosma 2019, Leivada & Westergaard 2019). The results from a forced choice task conducted both in British English and Romanian support the idea that English observes the fixed hierarchy Size > Age > Shape > Color overall, while Romanian is more flexible in its ordering. These results go against Cinque’s (1994) cartographic theory that Romance is a mirror of English, as well as against Scontras et al.’s (2017) theory of subjectivity; instead, the results may be captured by free adjunction. Our findings for English and Romanian support the idea that certain languages (like English) observe general hierarchies for adjectives, while other languages (like Romanian) do not.
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ROMANIAN FREE CHOICE FREE RELATIVES: A COMPARISON WITH SUBTRIGGED FREE CHOICE SENTENCES
Abstract
The present study focuses on the semantic and pragmatic properties of Romanian free choice free relatives (FC FRs ), with the following con clusions: the quantificational force of FC FRs in Romanian is definite ; t he apparent universal force is the outcome of an evaluation constraint of the fre e choice particle: t he syntax of FC FRs in Romanian is the same as that of E nglish ever FRs; Romanian FC FRs most closely resemble the semantics and pragmatics of subtrigged free choice determiners. T he distribution and interpretation of Romanian FC FRs is assumed to be of three main kinds: auto licensing, on a par with subtrigging; licensing by a modal o perator in a non generic/non habitual context on a par with FCI determiners li censed in the same environments ; licensing by a generic or habitual operator (also on a par with determiner FCIs). As shown in Panaitescu (2022), the three types of contexts diff er in the type of universality they display: serial universality, parallel universality (the apparent existential reading) and atemporal universality.
Book Reviews
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Guglielmo Cinque. 2020. The Syntax of Relative Clauses: A Unified Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 414 pp.
Abstract
Guglielmo Cinque’s monograph, The Syntax of Relative Clauses: A Unified Analysis, is a comprehensive examination of the structures of relative clause (RC) across languages, with the goal of elucidating the underlying foundation of all RCs through a unified analysis. His main proposal is that double-headed structures with an external head in the main clause and an internal head in the RC is the base structure for all RCs.
