MA Thesis Abstract
School of African and Oriental Studies
Language Documentation and Description
| Student: | Radu Voica |
| Submitted: | 2006 |
| The Simple and Compound Past in Aromanian |
| The Simple (SP) and Compound Past (CP) of the Romance languages seem to be in a permanent
state of competition with one another. Most Romance languages extend the use of the CP at the
expense of the SP through a gradual process of grammaticalization of the former as a perfective
past. This tendency has been called ‘aoristic drift’. A few languages, however, have
undergone a diametrically opposed change, preferring the SP in most situations, while the CP, in
addition to its resultative value, is only used with an inclusive meaning, denoting durative and
iterative actions. Aromanian belongs to this category. The situation is quite similar to that in
Greek, the main language of contact for Aromanian, but any attempt to explain it exclusively as a
Greek influence will inevitably fail and so does the assumption that the tendency is due solely to
internal development. Based on the limited data available so far, it seems more reasonable to assume
that, although the meaning and distribution of the SP and CP in Aromanian are the result of a
general Romance drift, carried out differently in marginal areas, the contact with Greek has
strengthened the initial tendency and influenced the pattern of evolution. |
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