The ‘invariable’ de-Element and the Indefiniteness in a minority Gallo-Romance language (Franco-Provençal) and in Gallo-Italian Northern dialects. A real bare de? New hints from the consonantal liaison and UR representation
L'élément 'invariable' de et l'indéfinitude dans une langue gallo-romane minoritaire (le franco-provençal) et dans les dialectes gallo-italiens du Nord de l'Ialie. Un vrai 'de' nu ? Nouveaux indices à partir de la liaison consonantique et de la représentation phonologique du marqueur.
Résumé
We focus here on the expression of indefiniteness in a Gallo-Romance language, Franco-Provençal (and its varieties), as well as in Gallo-Italian Northern dialects (spoken in Piedmont and in Liguria). We deal precisely with two grammatical categories, indefinite determiners and nominals, interpreted through their historical development from Latin, as well as in the perspective of formal grammar and modeling of sound change.
Articles do not exist in Latin: a common property of all Romance languages is the emergence of the (in)definite articles from the Latin demonstratives ILLE, IPSE.
Thus, the phonology and the morphosyntax of these functional categories (determiners) have arisen from Latin through Romance. However, regarding the indefinite singular determiner, the so–called partitive article, and the indefinite plural article, not all Romance languages have undergone the same kind of grammatical change.
Semantic, syntactic and phonological constraints are at the origins of competing functional markers. We sketch here the existence of a sub-grammar for indefinite markers.
Morpho-phonologically, the indefinite/Mass article (known in French as partitive article) is generally recognized from the agglutination of the preposition de (< Latin DE) and the definite article (French le, la, Italian il, la) (Marchello-Nizia 1997; Kupferman 2001; Zribi-Hertz 2006); the plural indefinite article follows the same pattern but with the plural definite article (French M/F PL les, Italian MPL i, FPL le).
Gascon for instance does not have a partitive article (Kristol 2014): Que minji pan ‘I eat (some) bread’ (in French ‘je mange du pain/I eat some bread’), namely it has the structure [DP 0 [D 0]].
In the French partitive/Mass construction, the partitive du is obligatory: ‘du pain/some bread’, whereas in Italian construction, such as del pane ‘some bread’ the partitive del is optional. In the Italian DP del pane (as in French du pain), indefiniteness is achieved through an indefinite determiner ‘di’ (Latin DE) combined with an overt article in D position bearing -features. This fully-fledged partitive article can alternate with a covert (null or bare) ‘di’ in SpecDP, and a covert (null) article in D (see Giusti & Lebani 2020; Russo 2021; Russo & Ulfsbjorninn 2021):
Italian
a)[DP 0 [D 0]] mangio pane ‘I eat (some) bread’
b)[DP de [D l]] mangio del pane ‘I eat some bread’
Gascon
[DP 0 [D 0]] Que minji pan ‘I eat (some) bread’
Both construction del pane and du pain (in Italian and in French) come from the Latin construction DE + ILLO PANE and in these Romance languages the structure such as the following is forbidden:
*[DP di/de [D 0]] It. ‘mangio di pane/ Fr. ‘je mange de pain’
However, the Franco-Provençal partitive article (Schüle 1961; Vychenski 2000; Kristol 2014; Navailh 2016; Stark 2020; but also Occitan, cf. Ronjat 1913: 46-47) seems to differ from French, Gascon and Italian. In this language the preposition DE does not have undergone the fusion of the article and the preposition, but it seems, at a glance, derived from the bare preposition DE:
Indefinite without article (Franco-Provençal/Lyonnais) :
[DP de [D 0]]
-MASS SG [də kɥar] ‘du cuir/an amount of leather’
-FSG [də tɛla] ‘de la toile/ an amount of canvas’
-MPL [də fjaʒul] ‘des haricots/ an amount of beans’
-FPL [də gruzaj] ‘des groseilles/ an amount of gooseberries’
Still, the singular indefinite Mass (partitive) and plural indefinite behave as a determiner of a DP and not as the head of a prepositional phrase PP.
Most of the Occitan varieties (Languedoc, Provençal) also have a Mass/partitive DE preposition without article, as in Franco-Provençal. However, Occitan can cover the three levels of structure (Alibèrt 1976: 92; Navailh 2016), as it can have:
-aqui se venden libres ‘here we sell books’ in Fuxéen Languedoc
[DP 0 [D 0]]
-vòli de pan ‘I want some bread’in the rest of Languedoc
[DP de [D 0]]
-vòli del pan ‘I want some bread’ in Orlhac (Cantal)
[DP de [D l]]
Unlike Occitan, Franco-Provençal always shows indefiniteness/partitivity without an article.
It does not distinguish gender on the indefinite/partitive article ([də kɥar] ‘du cuir/an amount of leather’/ [də tɛla] ‘de la toile/ an amount of canvas’), unlike French which does so through the definite article. It is homophonous with the indefinite plural article ([də gruzaj] ‘des groseilles/ an amount of gooseberries’).
Crucially in Franco-Provençal (in Lyonnais varieties, Aosta Valley and Suiss Romandy Franco-Provençal) a morpho-phonological consonantal liaison applies (Kristol 2014; Navailh 2016; Knecht in GPSR 5, 40b-53a) when the indefinite ‘DE’ introduces a nominal indefinite plural:
Consonantal liaison Indefinite PL DE + [z]:
[dəz ɔrtjə] / [dz ɔrtjə] ‘des orties/some nettles’ (ALLy 463, pt 39, 41)
This liaison does not always apply [d ɔrtje] ‘des orties’ (pt 29) but it does not apply to the singular: [d ega] ‘de l’eau/some water’ (pt 39, ALLy 631). The liaison process is the sign that the ‘de’ UR is complex and not made by a unique CV unit:
d e + z [dəz ɔrtjə] ‘des orties/some nettles’ (Lyonnais/Franco-Provençal)
CV + [CV]
The bare partitive ‘DE’ (without the article ILLE) is also found in Northern dialects, such as in Piedmont (Rohlfs § 424). Moreover, the bare DE is attested in medieval Italian: ‘lots of fires’ (Boiardo, 15th c.) followed by a prenominal adjective as in French.
One use of DE in Latin leads to the partitive article. The partitive construction DE + N was attested in Latin and refers to the extraction of something from a whole:
(a) DE POMIS (5th c. Peregrinatio 40.10)
Part +N
‘some fruits’
(b) DE EA POTIONE (UNICUIQUE BOUI DATO) (Cato Agr. 70.2)
Part +D +N
‘some of this potion’ (‘be given to each ox’)
(c) DE AUE SILUATICA (MANDUCET) (Antidot. Brux. 163)
Part +N + Adj
‘An amount of birds wild’ (‘that he eats’)
The bare partitive in Franco-Provençal and Northern Italian dialects draws back to such examples. Moreover, we claim that the Franco-Provencal liaison of the partitive ‘DE’ [dəz]/ [dz] in the indefinite plural is the result of two partitive P + P contraction, instead of P + D, contraction, which is the base of the partitive in French.
Indeed, also EX was used in Latin partitive constructions. The preposition EX is generally replaced by DE in Romance, since DE had a consonantal onset. Crucially, we find in Latin some examples of a stage where the two partitive prepositions appeared agglutinated in partitive constructions, such as DEEX:
UNUM DEEX CONSERUIS SUIS (Vangelo palatino, Corominas: s.v. desde)
INDEF + Part [P+P] + N + Poss
‘one of his fellow slaves has arrived’
The gender and number inclusion on indefinite determiners does not occur in Franco-Provençal. The Franco-Provençal indefinite (‘partitive’ article) does not undergo the fusion between the article and the preposition, but rather it seems derived from the preposition ‘DE’.
Moreover, the latent consonant [z], which is a marker of the indefinite plural, is a cue of a complex UR CVCV in the bare partitive D and suggests a P+P Latin partitive contraction.
Still, the second P (the latent -C) in the partitive construction P + P (DE + z) is licensed in the liaison contexts when ‘de’ is in SpecDP; the first P cliticise on the second CV = P2 = [z] and together they merge through liaison once the merged two CV (P1P2) c-commands the root : [DP [Spec Indef de] [D' [D -z cv] [NP [N' [N ɔrtjə]]].
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