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CHAPTER 8

Romanian, Istro-Romanian,
Megleno-Romanian, and Aromanian
MARTIN MAIDEN

8.1 Introduction dialect of Muntenia, one of a group of—largely mutually

intelligible—‘Daco-Romanian’ varieties, including Moldovan,
maramureșean (Maramureș), crișean (Crișana), bănățean
Romanian (and other, closely related, ‘Daco-Romanian’ var-
(Banat), and the linguistically transitional dialects of
ieties), Aromanian (also called ‘Macedo-Romanian’), Istro-
Transylvania.
Romanian, and Megleno-Romanian jointly constitute the
The remaining dialects, spoken south and west of the
four subdivisions of the ‘Daco-Romance’ branch of the
Danube, may be collectively termed ‘sub-Danubian’. Istro-
Romance languages. Although they share a common ances-
Romanian is spoken in some localities in northeastern Istria
tor, their early history (including the location and extent of
(Croatia) to the south of Mt Učka, and in the town of Žejane
the territory where ‘Daco-Romance’ originated; cf. Andreose
to its north. Its speakers probably descend from pastoral
and Renzi 2013:287), and the historical links between them,
communities originally resident in Bosnia, Serbia, and Cro-
remain obscure. Aromanian and Romanian probably became
atia in the late Middle Ages, who settled in Istria from about
separate before the eleventh century, Istro-Romanian and
the fifteenth century. The language’s place of origin, and
Romanian not before the thirteenth; the affiliation of
whether it originally broke away from varieties spoken in
Megleno-Romanian is debated.
the Romanian lands, or from those spoken in the Balkans, or
Modern standard Romanian is spoken over a territory
represents dialect mixing, remain controversial (cf. Sârbu
which roughly includes the Roman province of Dacia, but
and Frăţilă 1998:13-18). Toponyms and documentary evi-
also areas historically outside the Roman Empire (Crişana,
dence show that Istro-Romanians were once more widely
Maramureş, Bucovina, northern Moldova, Bessarabia, cen-
settled in Istria and on the islands of Krk and Rab. There are
tral and eastern Muntenia). It is today the official language
today perhaps 200-250 speakers in Croatia, mainly elderly
of the Republic of Romania (the mother tongue of 90% of
and all bilingual in Croatian (Orbanić 1995; Filipi 2003).
perhaps 22 million inhabitants), and of the Republic of
Dianich (2012:146) suggests that émigré speakers in New
Moldova, where it is spoken natively by some three quarters
York outnumber those in Istria.
of a population of 3.4 million.1 There are Romanian-speaking
Aromanian speakers are scattered widely over the Bal-
communities near the frontiers of Romania in northeastern
kans, notably southern Albania, central and northern
Bulgaria, Serbia (Timoc valley and Voivodina), Hungary, and
Greece, and southwestern Macedonia (see Kahl 1999; 2006;
in Ukraine. Map 8.1 reflects the extent of Daco-Romance
Demirtaş-Coşkun 2001; Nevaci 2013). Estimates of their
varieties as it was towards the middle of the twentieth
numbers range from 2–300,000 to over 500,000 (see
century; some of the outlying varieties to the northeast, in
Dahmen 2005; Nevaci 2013:18). The major subdivisions are
particular, may now have disappeared.
the pindean and grămostean communities, mainly in Greece
Romanian’s emergence as an official language was a grad-
and the Republic of Macedonia, and the fărşerot and grabo-
ual, patchy process, lasting from the mid sixteenth century
vean communities, mainly in Albania. Since the first half of
to the mid nineteenth. The basis of the standard is the
the last century there has also been a substantial Aroma-
nian community in Romania, especially in Dobrogea
(Saramandu 2003a).
Megleno-Romanian has some 5,000 speakers, principally
1
For sketches of the politics and ideology behind the so-called ‘Moldo- in villages in the Pella and Kilkis prefectures of northern
van language’, essentially identical to Romanian (but cf. Popușoi 2013 for
Russian influence), see e.g. Andreose and Renzi (2013:309f.), Varvaro Greece, and over the frontier in the Republic of Macedonia,
(2013b:341). Also §37.2.5. around Huma. We lack detailed documentation of the

The Oxford Guide to the Romance Languages. Adam Ledgeway and Martin Maiden (eds)
This chapter © Martin Maiden 2016. Published 2016 by Oxford University Press. 91
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MARTIN MAIDEN

0 100 200 miles Lviv R. D

Kraków niep
er
0 150 300 km
R.
Dn
ies R. Dnipropetrovsk
R. ter
Košice Kolomeo Bu
Da g
nu
be
Vienna
Cernăuţi Balta
Debrecen Nikolaevsk

R.
Budapest

P
Iaşi

ru
t
Chişinău

isa
Cradea Kherson

R. T
Cluj-Napoca Sea of
Azov
Odessa
R. Drava Szeged
Arad
Trieste Sibiu
R. Mure
ş
Timişoara Braşov Galaţi

R. S Ploieşti
ava
R. Mo
Belgrade Craiova Bucharest Black

R. O
lt
rava

Vidin
A Ruse
Sea
d R. Dan
ube
ri
a Niš Varna
t
i
Sofia
c
S

Plovdiv
e

R. R. M
Edirne
a

Va ari
tsa
rd
Tirana ar
Istanbul
Bitola
Sea of
Marmara
Thessaloníki
Ankara
za
rit

Grevena
st
Vi
R.

Larisa
Ioánnina A e g e a n

I o n i a n S e a
S e a Aromanian
Athens

Istro-Romanian

Romanian

Megleno-Romanian

Map 8.1 Romanian, Istro-Romanian, Megleno-Romanian, and Aromanian in the mid-twentieth century (based on Capidan
1941)

language before the twentieth century, and theories of its 8.2 Phonology
origins range from the view that it is a Daco-Romanian
dialect transplanted to the Balkans, to the position that it
is an offshoot of Aromanian. Reviewing the evidence, 8.2.1 Vowels
Atanasov (2002:15-27) rather favours the former view.
The principal focus here will be Romanian, the other The phonemic inventory is shown in Table 8.1.
branches of Daco-Romance being illustrated where they There are also glides [j] (e.g. ied [jed] ‘kid’) and [w], plus
show particularly distinctive characteristics. diphthongs [e̯a] and [o̯a].

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Table 8.1 Vowels A phonotactic constraint of Romanian (not sub-Danubian

FRONT CENTRAL BACK
High i ɨ u frontness distinction between [ə] and [e] and between [ɨ]
Mid e ə o and [i]. After the glide [j] and after [i] only the front mem-
Low a bers of these pairs occur, while there is also evidence for a
Particularly distinctive of Romanian among Romance lan-
guages are:2
(i) a high central vowel [ɨ] (largely the product of his-
torical processes of nasalization of [a] or [e], or of
centralization of [i] usually determined by preceding
*[rr], or of centralization of vowels before tautosyl-
labic [r]; see Renwick 2014:33-62, 84-100 for its vari-
ous sources): e.g. mână [ˈmɨnə] ‘hand’ < MANUM, râu
[rɨu̯] ‘river’ < RIUUM, târziu [tɨrˈziu̯] ‘late’ < TARDIUUM;
(ii) stressed [ə] (largely the product of historical central-
ization of [e] determined by certain preceding con-
sonants): e.g. rău [rəu̯] ‘bad’ < REUM;3
(iii) diphthongs with mid-vowel onset glides [e̯a] and
[o̯a]: e.g. seară [ˈse̯arə] ‘evening’, coadă [ˈko̯adə] ‘tail’.
The phonological status of the glides in [e̯a] and [o̯a], and of
[j] and [w], is complex and controversial: cf. e.g. the discus-
sions in Vasiliu (1989:4), Avram (1991), Chiţoran (2002),
Renwick (2014:63-83).
Sub-Danubian varieties have mostly lost the distinction
between high and mid central vowels, original [ə] generally
becoming [ɨ] in Aromanian, original [ɨ] generally becoming
[ə] in Istro-Romanian, and both (when stressed) merging as
[ɔ] in most Megleno-Romanian varieties: Ro. pâine [ˈpɨin̯ e]
‘bread’, mână [ˈmɨnə] ‘hand’ vs Aro. [ˈpɨni], [ˈmɨnɨ]; IRo.
[ˈpəre], [ˈməra]; MRo. [ˈpɔi ̯ni], [ˈmɔnə].
The vocalic inventory is not differentiated by stress.
Whereas in many Romance varieties [ə] only occurs
dialects), with significant morphological consequences (see
e.g. Chițoran 2002:145f.), involves neutralization of the
similar process after [w], such that the [ə] vs [e] distinction
is neutralized in favour of [ə]; on the synchronic status of
this type, see Chițoran (2002:148f.). For some morphological
results of these processes, see Table 8.4e and §8.4.2.
Word-initial mid or high vowels may receive an on-glide,
especially in inherited vocabulary (e.g. opt [ʷopt] ‘eight’,
inimă [ˈʲinimə] ‘heart’), but such pronunciations are con-
sidered substandard.
8.2.2 Consonants
Table 8.2 shows the phonemic consonant inventory, which
is unremarkable from a Romance perspective. An original
voiced dental alveolar affricate [ʣ] survives in many dia-
lects (of Moldova, Maramureș, and Banat) and in Aroma-
nian, but yields [z] in standard Romanian, Megleno-, and
Istro-Romanian: Ro. vezi [vezʲ] ‘you see’ vs Aro. [veʣ]. Vir-
tually all consonants have palatalized counterparts, some
of them participating in morphophonological alternations:
e.g. [pʲ] (SG lup [lup] ‘wolf ’ PL lupi [lupʲ]), [zʲ] (SG englez [enˈglez]
‘Englishman’ PL englezi [enˈglezʲ], SG câine [ˈkɨine] ‘dog’ PL câini
[ˈkɨinʲ]), etc. [tʲ] - [dʲ] occur only in the context [ʃtʲ] (e.g. ești
[jeʃtʲ] ‘you.SG are’) and [ʒdʲ] (the latter is rare, e.g. the place-
name Cuejdi [kuˈʲeʒdʲ]). The phonetic and the phonological
status of word-final postconsonantal [ʲ] is problematic: see
Table 8.2 Phonemic consonant inventory
VOICELESS VOICED

unstressed, Romanian also has it in stressed syllables: e.g.

Bilabial stops p b
care [ˈkare] ‘who, which’ vs cărui [ˈkərui̯] ‘whose’ from ORo.
Labio-dental fricative f v
[kəˈrui̯] ‘whose’, with historical shift of stress without adjust-
Dental stop t d
ment in vowel quality. The diphthongs [e̯a] and [o̯a] princi-
Dental alveolar affricate ʦ
pally originate, historically, in stressed syllables, but there is
Palatal alveolar affricate ʧ ʤ
no phonological constraint against their occurrence
Velar stop k g
unstressed (e.g. asemenea [aˈsemene̯a] ‘like’, dincoace pro-
Glottal fricative h
nounced either [dinˈko̯aʧe] or [ˈdinko̯aʧe] ‘over here’).
Alveolar fricative s z
Stress-linked asymmetry occurs, however, in Aromanian,
Palatal-alveolar fricative ʃ ʒ
where unstressed [e], [ə], [o] are generally raised to [i], [ɨ], [u].
Nasals
Bilabial m
2
Dental n
For the Romanian vowel system as a distinctive historical development
involving simple loss of Latin length distinctions for back vowels, but also Liquids
quality mergers (as in ‘western’ Romance languages) for front vowels, see Lateral l
e.g. Loporcaro (2011b:113f.). Trill r
3
On the nature of this vowel, cf. Renwick (2014:13, 36-8).

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MARTIN MAIDEN
the overview in Vasiliu (1989:2f.), who represents it as [ʲ̥], an
‘asyllabic sound with palatal timbre lacking glottal vibration
and resembling a simple palatal aspiration whose duration is
shorter than that of the semi-vowel [j]’. It resolves as [i]
when followed by a clitic pronoun or article: lupi [lupʲ]
‘wolves’ vs lupilor [ˈlupilor] ‘of the wolves’. In the case of [s]
we have not **[sʲ] but [ʃ], and in that of [h] not **[hʲ] but [ç]:
SG pas [pas] ‘step’ PL pași [paʃ], SG ierarh [jeˈrarh] ‘hierarch’ PL
ierarhi [jeˈrarç]. Velars immediately preceding front
vowels are always palatalized: chel [kʲel] ‘bald’, ghici! [gʲiˈʧ]
‘guess.IMP.2SG!’.
Dialects of Moldova and southeastern Romania and much
of central and northern Transylvania, with Aromanian
(Vasiliu 1968:119-22), show various palatalizing modifica-
tions of labials before [ʲ] or [i]. For [p] and [b] these produce,
according to locality, outputs such as [pc͡ ] and [bɟ͡ ], [c] and
[ɟ], or even, in Moldova, [kʲ], [gʲ]. For [f] and [v] outputs such
as [c] and [ɟ] and even (in Maramureș) [s] and [z] are
common. For input [m], [mn], or [n] (especially in Moldova),
we have [nʲ]. The following contrasts standard examples
with their counterparts in the speech of Vad (ALRR-Marm.
point 225): pivniță–[ˈcignʲiʦə] ‘cellar’; albină–[alˈɟinə] ‘bee’;
fin–[sin] ‘godson’; viespi–[zesc] ‘wasps’; vin–[zin] ‘wine’;
omidă–[ʷomˈnʲidə] ‘caterpillar’. Istro-Romanian sequences
of labial + [j] result in labial + [ʎ] (reflecting a similar process
in Croatian): Ro. fier ‘iron’ vs IRo. [fʎer].
In Romanian, original [ɲ] and [ʎ] both became [j],
although [ɲ] survives to this day in Banat and was present
in the north in the sixteenth century. Both survive in sub-
Danubian dialects: Ro. iepure ‘rabbit’, tămâie ‘incense’ vs
MRo. [ˈʎepuri], [təˈməɲə].
In inherited vocabulary, Istro-Romanian has a reduced
incidence of intervocalic [n], because of the change [n] > [r]:
IRo. [ˈbire] ‘well.ADV’ vs Ro. bine. For [n] > [r] in old Romanian,
persisting vestigially in some varieties, notably of the west-
ern Carpathians, see Avram (1990:130-43).
The consonant [h] is common, but limited in the standard
language to loanwords (e.g. from Slavonic hrean ‘horserad-
ish’, duh ‘spirit’, from Hungarian hotar ‘boundary’, from
Turkish mahala ‘suburb’).
8.2.3 Prosody and syllable structure4
Length plays no role in Romanian phonology, although
sequences of identical vowels arising at morpheme bound-
aries may be realized long; thus, lupii (‘the wolves’ < lupi
‘wolves’ + plural definite article -i) is [ˈlupiː] or [ˈlupii̯] (see
Vasiliu 1989:3). The sound [nː] may arise at morpheme
4
For intonation, see Dascălu (1998).
94
boundaries: înnebuni [ɨnːebuˈni] ‘to madden’ < în + nebun
‘mad’. Fărșerot varieties of Aromanian have [mː] < *[mn]ː
ˈlemnu > ˈlemːu ‘wood’.
Stress never falls more than four syllables from the end of
the word,5 but otherwise there are few constraints. Most
words are paroxytonic (casă [ˈkasə] ‘house’, formulă [for
ˈmulə] ‘formula’, cobalt [ˈkobalt] ‘cobalt’, superfluu [super
ˈfluu] ‘superfluous’), but proparoxytones and oxytones
abound: caracatiţă [karaˈkatiʦə] ‘octopus’, lucrăm [luˈkrəm]
‘we work’, măsea [məˈse̯a] ‘molar’, făcu [fəˈku] ‘(s)he did’;
telefon [teleˈfon] ‘telephone’. Borrowing from French
accounts for the high incidence of (par)oxytones in learnèd
vocabulary for which most other Romance languages have
proparoxtyones (Sp. fenómeno vs Fr. phénomène [fenoˈmɛn],
Ro. fenomen [fenoˈmen] ‘phenomenon’). Anteproparoxytones
mainly end in -iţă, originally a Slavonic (feminine) deriv-
ational suffix (veveriţă [ˈveveriʦə] ‘squirrel’, lapoviţă
[ˈlapoviʦə] ‘sleet’), but note darămite [ˈdarəmite] ‘not to
mention’, the last two syllables of which are, in origin, clitics.
Primary stress in the clitic group falls on the host verb,
but it may also fall on the negator nu: e.g. nu (le) știu [ˈnu (le)
ˈʃtiu] ‘I don’t know (them)’.
Constraints on syllable structure are few (Vasiliu 1989:6;
Chițoran 2002:12-18): onsets and codas may be empty, or
comprise up to three consonants (the third being [r] in
onsets): grajd [graʒd] ‘barn’, jgheab [ʒge̯ab] ‘trough’, jneapăn
[ˈʒne̯a.pən] ‘juniper’, hrean ‘horseradish’, ctitor ‘founder’,
lemn ‘wood’, istm ‘isthmus’, mreajă [ˈmre̯a.ʒə] ‘net’, ștreang
[ʃtre̯aŋg] ‘noose’, strâmt ‘narrow’, naramz ‘orange tree’
(regional), bilingv ‘bilingual’. Syllable-final (C)C+liquid is
impossible, and in word-final position the liquid must
make a syllable with a following vowel: this is why word-
forms whose roots end in (C)C+liquid preserve the historical
desinences -u and -i as full vowels (cf. Tables 8.3l, 8.4c) even
when, elsewhere, final unstressed [u] has been deleted, and
-i is at best preserved as [ʲ]. In pindean and grămostean
Aromanian [u] and [i] survive after all word-final consonant
clusters.
Opposite voice values in adjacent obstruents tend to be
avoided: frecvent [fregˈvent] ‘frequent’, anecdotă [anegˈdotə]
‘anecdote’, abțibild [apʦiˈbild] ‘transfer’. The sequence writ-
ten s + n/l may be [s] or [z] + n/l: smântână [smɨnˈtɨnə] or
[zmɨnˈtɨnə] ‘sour cream’, slănină [sləˈninə] or [zləˈninə] ‘lard’;
the rare sr is always [zr]. A peculiarity of Daco-Romance is
the sequence [m] + dental, without homorganic assimilation
of the nasal. Indeed in some cases original [nt] has become
[mt]: SENTIT > simte ‘(s)he feels’: see Sala (1976:33); Avram
(1990:194-6).
5
Stress is (generally) unaffected by the presence of enclitic pronouns:
e.g. cumpără-ni-le [ˈkumpərə ni le] ‘buy.IMP.2SG=us=them (= buy them for us)’,
but see §45.3.1.
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8.3 Orthography and writing systems orthography, the use of g and c for [ʤ] and [ʧ], and gh and
ch for [g] and [k], before front vowels reflecting Italian
usage, and the invention of ș for [ʃ], due to G. Șincai, see
The modern orthography of Romanian is broadly phonemic
Onu (1989:311f.). Between 1828 and 1859, ‘transitional
(but cf. Onu 1989:321). The letter i, when not a syllabic
alphabets’ were developed comprising both Cyrillic and
nucleus, indicates [j] (ied ‘kid’) or [i ]̯ (tei ‘lime’), or [ʲ] when
Roman letters (Onu 1989:309f.). A Roman-based standardized
following a consonant word-finally (lupi ‘wolves’ [lupʲ]).
writing system was introduced in Wallachia and (independ-
Written word-final -i after palatals is often inaudible (pași
ently) in Transylvania in 1860, and in Moldova in 1862.
[paʃ] ‘steps’). Word-initial e has the value [je] in third person
Tensions between etymologizing (Latinizing) and broadly
pronouns (el [jel] ‘he’) and in the verb ‘be’ (este [ˈjeste], era [je
phonemic principles were resolved, largely in favour of the
ˈra] ‘(s)he is, was’). Oa generally represents [o̯a] (or [wa],
latter, by the Romanian Academy’s first official orthography,
systematically so syllable-initially): boală [ˈbo̯alə] ‘illness’,
produced in 1881. This, reflecting Wallachian norms of pro-
oaie [ˈwaje] ‘sheep’), but may stand for [oa] ([ˈboa] ‘boa’).
nunciation, favoured elimination of regional variants both
Ea is [e̯a] (e.g. andrea [anˈdre̯a] ‘knitting needle’) but [ja]
from spelling (Onu 1989:307) and from pronunciation.
syllable-initially (e.g. evaluează [evaluˈjazə] ‘(s)he evaluates’),
The twentieth century (Stan 2012b) saw various spelling
and it may also represent [ea] (real [reˈal] ‘real’). The spelling
reforms, following broadly phonemic principles, with the
eea represents [ˈeja] (Andreea [anˈdreja] a female name).
peculiar exception of the sound [ɨ] for which spellings either
C and g represent velars, but palatal affricates before ortho-
as â, or as î (or as both, following sometimes complex
graphic front vowels (citesc [ʧiˈtesk] ‘they read’). H, normally
distributional principles) have at different times been pro-
[h], is used diacritically after c and g to indicate that they
posed. In 1953, general use of î was prescribed, subject to
represent velars: gem [ʤem] ‘I moan’ vs ghem [gʲem] ‘ball of
revision in 1965 so that român ‘Romanian’, and related
wool’. X, restricted to neologisms, represents [ks] (ortodox
words, were spelled thus on etymological grounds (high-
[ortoˈdoks] ‘orthodox’) but sometimes [gz] intervocalically
lighting the link with Lat. romanus ‘Roman’). In 1993 norms
(examen [egˈzamen] ‘examination’). Before the desinence -i,
established in the Communist period were reversed in
with palatalization of the sibilant element, x is replaced by
Romania (not until 2001 in the Roman-based spelling
cș: ortodocși [ortoˈdokʃ] ‘orthodox.MPL’.
adopted in the Republic of Moldova) in favour of a system
This relative transparency of the sound–letter relationship
fundamentally derived from one proposed in 1904, such that
is not matched at the prosodic level, and Romanian possesses
â is used word-internally and î at the beginning and end of
no established means of indicating intonation or stress: pairs
words. The same reform reintroduced etymologizing spel-
such as [ˈkɨntə] ‘(s)he sings’ vs [kɨnˈtə] ‘(s)he sang’, or [ˈia] ‘the
lings sunt, suntem, sunteți ‘I.am, we.are, you.PL are’ (banished
linen blouse’ vs [ja] ‘(s)he takes’, are homographs (cântă, ia).
in 1953), although they are widely pronounced [sɨnt]-.
Romanian is unusual among Romance languages in hav-
The Romanian of the Moldovan Autonomous Soviet
ing first been written so late (perhaps not before the four-
Socialist Republic, and subsequently of the Moldovan Soviet
teenth century), and in the Cyrillic alphabet. The oldest
Socialist Republic, adopted Cyrillic as part of a Stalinist
surviving document directly composed in Romanian dates
policy (effectively from 1924, but reaffirmed from 1938 and
from 1521 (the letter of Neacșu of Câmpulung), although the
again in 1941; see Deletant 1996:53, 58f., 61) seeking to assert
Hurmuzaki Psalter (Psaltirea Hurmuzaki) is older, being a
the separateness of the ‘Moldovan language’ from Romanian.
copy, made around 1500, of a fifteenth-century translation
This was no reversion to the traditional Cyrillic script of
of the Psalms. The late eighteenth and early nineteenth
Romanian, but an adaptation of Cyrillic as used to write
centuries see uncoordinated attempts to simplify the some-
modern Russian, with concessions to peculiarities of Roma-
times erratic and opaque Cyrillic spellings of Romanian (see
nian phonology (э for [ə] and ӂ for [ʤ]). See also §41.4.3.
Onu 1989:305f.), and also the beginnings of the introduction
of the Roman alphabet (see Stan 2012a). Already in the
eighteenth century various examples of writing in the
8.4 Forms and functions of nouns,
Roman alphabet, following Polish, Hungarian, German, and
Italian models, appear in Transylvania, and it is the activity pronouns, adjectives, and verbs
of Greco-Catholic intellectuals (the ‘Transylvanian School’;
Onu 1989:307f.), notably the model created by Petru Maior 8.4.1 Inflectional morphology of nouns
(who invented the letter ț, unique to Romanian, for [ʦ]), and verbs
that from the latter part of the eighteenth century and the
early nineteenth lays the basis of modern Romanian orthog- Nouns, adjectives, and verbs have complex inflectional
raphy. For the emergence of j for [ʒ], reflecting French paradigms, characteristically comprising a lexical root

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Table 8.3 Noun morphology

FEMININE
(a) SG PL (b) SG PL (c) SG PL (d) SG PL
ADV fată ‘girl’ fete casă case coadă cozi țară ‘land’ țări
‘house’ ‘tail’
ADN fete fete case case cozi cozi țări țări
(e) SG PL (f) SG PL (g) SG PL (h) SG PL
ADV floare flori stea ‘star’ stele carte cărți pară ‘pear’ pere
‘flower’ ‘book’
ADN flori flori stele stele cărți cărți pere pere
MASCULINE
(i) SG PL (j) SG PL (k) SG PL (l) SG PL
brad ‘fir’ brazi cal ‘horse’ cai copac copaci cuscru ‘one’s child’s father-in- cuscri
‘tree’ law’
(m) SG PL (n) SG PL (o) SG PL (p) SG PL
câine ‘dog’ câini șarpe șerpi perete pereți păr ‘hair’ peri
‘snake’ ‘wall’
NOUNS WITH ALTERNATING GENDER (MASCULINE SINGULAR AND FEMININE PLURAL)
(q) MSG FPL (r) MSG FPL (s) MSG FPL (t) MSG FPL
cot ‘elbow’ coate ac ‘needle’ ace lac ‘lake’ lacuri pod ‘bridge’ poduri
(u) MSG FPL
ou ‘egg’ ouă

+ desinence(s). The desinential marking of number and
gender (and case) on nouns and adjectives is cumulative,
as is that of person, number, mood, and often tense in verbs
(cf. §§27.2-5). The paradigms (or partial paradigms) given in
Tables 8.3 and 8.4 (for adjectives see §8.4.3.2) illustrate some
of the main characteristics of the system. For the case
distinctions indicated by ‘ADV’ and ‘ADN’, see §8.4.3.1. Since
stress is not indicated orthographically, it is here marked by
bold face; recall that g and c are [ʧ] and [ʤ] before i and e.
8.4.2 Major patterns of allomorphy caused
by sound change
Few Romance languages so consistently preserve in their
synchronic morphology the effects of their phonological
history. Lexical roots in Romanian usually show allomorphy
due to sound change; much desinential allomorphy also has
phonological origins. Table 8.4f presents one extreme case—
a suppletive verb whose alternation pattern is nonetheless
almost exclusively attributable to the effects of sound
changes, and which derives from the perfectly regular
Latin LEUARE. More usually, patterns of root allomorphy
remain predictable synchronically, although the phono-
logical processes causing them are defunct.
In modern nouns, pronouns, and adjectives, stress never
falls on the desinence. The verb inherits more faithfully
than in most Romance languages the Latin patterns of
stress: this is characteristically arrhizotonic, falling on the
lexical root usually only in the singular and third person
plural forms of the present and of the subjunctive. What
distinguishes the third conjugation (e.g. Table 8.4h,i) is that
stress falls, as in Latin, on the root in the infinitive and
throughout the present indicative; there is however a wide-
spread tendency, especially in sub-Danubian dialects, for
stress to shift to the desinence in these first and second
person plural present forms. It is also characteristic, prin-
cipally, of third conjugation verbs that they may have rhi-
zotonic past participles, and that if their pluperfect and
preterite have a segmentally distinctive root allomorph,
then stress falls on that allomorph in the preterite in the
third person and throughout the plural (Table 8.4h,i;
Maiden 2009b and §43.2.2).
The effects of historical raising of unstressed [a] and [o]
appear in Table 8.4e,j, although this alternation type is by
no means general (cf. Table 8.4i,o). Similarly extensive, but
no longer productive (despite occasional analogical exten-
sions in neologisms), is the effect of historical diphthong-
ization of [e] and [o] to [e̯a] and [o̯a] when not followed by a
high vowel (see, e.g. Loporcaro 2011b:128f.): cf. Tables 8.3c,e,
q; 8.4a,d,h,j,l. Subsequent remonophthongization of [e̯a] to

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Table 8.4 Verb morphology: synthetic forms

(a) Infinitive pleca(re) ‘leave’

Gerund plecând
Past participle plecat
Present Subjunctive Imperative Imperfect Pluperfect Preterite
1SG plec (să) plec plecam plecasem plecai
2SG pleci (să) pleci pleacă plecai plecaseși plecași
3SG pleacă (să) plece pleca plecase plecă
1PL plecăm (să) plecăm plecam plecaserăm plecarăm
2PL plecați (să) plecați plecați plecați plecaserăți plecarăți
3PL pleacă (să) plece plecau plecaseră plecară
(b) Infinitive cumpăra(re) ‘buy’
Present Subjunctive Imperative
1SG cumpăr (să) cumpăr
2SG cumperi (să) cumperi
3SG cumpără (să) cumpere cumpără
1PL cumpărăm (să) cumpărăm
2PL cumpărați (să) cumpărați cumpărați
3PL cumpără (să) cumpere
(c) Infinitive urla(re) ‘yell’
Present Subjunctive Imperative
1SG urlu (să) urlu
2SG urli (să) urli urlă
3SG urlă (să) urle
1PL urlăm (să) urlăm
2PL urlați (să) urlați urlați
3PL urlă (să) urle
(d) Infinitive lucra(re) ‘work’
Present Subjunctive Imperative
1SG lucrez (să) lucrez
2SG lucrezi (să) lucrezi lucrează
3SG lucrează (să) lucreze
1PL lucrăm (să) lucrăm
2PL lucrați (să) lucrați lucrați
3PL lucrează (să) lucreze
(e) Infinitive tăia (tăiere) ‘cut’
Gerund tăind
Past participle MSG tăiat
Supine tăiat
Present Subjunctive Imperative
1SG tai (să) tai
2SG tai (să) tai taie
3SG taie (să) taie
1PL tăiem (să) tăiem
2PL tăiați (să) tăiați tăiați
3PL taie (să) taie

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(f) Infinitive lua(re) ‘take’

Present Subjunctive Imperative
1SG iau (să) iau
2SG iei (să) iei ia
3SG ia (să) ia
1PL luăm (să) luăm
2PL luați (să) luați luați
3PL iau (să) ia
(g) Infinitive vedea (vedere) ‘see’
Gerund văzând
Past participle MSG văzut
Supine văzut
Present Subjunctive Imperative Imperfect Pluperfect Preterite
1SG văd (văz) (să) văd (văz) vedeam văzusem văzui
2SG vezi (să) vezi vezi vedeai văzuseși văzuși
3SG vede (să) vadă (vază) vedea văzuse văzu
1PL vedem (să) vedem vedeam văzuserăm văzurăm
2PL vedeți (să) vedeți vedeți vedeați văzuserăți văzurăți
3PL văd (să) vadă (vază) vedeau văzuseră văzură
(h) Infinitive coace(re) ‘bake, ripen’
Gerund cocând
Past participle MSG copt
Supine copt
Present Subjunctive Imperative Imperfect Pluperfect Preterite
1SG coc (să) coc coceam copsesem copsei
2SG coci (să) coci coace coceai copseseși copseși
3SG coace (să) coacă cocea copsese coapse
1PL coacem (să) coacem coceam copseserăm coapserăm
2PL coaceți (să) coaceți coaceți coceați copseserăți coapserăți
3PL coc (să) coacă coceau copseseră coapseră
(i) Infinitive pune(re) ‘put’
Gerund punând
Past participle MSG pus
Supine pus
Present Subjunctive Imperative Imperfect Pluperfect Preterite
1SG pun (pui) (să) pun puneam pusesem pusei
2SG pui (să) pui pune puneai puseseși puseși
3SG pune (să) pună (puie) punea pusese puse
1PL punem (să) punem puneam puseserăm puserăm
2PL puneți (să) puneți puneți puneați puseserăți puserăți
3PL pun (să) pună (puie) puneau puseseră puseră
(j) Infinitive muri(re) ‘die’
Gerund murind
Past participle MSG murit
Supine murit
Present Subjunctive Imperative Imperfect Pluperfect Preterite
1SG mor (să) mor muream etc. murisem etc. murii etc.
2SG mori (să) mori mori
3SG moare (să) moară
1PL murim (să) murim
2PL muriți (să) muriți muriți
3PL mor (să) moară

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(k) Infinitive fugi(re) ‘run, flee’

Gerund fugind
Past participle MSG fugit
Supine fugit
Present Subjunctive Imperative Imperfect Pluperfect Preterite
1SG fug (să) fug fugeam etc. fugisem etc. fugii etc.
2SG fugi (să) fugi fugi
3SG fuge (să) fugă
1PL fugim (să) fugim
2PL fugiți (să) fugiți fugiți
3PL fug (să) fugă
(l) Infinitive plăti(re) ‘pay’
Present Subjunctive Imperative
1SG plătesc (să) plătesc
2SG plătești (să) plătești plătește
3SG plătește (să) plătească
1PL plătim (să) plătim
2PL plătiți (să) plătiți plătiți
3PL plătesc (să) plătească
(m) Infinitive urî (urâre) ‘hate’
Gerund urând
Past participle MSG urât
Supine urât
Present Subjunctive Imperative Imperfect Pluperfect Preterite
1SG urăsc (să) urăsc uram urâsem urâi
2SG urăști (să) urăști urăște urai urâseși urâși
3SG urăște (să) urască ura urâse urî
1PL urâm (să) urâm uram urâserăm urârăm
2PL urâți (să) urâți urâți urați urâserăți urârăți
3PL urăsc (să) urască urau urâseră urâră
(n) Infinitive veni(re) ‘come’
Gerund venind (viind)
Past participle MSG venit
Supine venit
Present Subjunctive Imperative Imperfect Pluperfect Preterite
1SG vin (viu) (să) vin (viu) veneam etc. venisem etc. venii etc.
2SG vii (să) vii vino
3SG vine (să) vină (vie)
1PL venim (să) venim
2PL veniți (să) veniți veniți
3PL vin (să) vină (vie)
(o) Infinitive coborî (coborâre) ‘descend’
Gerund coborând
Past participle MSG coborât
Supine coborât
Present Subjunctive Imperative Imperfect Pluperfect Preterite
1SG cobor (să) cobor coboram coborâsem coborâi
2SG cobori (să) cobori coboară coborai coborâseși coborâși
3SG coboară (să) coboare cobora coborâse coborî
1PL coborâm (să) coborâm coboram coborâserăm coborârăm
2PL coborâți (să) coborâți coborâți coborați coborâserăți coborârăți
3PL coboară (să) coboare coborau coborâseră coborâră

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[e] (dialectally, [ɛ]) before unstressed [e], limited to Daco- extensive. Root-final dentals and [s] systematically show
Romanian, complicates the picture further: see the third [ʦ], [z] (< [ʣ]), and [ʃ], respectively, before [i] (see
person present and subjunctive in Table 8.4a,d,l. Other alter- Table 8.3c,g,i,j,o; 8.4g; also 1SG.PRS las ‘leave’ vs 2SG.PRS lași).
nations with the same origin, but with modified effects due Root-final -st(r) alternates with șt(r) in these cases: nostru
to the nature of the preceding phonological environment, - noștri ‘our.MSG/PL’. Final unstressed [i] caused palatalization
appear in Table 8.3a,d,h,n. Particularly noticeable here (in of [l] and [n], yielding [ʎ] and [ɲ], both of which became [j] in
Table 8.3a,h, where the historically underlying form is feată, Daco-Romanian. Note that in the first conjugation [l] and [n]
peară, as still attested in sub-Danubian dialects) is the cen- escape this alternation (speli ‘you wash’), while in nouns and
tralizing effect on front vowels, including [e̯a], of an imme- adjectives [n] never today displays the alternation, and [l]
diately preceding labial (blocked when the following vowel does so only sporadically (cal - cai ‘horse’, but șacal - șacali
is front); this effect also accounts for the singular of ‘jackel’, vale - văi ‘valley’, but sală - săli ‘hall’).
Table 8.3p, in forms of Table 8.4g with the root-vowel ă or Modern standard Romanian (with sub-Danubian dialects)
a: Aro. 1SG.PRS ˈvedu 3SG.PRS ˈve̯adi; also Ro. 1SG.PRS spăl ‘I wash’, has eliminated from its inflectional morphology nearly all
2SG.PRS speli, 3SG.PRS spală. The same process accounts for the effects of Romance palatalization before yod (see §39.2.6).
alternation of the root-final unstressed vowel in Table 8.4b. Old Romanian and many modern Daco-Romanian dialects,
A historically earlier centralizing effect (this time independ- however, display palatalizing/affricating effects of historic-
ent of the character of the following vowel and triggered by, ally underlying yod in the first person singular present and
inter alia, preceding sibilants) is observable in Table 8.3d subjunctive and in the third person subjunctive: these are
(for original țeară țeri), a pattern subsequently analogically the forms given in parentheses in Table 8.4g,i,n, and there
extended into almost all feminine nouns with stressed has been considerable analogical spread of the alternation
vowel [a] and the ending -i (cf. Table 8.3g; Maiden 1997c). into other verbs (thus Table 8.4i). See also Maiden (2011d).
Historical centralization of front vowels (Sala 1976:76-80,
96f.), produced by originally preceding *[rr], appears in
Table 8.4m (< *orˈrire). What is affected here is the vowel
8.4.3 Nominal inflection
immediately following the root. Comparing Table 8.4l, with
8.4.3.1 Case and number marking
a typical fourth conjugation verb, with Table 8.4m repre-
sentative of a couple of dozen verbs, we see that the mater- Romanian opposes what is traditionally called a
ial following the root in the latter is exactly the same as in ‘nominative-accusative’ (subject and direct object) case-
Table 8.4l, modulo the effects of centralization, and that the form to a ‘genitive-dative’ (indirect object). However,
type represented by Table 8.4m is historically an offshoot of these terms rather force Romanian morphology into the
the former. Table 8.4o stands in a similar relation, historic- Procrustean bed of Latin, and I employ the (approximate)
ally, to 8.4j: here, accidental merger in the third person labels ‘adverbal’ for the form principally associated with
singular present with the corresponding ending of the subject and direct object, and ‘adnominal’ for the other.
first conjugation (cf. Table 8.4a) has induced partial transi- The locus of morphological case-marking is the deter-
tion of this verb to the first conjugation (cf. Maiden 2009c). miner,6 and among nouns (and adjectives) only feminine
A still productive phonological constraint neutralizes the singulars show it (Table 8.5).
distinction between front and central vowels after [j] in
favour of front vowels. This is why in Table 8.4e we have
tăind [təʲind], not **tăiând, 1PL.PRS tăiem, not **tăiăm, and 3SG. Table 8.5 Case marking on determiners (and feminine
PRS taie (identical to the subjunctive) not **taiă, and 3SG.PRT
singular nouns)
tăie not **tăiă. Historical neutralization of the distinction
MSG MPL MSG MPL
between [e] and [ə] after [w] explains why the plural of ou in
ADV acest cal ‘this aceşti cai calul ‘the caii
Table 8.3u is ouă not **oue.
horse’ horse’
The effects of historical palatalization/affrication on
ADN acestui cal acestor cai calului cailor
root-final velars before front vowels (see §39.3.1) are exten-
FSG FPL FSG FPL
sive (Tables 8.3k,r; 8.4a,h,k). While the phonological process
ADV această casă aceste case casa ‘the house’ casele
is no longer productive, this type of alternation remains
‘this house’
exceptionless within inflectional morphology. For the his-
ADN acestei case acestor case casei caselor
tory of these velar/palatal alternations, see e.g. Maiden
(2011d; 2013a).
The effects of the historically later phenomenon of pal-
atalization and/or affrication before [i] (see §39.3.2) are also 6
For the enclitic definite article, see §8.4.5.

100

Noun paradigms almost never have more than two word
forms. These normally distinguish number, not case (see
Table 8.3), but feminines have a distinct adnominal case
form in the singular, virtually always identical to the form
of the plural (itself invariant for case). This pattern for
feminines is robustly replicated throughout the history of
Romanian—morphological innovations always affecting
feminine plural and adnominal singular identically
(Diaconescu 1970:213; Carabulea 1977:572; Rosetti
1986:489). For exceptions, involving the relatively recent
importation of the ending -uri into the plural of feminine
mass nouns and creating three distinct word forms, see
Maiden (2014).
It is overall impossible to predict plurals from singulars.
The only (nearly) safe generalizations are that a noun whose
singular ends in a consonant, or -u, will have a correspond-
ing plural in -i if it has animate reference (e.g. Table 8.3i,j,
k,l), and that any noun whose (adverbal) singular ends in -e
will have plural -i (e.g. Table 8.3e,g,m,n,o). Feminine adver-
bal singulars in -ă alternate with forms in -e or –I, but it is
impossible to predict which: -e tends to predominate with
animate reference (româncă–românce ‘Romanian woman’,
but cf. țigancă–țigănci ‘gypsy woman’). Table 8.3q-u illus-
trates so-called ‘neuter’ nouns, which are characterized by
gender alternation, being masculine in the singular but
feminine in the plural. ‘Neuters’ end in a consonant, or -u,
in the singular (the only significant exception being MSG
nume - FPL nume ‘name’), but in the plural generally have
either -e or -uri. The distribution of these two endings is
unpredictable, except that, usually, only -e is possible where
stress does not fall on the last syllable of the root (leagăn–
leagăne/**leagănuri ‘cradle’; yet cf. sinus–sinusuri ‘sinus’).
Marking of adnominal case is normally inflectional in
Daco-Romanian (see §8.5.2.8 for prepositional object mark-
ing; also §56.3.2.3). However, indirect objects may be
expressed by the preposition la ‘to’ + (adverbal) noun. The
lower the degree of humanness, the higher the likelihood of
marking the indirect object prepositionally (la with human
recipients is characteristic of colloquial registers): Dă mân-
care la porci ‘Give food to the pigs’, but ??Dă mâncare la
profesori ‘Give food to the teachers’ (cf. Iorga Mihail 2013a).
La obligatorily marks indirect objects before morphologic-
ally invariant prenominal elements such as numerals and
some quantifiers (cf. the uses of a as a prepositional genitive
marker, in §8.5.1.2). There is also colloquial use of la as a
genitive marker: acoperișul la casă ‘the roof of the house’.
Except for feminines in unstressed -a, which take definite
adnominal -ei (Silvia–Silviei), adnominal case is generally
marked on singular proper names by the gender-invariant
proclitic form lui: telefonul lui Ion/lui Ani ‘John’s/Ani’s tele-
phone’. This usage has extended to invariant common
nouns referring to persons and to some invariant inanimate
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ROMANIAN
nouns (such as names of months: lui mai ‘of May’) and in
substandard varieties may be used with femininine proper
names in -a (lui Silvia) and with demonstrative pronouns
referring to persons (lu ăsta ‘of him’, for ăstuia). Historically,
lui (substandardly pronounced lu) is a remnant of a pre-
posed masculine singular form of the definite article
(see Stan 2013a:264). The form lu serves in southern Istro-
Romanian (Kovačec 1984:567f.) as a proclitic marker, invari-
ant for number and gender, of adnominal case in combination
with the enclitic definite article (1):
(1) dɑ lu ˈvɑʦile fir
give lu cows.the.FPL hay
‘Give the cows hay!’
In northern Istro-Romanian this use of lu is limited to the
singular, and to the masculine; it has a feminine singular
counterpart le. Use of an invariant lu appears in most var-
ieties of Megleno-Romanian (Capidan 1925:145-50; Atanasov
2002:213f.), where it is a generalized case marker, lacking
particular connection with definiteness; there is also a clear
distinction between genitive and dative functions, lu being
genitive, la dative: lu/la un om ‘of/to a man’; lu/la unə muˈʎari
‘of / to a woman’; lu/la omu(l) ‘of/to the man’; lu/la muˈʎerli
‘of/to the women’.
8.4.3.2 Gender, gender marking, and the ‘neuter’
There is a degree of semantic predictability of gender,
nouns referring to males and females being overwhelmingly
masculine or feminine respectively, with decreasing con-
sistency as one descends the animacy hierarchy (e.g. M tată
‘father’, F mamă ‘mother’, despite the former carrying an
apparently feminine ending). The opposition between mas-
culine and feminine forms may also be exploited to mark
the difference between cultivated trees (masculine) and
their fruits (feminine): M păr ‘pear tree’, F pară ‘pear’. The
gender of inanimates is usually unpredictable (M soare ‘sun’,
F floare ‘flower’). All so-called ‘neuters’ (discussed below)
have inanimate (more accurately, ‘non-living’) reference,
but not all inanimates are ‘neuter’.7
Gender is to a signifcant degree morphologically predict-
able on the basis of the inflectional endings, a fact of great
importance to the question of the ‘neuter’. As Table 8.3
shows, -i can be masculine plural or feminine plural, -e
masculine singular or feminine singular or feminine plural,
while -ă, overwhelmingly feminine singular, contains a few
masculines (e.g. tată ‘father’, popă ‘priest’). Yet -Ø and -u are
7
Alleged exceptions to the rule that all ‘neuters’ denote inanimates are
animal ‘animal’, mamifer ‘mammal’, and dobitoc ‘animal, beast’—but these
primarily denote kinds.
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uniquely associated with masculine singular, and both -e
and -uri, when they are plural desinences, with feminine
agreement.
Whether Romanian has a ‘neuter’ is controversial (e.g.
Hall 1965; Marcus 1967:123, 143; Jakobson 1971:188; Farkas
1990; Matasović 2004:51; Maiden 2011a:701 n. 36; 2013e;
§57.3.2). Unquestionably, the ultimate source of the ‘neuter’
plural desinences are Latin neuter desinences, but until
recently (see Bateman and Polinsky 2010) little attention
has been given to the role of purely morphological factors in
determining the status of nouns as ‘neuters’. ‘Neuter’ means
‘neither masculine nor femininine’ but the so-called ‘neuters’
are actually both masculine (in the singular) and feminine
(in the plural), and this by virtue of their inflectional
morphology. It is a striking (and little-observed, but see
Philippide 2011:433) characteristic, both today and in
diachrony, that ‘neuters’ have singulars which by their
form are unambiguously masculine and plurals which by
their form are unambiguously feminine. ‘Neuters’ in singu-
lar -ă are unknown, those in -e (ambiguous for gender)
vanishingly rare, while the ‘neuter’ plural endings are -e
or -uri, both consistently selecting feminine agreement
(Table 8.6).
The fact (§8.4.3.1) that plural forms need to be memorized
by speakers alongside singulars, and that gender in ‘neuters’
is systematically predictable from desinential morphology,
suggests that in such nouns the alternating gender is ‘mor-
phologically driven’, being exclusively a function of the
identity of the plural forms. The term ‘neuter’ in this light
is a superfluous misnomer for a set of nouns whose alter-
nating masculine and feminine gender is a consequence of
their morphology.8
This sensitivity of nouns with alternating gender to the
form of their singulars and plurals is borne out by history.
Table 8.6 So-called ‘neuters’ (with agreeing
adjective MSG alb FPL albe ‘white’)
MASCULINE SINGULAR FEMININE PLURAL
scaun alb ‘white chair’ scaune albe
cadru alb ‘white frame’ cadre albe
telefon alb ‘white phone’ telefoane albe
raft alb ‘white shelf’ rafturi albe
tavan alb ‘white ceiling’ tavane albe
lucru alb ‘white thing’ lucruri albe
8
The fact (cited e.g. by Loporcaro §57.3.2) that alleged ‘neuters’, includ-
ing singularia tantum, always show feminine plural agreement under coord-
ination, whereas masculines do not, is a simple consequence of the fact that
the default agreement pattern for conjoined inanimate nouns is feminine
plural (see below).
102
There has been very extensive historical generalization of
the plural desinence -i for feminine plural -e (e.g. roată
‘wheel’–roate > roată–roți; cf. Iordan 1938:10-17, 32-5, 40-42),
but this—with a few significant exceptions—never occurs in
‘neuters’ in -e (e.g. always os ‘bone’–oase, never **oși). ‘Neu-
ter’ plural -e may in fact be replaced by -i, but only where
some other morphological factor guarantees the unique
gender identifiability of the plural.9 Thus the old ‘neuter’
plural ending -ure (preserved in Istro-Romanian) gives way
to -uri (ORo. timp–timpure ‘time’ > timp–timpuri) because the
resultant -uri continues (by virtue of -ur-) to be uniquely
associated with feminine agreement. Moreover, principally
in eastern Romania, certain nouns such as buzunar ‘pocket’
and mădular ‘limb’ have ‘neuter’ plurals buzunări and mădulări
(cf. older and standard buzunare and mădulare). This replace-
ment of -e by -i is licensed precisely because it is accompanied
by the introduction of the stressed vowel alternant ă which
is, as we saw above, a unique and unambiguous marker of
feminine. The same pattern of characteristically feminine
stressed vowel alternation sometimes also percolates into
nouns with -uri plurals: cf. the type zarzavat ‘vegetable’–zar-
zavături in dialects of Maramureş and Moldova (cf. also
Atanasov 2002:197, 207 for Megleno-Romanian).
The morphology of adjectives is a subset of that of the
major categories of nouns. Most (e.g. MSG alb MPL albi F.ADV.SG
albă F.ADN/PL albe ‘white’) distinguish gender as well as num-
ber. Adjectives in singular -e (e.g. M/F.ADV.SG verde F.ADN/M/FPL
verzi ‘green’) do not distinguish gender (except in the
adnominal singular).10 Feminine adjectives with adverbal
singular -ă generally have alternating forms in -e, although
there are exceptions, especially with regard to adjectives
ending in -că or -gă, many of which have alternants in -i,
identical to the corresponding masculine plurals (e.g. MSG
sec, FSG seacă MPL/FPL seci ‘dry’). Adjectives agree in number,
gender (and case) with the nouns they modify (Table 8.7).
Table 8.7 Adjectival agreement
SG ( ADVERBAL FEMININE PL ( ALSO ADNOMINAL
SINGULAR ) FEMININE SINGULAR )
M copac / scaun alb ‘white tree/chair’ copaci albi
copac / scaun verde ‘green tree/ copaci verzi
chair’
F frunză albă ‘white leaf ’ frunze / scaune albe
frunză verde ‘green leaf ’ frunze / scaune verzi
9
The existence of a series of nouns (all neologisms) in plural -ii, such as
MSG studiu ‘study’ -FPL studii, mentioned by Loporcaro §57.3.2, does not
change this point. Romanian nouns denoting non-living beings and ending
in -ii in the plural all have feminine plurals, predictably so from their form.
10
This class includes a handful of invariants, e.g. feroce ‘fierce’, cumsecade
‘decent’.
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The default plural agreement is masculine when the 8.4.3.3 Vocative

referents are animate. Matters are more complex with
Romanian possesses a morphological vocative (see §55.3.2),
coordinated nouns denoting non-living entities. The ten-
which distinguishes both gender and number. The mascu-
dency is for agreement to be feminine plural, masculine
line singular is usually marked by -e (stăpân ‘master’, VOC
plural agreement being limited in principle to cases where
stăpâne), generally reckoned to continue Latin second
the conjoined inanimate nouns each have a masculine
declension vocative -E, although a Slavonic source is pos-
plural form (conjoined masculine singularia tantum always
sible. Singular nouns in -ă or -a (overwhelmingly feminine)
have feminine plural agreement, in the absence of any
have vocatives in -o, an ending undoubtedly borrowed from
plural form whose morphology might lead speakers to
Slavonic: fată ‘girl’, VOC fato; Ana, VOC Ano; masculine popă
assign feminine gender to the agreement). Compare
‘priest’, VOC popo. This type is considered colloquial and is
examples (2)-(4), where the respective plurals of the con-
mainly encountered in southern Romania. Many Daco-
joined nouns are masculine meri and peri, feminine scaune
Romanian vocatives also affix -e to the masculine definite
and tablouri, and masculine pereți but feminine uși:
article -ul (șoferul ‘the driver’ VOC șoferule)—a phenomenon
first attested in the sixteenth century and today the only
(2) Mărul şi părul sunt albi.
productive means of masculine singular vocative formation.
apple.tree.the.MSG and pear.tree.the.MSG are white.MPL
There is no easy way of predicting whether -e or -ule is used.
‘The apple tree and the pear tree are white.’
Forms in -u, and consonant-final monosyllables, usually
(3) Scaunul şi tabloul sunt albe. take -ule (hoț ‘thief ’ VOC hoțule, fiu ‘son’ VOC fiule); vocatives
chair.the.MSG and picture.the.MSG are white.FPL used in addressing relatives usually end in -e (văr ‘cousin’
‘The chair and the picture are white.’ VOC vere, nepot ‘grandson’ VOC nepoate). In some cases, the
variant endings comport semantic distinctions: e.g. doamne
(4) Peretele şi ușa sunt albe.
‘lord’ vs domnule ‘sir’. Where masculines admit two forms,
wall.the.MSG and door.the.FSG are white.FPL
-ule tends to be pejorative (VOC doctore ‘o doctor’ vs doctorule
‘The wall and the door are white.’
‘quack!’). A curious feature of Aromanian (Saramandu
1984:435f.) is that in nouns used as vocatives, final
However, feminine plural agreement may apply even when
unstressed mid vowels fail to undergo otherwise general
the coordinated nouns are wholly non-feminine. The nouns in
phonological raising: ˈfrati ‘brother’, VOC ˈfrate, SG ˈfe̯atɨ ‘girl’
(5) and (6) each have masculine plurals (ochi, obraji, munți, codri),
PL ˈfe̯ati ‘girls’, VOC ˈfe̯atə, ˈfe̯ate. In informal usage in Roma-
yet readily show feminine plural agreement under coordination:
nian the plural vocative is simply the definite form of the
adverbial plural (e.g. VOC băieții ‘boys’, doamnele ‘ladies’), but
(5) Ochiul şi obrazul sunt
what is remarkable is the use, restricted to Romanian, of
eye.the.MSG and cheek.the.MSG are
adnominal definite forms as vocatives: e.g. ADN.PL domnilor și
neatinse (neatinși).
doamnelor ‘ladies and gentlemen’.
untouched.FPL (MPL)
‘The eye and the cheek are untouched.’
(6) Muntele şi codrul sunt 8.4.4 Morphology of personal pronouns
mountain.the.MSG and wood.the.MSG are
frumoase (frumoși).
As in other Romance languages, personal pronouns divide
beautiful.FPL (MPL)
into stressed and unstressed (clitic) series (Table 8.8). Rela-
‘The mountain and the wood are beautiful.’
tively unusual is the fact that direct and indirect object are
distinguished in the first and second persons in the stressed
In reality, speakers show considerable variation over
series, and just the singular persons in the unstressed series.
gender agreement with coordinated inanimates as, among
There are no clitic subject pronouns.
others, Mallinson (1984) and Croitor and Giurgea (2009:30f.)
The distinction between direct and indirect object in the
attest, and grammarians may contradict not only each other
first and second person singular forms is neutralized in
but even themselves on the subject (cf. Windisch 1973:34-
Aromanian, in favour of the original object form (ˈmini,
46). It remains clear that the fact that the ‘default’ gender
ˈtini), although the original first person singular subject
for the plural of inanimates is feminine leads speakers
form jo(u̯) may is also available as an object: see
to apply feminine agreement to coordinated inanimates
Saramandu (1984:442). In Megleno-Romanian the distinctive
generally, even for nouns which, singly, would select mas-
stressed dative forms have been replaced the preposition
culine agreement in the plural.
la + direct object form (Atanasov 1984:520).

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Table 8.8 Stressed and clitic personal pronouns certain prepositions. Proclisis is general (examples 7, 9, 10,
16, 17), except that gerunds (11), positive imperatives (12,
STRESSED
13), and imperative-like interjections, such as iată ‘here is’,
subject DO IO
na ‘take’ (14), select enclisis, as do nouns and prepositions.
1SG eu mine mie
However, the feminine singular DO clitic o is enclitic to
2SG tu tine ție
the past participle or infinitive in auxiliary + past parti-
3SG el(M) ea(F) lui(M) ei(F)
ciple/infinitive constructions, if the auxiliary commences
3SG/PL. REFL sine sie
with a vowel, and optionally so if it does not (8, 9, 10). This
1PL noi nouă
behaviour of o, limited to Daco-Romanian and becoming
2PL voi vouă
established only in the eighteenth century, was probably
3PL ei(M) ele(F) lor
phonologically determined. Finally, with coordinated
CLITIC
second person imperatives of the type ‘go and . . . ’, the
DO IO second imperative commonly displays proclisis (15). In
1SG mă, m- îmi, mi periphrastic constructions comprising auxiliary or modal
2SG te îți, ți verb + non-finite lexical verb form, clitics are attached to
3SG îl, l(M) o(F) îi, i (and precede) the auxiliary or modal (16), so ‘clitic climb-
3SG/PL.REFL se, s- își, și ing’ is obligatory; but cf. Dragomirescu 2013c:194). In
1PL ne ne, ni periphrastic constructions comprising auxiliary/modal +
2PL vă,v- vă, v-, vi finite (subjunctive) lexical verb form, they attach to the
3PL îi, i(M) le(F) le, li lexical verb (17). The following examples principally use
second person singular dative (î)ți as representative of
indirect object pronouns and third person plural feminine
The clitics show considerable allomorphy. IO variants in -i direct object le as representative of direct object
are selected in combination with a following DO clitic pronouns.
pronoun; those with î- (found only in Daco- and Istro-
Romanian, and only in proclisis), are used exclusively (7) Se duce pentru a ți le
when the pronoun is the sole clitic (except where preceded self= takes for to IO.OCL.2SG= DO.OCL.F3PL=
by the negator nu or the complementizer să, or followed by cumpăra.
vowel-initial auxiliaries). The overall effect is that there are buy.INF
no ‘asyllabic’ clitics. The variants ni and vi before DO clitics ‘He goes to buy them for you.’
(ni-l dă ‘he gives it to us’) seem to be modelled on mi-, ți-.
Note that hosts are always vowel-final when bearing enclitic (8) Ți- a cumpărat- o.
IO.OCL.2SG= has bought= DO.OCL.F3SG
pronouns. The variants m-, v- are employed immediately
before vowel-initial auxiliary verbs (mă are / ne are ‘he has ‘He’s bought you it.’
me/us’, but m-a avut/ne-a [ne̯a] avut ‘he has had me/us’), and (9) Ți- o va cumpăra. (Îți va
v- is also used before clitic o (v-o dă ‘he gives it to you’). In IO.OCL.2SG= DO.OCL.F3SG= will buy.INF (IO.OCL.2SG will
clitics with final [i] and [e], these vowels are tautosyllabic in cumpăra- o.)
combination with a following vowel-initial auxiliary verb: ți- buy.inf= do.ocl.f3sg)
am [ʦi̯am] spus ‘I’ve told you’, ne-ar [ne̯ar] vedea ‘he’d see us’. ‘He’ll buy it for you.’
(10) Ți- ar cumpăra- o.
8.4.4.1 Form and gender of pro-sentential pronouns IO.OCL.2SG= would buy.INF= DO.OCL.F3SG
Pro-sentential anaphoric pronouns (stressed or unstressed) ‘He’d buy it for you.’
systematically have feminine singular morphology, yet
(11) Cumpărându- ți- le, am uitat
masculine singular agreement: Ceea ce spui e fals: n-am
buy.GER= IO.OCL.2SG = DO.OCL.F3PL I.have forgotten
făcut-o ‘that.which.FSG you2SG.say is false.MSG: not I.have
ceva.
done it.FSG (= What you say is false, I didn’t do it)’.
something
‘While I was buying you them, I forgot something.’
8.4.4.2 Clitics and their collocation (12) Cumpără- ți- le!
Clitics are principally hosted by verbs; much more rarely, in buy.IMP.2SG= IO.OCL.2SG= DO.OCL.F3PL
elevated and archaizing styles, also by noun phrases or ‘Buy them for yourself!’

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(13) Cumpărați- vi- le! Some modern northern and western dialects (Moldova,
buy.IMP.2PL= IO.OCL.2PL = DO.OCL.F3PL Bucovina, Maramureș, Banat) display what may be a ‘com-
‘Buy them for yourselves!’ promise’ between the earlier and the newer distribution in
auxiliary + participle constructions, such that the clitic occurs
(14) Na- le tu!
twice, proclitic to the auxiliary and enclitic to the participle:
INTJ= DO.OCL.F3PL you
e.g. Banat m o auˈzɨtu mə, lit. ‘me=has.heard=me’. In Istro-
‘You take them!’
Romanian, it is probably Croatian influence which has led
(15) Du- te și le cumpără. to strikingly low cohesion between clitics and hosts, various
go.IMP.2SG= DO.OCL.2SG and DO.OCL.F3PL buy.IMP.2SG kinds of syntactic material, including whole noun phrases,
‘Go and buy them.’ being allowed between them (note that Croatian unstressed
pronouns tend to occupy the Wackernagel position, although
(16) Ți le poate cumpăra.
this is not invariably true of Istro-Romanian):
IO.OCL.2SG= DO.OCL.F3PL= can.3SG buy.INF
‘He can buy you them.’
(18) la voi se kum ˈziʧe
(17) Poate să ți le cumpere. at you REFL.CL how says
can să IO.OCL.2SG= DO.OCL.F3PL= buy.3SBJV ‘How does one say it among you?’
‘He can buy you them.’
(19) io s akˈmo ˈbolna, me piˈʧoru ˈdore.
I am now ill, DO.OCL.1SG leg.the hurts
Nominal enclisis is limited to dative singular (non-
‘I’m ill now, my leg hurts.’
reflexive) clitics, and broadly indicates the possessor (cf.
§8.5.1.2). Thus casa-i frumoasă or frumoasa-i casă, lit. ‘house.
the=to.him beautiful’ or ‘beautiful.the=to.him house’ mean
8.4.4.3 Address pronouns and related phenomena
‘his beautiful house’. The host is strictly speaking the DP, In addition to the basic, informal, familiar address pronouns
with attachment to the first element of the phrase (which 2SG tu, and 2PL voi (and corresponding verb forms), Roma-
also bears the definite article). Prepositions which can nians strictly use (morphologically invariant) dumneavoastră
host enclitic pronouns are polysyllabic and most have some (< domnia voastră ‘your.PL lordship’) and the second person
internal structure which either derives from a preposition plural verb form, both in the singular and the plural, in
+ noun with enclitic dative (e.g. în juru-i, lit. ‘in the sur- addressing strangers and in acknowledgement of the
round=to.him’, i.e. ‘around him’) or displays similar internal addressee’s social or professional status, although this
structure comprising a preposition followed by a second usage is notably limited to the standard language and not
element, such as deasupra-mi ‘above me’, înainte-ne ‘before us’. established in the dialects of Romania. In the singular
Sequences of more than one clitic are only possible with there is a term which in the standard language is intermedi-
verb hosts, in the order IO-DO. Enclisis may be accompanied ate between tu and dumneavoastră, namely dumneata
by specific morphological peculiarities in the host. Gerunds (originally ‘thy lordship’, ADN dumitale), with second person
display final -u (except before FSG.ACC clitic o): făcând ‘doing’, singular verb form (with colloquial variants such as mata,
făcându-l ‘doing it’, but făcând-o. A phenomenon attested in matale)—forms which are well established in dialect usage.
the early eighteenth century in Transylvanian and western The factors selecting dumneavoastră also operate for third
Daco-Romanian dialects is ‘mesoclisis’ in second person person pronouns, MSG dumnealui (originally ‘his lordship’),
plural imperatives, such that the clitic is interposed FSG dumneaei, and PL dumnealor being selected over el, ea,
between the stem of third conjugation verbs and the second ei/ele, respectively (broadly equivalent to dumneata, there
person plural ending -ți: duce-vă-ți! for duceți-vă! lit. ‘take also emerged relatively recently a third person form, MSG
yourselves!’, ‘go’, or face-ne-ți! for faceți-ne! ‘make us!’ (see dânsul, FSG dânsa, MPL dânșii, FPL dânsele). For an account of
also §53.4.1; cf. Halle and Harris 2005 for similar develop- these gradations, see Niculescu (1965), Vulpe (1980),
ments in Latin-American Spanish); there is also a type, first Vasilescu (2008:212-18; 2013b:401-4). This system seems
attested in nineteenth-century Muntenian, involving iter- limited to Daco-Romanian.
ation of the desinence after the clitic -ți, yielding duceți-vă-ți!
(see Frâncu 1981-2).
In earlier history unstressed pronominal elements (and 8.4.5 Demonstratives and articles: forms
auxiliaries) were subject to ‘Wackernagel’ conditions, tend- and uses
ing to occur immediately after the first major constituent of
the clause, and never clause-initially: e.g. Văzutu-l-am, lit. The demonstrative system is of the proximal vs distal type, with
‘seen him I.have’ vs modern L-am văzut ‘him=I.have seen’. continuants of Latin ISTE (e.g. acest) in the former function and of

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Table 8.9 Demonstratives

Proximal demonstratives
Prenominal adjective Pronouns and postnominal adjective
M F M F
SG PL SG PL SG PL SG PL
ADV acest acești această aceste acesta aceștia aceasta acestea
short ăsta ăștia asta astea
ADN acestui acestor acestei acestor acestuia acestora acesteia acestora
short ăstuia ăstora ăsteia ăstora
Distal demonstratives
Prenominal adjective Pronouns and postnominal adjective
M F M F
SG PL SG PL SG PL SG PL
ADV acel acei acea acele acela aceia aceea acelea
short ăla ăia aia alea
AND acelui acelor acelei acelor aceluia acelora aceleia acelora
short ăluia ălora ăleia ălora

11
ILLE (e.g. acel) in the latter (Table 8.9). The initial ac- continues a (22) Mașina acelui profesor/profesorului
deictic particle ECCUM. The pronouns are differentiated from the car.the that.ADN.MSG teacher/teacher.the.ADN.MSG
adjectives by the presence in the former of word-final -a (pos- acela (aceluia) / ăla
sibly from Latin HAC). Demonstrative pronouns and adjectives that.ADV.MSG (that.ADN.MSG) / that.ADV.MSG
agree with the corresponding noun for number, gender, and este verde.
case (although in spoken usage the postnominal adjectives is green
generally lack case agreement). The prenominal adjectives ‘That teacher’s car is green.’
may precede other prenominal adjectives and quantifiers. Post-
(23) Ăla mă jignește.
nominal demonstrative adjectives are morphologically identi-
that.MSG me= insults
cal to the demonstrative pronouns, and are strictly adjacent to
‘That bloke insults me.’
the noun, which always bears the definite article. The short
forms of the pronouns and postnominal adjectives (see also (24) Asta este ciudat.
Giurgea 2013b) are characteristic of spoken and informal usage, this.FSG is strange.MSG
the postnominal adjective tending to have derogatory conno- ‘This is strange.’12
tations when used with reference to persons in the short forms,
as do the pronouns, especially in their short forms. Only the The formal distinction between prenominal and post-
postnominal adjectives can normally bear contrastive stress, nominal, and long and short, forms is generally absent in
the prenominal position being ‘a mere endophoric determiner, sub-Danubian dialects (Kovačec 1971:108f.; Saramandu
a text-cohesion device’ (Nicolae 2013a:299). Thus (20-24): 1984:444; Atanasov 2002:217f.), as is the requirement that
the noun bear the definite article in combination with a
(20) Acei băieți/ Băieții aceia/ăia vorbesc postnominal demonstrative. Istro-Romanian and Megleno-
those.MPL boys.MPL / boys.MPL those.MPL talk Romanian demonstratives systematically precede the noun.
cu aceștia/ăștia. There is more than one kind of definite article
with these.MPL (Table 8.10), but the source of the principal variety is the
‘Those boys talk with these.’ Latin distal demonstrative ILLE. This is consistently enclitic,
being attached to the right of the noun (or of an adjective
(21) Această studentă / Studenta aceasta/asta este
preceding the noun): drumul lung, lit. ‘road.the long’ (or
this.FSG student.FSG / student.FSG this.FSG is
lungul drum ‘long.the road’). For a survey of views on the
mai inteligentă decât aceea/aia.
origins of this enclisis, see Stan (2013b:286).
more intelligent than that.FSG
‘This (female) student is cleverer than that one.’

11
In some Aromanian varieties locative adverbs display a ternary sys-
tem: aˈo̯a ‘here (by me)’–aˈʦia ‘there (by you)’–aˈklo ‘there’. Daco-Romanian
dialects of Oltenia display a similar distinction (see §54.2.2).
12
For the use of the feminine form (with masculine agreement) in the
pro-sentential demonstrative, see §8.4.4.1.

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Table 8.10 The forms of the definite article (26) A explodat mașina Irinei, nu cea a
has exploded car.the.FSG Irina.ADN, not cel.FSG a
SG PL profesorului.
M F M F teacher.the.ADN
ADV -(u)l/-le -(u)a -i -le ‘Irina’s car exploded, not the teacher’s (one).’
ADN -(u)lui -i -lor
(27) Cei doritori să plece sunt rugați să
cel.MPL desirous.MPL to leave are asked.MPL să
ridice mâna.
The plural articles are suffixed to the plural of the host
raise.3.SBJV hand.the
(lupi ‘wolves’, lupii, lupilor; case ‘houses’, casele, caselor; străzi
‘Those desirous of leaving are asked to raise their
‘streets’, străzile, străzilor; drumuri ‘roads’, drumurile, drumur-
hands.’
ilor). In the adverbal singular, -ul is suffixed to consonant-
final hosts (lup, lupul), and -l to those in -u (centru ‘centre’,
A notable use of cel (see Nicolae 2013c:312f.) modifies
centrul); -le is suffixed to masculines in -e (câine ‘dog’, câinele).
postnominal adjectives or adjectival phrases within definite
The adverbal feminine form affixes -a to nouns in final -e
noun phrases:
(pâine ‘bread’, pâinea), while nouns in -ă ‘replace’ this final
vowel with -a (casă ‘house’, casa). Note that masculine nouns
(28) a. podul lung
with the morphological appearance of feminines behave in
bridge.the.MSG long.MSG
the same way with respect to the article (popă ‘priest’, popa).
Feminines whose singular ends in a stressed vowel take -ua b. podul cel lung
[wa] (stea ‘star’, steaua; zi ‘day’, ziua). The adnominal singular bridge.the.MSG cel.MSG long.MSG
affixes -lui (or -ului with words ending in consonant) in the ‘the long bridge’
masculine and -i to the adnominal form of the feminine (case
(29) a. casa de peste râu
‘house’, casei, străzi ‘street’, străzii).
house.the.FSG of across river
The functions of the enclitic definite article do not differ
significantly from those of its cognates elsewhere in b. casa cea de peste râu
Romance (although see below); but it is noteworthy that house.the.FSG cel.FSG of across river
prepositions (other than cu ‘with’, and those selecting ‘the house across the river’
adnominal case) debar the use of the enclitic article on the
noun they govern, unless that noun is modified. Thus What distinguishes (b) from (a) in (28) and (29) is that in
pe/sub/peste/lângă/la pod/masă, lit. ‘on/under/over/beside/ (b) the property expressed by the adjective is foregrounded,
to bridge/table’, but pe/sub/peste/lângă/la podul lung/masa pe as a defining, well-known characteristic of the referent (cf.
care o vezi, lit. ‘on/under/over/beside/to bridge.the long/ Ștefan cel Mare ‘Stephen the Great’).
table.the which you see’. Arguably, the basic marker of indefiniteness is zero. As
Romanian is distinct from other Romance languages in elsewhere in Romance there is an indefinite article derived
possessing what many view as a second form of definite from Latin UNUS ‘one’ (at least in the Romanian singular and
article, cel. This is originally a demonstrative (see Nicolae adnominal plural), which precedes the noun (or prenominal
2013:310), identical in its forms to the series of ‘long’ distal adjective) and agrees for number, gender, and case with the
demonstrative adjectives acel, etc. given in Table 8.10, minus noun (Table 8.11 and example 30).
initial a-. In Romanian (not sub-Danubian varieties) it is
used instead of the enclitic definite article with ordinal (30) o casă a unor prieteni / a
numerals (cei șapte stâlpi ai înțelepciunii ‘the seven pillars of INDF.FSG house a INDF.M.ADN.PL friendMPL / a
wisdom’) and in marking superlatives (see §8.4.8). unei prietene
Cel is prominent in pronominal function, nominalizing INDF.ADN.FSG friend.ADN.FSG
adjectival and genitival phrases (the enclitic definite article ‘a house of some friends / of a woman friend’
is impossible in this role):
Table 8.11 Forms of the indefinite article
(25) A explodat mașina nouă, nu
M F
has exploded car.the.FSG new.FSG, not
SG PL SG PL
cea veche.
ADV un Ø / niște / unii o Ø / niște / unele
cel.FSG old.FSG.
ADN unui unor unei unor
‘The new car exploded, not the old one.’

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Indefiniteness is usually not overtly marked in the adver- marked by the preceding particle să < *se < Lat. SI ‘if ’) has
bal plural, although the invariant partitive marker niște third person forms derived from the Latin present subjunct-
(from nu știu ce ‘I don’t know what’) is available. Partitive ive. The remainder were replaced at an early stage in the
meaning is normally marked by the bare noun (again, niște history of Daco-Romance by those of the present indicative,
is possible) (31). Plurals unii and unele (bearing suffixed except in a fi ‘be’, which has the root fi- throughout the
definite articles) have the ‘semi-definite’ meanings ‘certain’, subjunctive (while old Romanian had vestiges of a distinct-
‘a number of ’ (32). ive subjunctive form in the first and second persons singular
of a avea ‘have’).
(31) Mănâncă (niște) prăjitură / prăjituri. A distinctive characteristic of about half of first conjuga-
he.eats (some) cake / cakes tion verbs (Table 8.4d), and of the overwhelming majority of
‘He eats (some) cake/-s.’ fourth conjugation verbs (Table 8.4l,m), is the appearance of
referentially ‘empty’ formatives or ‘augments’ -ez- (-eaz-)
(32) Unele prăjituri nu îmi priesc.
and -esc- (-eșt-, -easc-) / -ăsc- (‑ășt‑, -asc-), respectively,
indf.fpl cake.FPL not to.me= please
between the lexical root and the desinence in the singular
‘Some (certain kinds of) cakes don’t agree with me.’
and third person forms of the present and subjunctive (see
Maiden 2004c and also §§27.8, 43.2.4).
Indefiniteness is also frequently expressed in the (ad-
Second person imperatives are generally identical to
verbal) singular by the bare noun (33). In effect, when the
forms of the present indicative (save sunteți ‘you are’ vs IMP
identity of the referent is foregrounded (with ‘extensional’
fiți ‘be’, the latter a subjunctive). A small group of high-
rather than ‘intensional’ meaning) then the indefinite art-
frequency verbs have dedicated second person singular
icle is likely, otherwise not (34).
forms (partly inherited from Latin; see Maiden 2006): 2SG.
PRS faci, zici, (a)duci, ești, vii vs 2SG.IMP fă ‘do’, zi ‘say’, (a)du
(33) Trebuie ciocan.
‘bring’, fii ‘be’, vino ‘come’. Negated second person singular
is.necessary hammer
imperatives are identical to the infinitive (e.g. nu duce ‘don’t
‘We need [something meeting the description of] a
bring’, nu cânta ‘don’t sing’; see also §51.3.1): some Banat
hammer.’
dialects (cf. Mării 1969; Neagoe 1984:264) preserve a once
(34) Trebuie un ciocan special. more widespread analogical extension of this pattern into
is.necessary a hammer special the plural, marked by addition of a second person plural
‘We need a special hammer.’ desinence to the ‘long’ infinitive in -re (see §8.4.6.5): e.g. nu
ducereți, nu cântareți.13 Second person singular imperatives
(of non-first conjugation verbs) tend to distinguish transi-
8.4.6 Forms and functions of verbs tivity: transitives characteristically end in -e, hence identi-
cal to third person singular present indicative (e.g. deschide
8.4.6.1 Inflection classes ‘open3G.PRS/IMP’; sparge ‘break3SG.PRS/IMP’), while intransi-
The verb has four major inflection classes, continuing tives (there are exceptions, cf. Table 8.4g) end in -i, hence
those of Latin, principally identifiable by a characteristic identical to second person singular present indicative (e.g.
‘theme’ vowel immediately following the lexical root in mergi ‘go2G.PRS/IMP’; taci ‘be.quiet2SG.PRS/IMP’). Nielsen
parts of the paradigm (notably the infinitive). The third Whitehead (2012:294-302) suggests that the final -i is a
conjugation is additionally distinguished by root stress in phonologically regular reflex of the Latin second conjuga-
the infinitive and first and second person plural presents. tion imperative ending -Ē in phrase-final position (e.g. TACĒ >
Typical examples of the major classes appear in *ˈtaʧi > taci); since transitives are usually followed by an
Tables 8.4a-d (first conjugation),Table 8.4g (second conju- object noun, and tend thereby not to be phrase-final,
gation), Table 8.4h,i (third conjugation), and Table 8.4j-l phrase-final position tended to be characteristic just of
(fourth conjugation). The type illustrated at Table 8.4m,p intransitives, and -i was accordingly reanalysed and gener-
is discussed later. alized as a marker of imperative.
The synthetic forms of the pluperfect, which continue the
Latin pluperfect subjunctive, have disappeared in Mara-
8.4.6.2 Tense, mood, person, and number: synthetic
mureş, most of Transylvania (except for the southeast and
and periphrastic forms
Romanian has five sets of finite synthetic verb forms, indi- 13
See Haiman and Benincà (1992:86) for parallels in Vallader Romansh
cating tense, mood, and person and number of the subject, and Moena Ladin; also discussion of ‘inflected infinitives’ in §27.7, and
as illustrated in Table 8.4. The subjunctive (virtually always Loporcaro (1995c) for southern Calabria.

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parts of Munţii apuseni), Crişana, Banat, and Istro-Romanian,
Megleno-Romanian, and Aromanian, in favour of analytic
constructions (see below). The pluperfect invariably shares
the same stem as the preterite (see §43.2.2), a past perfect-
ive tense form now rarely used in Romania (being largely
supplanted by the analytic perfect), except in archaic and
literary usage, but surviving extensively there into the nine-
teenth century. The modern dialectal picture (ALR maps 1977-
96; 2017-20) shows the preterite generally absent in Moldova,
in Transylvania (except Ţara Haţegului and the western Car-
pathians), Maramureş (where it survives but sporadically), and
Dobrogea. In Oltenia it typically has ‘hodiernal’ reference,
while the analytic perfect refers to a ‘pre-hodiernal’ past (see
§58.2.3). In Megleno-Romananian and Aromanian the preterite
is the usual exponent of past perfective, but it is extinct in
Istro-Romanian.
Daco-Romance also has a synthetic conditional (Zamfir
2007:322f.). Extinct in modern Romanian, it was present
there into the sixteenth century and survives in modern
Aromanian and Istro-Romanian. It appears to represent a
fusion of Latin perfect subjunctive and future perfect, whose
forms were already identical or very similar in Latin (e.g. 3SG.
FUT.PRF/PRF.SBJV FECERIT > fecere ‘he would do’), appearing in old
14
Romanian only in the protasis of conditional sentences whose
apodosis contained a future, imperative, or present subjunct-
ive verb (see Ivănescu 1980:155f.).15 The synthetic conditional
seems usually to have future-time reference in Aromanian
(consider most of the examples given by Nevaci 2006:149-52)
and Istro-Romanian (cf. Pușcariu 1926).
Analytic forms are an integral part of the verb system.
They generally comprise an auxiliary marking person, num-
ber, and mood, and a non-finite form of the lexical verb.
Note that all verbs follow exactly the template given in
Table 8.12 in respect of their analytic forms.
The auxiliaries of the perfect indicative and subjunctive
are shortened forms, respectively, of the present and
subjunctive of the lexical verbs HAVE and BE (although the
full forms are used in these functions in Aromanian
and Megleno-Romanian); auxiliary BE is in Romanian invari-
ant, lacking person and number endings. The selection of
auxiliary HAVE vs BE depends purely on morphosyntactic
category, the former being used in Romanian with the
perfect indicative, the latter everywhere else: see further
§49.3.1 and, particularly, Ledgeway (2014a) for an explan-
ation of this distribution.
Modern Romanian lacks synthetic future forms.16 The
principal type of analytic future comprises a phonologically
reduced form of the present indicative of an old form of the
verb WANT plus (short) infinitive. Spoken and informal regis-
ters possess additional periphrases with an auxiliary
derived, again, from WANT (Table 8.13).
The oi plăti type also serves (principally in the third
person) as an ‘epistemic’ or ‘presumptive’ future in the
standard: o plăti ‘perhaps/I guess he’s paying’. The future
of BE, o fi has exclusively this function. There is also a
dedicated periphrastic structure with presumptive function,
comprising the future of BE and the gerund of the lexical
verb: va/o fi plătind ‘he’s probably paying’ etc. The type o să
Table 8.13 Informal/spoken forms of the future
1SG oi plăti o să plătesc
2SG ăi/ei/îi/ii plăti o să plătești
3SG a/o plăti o să plătească
1PL om plăti o să plătim
2PL ăți/eți/îți/oți plăti o să plătiți
3PL or plăti o să plătească

Table 8.12 Principal verb periphrases: perfect infinitive (a) fi plătit ‘(to) have paid’
PRF . IND PRF . SBJV FUT FUT . PRF . COND PRF . COND

AUX HAVE + PST . PTCP AUX BE + PST . PTCP AUX + INF FUT BE + PST . PTCP AUX + PST . PTCP COND BE + PST . PTCP

1SG am plătit (să) fi plătit voi plăti voi fi plătit aș plăti aș fi plătit
2SG ai plătit (să) fi plătit vei plăti vei fi plătit ai plăti ai fi plătit
3SG a plătit (să) fi plătit va plăti va fi plătit ar plăti ar fi plătit
1PL am plătit (să) fi plătit vom plăti vom fi plătit am plăti am fi plătit
2PL ați plătit (să) fi plătit veți plăti veți fi plătit ați plăti ați fi plătit
3PL au plătit (să) fi plătit vor plăti vor fi plătit ar plăti ar fi plătit

16
Romanian lacks dedicated structures expressing ‘future-in-the-past’.
14
See esp. Haverling (2013:24f.) for their formal and functional overlap An event presented as future with respect to some reference point in the
in Latin. past is expressed simply by a future: Spun/Spuneam că va plăti ‘I say/was
15
For precedents in the use of the future perfect in Latin, see e.g. saying that he will/would leave’ (cf. also §8.5.2.4). For the semantic history
Haverling (2013). of the future (and conditional), see Popescu (2012).

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MARTIN MAIDEN
plătesc is characteristic of informal, and especially spoken,
registers. Note that it comprises an invariant auxiliary, o,
followed by the present subjunctive of the lexical verb, and
that the latter alone marks person and number, and hosts
clitics.
There is an additional periphrasis comprising the present
of the lexical verb avea ‘have’ + să + subjunctive, originally a
deontic construction ‘have to . . . ’ (e.g. 1SG am să plătesc, 2SG ai
să plătești, 3PL au să plătească ‘I/youSG/they will (lit. ‘have to’)
pay’), often retaining connotations of necessity (cf. peri-
phrastic futures in southern Italian dialects in §16.4.2.1).
This structure is practically never used with the (bisyllabic)
first and second person plural (avem, aveți), and rather
rarely in the third person singular (are), so that it is effect-
ively limited to the (monosyllabic) first and second person
singular and the third person plural. See further Pană
Dindelegan (2012:572f).
The expression of future is intimately linked with the
subjunctive in Megleno-Romanian and Aromanian. In the
former, indeed, the future is mainly expressed by the sub-
junctive (Capidan 1925:167f.) (i.e. si (= Ro. să) + present
(subjunctive) forms of the verb). In the latter, future is
principally expressed in a way cognate with the Romanian
voi + infinitive type. The crucial differences (regional vari-
ants of form aside) are: (i) instead of the infinitive, forms of
the subjunctive are used (expressing the person and number
of the subject); (ii) the auxiliary verb is morphologically
invariant va (unlike Romanian voi etc., which inflects for
person and number): cf. Ledgeway (forthcoming a) for
southern Italian parallels. For example: va sɨ ʃtiu ‘I will
know’, va sɨ ʃtibɨ ‘s/he/they will know’ (= Ro. voi ști, va/vor
ști). Given that the Aromanian subjunctive has multiple
tense forms (see below), there are multiple possible com-
binations of either of the future auxiliaries with any of the
subjunctive tenses (for parallels in creole languages, cf.
§§24.2.4.2.1, 24.3.5.1), many of which occur with variable
degrees of semantic transparency (see Saramandu 2003b;
Nevaci 2006:115-40). Va + analytic perfect subjunctive yields
a future perfect, and the same meaning can be produced by
combining va with the subjunctive preterite (e.g. va s ˈfe̯aʦe
‘he’ll have done’: Capidan 1932:470).
For the complex evolution of the periphrastic condi-
tional, see Zamfir (2007:321-76). The modern standard pre-
sent conditional comprises an auxiliary derived from the
ancestor of a vrea ‘want’ combined with the short infinitive
of the lexical verb. For the earliest attestations and values of
this type see Zamfir (2007:324-32). The morphological and
phonological history of the auxiliary aș, etc., is problematic
(see Rothe 1957:117f.), and interference from auxiliary
forms of HAVE is possible. For forms of the auxiliary in initial
/r/-, see Frâncu (1997:140, 341) for seventeenth-century
Romanian, Neagoe (1984:264) for modern southwestern
110
Banat, Nevaci (2006:146), Sârbu and Frățilă (1998:26),
Atanasov (1984:577) for Istro-Romanian.
The Romanian perfect conditional comprises the condi-
tional of auxiliary BE plus past participle. Istro-Romanian
differs (cf. Kovačec 1971:143, 149), using a combination of
the conditional auxiliary with the past participle of BE fol-
lowed by the infinitive of the lexical verb: i̯o rɛʃ fost kənˈtɑ,
lit. ‘I would been sing.INF (= I’d have sung)’. Crișana (Urițescu
1984:310) has a construction combining a (morphologically
invariant) form of the imperfect of a vrea ‘want’ + infinitive
(cf. Zamfir 2007:346-9 for this pattern in old Romanian).
A similar situation obtains in Megleno-Romanian, where
an invariant form of the imperfect of WANT is combined
with the subjunctive: vre̯a sə viˈnim ‘we would come’. Crișana
further shows traces of an alternative perfect conditional,
comprising the perfect of a vrea ‘want’ + infinitive, a type
widely attested in the sixteenth and early seventeenth cen-
turies, particularly in northern and western Romania
(Frâncu 1997:140; Zamfir 2007:351-34): am vrut muri, lit.
‘I have wanted to die (= I’d have died)’. In Aromanian a
(morphologically invariant) form of the imperfect of WANT
is deployed variously with the present subjunctive (vre̯a s
ˈkɨntu), synthetic conditional (vre̯a s kɨnˈtarimu), imperfect
(vre̯a s kɨnˈtamu), or periphrastic pluperfect of the subjunct-
ive (vre̯a s aˈve̯amu kɨnˈtatɨ) to form past conditionals
(cf. Capidan 1932:472f.): all the foregoing are glossed by
Saramandu (1984:459) as ‘I would have sung’. In Megleno-
Romanian the past conditional is formed by the invariant
form of the imperfect of WANT used for the present condi-
tional, combined with the perfect subjunctive: vre̯a sə ˈaibə
flat, lit. ‘(he) wanted that he have found (= he’d have found)’.
In most Daco-Romance varieties outside Moldova, Mun-
tenia, and Oltenia (and the western Carpathians) the plu-
perfect is expressed periphrastically rather than
synthetically. In Aromanian (where the synthetic form per-
haps once existed: Nevaci 2006:110; 2013:28), and in
Megleno-Romanian, it is formed from the imperfect indica-
tive of auxiliary HAVE plus past participle (Capidan
1932:463f.); there are traces of this structure in old Roma-
nian (cf. also §49.3.1).
Widespread in dialects of Transylvania, Banat, Crișana,
and Maramureș is a pluperfect periphrasis comprising the
perfect of BE (auxiliary HAVE + past participle fos(t)) and the
lexical past participle.17 Thus Feneș (ALR point 102) o fos
kənˈtatu̯, lit. ‘they.have been sung (= they had sung)’. Istro-
Romanian seems to lack dedicated pluperfect forms (but cf.
Pușcariu 1926:181) and past anteriority is generally indi-
cated by a perfect with an adverb meaning ‘already’.
17
The lexical past participle is invariant. The verb BE generally lacks a
periphrastic pluperfect (cf. ALR map 2166).
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The subjunctive is invariant for tense. Its forms are iden- Table 8.14 Istro-Romanian aspectual pairs (infinitive)
tical to those of the present indicative in the first and
IMPERFECTIVE PERFECTIVE
second persons; in the third they are generally distinct
from the present indicative, and continue the Latin present skaˈkɛi ̯ jump skoˈʧi
subjunctive forms, while a fi ‘be’ has a distinctive set of spoviˈdɛi ̯ confess spoviˈdi
subjunctive forms for all persons and numbers. With very ˈtorʧe spin poˈtorʧe (or spreˈdi)
few exceptions in fixed expressions, the subjunctive is laˈtrɑ bark zalaˈtrɑ
always immediately preceded by să (< *se ‘if ’). There is durˈmi sleep zadurˈmi
also a ‘perfect subjunctive’, comprising să, a nowadays maʧiˈrɑ grind zmeˈʎi
invariant form of the subjunctive of BE, namely fi, and the fareˈkɑ shoe a horse prikuˈji
past participle. While it is sometimes viewed as a ‘past’ bɛ drink poˈpi
subjunctive, its function is better described as simply mark-
ing anteriority or perfectivity (cf. A ieșit fără să spună nimic
(entirely so for auxiliaries and modals). There is also exten-
‘He went out without saying anything’ and A ieșit fără să fi
sive morphological marking of iterative aspect.
spus nimic ‘He went out without having said anything’). This
For a characterization of the functional and lexical
overall picture is broadly true for most dialects (although
nuances expressed by the aspectual differences see espe-
auxiliary fi inflects for person and number in many var-
cially Hurren (1969; 1999:114-38), and in particular his con-
ieties). Aromanian (to a lesser extent Megleno-Romanian)
siderations on the status of iterative forms. The
is, however, different: while Romanian has only one set of
morphological or lexical substance of these distinctions
verb forms for the subjunctive, all Aromanian synthetic
(see Table 8.14) may be wholly Croatian (the aspectual vari-
verb forms, together with the analytic constructions com-
ants are borrowed from Croatian), may involve borrowing
prising auxiliary plus past participle, have a corresponding
of a (usually) Croatian aspect-marking affix into a Romance
subjunctive. In most cases the sole marker of ‘subjunctive’ is
verb in the perfective or iterative, or may involve lexical
the local equivalent of să (see Caragiu Marioțeanu et al.
borrowing of a Croatian verb for one aspect (notably to
1977:188; Nevaci 2006:125). The uses of the different Aroma-
mark perfective). These distinctions may also correspond
nian tense forms of the subjunctive are peculiarly complex
to differences of conjugation class.
(see esp. Nevaci 2006 for a description). They often reflect
Northern Istro-Romanian is apparently the only Romance
the tense of the main clause (e.g. past tense verbs preceded
language which has lost the inherited imperfect tense form (it
by the subjunctive marker are used where the main verb is
is also retreating in southern varieties). Overall (cf. Pușcariu
past), but they are also used in future and conditional
1926:178f., 257; Hurren 1969:88-90; 1999:97f.) this may be
marking and in certain circumstances as admiratives.
because in a system where the entire verb system distin-
Indeed, there even exists a preterite form of the subjunctive
guishes aspect, it is sufficient—to express the meanings gen-
(uniquely among Romance languages), which has an ad-
erally associated with the imperfect—to use a periphrastic past
mirative (or ‘dubitative’: cf. Saramandu 1984:459; Nevaci
form comprising auxiliary verb and an imperfective or itera-
2006:153), function: e.g. sɨ lu ˈfecu ˈmini, lit. ‘sɨ it= did.1SG.PRT
tive form of the past participle (data after Hurren 1969):
I (= Really, did I do it?)’.
(35) in ʃpiˈtu̯al am munˈkat ʒir ˈsaka zi
8.4.6.3 Aspect marking in Istro-Romanian in hospital I.have eaten.IPFV fruit every day
and other sub-Danubian dialects ‘In hospital I used to eat fruit every day.’
The morphology of the Istro-Romanian verb is permeated, (36) oˈbiʧno am kumparaˈveit kʷarne, ˈali jer
under Croatian influence, by the marking of aspect (cf. usually I.have bought.ITER meat, but yesterday
Pușcariu 1926:251-53; Kovačec 1963:25-8, 37; 1966:70f.; am kumpaˈrʷat ˈribe
1968:108f.; 1971:123-30; Hurren 1969; Sala 2013:219). No I.have bought.IPFV fish
other Romance language shows any comparable degree of ‘I usually bought meat, but yesterday I bought fish.’
aspect marking, although Megleno-Romanian also borrows
aspect marking from Slavonic (Atanasov 2002:226f.). Virtu-
ally all verbs distinguish—in all tenses, and in finite and
8.4.6.4 The Megleno-Romanian evidential
non-finite forms—imperfective and perfective aspect. Only Several varieties of Megleno-Romanian possess an ‘eviden-
a few dozen (of Romance origin, such as laˈsɑ ‘let’, ɨntreˈbɑ tial’ periphrastic perfect, expressing information of which
‘ask’, aˈflɑ ‘find’, ramaˈre ‘remain’, veˈde ‘see’, ˈkrede ‘believe’, the speaker was not the direct witness (see Atanasov
ˈspure ‘say’, avˈzi ‘hear’, muˈri ‘die’) may lack aspect marking 1984:528; 2002:244f.; also Aikhenvald 2004:288f.). It comprises

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MARTIN MAIDEN

the past participle followed by a dedicated, enclitic form of The gerund is morphologically invariant, and occasional
the present or imperfect of auxiliary HAVE: compare perfect ari adjectival uses showing agreement are learnèd imitations of
mənˈkat ‘he has eaten/ate’ (with proclitic auxiliary) and evi- French present participles (cf. Nicula 2013b:246f.). It has
dential mənˈkat əu̯ ‘(apparently/I’m told) he has eaten/ate’. various clausal functions as an adjunct (44), a modifier
(45), an argument of the object of certain (particularly
perception) verbs (46). For detailed discussion, see
8.4.6.5 Non-finite forms and their functions: past
Niculescu (2013b).
participles, supines, gerunds, infinitives
The past participle is used, in combination with an auxiliary, (44) Deschizând ușa, ne vede.
in various perfective periphrases (§8.4.6.2). In such con- open.GER door.the, us= he.sees
structions it shows no agreement with the subject or object ‘While/By opening the door, he sees us.’
of the verb (cf. §49.2). Past participles of transitive verbs
(45) un complot vizând să atace Londra
may be used predicatively, including the passive, and then
a plot aim.GER să attack.3.SBJV London
agree with the noun they modify (37-39).
‘a plot aiming to attack London’
(37) Pereții păreau proaspăt văruiți. (46) Aud plouând
walls.the.MPL seemed fresh painted.MPL I.hear rain.GER
‘The walls seemed freshly painted.’ ‘I hear it raining.’
(38) istoria unei țări cucerite
Continuants of the Latin infinitive survive robustly
history.the.FSG a.ADN.FSG country.ADN.FSG conquered.ADN.FSG
throughout Daco-Romance. In old Romanian it had both a
de turci
long form (preserving Latin final -RE) and a short form
by Turks
(with -RE truncated), without clear distinction of function.
‘the history of a country conquered by the Turks’
In the modern language, in contrast, these forms have a
(39) Țara a fost cucerită de turci. clear functional differentiation (Pană Dindelegan 2013a:
country.the.FSG has been conquered.FSG by Turks 215f.): the short form remains part of the inflectional
‘The country was conquered by the Turks.’ paradigm of the verb and appears in various periphrastic
structures (see Table 8.8), while the long is a (feminine)
The past participles of unaccusatives may be used pre- noun, potentially deviating from the verb semantically:
dicatively and as extrasentential adjuncts:
(47) a. Cântarea ți- ar plăcea.
(40) Maria era plecată în Franța. sing.INF(long).the to.you= would please.INF(short)
Maria was departed.FSG in France ‘The song/singing would please you.’
‘Maria was away in France.’
b. plăcerea de a cânta
(41) Ajunși la râu, beau. please.INF(long).the of to sing.INF(short)
reached.MPL at river they.drink ‘the pleasure of singing’
‘Having/Because they’ve reached the river, they
drink.’ With the exception of periphrastic structures, verbs gov-
(42) Le știam întoarse acasă. erned by a putea ‘be able’, and certain relative constructions
them.FPL= I.knew returned.FPL home introduced by a avea ‘have’ or a fi ‘be’ (48, 49), modern
‘I knew them to be/to have come back home.’ infinitives are preceded (including in their citation form in
dictionaries and grammars) by the particle a (originally a
The past participles of a few transitives/unergatives, preposition ‘to(wards)’ used in purposive constructions),
notably a mânca ‘eat’, a bea ‘drink’, a citi ‘read’, a ocoli ‘go separable from the infinitive only by clitic pronouns, the
round’, can also be used predicatively with active meaning negator, and the clitic adverbs (§8.5.3); cf. Pană Dindelegan
(cf. §16.4.2.2): (2013a:212-14). The construction a + infinitive is available as
complement of prepositions (50, 51).
(43) Ajung la școală nemâncați.
they.arrive at school NEG.eaten.MPL (48) N- am ce spune.
‘They arrive at school on an empty stomach (lit. not I.have what say.INF
‘uneaten’).’ ‘I have nothing to say.’

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(49) Nu este cine ne ajuta. (52) Culesul merelor a început.

not is who us= help.INF harvest.SUP.the apple.the.ADN.PL has begun
‘There is nobody to help us.’ ‘The harvesting of apples began.’
(50) Românii sunt reticenți în a cumpăra online. (53) A plecat la cules mere.
Romanians.the are reticent in a buy.INF online he.has left to harvest.SUP apples
‘Romanians are reluctant to buy online.’ ‘He went apple-picking / to pick apples.’
(51) Se gândește la a pleca. (54) Vine vremea treieratului.
self= thinks to to leave.INF comes time.the thresh.SUP.the.ADN.SG
‘He thinks of leaving.’ ‘Threshing time comes.’
(55) maşină de spălat vase
While in Istro-Romanian the long infinitive is extinct, the
machine of wash.SUP vessels
short form is lost in Aromanian and virtually extinct in
‘dishwasher’
Megleno-Romanian (but see Atanasov 2002:231).
Romanian, uniquely in Romance, has a ‘supine’ form for (56) Hainele sunt (bune) de purtat.
almost every verb. It is inflectionally invariant and always clothes.the are (good) de wear.SUP
identical in form to the masculine singular past participle.18 ‘The clothes are (fit) for wearing.’
Direct descent from its Latin namesake is plausible on
(57) Se dăruiește cântatului.
phonological and morphological grounds, but doubtful in
self= dedicates singSUP.the.ADN.SG
that the supine has many functions which its Latin coun-
‘He dedicates himself to singing.’
terpart lacked, while Pană Dindelegan (2011) shows from
old Romanian that the earliest uses were predominantly (58) Nu- mi vorbi de frecat parchetul!
nominal, rather than verbal (see also Dragomirescu 2012; not to.me= speak.INF of scrub.SUP floor.the
2013b), unlike its primarily verbal uses in Latin. It is usually ‘Don’t tell me about scrubbing the floor!’
claimed (Caragiu Marioţeanu 1962:33; 1968:106; Brâncuş
(59) Urăsc pârâtul.
1967; Stan 2001:552) that the supine is unique to Daco-
I.hate accuse.SUP.the
Romanian, inviting the inference that it is a recent, local
‘I hate snitching.’
innovation. In fact, while the supine is principally found
there, there are traces in Megleno-Romanian. See Maiden (60) Ion se lasă de fumat.
(2013c) for some considerations about its history, and for a Ion self= leaves off smoke.SUP
suggestion that it also survives in Aromanian. The supine ‘Ion gives up smoking.’
has numerous functions, irreducible to any common
(61) De lucrat, lucrez.
denominator (cf. Soare 2007; Maiden 2013c), of which a
about work.SUP I.work
detailed typology may be found in Pană Dindelegan
‘I do indeed work.’
(2013a:234-45). In examples (52, 54, 57, 59) it functions
variously as subject, object, or prepositional complement (62) Cartea asta e greu de citit.
of the verb, potentially bearing the definite article (inflect- book.the.FSG this.FSG is hard.MSG of read.SUP
ing for case) and/or being modified by an adjective. In (53, ‘This book is hard to read.’
55, 58) it takes a direct object. It expresses goal or purpose
after verbs of motion followed by la ‘to’ (53). It is used, Supines, infinitives, and subjunctives frequently show
preceded by the preposition de, to indicate use or purpose functional overlaps (see Pană Dindelegan 2013a:244f.):
(e.g. (55), also o unealtă de pescuit ‘a device for fishing.SUP’,
etc.). In example (61) the supine, preceded by de, topicali- (63) Este ușor de spus / a spune / să spui.
zesa following finite verb. It is a notable feature of Roma- it.is easy de say.SUP / to say.INF / să say.2SG.SBJV
nian ‘tough’-constructions (cf. Pană Dindelegan 2013a:240), ‘It’s easy to say.’
illustrated in (62), that the predicate adjective is invariant,
regardless of gender and number of the subject (cf. ordinary
8.4.6.6. ‘Feminization’ of the non-finite
agreeing predicative cartea e grea ‘book.the.FSG is hard.FSG’).
Daco-Romance non-finite forms display an apparent
18
tendency to acquire the morphosyntactic trappings of
Some nominalized supines acquire lexically idiosyncratic meanings
for which they may display plural forms: e.g. venit, supine of a veni ‘to come’,
feminine gender. The ‘long’ infinitive (§8.4.6.5), used nom-
has plural venituri in the sense ‘income’. inally, displays feminine gender agreement and inflects

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MARTIN MAIDEN
like a feminine noun: e.g. Ro. o înţelegere nouă ‘a.FSG under-
standing new.FSG’, adnominal singular unei înţelegeri noi ‘of.
a.FSG.ADN understanding.SG.ADN new.FSG.ADN’. Nominalized
infinitives are very often abstract nouns, and it is perhaps
because Romanian abstract nouns are very often feminine
that these infinitives assume feminine gender. However,
there is also some morphological ‘feminization’ of other
non-finite forms, albeit not throughout Daco-Romance. In
Aromanian, the (invariant) form of the past participle
used in analytic tense forms comprising auxiliary + past
participle has a distinctively feminine (singular) ending,
usually -ɨ (see e.g. Nevaci 2006:168-70): ai̯ avˈʣɨtɨ ‘you’ve
heard’, aˈve̯amu durˈɲitɨ ‘I/we had slept’. Maiden
(2013c:513) suggests that a number of apparent nominal-
ized feminine past participles in Aromanian are really
‘feminized’ forms of the supine. Feminized past parti-
ciples are well attested within Romania as well, solely
feminine forms of the past participle appearing in ana-
lytic tense forms, particularly in dialects of Crișana, Mar-
amureș, and parts of northern Transylvania, wherever the
auxiliary is fi ‘be’ (see Orza 1980; Urițescu 2007): e.g. aș fi
cântată ‘I’d have sung.FSG’. The gerund, too, sometimes
displays apparent feminine morphology. Aromanian and
Istro-Romanian gerunds end in -a (cf. Caragiu Marioțeanu
1968:122f.; Nevaci 2006:175f.), and gerunds in -ă are spor-
adically attested in Romanian dialects, notably of eastern
Muntenia.19
8.4.7 Derivational morphology
Derivational morphology principally involves suffixation
(often with attendant, predictable root allomorphy; see
Stan and Moldoveanu Pologea 2013:607-11). Many pre-
fixes are recent, learnèd, importations (anti-, para-, re-),
although răs-/răz- is an older Slavonic loan with iterative
or intensifying meaning, e.g. a citi ‘to read’, a răsciti ‘to
read over and over’. For a survey of suffixal marking of
sex differences, and the rich system, in particular, of
(sometimes multiple) diminutive suffixes (the latter fre-
quently used in informal speech, especially when
addressing children: e.g. pat ‘bed’, pătuț ‘beddy’), see
Croitor (2013:598-606).
Derivational morphology differs significantly from
other Romance languages in the formation of ethnonymic
nouns and adjectives and related adverbs and glottonyms.
Such nouns denoting persons may have distinctive forms,
19
These facts might be seen against a broader context of ‘feminization’
in Romanian. Compare the use of certain prepositions as feminine nouns
(§8.5.1.2), or of the pronoun sine ‘self ’ as a nominalized feminine (e.g. în
sinea mea ‘in self.the.FSG my.FSG’ ‘in my inner self ’), or morphologically
feminine pro-sentential pronouns (§8.4.4.1).
114
with special suffixes differentiating females from males.
There are often two kinds of adjective, one of which
has the suffix ‑esc, and usually a corresponding adverb
in -ește meaning ‘in the manner of . . . ’, but mostly ‘in
the language of . . . ’. The name of the language is normally
a feminine form of one of the adjectives (reflecting
ellipsis of feminine limbă ‘language’). Consider the forms
in Table 8.15, associated with România ‘Romania’, Franța
‘France’, Germania ‘Germany’, Japonia ‘Japan’, and Anglia
‘England’.
Neither the forms nor their distribution (there are gaps)
are systematically predictable. The ending -că for females (a
Slavonic loan) is usually found where there is a correspond-
ing term for males in -n; otherwise what is historically a
double suffix, part Romance and part Slavonic, namely
-oaică, is used. Note the requirement that the forms denot-
ing females be used in apposition with nouns denoting
females: o studentă franțuzoaică/**franțuzească/**franceză ‘a
French (female) student’.
The semantic distinction between the adjective in -esc
(for its etymology, see Arvinte 1983) and the other adjective
can be elusive. Those in the first column of Table 8.15 are
(mainly) recent learnèd borrowings and tend to denote
what officially pertains to the state or the government of
the associated territory (guvernul român, armata română
‘the Romanian government/army’), while -esc tends to
denote what is inherently and traditionally characteristic
of the territory (vin românesc, basm românesc ‘Romanian
wine/tale’).
Adverbs generally lack distinctive morphological mark-
ing (cf. Chircu 2008; Mîrzea Vasile 2012). Those derived from
adjectives are identical to the masculine singular adjective
(cântecul este frumos ‘the song.MSG is beautiful.MSG’ and el
cântă frumos ‘he sings beautifully’); only bun ‘good’ has a
distinctive adverbial form, bine ‘well’ (some sub-Danubian
dialects lack even this) and adjectives in -esc, have adverbs
in -ește (firesc ‘natural’, firește ‘naturally’), a type absent in
Istro-Romanian (Sârbu and Frățilă 1998:28). This -ește also
has some productivity in producing adverbs from nouns:
oameni ‘people’, omenește ‘humanly’. Occasional forms in
‑mente, such as literalmente ‘literally’ are borrowings from
other Romance languages, although an inherited reflex of
Romance *-ˈmente persists in altminteri ‘otherwise’ (Hummel
2013:25f.). Istro-Romanian, by dint of borrowing the Cro-
atian neuter and adverbial desinence ‑o, has created a dis-
tinctive inflectional marking for adverbs, e.g. ɑt ‘other.MSG’,
ɑto ‘otherwise’: see Sala (2013:223-5). An interesting device
is the adverbial use of certain nouns as intensifiers, e.g. e
supărat foc ‘he’s angry fire (= he’s really angry)’, e curat lună
‘it’s clean moon (= it’s as clean as a whistle)’. For various
other modes of adverb formation, see Mîrzea Vasile and
Dinică (2013).

Table 8.15 Derivational morphology of ethnonymic adjectives
ADJECTIVE - ESC ADJECTIVE MALE PERSON
M român românesc român
F română românească
M francez franțuzesc francez
F franceză franțuzească
M german nemțesc neamț (german)
F germană nemțească
M japonez japonez
F japoneză
M englez englezesc englez
F engleză englezească
Numeral formation is more transparent than in most
Romance languages. The numbers 11-19 inclusive have the
structure ‘one (etc.)’ spre (‘on, above’ < Lat. SUPER) zece ‘ten’:
unsprezece ‘11’, doisprezece ‘12’, treisprezece ‘13’, paisprezece
‘14’ (but cf. patru ‘4’), cincisprezece ‘15’ [ˈʧinsprezeʧe] (cf.
cinci [ʧinʧ] ‘5’), șaisprezece ‘16’ (but cf. șase ‘6’), șaptesprezece
‘17’, optsprezece ‘18’, nouăsprezece ‘19’. In spoken usage there
are also variants unșpe, doișpe, treișpe, paișpe, cinșpe, șaișpe,
șapteșpe, optșpe, nouășpe. The gender distinction made for the
units M un F o M doi F două is not made for unsprezece/unșpe,
and only inconsistently in doisprezece. Multiples of 10 from
20 to 90 inclusive follow the formula ‘two tens’, etc.: douăzeci
‘20’, treizeci, patruzeci, cincizeci ([ʧinˈzeʧ], șaizeci (but cf. șase
‘6’), șaptezeci, optzeci [obˈzeʧ], nouăzeci. Aromanian preserves
a reflex of Latin UIGINTI ‘20’, ˈɟinʤiʦ, while the -spre- type also
occurs from ‘21’ to ‘29’, e.g. treisprɨˈɟinʤiʦ ‘23’. Note also
Romanian douăzeci și trei, lit. ‘twenty and 3 (23)’, optzeci și
nouă, lit. ‘eighty and nine (89)’ (but o sută trei ‘103’, o mie nouă
‘1009’, etc.). In Romanian, numbers ending in -zeci (și . . . ), as
also sută, PL sute, o mie, PL mii ‘thousand’, milion, PL milioane
‘million’, miliard, PL miliarde ‘billion’, are followed by de
before a NP: e.g. șaizeci și opt de pahare ‘68 glasses’, patru
sute de oameni ‘400 people’, etc., but optsprezece cărți ‘18
books’, patru sute două pahare ‘402 glasses’, etc. In Megleno-
Romanian and Aromanian de is also thus used with numbers
from 11 to 19.
8.4.8 Comparative and superlative structures
Romanian lacks synthetic forms, comparison of adjectives
(and adverbs) being expressed by the periphrasis mai +
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 25/5/2016, SPi
ROMANIAN
FEMALE PERSON ADVERB GLOTTONYM ( LIMBA )
româncă română
românește
franțuzoaică franceză
franțuzește
nemțoaică (german(c)ă) germană
nemțește
japoneză japoneză
englezoaică engleză
englezește
adjective: mult ‘much’, mai mult ‘more’; bun ‘good’, mai bun
‘better’; bine ‘well’, mai bine ‘better’; rău ‘bad, badly’, mai rău
‘worse’. The superlative is formed by preposing the deter-
miner cel to the comparative: cel mai mult ‘the most’, cel
mai bun ‘the best’. Megleno-Romanian, however, forms
superlatives by suffixing the definite article to the com-
parative (mai ˈmarli fiˈʧ or ‘more big.the boy (= the biggest
boy)’), although this construction may also be preceded
by the cognate of cel (ʦəl). According to Kovačec
(1971:108), Istro-Romanian makes no formal distinction
between comparative and superlative, mai bur, lit. ‘more
good’, being both ‘better’ and ‘best’. Northern Aromanian
(Saramandu 1984:442) borrows from Slavonic the forma-
tive nai, used to form superlatives: nai ˈbunlu, lit. ‘nai
good.the’, ‘the best’.
8.5 Syntax
8.5.1 Nominal group
8.5.1.1 Adjective position
The most distinctive characteristic of the syntax of adjec-
tives is their consistent collocation to the right of the noun
(Stan 2013c:356, 362f.; Brăescu 2013:426-8). There is a small
class of exclusively prenominal (non-contrastive) adjec-
tives, for example fost ‘former, late’, biet ‘poor’(evaluative),
așa-zis ‘so-called’. Another small class, including mare ‘large/
great’, simplu ‘simple/mere’, vechi ‘long-standing, former/
old’, adevărat ‘real/true’, may have meanings corresponding
to the first of each pair of glosses given, when prenominal.
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MARTIN MAIDEN

Otherwise, prenominal position is a stylistically marked (68) a. acei copaci ai vecinului

device serving principally to topicalize the property those.MPL trees.MPL al.mpl neighbour.the.ADN.MSG
expressed by the adjective. ‘those trees of the neighbour’
b. copacii doborâți de furtună ai
(64) Prietenii tăi pricepuți cumpără o mașină
trees.the.MPL felled.MPL by storm al.mpl
friends.the your clever buy a car
vecinului
nouă albastră.
neighbour.the.ADN.MSG
new blue
‘the neighbour’s trees felled by the storm’
‘Your clever friends buy a new blue car.’
c. copacii vecinului
(65) un om mare / un mare om
trees.the.MPL neighbour.the.ADN.MSG
a man big / a big man
‘the neighbour’s trees’
‘a large man / a great man’
(69) a. scaunele noastre și ale profesorului
(66) vechea mea bicicletă / bicicleta mea veche
chairs.the.FPL our.FPL and al.FPL teacher.the.ADN.MSG
old.the my bicycle / bicyle.the my old
‘our chairs and the teacher’s’
‘my previous bicycle / my old bicycle (my bicycle
which is old)’ b. scaunele, vândute din greșeală, ale noastre
chairs.the.FPL, sold.FPL by mistake, al.FPL our.FPL
(67) ideile tale uimitoare / uimitoarele tale
‘those chairs, sold by mistake, of ours’
ideas.the your astounding / astounding.the your
idei c. scaunele noastre
ideas chairs.the.FPL our.FPL
‘your astounding ideas’ ‘our chairs’

In sub-Danubian dialects, through contact with Sla-
vonic or Greek, adjectives readily precede nouns. The
influence of Croatian in Istro-Romanian is evident in
that, in such cases, the preposed adjective cannot bear
a definite article (Croatian lacks articles): thus ˈomu
beˈtar, lit. ‘man.the old’, but beˈtar om, lit. ‘old man’,
both ‘the old man’.
8.5.1.2 Possessive constructions and ‘possessive’
article al
The so-called ‘possessive definite article’ al (MSG al, FSG a, MPL
ai, FPL ale) is unparalleled elsewhere in Romance. For an
account of its etymology (probably Latin ILLE) and its histor-
ical development, see Giurgea (2013b). Its use and distribu-
tion reflect a strict requirement that, in constructions
comprising nouns with a complement which is a possessive
adjective or which is in the genitive, that complement
should always be immediately preceded by an explicit,
grammatically definite marker of the gender and number
of the head, and that this marking must unfailingly be
realized in one of two complementary ways: in the default
case the gender and number of the head must be expressed
by al; otherwise the head must show the enclitic definite
article, which must immediately precede the possessor or
possessive adjective. Contrast (68a,b) and (69a,b) with (68c)
and (69c):
Al is employed even where the head noun is a proper
name: Carmen a lui, adică a bătrânului ‘His Carmen, that is the
old man’s’. Prepositions which select the adnominal case are
notably treated as if they were (feminine) nouns ending in a
definite feminine singular article. One consequence of this is
that they select possessive adjectives rather than personal
pronouns as pronominal complements. Correspondingly, if
the preposition is somehow separated from a noun it gov-
erns, then feminine singular possessive article a must pre-
cede that noun:
(70) Vorbește împotriva/înaintea/asemenea mea și
he.speaks against /before/like my.FSG and
a prietenilor.
al.fsg friend.MPL.ADN
‘He speaks against/before/like me and his friends.’
In northern Daco-Romanian, instead of al, ai, ale there is
one form a, invariant for number and gender.
In Daco-Romanian ‘possessor’ (usually a noun phrase in
the adnominal case or a possessive adjective) normally
follows ‘possessum’; in sub-Danubian varieties, possessors
tend to precede possessum (see e.g. Kovačec 1984:570;
Atanasov 2002:219). Possessives generally immediately
follow the noun they modify, preceding other adjectival
modifiers. For the extent to which possessive adjectives
possess characteristically adjectival properties, see Nicolae
(2013b:339f.); the major point is that they can modify

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definite nouns, so that the normal way of expressing ‘my (76) adevăratul sens a ceea ce spune.
shoe’ etc. is literally ‘shoe the my’: real.the.MSG meaning.MSG a that which he.says
‘the real meaning of what he says.’
(71) pantoful meu / tău / său
shoe.the.MSG my.MSG / your.MSG / his,her,its.MSG Daco-Romanian, Aromanian, and Megleno-Romanian dis-
/ nostru / vostru play specialized possessive structures used in terms of kin-
/ our.MSG / your.MSG ship or close relation. Typically the bare noun is used
(unmodified by determiners or adjectives) with a phonolo-
(72) pantofii mei/ tăi/ săi
gically reduced enclitic form of the singular possessive
shoes.the.MPL my.MPL/ your.MPL/ his,her,its.MPL
adjective. Note that here, for the third person, only the
/ noștri / voștri
possessives in s- appear, and that some of the kinship
/ our.MPL / your.MPL
terms may have special lexicalized forms: frate-meu/
(73) casa mea/ ta/ sa ‑tu/‑su ‘my/your/his brother’; soră-ma/-ta/-sa ‘my/
house.the.FSG my.FSG/ your.FSG / his,her,its.FSG your/his sister’, and mă-sa ‘his mother’ vs mamă
/ noastră / voastră ‘mother’, tac-su ‘his father’ vs tată, frac-tu ‘your brother’
/ our.FSG / your.FSG vs frate ‘brother’, bărbac‑su ‘her husband’ vs bărbat ‘hus-
band’ (see further Frâncu 1977; Nicolae 2013b:341f.). The
(74) casele mele/ tale/ sale/ noastre
possessives in these forms tend not to inflect for case,
house.the.FPL myFPL / your.FPL/ his,her,its.FPL/ our.FPL
but the feminine has special adnominal forms -mii, ‑tii,
/ voastre
-sii (e.g. soră-mii vs non-lexicalized surorii mele ‘my
/ your.FPL
sister’s’).
Kinship and close relation terms diverge (in the singular)
The remaining third person possessives are adnominal
from the principle (§8.4.5) that unmodified nouns do not
forms of the personal pronouns, and do not show gender,
take the definite article when governed by a preposition.
number, or case agreement with the noun. Singular lui is
What is involved is a kind of elliptical structure in which a
used with grammatically masculine, singular ei with gram-
virtual possessive is interpreted as being present (Nicolae
matically feminine, possessors: casele lui ‘his/its houses’,
2013b:348):
pantofii ei ‘her/its shoes’. Historically (Nicolae 2013b:336f.),
the distinction between său etc. on the one hand, and lui and
(77) Merg la bunica.
ei on the other was that the former was anaphoric and the
I.go to grandmother.the
latter not. This remains predominantly true in Istro-
‘I go to (my) grandmother’s.’
Romanian, while in spoken Romanian lui and ei prevail in
either case. In old Romanian, său could also mean ‘their’,
Extensive use is made of indirect object enclitic pronouns,
and this still holds of the cognate Istro-Romanian form. In
attached to the verb, as possessive markers. This clitic
Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian the său type is
dative possessive is inherently non-contrastive and usually
restricted to kinship terms (see below), while in Megleno-
associated with the topic of the sentence (Niculescu
Romanian lui is the third person singular form for either
2013a:188f.).
gender. The third person plural possessive is invariant lor
(pantoful/pantofii/casa/casele lor ‘their shoe/shoes/house/
(78) Mintea îmi merge bine.
houses’). In northern Istro-Romanian, possessive adjectives
mind.the to.me= goes well
are preceded by invariant a and carry inflectional markers
‘My mind works well.’
of adnominal case (Kovačec 1971:111, 117).
Invariant a is also used to mark the genitive of cardinal (79) Nu le știu numele.
numerals and many quantifier expressions (75), as well as not to.them= I.know name.the
that of a nominalized relative clause introduced by ce or ceea ‘I don’t know their name.’
ce (76):

(75) ușile acestor/a zece /a neobișnuit 8.5.2 Verbal group

doors.the.FPL these.ADN.PL/a 10/a unusually of
de multe/a numeroase case
8.5.2.1 Basic word order in the sentence
many.FPL/a numerous houses Basic word order is relatively free. For description, and
‘the doors of these/of ten/of unusually many/of discussion of the debate as to whether Romanian is
numerous houses’ fundamentally SVO or VSO, see Pană Dindelegan

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MARTIN MAIDEN

(2013a:119-25); cf. also §§31.2.1, 34.3.1, 62.3. Both SV and (88) ˈbovu ɨnˈtrɛba ˈɑsiru
VS are common, the former being preferred when the ox.the asks ass.the
subject is agentive (80), the latter when it is not (81). In ‘The ox asks the ass.’ or ‘The ass asks the ox.’
general, unaccusative verbs prefer VS, especially when the
subject is a bare noun (unmodified by determiners) (cf. 82
and 83). VS is also preferred with rhematic subjects (84).
8.5.2.2 Negation
Direct and indirect object NPs are typically postverbal (see, Sentence negation is realized by nu < NON, proclitic to finite
e.g. Pană Dindelegan 2013a:142-4,147f.,157), but can be read- forms of the verb and the (‘short’) infinitive. Nu (in speech
ily fronted, for example for focus effects (85, 86; cf. also and informal usage n- when followed by a vowel-initial
§34.5). auxiliary verb) may be separated from the finite verb form
only by clitic pronouns and clitic adverbs (§8.5.3):
(80) Președintele se pregătește pentru discurs.
president.the self= prepares for speech (89) Nu ți- l trimit.
‘The president prepares for his speech.’ neg to.you= it= I.send.
‘I don’t send you it.’
(81) A murit președintele.
has died president.the
Nu also negates constituents:
‘The president has died.’
(82) Președinții și miniștrii vorbesc la congres. (90) Nu eu fac asta ci tu.
presidents.the and ministers.the speak at congress not I do this but you
‘The presidents and the ministers speak at the ‘It isn’t I who do this but you.’
congress.’
Supines, past participles, gerunds, ‘long’ infinitives, and
(83) Vorbesc președinți și miniștri la congres.
many adjectives (including past participles used adjec-
speak presidents and ministers at congress
tivally and adverbially), are negated by the prefix ne- (of
‘Presidents and ministers speak at the congress.’
Slavonic origin):
(84) Se pregătește pentru discurs președintele,
self= prepares for speech president.the, (91) o scrisoare netrimisă
nu ministrul. a.FSG letter.FSG NEG.sentPST.PTCP.FSG
not minister.the ‘an unsent letter’
‘The president prepares for the speech, not the minister.’
(92) Acest lucru este de neconceput.
(85) Mâncam prăjitură la petrecere. this thing is of neg.conceive.SUP
we.ate cake at party ‘This is inconceivable.’
‘We were eating cake at the party.’
(93) Neștiind orașul, Ion se rătăcește
(86) Prăjitură mâncam la petrecere. neg.know.GER town.the, Ion self= loses
cake we.ate at party ‘Not knowing the town, Ion gets lost’
‘Cake (was what) we were eating at the party.’
With negative pronouns, adverbs, conjunctions, and
Evidently under the influence of Croatian (Pușcariu indefinite constructions, whether they follow or precede
1926:265f.; Kovačec 1984:580), Istro-Romanian readily allows the verb, Romanian displays ‘negative concord’, the verb
any permutation of S, V, and O (and particularly preposing of the clause in which they appear always selecting the
of the object to the verb) without any necessary difference negator nu (Manea 2013:563):
of meaning, or of focus, and even while lacking the inflec-
tional marking of case characteristic of Croatian: (94) Nici timp nici bani nu are. / Nu
neither time neither money neg has/ neg
(87) ʃ aˈtunʧe ˈviru pripaˈvim ʃi oˈʃɔre are nici timp nici bani.
and then wine.the we.prepare and eggs has neither time neither money
̯
skuˈhɛi m ‘He has neither time nor money.’
we.boil
‘And then we prepare the wine and boil eggs’. (Sârbu The same holds for ne- in verbs: e.g. nimeni neavând
and Frățilă 1998) bani or neavând nimeni bani ‘nobody having money’.

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8.5.2.3 Interrogation expresses a desiderative-hortative meaning (108). As some

of the following show, the same matrix verb may sometimes
Romanian lacks dedicated syntactic or morphological
occur with both că and să, according to the meaning of the
exponents of sentence interrogation. Assertions and ques-
main verb.
tions are structurally identical, the latter usually having
rising intonation. Ion l-a văzut pe Mihai(?) is both ‘Ion saw
(97) Recunoaște că trișează.
Mihai’ and ‘Did Ion see Mihai?’ Interrogative pronouns,
he.recognizes că he.cheats.PRS.IND
adjectives, and adverbs occur sentence-initially. If these
‘He recognizes that he cheats.’
are not subject forms, then the subject, if overt, is left- or
right-dislocated: (98) Recunoașterea din partea lui că trișează
recognition.the from part.the his că he.cheats.PRS.IND
(95) Valiza cântărește mult. / Cât ne uimește.
suitcase.the weighs much / how.much us= astonishes
cântărește valiza? ‘His recognition that he cheats astonishes us.’
weighs suitcase.the
(99) Este adevărat că trișează.
‘The suitcase weighs a lot.’ / ‘How much does the
it.is true că he.cheats.PRS.IND
suitcase weigh?’
‘It’s true he cheats.’
A distinctive characteristic of Romanian (shared with (100) Îl acuză că trișează.
Slavonic languages, cf. Rudin 1988) is that all interrogative him= they.accuse că he.cheats.PRS.IND
words in a sentence can be fronted: ‘They accuse him of cheating.’
(101) Putea/ Voia/Avea intenția/ Nu știa
(96) Cine cui (și) când îi dă banii?
he.could/wanted/had intention.the/not he.knew
who to.whom (and) when to.him= gives money.the
să trișeze.
‘Who gives whom the money (and) when?’
să cheat.3SBJV
‘He could/wanted to/intended to/did not know
how to cheat.’
8.5.2.4 Subordination and complementizers
(102) Să fi trișat el, asta a fost o surpriză.
Subordination is principally marked by one of two
să be cheated he this has been a surprise
means: the complementizer că introducing a subordinate
‘That he cheated, that was a surprise.’
clause containing a verb in the indicative, or să introducing
a verb in the subjunctive. One major difference between că (103) Să fi știut ce o așteaptă, n-ar fi
(usually assumed to derive from Lat. QUOD) and să (< *se < Lat. să be known what her= awaits not=would be
SI ‘if ’) is that while the former is separable from the subor- venit.
dinate verb the latter is tightly bound to it, admitting the seen.
intercalation only of clitics, negator nu, and so-called ‘clitic ‘Had she known what was in store for her, she
adverbs’ (see §8.5.3). In addition, while că may sometimes be wouldn’t have come.’
omitted under coordination (and only then), să never is
(104) Trebuie să fi trișat.
(Gheorghe 2013a:467).
it.is.necessary să be cheated
Broadly, că introduces verbs the realization of whose
‘He must have cheated.’
sense is asserted, and să verbs the realization of whose
sense is not asserted (Gheorghe 2013a:467-9 gives a (105) Începe să ningă.
typology of the distinctions). The să type is thus normal in it.begins să snow.3SBJV
subordinate clauses where the main clause expresses vol- ‘It’s starting to snow.’
ition, potential, permission, necessity, purpose, command-
(106) Spune că/să plecați astăzi.
ing, prohibiting, fearing, hoping, inception, continuation, or
he.says că/să leave.2PL.PRS.IND today
introduces a topic about which some assertion is only sub-
‘He says that you are leaving/that you should leave
sequently made. The association with commands has
today.’
given rise to a second type of second person imperative
(often more attenuated in its force) that is marked simply (107) Să plecați astăzi!
by să + subjunctive without an overt matrix clause (107). The să leave.2PLSBJV today
same construction used in the first and second persons ‘Leave today!’

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(108) Să plec/plece azi! When the subject or any other syntactic material precedes
să I.leave/leave.3SBJV today să, and there is an overt preceding main clause, then ca
‘May I/he leave today!’ must precede (129-131), although this construction seems to
have become established only around the beginning of the
(109) Nu știe că a nins.
twentieth century (Graur 1968:335). For the theoretical sig-
not he.knows că AUX.IND snowed
nificance of this distinction in complementation marking,
‘He doesn’t know [the fact that] it has snowed.’
and its place among Romance patterns of complementizer
(110) Nu știu să fi nins. marking, see Ledgeway (2011b:431f.; 2012a:170); also
not I.know să AUX.SBJV snowed Gheorghe (2013a:470). For the view that ca in these con-
‘I am unaware of its having snowed.’ structions should be viewed as an independent element, not
part of a ‘compound’ complementizer ca . . . să, see Sava
Note that că is also selected after left-dislocated senten- (2012). Note that astfel încât, and other expressions meaning
tial adverbs (cf. Cruschina 2010c) such as probabil ‘probably’, ‘in order that’, ‘in such a way that’ also license the move-
sigur ‘certainly’, bineînțeles ‘of course’: ment of material in front of să:

(111) Bineințeles/Probabil că te iubește. (116) Spune ca tu și prietenii tăi să plecați.

of.course/probably că you= he.loves he.says ca you and friends.the your să leave.2PL.SBJV
‘Of course/Probably he loves you.’ ‘He says that you and your friends should leave.’
(117) Vrea ca astăzi să plecați.
In spoken language the role of verbs of ‘saying’ both as
he.wants ca today să leave.2PL.SBJV
expressing assertions and commands or wishes is some-
‘He wants you to leave today.’
times reflected in a construction combining că and să,
where să represents in indirect speech what in the original (118) Totul era organizat astfel / astfel organizat
utterance was a command or a wish: everything was organized so / so organized
încât nimeni să nu poată să trișeze.
(112) Au spus că să plece. încât nobody să not can.3SG.SBJV să cheat.3SG.SBJV
has said că să leave.3.SBJV ‘Everything was organized so nobody could cheat.’
‘(What) they said (is) that he should leave.’
(119) Voi azi sau mâine să plecați!
youPL today or tomorrow să leave.2PL.SBJV
‘In order that’, ‘so that’, ‘for . . . to’ can be expressed by
‘You leave today or tomorrow!’
combining another complementizer ca (generally thought
to derive from Lat. QUIA) (or pentru ca) followed by a clause (120) Noi azi sau mâine să plecăm?
introduced by să, according to the following pattern: wePL today or tomorrow să leave.1PL.SBJV.
Nicio șansă!
(113) Aprind lumina ca fetele să mă vadă. no chance
I.light light.the ca girls.the să me= see.3.SBJV ‘Us leave today or tomorrow? No chance!’
‘I turn on the light in order for the girls to see me.’
Temporal expressions follow a slightly different pattern:
(114) Deschideam ușa ca (voi) să ieșiți.
those introducing events or actions viewed as unrealized at
I.opened door.the ca (you) să go.out.2PL.SBJV
the reference time, such as înainte ‘before’, select să + sub-
‘I was opening the door for you to go out.’
junctive; those referring to actions realized after or during
the reference time, such as după ‘after’, select ce + indicative
Note also consecutive constructions such as astfel încât . . .
(some, such as până să/ce ‘until’, may take either depending
să ‘in such a way/so that’:
on the perspective):
(115) Ascund comoara astfel / așa de adânc încât
(121) Am plecat înainte să vină/după ce
I.hide treasure.the so so of deep încât
I.have left before să come.3SG.SBJV/after ce
hoții să nu o găsească.
au venit prietenii.
thieves.the să not it= find.3.SBJV
have.3PL.PRS.IND come friends.the
‘I hide the treasure so (deep) that thieves don’t find it.’
‘I left before/after my friends came.’
Să is practically fused to the following verb, and almost
no syntactic material can intervene between it and the verb. In informal usage, după ce can be combined with că, in the
Subjects thus must follow the verb phrase or precede să. ‘cumulative’ sense ‘on top of . . . ’:

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(122) După ce că mă jignește, mă și trădează. subjunctive introduced by să). The Romanian infinitive is
after ce că me= insults me= also betrays not, however, ‘dying out’ (cf. Schulte 2007).
‘He insults me and on top of that betrays me.’
(126) Poate să plece.
An equivalent of să + subjunctive where the verb indicates he.can să leave.3.SBJV
goal or purpose, largely restricted to informal registers, is ‘He can leave.’
de, where the verbs in both the main and subordinate clause
(127) Vor să vină.
have the same tense and mood:
they.want să come.3.SBJV
‘They want to come.’
(123) Se ducea de lua apă din fântână.
self= took.3SG.IMP de got.3SG.IMP water from well (128) Încearcă să te convingă. (Încearcă a
‘He was going to get water from the well.’ he.tries să you= persuade.3SG.SBJV (he.tries to
te convinge.)
This de (which can only be followed by a verb in the you= convince.INF)
indicative or conditional) can also function as a ‘functional ‘He tries to persuade you.’
head on the border between coordination and subordin-
(129) Începea să ningă. (Începe >a a ninge)
ation’ (Gheorghe 2013:472):
it.began să snow.3.SBJV (it.began to snow.INF)
‘It began to snow.’
(124) Se duc de iau benzină, și hoții
self= take de get.3PL.PRS petrol, and thieves.the (130) Îl învață să înoate. (Îl învață
le fură mașina. him= he.teaches să swim.3.SBJV (him= he.teaches
to.them= steal car.the. a înota.)
‘They go and get/to get petrol and thieves steal to swim.INF)
their car.’ ‘He teaches him to swim.’

A related meaning of de is ‘(so much) so that’: The (bare) infinitive remains optionally possible after a
putea ‘be able’ (131) and in the relative construction in (132),
(125) Se sperie așa de rău de leșină. and (preceded by the infinitive marker a) in phrases directly
self= frightens so of bad de he.faints introduced by a preposition (133-135).
‘He’s so badly frightened he faints.’
(131) Poate pleca.
For other uses of de, equivalent to dacă ‘if ’, and as relative he.can leave.INF
pronoun, see Gheorghe (2013a:472f.) and §8.5.2.6. ‘He can leave.’
A distinctive characteristic of Romanian subordination
(132) N- am pe cine mă ajuta.
(characteristic also of Slavonic languages and Greek, but
not= I.have pe whom me= help.INF
not of other Romance languages) is that verbs in subordin-
‘I’ve nobody to help me.’
ate clauses containing reported assertions may preserve the
tense form of the original proposition: thus ninge ‘it’s snow- (133) dorința de a se alege Maria șefă de
ing’, a nins ‘it has snowed’, but also ziceam/știam că ninge/a wish.the of to self= elect.INF Maria head of
nins, lit. ‘I said/knew that it is (= was) snowing / has (= had) catedră.
snowed’, beside ziceam/știam că ningea/ninsese, lit. ‘I said/ department
knew that it was snowing/had snowed’. The latter type is ‘the wish for Maria to be elected head of
the unmarked option: for the distinction between the two department.’
possibilities, see Zafiu (2013a:63f.).
(134) pentru/fără a dansa (mireasa)
for/without to dance.INF (bride.the)
‘for/without (the bride) dancing.’
8.5.2.5 Infinitives vs subjunctives in subordinate clauses (135) Era o mare favoare a- l fi
Romanian participates (Sandfeld 1930:177; Rosetti 1986:237; it.was a great favour to him= AUX.INF
Joseph 1983) in that phenomenon characteristic of the Bal- ajutat Oana să pregătească textul.
kan Sprachbund whereby infinitives in subordinate clauses helped Oana să- prepare.3.SBJV text.the
controlled by arguments of the main clause have given way ‘Oana(’s) having helped him prepare the text was a
to finite forms (in Romanian, usually forms in the great favour.’

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Note that the (optional) overt subject of the infinitive in (139) Ceea ce faci este absurd.
such constructions always occurs postverbally. See further what that you.do is absurd
Pană Dindelegan (2013a:101f.). ‘What you do is absurd.’
Broadly speaking, the infinitive is more used in Daco-
Romance the further north one goes (and its importance ‘Headless’ relatives with [–human] reference may be
inside periphrastic constructions should never be over- expressed by ce ‘what’, and with [+human] reference by
looked, cf. §8.4.6.2). In Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian, cine (otherwise meaning ‘who?’, dative cui). Note also
verbal uses of the infinitive (§8.4.6.5) are restricted to the the use of cine, ce, unde ‘where’ + subjunctive or infinitive,
constructions indicating necessity (e.g. Aro. va or lipˈse̯asti mɨ with the meaning ‘anyone who’, ‘anything that’, ‘any-
ˈkari ‘it is necessary to eat’; Capidan 1932:548-50; Saramandu where to’:
1984:460) and can also, in Aromanian, express the goal of
motion verbs (Nevaci 2006:163), Megleno-Romanian also (140) Ce mă uimește la omul acesta este
using it with the verb BE ABLE (Atanasov 2002:229f.) and certain what me= amazes at person.the this is
future periphrases. Within Daco-Romanian the infinitive sur- modestia sa.
vives most extensively in the north and northern Banat modesty.the his.
(Lăzărescu 1984:230f.; Neagoe 1984:267; Vulpe 1984:343; ‘What amazes me about this person is his modesty.’
Marin and Marinescu 1984:380; Farcaș 2006), notably after
verbs of volition, inception, and ability. (141) Cine vrea să crească mare, după masă
who wants să grow big, after meal
la culcare.
8.5.2.6 Relative clauses to lying
‘He who wants to grow up big, after eating should
Relative clauses may be introduced by the relative pronoun go to bed.’
care, or by ce. Both are invariant for gender and number,
although from the earliest texts until the eighteenth century (142) Nu găsesc cu cine să merg la meci.
(cf. Frâncu 1997:129, 331), and to some extent the nineteenth, not I.find with who să I.go to match
care could take the definite article, signalling the gender and ‘I can’t find anyone to go to the match with.’
number of the antecedent, and in Istro-Romanian it still shows (143) Nu am unde să merg.
a suffixed definite article. Care has an adnominal MSG căruia, FSG not I.have where să I.go
căreia, PL cărora, and (when it precedes the noun; cf. §64.2.2 n.9) ‘I’ve nowhere to go.’
a specialized possessive a/al/ai/ale MSG cărui, FSG cărei, PL căror,
where al etc. (see §8.5.1.2) agrees in number and gender with
Relatives with antecedents expressing manner,
the possessum, and cărui agrees with the antecedent:
time, or place select as relativizer the appropriate
adverbial relativizer: cum ‘how’, când ‘when’, unde
(136) fata ai cărei frați cântă
‘where’:
girl.the.FSG almpl whose.ADN.FSG brothers.MPL sing
‘the girl whose brothers are singing’
(144) Felul cum (or în care) vorbea îi
way.the how (or in which) he.spoke them=
The pronominal antecedent of a relative is provided by
scandaliza.
the pronoun cel. The relativizer ceea ce ‘that which’ (cf.
shocked
§8.4.4.1) is used with reference to an abstract notion or
‘The way he spoke shocked them.’
proposition (139):
(145) De fiecare dată când citesc, mă doare
(137) Cei care doresc să plece au of each time when I.read, me= hurts
those who wish să leave.3.SBJV they.have capul.
voie. head.the
permission ‘Whenever I read, my head aches.’
‘Those wishing to leave may do.’
(146) locul unde locuiești.
(138) Le- am spus celor care îmi place.the where you.live
to.them= I.have said to.those who to.me= ‘the place where you live.’
scriu că le voi răspunde.
write that to.them= I.will answer In colloquial registers (see e.g. Gheorghe 2013b:494f.),
‘I told those who write to me that I’ll answer them.’ invariant de may serve as a relativizer.

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8.5.2.7 Causative20 animates may lack prepositional object marking when they
have a lower degree of discourse salience (156, 157)
Causative constructions comprise a verb of causation (a face
(Manoliu Manea 1994:3-52), notably when modified by
‘make’, a lăsa ‘let’, a pune ‘put’) followed by a subordinate
indefinite determiners or quantifiers, negative quantifiers,
subjunctive clause expressing what is caused. They are
or the interrogative quantifiers câți, câte (158). Contexts in
biclausal constructions in which the arguments of each
which the identity of the subject and object are ambiguous
verb appear in their respective clause (there is no ‘clitic
may also select pe: this happens with comparative expres-
climbing’; cf. §§31.2.2.3, 48.4.2, 61.3.3.2.1.6.2, 63.2.2):
sions as in (160, 161), or with relative pronouns which,
because they always precede the verb, occupy the canonical
(147) I- am făcut pe băieți să le
position of the subject (§8.5.2.1). In substandard speech pe is
them= I.have made pe boys să them=
commonly omitted with the direct object relative care. Some
mănânce pe toate.
uses of pe function less to mark ‘objecthood’ than the fact
eat.3.SBJV pe all
that the object unexpectedly has nominal status (164). In
‘I made the boys eat them all.’
general, pronominalizations of adjectives, e.g. tot ‘all’ and
(148) O veți pune să le scrie. pronominalized adjectives introduced by cel or al (§§8.4.5,
her= you.will put să them= write.3.SBJV 8.5.1.2), require prepositional object marking (165, 166).
‘You’ll make her write them.’ Prepositional object marking is, however, incompatible
with the possessive dative clitic.
8.5.2.8 Object marking and prepositional object marking
Omission of the direct object is common where its referent (151) Te vreau pe tine.
is recoverable from context. Since Romanian lacks partitive you= I.want pe you
pronouns, an objectless construction is normal when a ‘I want you.’
partitive object is understood (150) (152) Pe noi ne- au văzut.
pe us us= they.have seen
(149) Duci gunoiul? Da, duc. ‘Us they have seen.’
you.take rubbish.the? yes, I.take
‘Are you taking the rubbish out? Yes, I’m taking it.’ (153) I- am întâlnit pe soții Rădulescu/
them= I.have met pe spouses.the Rădulescu
(150) Ne plac copiii dar nu avem. pe ei.
to.us= please children.the but not we.have pe them
‘We like children but don’t have any.’ ‘I met Mr and Mrs Rădulescu/them.’

Romanian displays direct object marking via the prepos- (154) Îl consideram mai îndreptățit să ia
ition pe (‘on (to)’)—a construction which possibly originates him= I.considered more entitled să take.3.SBJV
in verbs with a directional component (such as ‘call (to)’, Premiul Nobel pe Nichita Stănescu.
‘point (to/at)’) where the goal of the action, equivalent to Prize.the Nobel pe Nichita Stănescu.
the object of the verb, was expressed by pe (Onu 1959). ‘I considered Nichita Stănescu worthier of the
Absent from sub-Danubian dialects, this construction appar- Nobel Prize.’
ently emerged, before the sixteenth century, in the Roma- (155) O salut pe mama ta.
nian lands (Pană Dindelegan 2013a:135). Broadly, her= I.greet pe mother.the your
prepositional direct object marking is deployed where the ‘I greet your mother.’
status of the noun as grammatical object is somehow ‘unex-
pected’, or otherwise unclear. Nouns and pronouns whose (156) Îi iubește pe copii.
referents are high in animacy and specificity (those, espe- them= he.loves pe children
cially pronouns, denoting human beings, proper names, ‘He loves the children.’
kinship terms) prototypically denote the agent of transitive (157) Iubește copiii.
verbs and are therefore typical subjects; their relatively he.loves children.the
‘marked’ status as direct objects is systematically signalled ‘He loves children.’
by pe (151-153) (cf. Ledgeway 2011b:470). Nouns denoting
(158) (Pe) câți clienți ai refuzat?
(pe) how.many clients you.have refused
20
For Romanian passives, see §60.5. ‘How many clients did you refuse?’

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(159) N- ai refuzat (pe) niciun client. (168) O carte (o) trimite, dar nu și banii.
not= you.have refused (pe) no client a book. (it=) he.sends but not also money.the
‘You didn’t refuse any client.’ ‘A book he sends, but not the money.’
(160) Mânca ceva, ca o găină.
The sub-Danubian dialects lack prepositional object
he.ate something like a hen
marking (see e.g. Caragiu Marioțeanu 1975:198, 237, 277).
‘He was eating something, like a hen [i.e. as a hen
Object marking of high animacy direct objects via clitic
would].’
doubling does occur, however, in Aromanian and Megleno-
(161) Mânca ceva, ca pe o găină. Romanian (169, data from Atanasov 2002), but not in Istro-
he.ate something like pe a hen Romanian (169).
‘He was eating something like a chicken [i.e. as he
would eat a chicken].’ (169) au̯ flɔ ʃi i a̯ ʦɛ ˈbaːbə
her= found also she that old.lady
(162) Apa care curge din stâncă este dulce.
‘She found that old lady too.’
water.the which flows from rock is sweet
‘The water that flows from the rock is sweet.’
Romanian shares with some other Balkan languages
(163) Apa pe care o beau este dulce. (Sandfeld 1930:201f.) the property of having a (small)
water.the pe which it= I.drink is sweet class of verbs allowing a(n inanimate) secondary direct
‘The water I drink is sweet.’ object in combination with an animate direct object.
These are a învăța ‘teach (someone something)’, a anunța
(164) (Îl) scot (pe) ‘pe’ din propoziție.
‘announce, tell (someone something)’, a examina ‘test
(it=) I.remove (pe) ‘pe’ from sentence
(someone on something)’, a întreba ‘ask (someone some-
‘I remove [the word] ‘pe’ from the sentence.’
thing)’, a sfătui ‘to advise (something to someone)’, a ruga
(165) Arunc șosetele mele, dar nu și pe ale ‘ask (something of someone)’. A trece ‘to (help someone)
I.throw socks.the.FPL my.FPL but not also pe ale cross (something)’ also behaves in this way. In such
tale. constructions the secondary direct object (unlike
your. FPL the primary) cannot be passivized, nor is it possible to
‘I throw my socks away but not yours.’ cliticize both objects. See further Pană Dindelegan
(2013a:144-8).
(166) Arunc șosetele galbene dar nu și pe
I. throw socks.the.FPL yellow.FPL but not also pe
(170) Era râul prea mare ca s- o
cele verzi.
was river.the too big so that her.DO
those.FPL green.PL
poată trece apa.
‘I throw away the yellow socks but not the green
can.3.SBJV cross.INF water.the
ones.’
‘The river was too deep for him to be able to get her
across the water.’
The preceding examples also amply illustrate the con-
comitant of prepositional object marking, namely the
additional marking of the object on the verb by a clitic 8.5.2.9 Coordinators
object pronoun. This clitic doubling (Pană Dindelegan The principal coordinators (see further Croitor 2013) are și
2013a:136) is obligatory in combination with pe, but ‘and’ (<SIC ‘thus’; Latin ET ‘and’ survived, as e, into the six-
absent when the object is cine ‘who?’ or cineva ‘someone’, teenth century, and in Istro-Romanian), și . . . și ‘both . . . and’,
nor is it obligatory in the case of indefinite or negative nici ‘nor’, nici . . . nici ‘neither . . . nor’ (<NEQUE ‘and not’), sau
quantifiers. Clitic doubling to mark the object also ‘or’, sau . . . sau ‘either . . . or’ (possibly an amalgam of reflexes
occurs, independently of pe, when direct objects precede of Latin SIUE ‘or if ’ and AUT ‘or’—the latter gave ORo. au), also
the verb, obligatorily so where the object is topicalized fie . . . fie ‘either . . . or’. ‘But’ is dar (also însă ‘however’), but to
(167), less consistently so where it is merely focused contradict a negation ci (< QUID ‘what, that’). Unusual is the
(168). existence of a coordinator ‘intermediate’ between și and dar.
Whereas the latter contradicts some aspect of a preceding
(167) Cartea o trimite, dar nu și banii. affirmation, iar introduces a proposition containing infor-
book.the.FSG it= he.sends but not also money.the mation which is ‘minimally adversative’, or simply not
‘The book he sends, but not the money.’ inferable from what precedes:

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(171) Locuiește la Paris, dar muncește la București. not only in that they typically immediately precede the
he.lives in Paris but works in Bucharest verb they modify (being collocated to the right of proclitic
‘He lives in Paris, but works in Bucharest.’ pronouns, of the complementizer să, and of the infinitive
marker a) but also in being placed to the right of auxiliary
(172) Nu locuiește la Paris, ci la București.
verbs in analytic constructions. Mai (more rarely prea) may
not he.lives in Paris but in Bucharest
also be incorporated into adjectives, supines, and gerunds
‘He doesn’t live in Paris but in Bucharest.’
with the prefixed negator ne-:
(173) Azi este la Paris iar mâine pleacă
today he.is in Paris iar tomorrow he.leaves (176) Îl și detest.
la București. him= even= I.detest
to Bucharest ‘I even detest him.’
‘Today he’s in Paris and tomorrow he leaves for
(177) Ți- am mai trimis niște cărți.
Bucharest.’
to.you= I.have more sent some books
‘I have also sent you some books.’
8.5.3 Adverb position
(178) În ciuda bolii, studentul tot studiază.
Adverbs and adverbial phrases are typically collocated left in spite.the illness.ADN.SG, student.the tot studies
of adjectives (174) and right of verbs (175): ‘Despite his illness, the student still studies.’
(179) Nemaiștiind ce să facă, se dă
(174) un cântec extraordinar de/nemaivăzut de
not=more=knowing what să do.3.SBJV, self= gives
a song extraordinary de/never.seen de
bătut.
/foarte/relativ/ puțin frumos
beaten
/very/relative little beautiful
‘No longer knowing what to do, he gives up.’
‘a(n) extraordinarily/unprecedently/very/
relatively/not very beautiful song’
Note (cf. 174) that when an adjective precedes another
(175) Cântă extraordinar/cu adevărat/mult/puțin. adjective (or an adverb), and serves to predicate the extent
he.sings extraordinary/with truth/much/little to which, or manner in which, the property expressed by
‘He sings extraordinarily/truly/much/little.’ the following adjective or adverb obtains, then the follow-
ing adjective or adverb must be preceded by de: românii sunt
A small class of adverbs—și ‘also, even, therewith, incredibil de/neașteptat de/atât de prietenoși, lit. ‘the Roma-
already’, mai ‘more, still’, tot ‘still, too, also’ (except in the nians are incredibly/unprecedentedly/so de friendly (i.e.
sense ‘nonetheless’), prea ‘too (much)’, cam ‘rather’—are the extent to which/way in which they are friendly is
‘clitic’ adverbs (cf. Mîrzea Vasile and Dinică 2013:447f.), incredible, etc.)’.

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