Alexandru Nicolae
@lingv.ro
Department of Grammar
"Iorgu Iordan - Al. Rosetti" Institute of Linguistics, Romanian Academy
Alexandru Nicolae is interested in the morphosyntactic structure and development of Romanian from a comparative and diachronic Romance perspective. He published a single-author monograph on word order and parameter change in Romanian, devoted to the verbal domain (Ordinea constituenților în limba română, Bucharest University Press, 2015) and an extended variant of this book for Oxford Studies in Diachronic and Historical Linguistics (Word order and Parameter Change in Romanian, Oxford University Press, 2019), contributed as a co-author to major reference works such as The Oxford Guide to the Romance Languages (OUP, 2016), The Syntax of Old Romanian (OUP, 2016), The Grammar of Romanian (OUP, 2013), and Gramatica de bază a limbii române (Univers Enciclopedic Gold, 2010, 2016) and co-edited several collective volumes with Romanian and international publishers. In 2012 Alexandru Nicolae was awarded the “Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu” Prize of the Romanian Academy.
EDUCATION
2020/2021 Habilitation (Theory and Method in Comparative Syntax)
2013: PhD, Linguistics (Faculty of Letters & University of Cambridge, Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages; joint degree – cotutelle): Types of Ellipsis in Romanian. The interpretation of structures containing ellipsis sites and the syntactic licensing of ellipsis
2008-2010: MA, Advanced studies in linguistics, University of Bucharest
2005-2008: BA, Romanian language and literature - English language and literature, University of Bucharest
**
2012: Visiting PhD Student; Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages, University of Cambridge
2008: Erasmus Mobility; Zuyd University of Applied Sciences, Maastricht (Hogeschool Zuyd, Maastricht), The Netherlands, Department: Language and Communication
RESEARCH, TEACHING, or OTHER INTERESTS
Language and Linguistics, Arts and Humanities, History
Scopus Publications
Scholar Citations
Scholar h-index
Scholar i10-index
Scopus Publications
Adina Dragomirescu, , Alexandru Nicolae, and
Editura Academiei Romane
Adnana Boioc Apintei, , Adina Dragomirescu, Alexandru Nicolae, , and
Editura Academiei Romane
This paper focuses on a construction attested in Old Romanian and Lipovan Romanian, but unavailable in standard Modern Romanian: the use of cine ‘who’ as a relative pronoun in headed relative clauses. We put forth the hypothesis that this structure is an effect of language contact. In particular, the interrogative cine ‘who’ acquired its relative value and the possibility to be used in headed relative clauses by grammatical replication of the Old Church Slavonic equivalent, respectively of the Russian equivalent. Although the two scenarios appear to be similar, the two varieties followed two distinct diachronic paths.
Adina Dragomirescu, Alexandru Nicolae, and Rodica Zafiu
Oxford University Press
This chapter investigates the relation between syntheticity and analyticity in the history of Romanian. Empirically, we note that, against the traditional hypothesis that in the passage from Latin to Romance older synthetic forms were extensively replaced by novel analytic formations, there is a set of old Romanian periphrastic constructions which disappeared in the passage to modern Romanian, and our goal is to provide an explanation for this less frequent linguistic change. By bringing to the fore data from old and modern Romanian, as well as dialectal Daco-Romanian material, we show that the facts are best explained by appealing to structural factors (the feature matrix of Romanian auxiliaries) rather than functional factors (competition between functionally equivalent forms, their learnèd nature, or rare occurrence in usage).
Adina Dragomirescu and Alexandru Nicolae
MDPI AG
This paper focuses on Istro-Romanian and argues that the TAM auxiliaries of this variety are not morphophonological clitics. This analysis is supported by the existence of several empirical phenomena (auxiliary-licensed VP-ellipsis, scrambling, and interpolation), some not found in modern Romance, others very rare in modern Romance. This property of Istro-Romanian auxiliary verbs accounts, in conjunction with other features of this variety (e.g., the availability of C-oriented and I-oriented pronominal clitics), for the massive variation in the word order of pronominal clitics, auxiliaries, and the lexical verb found in the Istro-Romanian sentential core. An endangered Romance variety spoken in Istria and in the diaspora, historically related to (Daco-)Romanian, Istro-Romanian has been in contact with Croatian since the settlement of Istro-Romanians in the Istrian peninsula. As some of the Istro-Romanian features and phenomena are found both in Croatian and in old Romanian, it appears that contact with Croatian acts as a catalyst of structural convergence engendering the retention of an archaic property of Istro-Romanian auxiliaries: a lower position on the grammaticalization cline, closer to the full word status of their etyma.
Roberta D'Alessandro, Ángel Gallego, Alexandru Nicolae, María Carme Parafita Couto, Diego Pescarini, Anna Pineda, and Michelle Sheehan
Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona
This debate stems from Michal Starke’s keynote lecture at NELS 51, entitled “UM. Universal Morphology”. The video can be found at this link: https://michal.starke.ch/talks/2020-11_nels/nels_starke.mp4. In his talk, Starke sketches a nanosyntactic analysis of French irregular verbs, with the aim of showing that irregularities in French verbal paradigms (and in general) are only apparent. We asked some prominent morphologists and morpho-syntacticians to comment on and provide replies to Starke’s proposal and arguments. Subsequently, the author wrote a reply to these comments. You can find them all here. We wish to thank the NELS 51 organizing committee for allowing us to use the talk as a starting point for the debate, Michal Starke for his availability, and the linguists who agreed to engage in this interesting and fruitful exchange. This keynote debate celebrates the first year of the new Isogloss, in the hope of having more occasions to host discussions like this one.
Adina Dragomirescu and Alexandru Nicolae
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Alexandra Cornilescu and Alexandru Nicolae
Springer International Publishing
Adina Dragomirescu and Alexandru Nicolae
Walter de Gruyter GmbH
Abstract This paper documents the steps and analyses the processes by which a concrete change of location unaccusative construction based on a venitive verb grammaticalizes in Romanian as a modal construction exhibiting a variety of desiderative meanings, the most prominent of which is the urge-type of desiderative meaning. This diachronic change is atypical: the venitive verb underwent desemanticization but does not show any detectable morphophonological erosion or decategorialization. Furthermore, the desiderative meaning arises only when the venitive verb is accompanied by a dative clitic (originally, a goal of motion) and a subjunctive CP.
Alexandru Nicolae
Walter de Gruyter GmbH
AbstractRomanian aspectual complement ellipsis reveals the fact competing selection frames of verbs filter out potentially well-formed instances of deletion, this situation revealing yet another constraint on ellipsis with verbal licensers. Situations of this sort were dealt with in previous generative models by assuming “global derivational constraints” no longer available in the current minimalist architecture of the grammar. After delimiting the domain of ellipsis with verbal licensers in Romanian (the passive auxiliary
Alexandra Cornilescu and Alexandru Nicolae
Akademiai Kiado Zrt.
In this paper, we argue for the existence of two local domains (phases, cf. Chomsky 2001; 2009; Legate 2003, among others) inside the DP: the n*-phase, parallel to the vP (as in Svenonius 2004), and the d*-phase, parallel to the CP. Two acknowledged phasal properties are discussed. (i) The n*/d*-phases define their own peripheries: peripheries are essentially modal-quantificational spaces, as shown by the decomposition of Topic—Focus features recently proposed (Butler 2004; McNay 2005; 2006). (ii) Phases are assumed to be domains of linearization: after (internal or external) merge, syntactic objects are hierarchical, but not linear, so phases must be linearized before they are sent to PF. The distribution and interpretation of DP-internal adjectives is taken to be indicative of these two domains.
Alexandru Nicolae
BRILL
Alexandra Cornilescu and Alexandru Nicolae
BRILL
Philosophers have always considered proper names (= PNs) as paradigmatic examples of referential expressions, and are currently still debating on the two hypotheses regarding the functioning of PNs, namely (a) the theory of PNs as definite descriptions (in the wake of Frege 1892, an approach recently illustrated by Geurts 1997, Matushansky 2006) and (b) the theory of direct reference /rigid designation (a theory initiated by Mill (1843), and Russell 1905, and made famous by Kaplan 1964 and Kripke 1971). On the other hand, linguists have concentrated on other problems, one of them being the extent to which PNs represent a class distinct from common nouns (= CNs). The distinction was usually set in semantic terms: CNs have descriptive sense, while PNs are devoid of descriptive content. The idea that PNs do not have meaning is apparently contradicted by the possibility of using PNs as predicates: El este un Eminescu. In the present paper we disregard predicative uses of PNs and restrict the discussion to argumental uses of PNs. In terms of a formal grammar, the difference between PNs and CNs should follow from the fact that they are characterized by distinct formal features, which it is incumbent on us to specify. The aim of this paper is twofold. On the one hand we develop a hypothesis on the structure of DPs headed by PNs in languages like Romanian (Sections 1-4). This will allow us to give an account of the constructions typical of PNs in Modern Romanian. In the second part of the paper (sections 5-6) we discuss the syntax of PNs in Old Romanian, focusing on the passage from CNs to PNs as attested in Romanian and describing the more complex structure of PNs in older stages of Romanian.
Alexandra Cornilescu and Alexandru Nicolae
BRILL
Philosophers have always considered proper names (= PNs) as paradigmatic examples of referential expressions, and are currently still debating on the two hypotheses regarding the functioning of PNs, namely (a) the theory of PNs as definite descriptions (in the wake of Frege 1892, an approach recently illustrated by Geurts 1997, Matushansky 2006) and (b) the theory of direct reference /rigid designation (a theory initiated by Mill (1843), and Russell 1905, and made famous by Kaplan 1964 and Kripke 1971). On the other hand, linguists have concentrated on other problems, one of them being the extent to which PNs represent a class distinct from common nouns (= CNs). The distinction was usually set in semantic terms: CNs have descriptive sense, while PNs are devoid of descriptive content. The idea that PNs do not have meaning is apparently contradicted by the possibility of using PNs as predicates: El este un Eminescu. In the present paper we disregard predicative uses of PNs and restrict the discussion to argumental uses of PNs. In terms of a formal grammar, the difference between PNs and CNs should follow from the fact that they are characterized by distinct formal features, which it is incumbent on us to specify. The aim of this paper is twofold. On the one hand we develop a hypothesis on the structure of DPs headed by PNs in languages like Romanian (Sections 1-4). This will allow us to give an account of the constructions typical of PNs in Modern Romanian. In the second part of the paper (sections 5-6) we discuss the syntax of PNs in Old Romanian, focusing on the passage from CNs to PNs as attested in Romanian and describing the more complex structure of PNs in older stages of Romanian.
Alexandru Nicolae
BRILL
Alexandra Cornilescu and Alexandru Nicolae
Elsevier BV