Abstract

I trace here the evolution of present subjunctive markers in Catalan and, in general, in those Romance languages where the fall of final unstressed vowels allows exemplification of the tendencies toward morphological optimization, as well as some of the naturalness conflicts produced among the different tendencies. The morphological tendencies which appear most active when it comes to a developmental explanation are, in this order, iconicity, transparency, and universality. I also analyze the etymology of the different markers and the three different types of innovations; specifically: (i) the morphologization of vocalic segments which originally had merely a phonological value; (ii) analogical generalization in the first conjugation of the affix characteristic of. the second and third conjugations; and (iii) the reanalysis of segments belonging to the end of the root or to the root extension of some verbs of conjugations other than the first. 

Abstract

En aquest article d’orientació geolingüística i diacrònica, basat fonamentalment en dades de l’Atles lingüístic del domini català (ALDC) i del Corpus Informatitzat del Català Antic (CICA), s’analitzen més de vuitanta denominacions catalanes del crepuscle. D’una banda, se’n proporciona una doble classificació per criteris morfosintàctics, primerament, i motivacionals, després. De l’altra, se n’estudia la distribució geogràfica actual per lexemes, que s’ofereix cartografiada, i quan és possible, es ressegueixen les traces històriques de les diverses denominacions.

Abstract

This paper presents phonetic-phonological variation in articulatory and perceptual terms, both at segmental and suprasegmental levels. It also presents the determining factors of linguistic diversity and change, that is, the factors responsible for the external, geographical (intra-dialectal and inter-dialectal), chronolectal, social and functional variation of a language. Several examples of a few relevant phenomena of the Northwestern phonetics in Lleida are included, especially the phenomenon of vocalism as seen from the relation between internal and external variation of a language.