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Cet article présente une description du genre neutre en roumain. Selon la grammaire traditionnelle, le roumain a trois genres : le féminin, le masculin et le neutre. Cette conception pose un certain nombre de problèmes. En effet, le neutre n’a pas de morphème désinentiel propre, ce qui rend difficile à concevoir l’existence autonome de ce genre. Le neutre est exprimé notamment par un syntagme nominal masculin au singulier et un syntagme féminin au pluriel ; en outre, il est réservé aux noms inanimés, même s’il y a des exceptions. Dans une approche diachronique, on se heurte à de nombreux phénomènes de variation morphologique, qui peuvent concerner la forme des désinences et de nombreux changements de genre, ce qui a comme conséquence l’imprédictibilité de la classe de genre (Maiden 2013, Pană Dindelegan 2015). Nous focaliserons notre recherche sur le traitement synchronique du suffixe latin - -ora, autour duquel se concentre, puis se résout, la problématique du neutre roumain. On questionnera notamment son bimorphisme (Maiden 2016), qui justifie les allomorphies et le marquage secondaire de pluriel féminin, aboutissant à la formation de ces pluriels appelés neutres. On évaluera leur statut lexical, le caractère dérivationnel ou non de l’allomorphie et les liens grammaticaux qui s’avèrent compatibles avec la variation morphologique continue du roumain. Le neutre roumain pose d’autres questions. Divers aspects qui relient le neutre au féminin seront explorés, comme l’accord sémantico-syntactique entre les entités inanimées, qui se réalise quasiment toujours au féminin, le cas le plus surprenant étant l’accord au féminin de deux entités masculines. Notre attention portera tout particulièrement sur le neutre sémantique, c’est-à-dire dans les cas où le locuteur qui ne connait pas le référent dont il est question emploie des pronoms féminins au singulier ou au pluriel, contrairement à d’autres langues qui emploient le masculin par défaut. This paper presents a description of the Romanian neuter gender. According to traditional Romanian grammar, the Romanian language has three genders: feminine, masculine and neuter, a hypothesis that leads to several questions. One of the problems that arise first is the lack of its own gender-specific ending morphemes, hence the difficulty of a clear analysis. A neuter is identified as a masculine noun phrase if it is singular and a feminine noun phrase if it is plural, and it is almost reserved for the inanimate class with some exceptions. Following a diachronic approach, we face a perpetual morphological variation, including ending variation and numerous gender shifts, which seems to lead to the unpredictability of the gender class (Maiden 2013, Pană Dindelegan 2015). This article will focus on the synchronic analysis of the Latin suffix -ora, around which is concentered the issue. It will treat especially its bimorphy (Maiden 2016) which justifies the arising allomorphy and the second feminine plural marking leading to the formation of these plurals called neuters. We will evaluate its lexical status and the allomorphy’s derivational status as well as its grammatical relations which turn out to be compatible with the continuous morphological variation of the Romanian language. The topic doesn’t finish at these features. Various aspects that link the neuter to the feminine will be explored like the semantical-syntactic agreement between inanimate units that is almost realized to the feminine, the most surprising case being the feminine agreement of two masculine units. Another particularity is the semantic neuter (when the speaker doesn’t know the referent) that is realized in Romanian via the determinants, feminine singular or plural pronouns, despite other Romance languages that employ masculine due to the lack of neuter.

This chapter elaborates on two case studies in structural variation to illustrate how the comparison of closely-related grammatical systems fuels research questions on general theoretical issues. Our first case study regards subject clitics in central Romance dialects. Subject clitics have been studied extensively in the past decades, but they still raise several questions concerning the nature of null subject languages. Analogously, there is a huge literature on the selection of perfective auxiliaries – the second case history in our chapter – and, as in the case of subject clitics, lesser-known non-standard dialects display a kaleidoscope of auxiliation options, whose rationalization poses fascinating analytical challenges and yields insights into basic issues of linguistic theory. The core question raised by our case studies regards the modelling of linguistic diversity: do the above phenomena result from a finite set of discrete parameters or emerge from random language-specific options? We argue that the otherwise ‘hyperastronomical’ number of possible grammars is aptly constrained by syntactic factors, although inflectional morphology – which syntax cannot control entirely – may have a role in the realization of specific auxiliary or subject clitic forms in each dialect and for each person.

Derivation, in the sense of word formation, and inflection, whose distinction dates back to Varro’s concepts of uoluntaria declinatio and naturalis declinatio, in the 1st century B.C., have been characterised by morphologists today as having non-rigid boundaries. Authors such as Haspelmath (1996), Spencer (2013; 2016) or Štekauer (2015) show that criteria used to distinguish derivation from inflection are not universal, since it is possible to find examples in languages that contradict them. Such criteria are based on features such as purpose, syntactic determinism, obligatoriness, productivity, transparency, base inheritance, and exponence, as proposed by Brown & Hippisley (2012: 37). The first criterion – purpose – is related to what Spencer (2016: 37) calls the Lexeme Individuation Problem, which he formulated as “how do know when we have two distinct lexemes rather than two forms of one and the same lexeme?” (2016: 37). Since “building a new lexeme from an existing lexeme” (Brown & Hippisley 2012: 37) is the purpose of derivation, building new lexemes may be one of the criteria to distinguish derivational morphemes from inflectional ones. However, as proven by Brown & Hippisley (2012) and Spencer (2013; 2016), there are intermediate categories, such as participles (e.g., the bird is singing / the singing bird / the singing of the bird), where the criterion may be questioned. The second criterion – syntactic determinism – is related with Varro’s distinction. Inflection is determined by syntax whereas word formation is not determined by syntax. The Lexeme Individuation Problem and syntactic determinism lead us to another question: “how do know when we have an inflectional morpheme or a derivational morpheme?”; or to put in other terms: “how do know when a morpheme is serving syntax or word formation?”. Is the English morpheme -ing a derivational or an inflectional morpheme? Is it serving syntax or word formation? The problem becomes more striking if we bear in mind that one of the possible sources for derivational affixes is inflectional affixes (Rainer 2016). The search for possible answers to the problem constitutes the aim of this paper. To provide answers, we need to rely on i) the distinction between inflection and derivation, and ii) the perspective that this distinction is fuzzy, in the sense of the word fuzzy found in Computing Logic, i.e., that it is dependent on degrees, and that both concepts should be observed as a continuum between two poles. The continuum is defined by criteria. The more criteria a morpheme presents the more derivational it is, i.e., the more it serves word formation. The criteria proposed by this paper are based on a cross-linguistic analysis of the behaviour of suffixes that have an etymological origin in the Latin present participle -NTE- morpheme (e.g., amans, amantis, being AMO ‘to love’ the verb). The history of this morpheme, across languages and time, is of great value to understand the fuzziness between inflection and derivation. The present participle in Latin is part of the verb inflection and is inflected in number and case. Hence, it serves syntax. However, in Latin, it also builds nouns (Ernout & Thomas 1951: 275) (e.g., adulescens ‘young man’, legens ‘reader’). For this reason, it also serves word formation. In Medieval Portuguese, the suffix is an in-between category, functioning either as a verb-inflected form (cobiçante nós põer cima aas demandas ‘being our desire to end the petitions’ (Orden. D. Afonso II)) or as an adjective (estando os filhos presentes e chorantes ‘being the children present and crying’) (Crónica da Ordem dos Frades Menores) (apud Nunes 1919). In the 18th century, the verbal nature of the Portuguese morpheme has disappeared, only remaining in a few lexicalised forms. Adjectives and nouns are preponderant (Bluteau 1712-1728). Due to its verbal origin, the morpheme in Romance languages works mainly in deverbal word formation, either adjectives or nouns. However, the suffix also constructs nouns and adjectives that are not related with a verb base but with a noun or an adjective (e.g., Italian nottante ‘nurse taking care of the sick during the night’ : notte ‘night’; Spanish farsante ‘hoaxer’ : farsa ‘farce’; Portuguese bandeirante ‘explorer of the Brazilian hinterland in conquest of new land, gold and precious stones’ : bandeira ‘flag; expedition’; Romanian familiant ‘member of a family’ : familie ‘family’; furiant ‘kind of dance’ : furie ‘fury’). The morpheme may even provide the derivative with a pejorative meaning that is absent from the base and from the original derivational paradigm (Italian tedescante ‘supporter of Germans or Austrians’ : tedesco ‘German’). These examples show that the morpheme has been acquiring a ‘serving word formation’ status. This status is highlighted in non-Romance languages, where the morpheme etymologically originating from the Latin -NTE works in the formation of words whose bases are not necessarily verbs (e.g., English malignant, benignant, contrariant [Bauer et al. 2013]). From the analysis of the behaviour of the words with suffixes that etymological go back to the Latin morpheme, this paper proposes criteria to classify a morpheme in a gradience between inflection and derivation, i.e., falls between serving syntax or word formation. The ratio between the number of criteria appliable to the morpheme to the number of abstract criteria permits a quantification of the gradience. The proposed criteria are the following: i) change word class; ii) structural constraints; iii) theta-mark via preposition; iv) lack thematic structure; v) admit modifiers different from the modifiers of the base; vi) admit gender variation or has a rigid gender; vii) present a base which does not belong to the same class of words where it works as an inflection morpheme; viii) work in cross-paradigms; ix) occur in languages other than the branch of languages coming from the language of origin of the morpheme; x) semantic shift towards an evaluative semantic feature which is absent from the base. References Bauer, Laurie et al. (2013). The Oxford Reference Guide to English Morphology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Buteau, Raphael (1712-1728). Vocabulario portuguez e latino. 8 volumes + 2 supl. Coimbra: Na Companhia de Jesu. Brown, Dunstan & Andrew Hippisley (2012). Network morphology: A defaults-based theory of word structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ernout, Alfred & François Thomas (1951). Syntaxe latine. Paris, Librairie C. Klincksieck. Maria Lo Duca (2004). Nomi di agente [Derivazione nominali denominale] In Maria Grossmann & Franz Rainer (Eds.), La formazione delle parole in italiano. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, pp.191-218. Nunes, José Joaquim (1919). Compêndio de gramática histórica portuguesa. Lisboa: Livraria Clássica Editora. Rainer, Franz (2016). Derivational Morphology. In Adam Ledgeway & Martin Maiden (Eds.), The Oxford Guide to the Romance Languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 513-523. Spencer, Andrew (2013). Lexical relatedness: A paradigm-based model. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Spencer, Andrew (2016). Two morphologies or one? In Andrew Hippisley & Gregory Stump (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Morphology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 27–49. Varro, Marcus Terentius (47–45 B.C.). De Lingua Latina, Julius Pomponium Laetum (ed). Rome: Georgius Lauer, s.d. [ca. 1471], editio princeps. This publication was supported by Project UIDB/00022/2020, FCT-Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, Portugal, through national funds. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion