Prudence de Pontbriand

RTG student, member since 2021

Project "Null objects in Late Latin and Early Romance languages"

Latin and some early Romance languages had the possibility to leave the object unpronounced in some discourse contexts, if the object can be easily retrieved by the surrounding contexts. This is the case, for instance, if the object has an overt antecedent in the preceding discourse, or if the object occurs in a conventional expression. Some examples of anaphoric null objects (with an antecedent in the preceding discourse) are given below for each language in study.

(1) Senatus haec intellegit, (Cl. Latin)

Senate.NOM this.ACC understand.PRS.3SG

consul ∅ videt

consul.NOM see.PRS.3SG

‘the Senate understands those things, the consul sees (them)’ (Cic. Cat. 1.2, in Luraghi, 1997: 239, glossing mine)

(3) a. Et aloient ja porparlant de quel mort il (OF)

and went already discussing of what death they

feroient morir

make.FUT die

‘and they were already discussing how they would kill (him)’ (A&N)

b. e abbacinaron-gli gli occhi e tagliaro (OI)

and blinded.3PL-him.DAT the.PL eyes and cut.3PL

la lingua

the.SG tongue

‘and they blinded him and cut (him) the tongue’ (V&V)

The project investigates the distribution of null (or omitted) objects in late Latin and two early Romance languages, Old French and Old Tuscan. The aims are twofold: firstly, the aim is to investigate the situation in each language separately, trying to understand which contexts allow the omission and what triggers it. Secondly, the aim is to compare the three different languages to investigate the similarities and difference of distribution, and to explain the diachronic evolution of null objects from Latin to early Romance.

Educational background

Before coming to Göttingen, I completed a BA in Linguistics and Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester in 2019, followed by a MPhil in Theoretical and Applied Linguistics at the University of Cambridge in 2020. My master's thesis “French Absolute Constructions in Romance Perspective” considered the evolution of the word order in middle and modern French absolute constructions, and how this evolution may have been influenced by the loss of null subjects, by comparing the situation to that of other modern Romance languages

Research interests

My research interests lie mostly in the syntax of Romance languages, both in a diachronic and a synchronic overview. Some topics that I am interested in, within the study of Romance languages:

- Word order variations in synchrony and diachrony

- Null categories

- Pronouns and clitics

- Ellipsis