Croatian affixes in Istro-Romanian

Summary

Affix function number of borrowed affixes

Description

Information and examples are drawn from various sources, as noted below. For additional discussion of some of the following examples, see Rozencvejg (1976:24), Dahmen (1989:455), Breu (1992; 1996:35–36), and Boretzky (2004:1648).

2 agreement suffixes, marking agreement with neuter nouns on adjectives. The singular suffix occurs in both varieties of Istro-Romanian (viz. Northern Istro-Romanin and Southern Istro-Romanian), whereas the agreement marker -a only occurs in Northern Istro-Romanian.

  • -o marking mass neuter singular agreement, e.g. Southern Istro-Romanian nov-o ‘new-mass.neuter.singular’) (from Latin novum) (Gardani 2020:275; Kovačec 1966:68; Loporcaro, Gardani and Giudici 2021:92).
  • -a marking collective neuter plural agreement_, e.g. Northern Istro-Romanian (_diːtsa) bur-a ‘(children) good-collective.neuter.plural’ (from Latin bonum); it occurs on class one adjectives, articles, personal pronouns and demonstratives (Loporcaro 2018:295; Loporcaro, Gardani and Giudici 2021:118).

7 derivational prefixes, forming to some extent aspectual pairs. Further prefixes are mentioned in some of the sources, but these are not attested in hybrid formations.

  • po- ‘perfective’, e.g. potorče ‘to spin (perfective)’ from torče ‘to spin (imperfective)’ (Hurren 1969:62; Kovačec 1971:125), posúže ‘to suck (perfective)’ from súže ‘to suck (imperfective)’ (Sala 1988:79).
  • za- ~ ze- ‘perfective’, e.g. zadurmi/zedurmi ‘to sleep (perfective)’ from durmi ‘to sleep (imperfective)’, zaplənče ‘to weep (perfective)’ from plənče ‘to weep (imperfective)’ (Hurren 1969:62; Kovačec 1971:125), zalatrɑ̊ bark (perfective/inchoative) ‘to begin to bark’ from latrɑ̊ ‘bark.imperfective’ (Gardani 2020:276; Sala 1988:79).
  • raz- ‘perfective’, e.g. razlegua ‘to bind (perfective)’ from legua ‘to bind (imperfective)’ (Hurren 1969:62; Kovačec 1971:125; Sala 1988:79).
  • s- ‘perfective’, e.g. skopei ‘to dig (perfective)’ from kopei ‘to dig (imperfective)’ (Hurren 1969:62; Kovačec 1971:125).
  • od- ‘perfective’, e.g. odlomi ‘to break (perfective)’ from lomi ‘to break (imperfective)’ (Hurren 1969:62; Kovačec 1971:125).
  • na- ~ ne- ‘perfective’, e.g. namâŋcɑ̊ ‘to eat (perfective)’ from mâncɑ̊ ‘to eat’ (Sala 1988:79).
  • pri- ‘perfective’, e.g. prifače ‘to finish changing, to do differently’ from fače ‘to do’ (Sala 1988:79).

Similar sets of Slavic aktionsart prefixes have been borrowed into other Daco-Romance languages: 9 aktionsart prefixes found in Megleno-Romanian are borrowed from Bulgarian. The prefix do- ‘attainment of the final point of motion or activity’ is found in Romanian varieties spoken in Serbian (Vlach Romanian), e.g. do-facu preverb-do:past.3.singular) ‘s/he finished doing something’. Note that in Vlach Romanian, unlike Serbian (the source language) and Istro-Romanian (Kovačec 1971:125), the prefix does not have a perfectivizing role. Its meaning is derivational, and the category of Slavic aspect was not introduced with the borrowing (Gardani, Arkadiev, and Amiridze 2015:7). The borrowing of aspectual/aktionsart preverbs is common in languages that have been in contact with Slavic (see Russian affixes in Lithuanian Romani, and Russian and Belarusian affixes in Lithuanian).

Gardani (2008:69; citing Pușcariu 1943:280) also mentions that the accusative marker -u would have replaced the inherited -ɑ̌ in just only fixed phrase involving a native Romance lexical base, viz. za ţiru ‘at dinner‘ (cf. Latin cēna).