The Second Way (2024-2027)

The Second Way: Prepositional Adverbials in Primary Dialects of Romance

Austrian Science Fund, project P37209-G

Duration: 3 years

Start: September 2024

Funding amount: 650,000 euros

The project “The Second Way: Prepositional Adverbials in Primary Dialects of Romance” is a follow-up project of the previous project “The Third Way: Prepositional Adverbials from Latin to Romance”. The Third Way project considers prepositional adverbials (Type C), e.g. Fr. à la dure, Sp. a la ligera (cf. Engl. in short), as a relevant third way of forming adverbials aside adverbial adjectives, e.g. Fr. aller direct, Sp. hablar claro (Type A) (cf. Engl. to speak clear) and derived adverbs in -mente, e.g. Fr. directement, Sp. tranquilamente (Type B) (cf. Engl. to speak clearly). The expansion of Type C has been fostered by general analyticizing tendencies in the passage from Latin to Romance. While Type B has been imposed by standardization (except Romanian), this type generally lacks in primary dialects of Romance. Primary dialects thus continue the Indo-European tradition of using adjectives for adverbial functions (Type A), extending it to Type C in the Latin-Romance transition. Consequently, Type C cannot be considered the third but the second way of forming adverbials in primary dialects. The Secon Way project analyses the relation of Type A and Type C in primary dialects of Romance.