Comparative constructions in old Romanian

In this paper, we analyse degree adjectival constructions in old Romanian texts. We focus on the comparative of superiority, taking into account in the first place the grammaticalization stage of the degree markers. The structures from the old texts contain polyfunctional units in competition; some of them enter a complex process of specialisation (mai ‘more’), while others disappear (camai). Afterwards, we focus on the realizations of the comparative complement in the corpus analysed: prepositional phrases headed by the prepositions ca, decit, de ‘than’. We want to see if we can establish any constraints in the use of these prepositions. We pay attention to the word order disharmonies encountered in the old texts. The configurations with pre-adjectival complements are related to the existence of certain relics of the non-configurational syntax in old Romanian.


Introduction
The comparison system is prototipically represented by a set of expressions containing a degree operator and denoting a relation between a reference point (a standard value or a comparison class) and the value of a referee (the degree to which an entity has a certain property).Certain configurations are generally accepted; they correspond to a well-known scale: comparative of superiority (mai ... decît / ca 'more… than'), comparative of inferiority (mai puțin ... decît / ca 'less… than'), comparative of equality (la fel de / tot atît de / tot așa de ... ca 'as… as'), relative superlative (cel mai ... din / dintre 'the most… of / among').
Traditionally, these values are considered to belong to an unique class, although they express different aspects of the intensity of a quality ((in)equality, parallelism, analogy, identity, proportion or measure variation).
Of the analyses available for comparative constructions, we adopt the one put forward by Kennedy (1999) with respect to gradable adjectives, defined as expressions of certain points on a semantic scale (relational expressions), because they link objects to the degrees of a specific scale.A scale is an abstract representation of a measure act, thus a dimensional parameter (a type of property) in which the order is regulated through degrees.Adopting a syntactic analysis, Kennedy (1999, p. 83) shows that the gradable adjectives project an extended functional structure headed by a degree morpheme.
In this paper, we aim to analyse comparative of superiority constructions in old texts (original texts and translations) from the 16 th and 17 th centuries1 .In the diachronic studies on degree marking (Frâncu, 2009;Stan, 2013;Brăescu, 2015) it is shown that there are numerous items undergoing delexicalization, grammaticalization or re-analysis in order to become prototypical or emphatic means of expressing the category of comparison.In what follows, we take into account comparative configurations including adjectives, focusing on the status of the degree operator, the realizations of the comparative complement and the word order of the sequences involved in these constructions 2 .

The comparative of superiority
In a full-fledged construction, the comparative of superiority links two items: the adjective (with the comparative morpheme) and the comparative complement.The degree operators attested in the old texts are: mai 'more' (< lat.magis) 3 , the main marker used in the Latin analytic comparatives (1a-f ), and camai 'more' (1g-j): (1) a. Că mai bunră e domniia ta decî‹t› that more good is reign your than viiața mea (ph.1500-1510, 51  The co-occurrence of certain forms having the same function, in similar structures and without precise combinatorial rules characterizes all the degree operators for the entire degree scale and it is, actually, a normal feature for an emerging system.The word mai changes from a lexical unit (an adverb) to a grammatical from (a comparative marker); however, this change does not affect the item camai (which disappears at a later stage).
The word mai is not grammaticalized as a marker for the comparative of superiority in old Romanian, a fact proved by is pre-nominal position (2a) and by interpolation (2b-d).In fact, the entire adjectival phrase is pre-nominal, a pattern which has been gradually decreasing in frequency up to the present-day.The fact that mai (or camai) are not yet grammaticalized as degree markers is not only supported by word order freedom but also by their combination with amplified adverbs (3a,b) or adjectives associated with downtoners (mai + destui 'enough') (3c).
(2) a.This unsystematic behaviour of comparative structures in the old language represents the reason for which certain linguists (Ciompec, 1985, p. 156) put forth the following periodization: in the first texts, the comparative construction "had a pre-morphological character" and it is only after the 17 th century that the first genuine lexicalized comparative constructions, with the present-day structure, were attested.
When combining with verbs, both mai and camai function as manner adverbs ('more') expressing the comparative by themselves (Ciompec, 1985, p. 155) in structures which disappeared from the modern language (4a-f ).These structures illustrate an interesting phenomenon from a typological point of view.In Romanian, two parallel phenomena are at play: on the one hand, the texts show the ongoing specialization of the degree operator mai; on the other hand, the manner adverb mai progressively disappears until the modern language, being replaced by the verbal quantifier mai mult 'much more' .In other Romance languages (French, Italian, Spanish) the same item (Fr.plus, It. più, Sp. más) is used not only in verbal contexts, but also in the adjectival phrase, cumulating (accomplishing simultaneously) the verbal quantifier and the degree marker function (Zafiu, 2006, p. 217).The data in (4a-f ) from old Romanian show that the difference between old Romanian and old Romance, related to the function and status of the degree marker, was not obvious (in contrast to the present-day language, see Zafiu, 2006, p. 218).
(4) a. Mai decît om bătrîru înțeleș, more than man old understand.ps.1sg că porîncitele tale cerșuiu (ph.1500-1510, 106 v ) that orders.defyour ask.ps.1sg 'I have understood more than an old man, because I asked for your orders' b. mai decît neaoa înrălbi-me-voiu (ph.1500-1510, 43 r ) more than snow.defwhiten.inf=cl.refl.acc.1sg=aux.fut.1sg'I will turn whiter than snow' c. ei mai iubesc pre Dumnezeu decît they more love.pres.3sgdom God than pre avuția lor (cc 1 .1567,155 r ) dom fortune their 'they love God more than their fortune' d. derept aceaia, mai gîndesc de bogăția ceștii lumi for that more think.pres.3pl of richness this.gen world.gendecît de bogăția lu Dumnezeu (cc 1 .1567,145 v ) than of richness.deflui.genGod 'Thus they care more about the richness of this world than about God's richness' e. ocară ca aceasta mai iubiși-o decît insult like this more love.ps.2sg=cl.acc.f.3sg than cea slavă prea împodobită (svi~1670, 4 v ) that glory too adorned 'you loved more this insult than the highest glory' f.Nu e nice un rău mai de veninul not is no a harm more than poison.defșarpelui (fd.1592-604, 471 v ) snake.def.gen'There is no stronger harm than the serpent's poison' Mai and camai are attested as semi-adverbs/adverbial clitics with an additive temporal value ('again, one more time, already, still') since the first attested texts (5, 6).But while the first one is still very productive in the modern language, the last one gradually disappeared: ( In non-verbal contexts, mai functions as a weak non-clitic adverb, with a stronger degree of deficiency4 than other weak adverbs.In adverbial contexts, mai functions as an adverbial clitic.The delimitation of clitic adverbs from weak non-clitic ones is based on syntactic features, among which word order is the most important.

The clausal realizations of the comparative complement
The comparative complement represents the standard of comparison in a comparative structure.Given that it is obligatorily expressed and it is licensed in a binary syntactic configuration, it has been interpreted in recent work (galr, II; gblr) as a complement to the degree marker (not as a manner adjunct, as in the traditional literature).Generally, the comparative complement has an elliptical structure, originating in a reduced clause, from which one or more chunks are preserved (galr, II, p. 473-485).Moreover, many typological studies underline the complexity of comparative structures (which are based on ellipsis and reorganization) and the multiple interpretations of these constructions (Pană Dindelegan, 2003;Zafiu, 2006).
The comparative complement is licensed by the degree operator (Cornilescu, 2008) and it is prototypically realized as a PP headed by the prepositions ca, decît 'than' , de 'among' .There is no locality constraint, the adjective or other items being able to intervene between the degree operator and the comparative complement.
The structures with comparative of inequality complements showed a high degree of variation since Latin with respect to the marking of the comparative complement (ilr, p. 266;Stoica, 2015).It was realized by analytical means, with quam (7a) or by synthetic ones, i.e. the ablative case (7b).These structures were not in free variation but rather in complementary distribution: the ablative was preferred in idioms, in negative structures and in rhetorical questions (Ledgeway, 2012, p. 23).The synthetic comparative complement was replaced in Late Latin by new analytical structures with the preposition ab, and especially with de + accusative / ablative (7c): (7) a. clarior quam sol brighter than sun.acc b. sole clarior sun.abl brighter 'brighter than the sun' c. melior de aliquo better than others In the analytic pattern preserved in the Romance languages, the prepositional phrase has different realizations.The construction with quam (> ca) is preserved in old Portuguese, in old Italian varieties and in Romanian (Salvi, 2011, p. 338) but was replaced with the que / che, de / di structure of with new analytical forms: Rom.decît, It. di quanto, Sp. de lo que, Port.do que.
In the earliest attested Romanian texts, we found comparative complements realized ad prepositional phrases headed by decît (8) and de (9).The comparative of inequality markers are frequently in free competition (10) and it is impossible to identify the syntactic constraints governing their usage5 (Ciompec, 1985, p. 156;Ciobanu, 2007;Stan, 2013) decît toți sfinții (ad.1722-5, 16 r ) against devil.pl.gen than all saints.def'More glorified and happier than an empress of the world, stronger in darkness than all the believers on earth and more frightening for devils than all the saints' In numerous comparative structures (including adverbs), the two parts of decît (the preposition de and the adverb cît) are not merged (11).Moreover, the merger is only a written convention, without other consequences: (11) a. feace ciudă mai mare și mai minunată makes astonishment more big and more wonderful de cît toate ciudesele (cc 2 .1581,109) than all miracles.def'he produces more astonishment than all the miracles' b.Că era și mai prost mai vîrtos de cît alalți (cc 2 .1581,297) that was and more ignorant more strong than others 'That he was more ignorant than the others' c. spăla-mă-vei și mai vîrtos de cît zăpada wash.inf=cl.acc.1sg=aux.fut.2sg and more strong than snow.defmă voi albi (ddl.1679,208) cl.refl.acc.1sgaux.fut.1sgwhiten.inf'You will wash me and I will turn whiter than snow' The prepositional value of decît is interpreted (Cornilescu, 2008) as form of variation or as an oscillating form in the terms of the re-analysis framework (through the change in the grammatical function).The author adopts Haspelmath's (1998) definition of re-analysis: the different interpretation associated to the same chain from the point of view of the constituency or of the syntactic categories of the constituents, a process which takes place in the passage from one generation to another.
The comparative construction with de is preserved from Late Latin (Densusianu, 1938, p. 380-381;Rosetti, 1986, p. 512;Ciompec, 1985, p. 156).A syntactic feature of the preposition de in comparative structures is that it selects a noun with a definite article (12a,b), without other constituents subordinated to the noun (Stan, 2013).In contradistinction, the preposition decît selects a noun without article (12c,d): (12) a. [Hristos] aceastea toate făcea-le Christ these all make.imperf.3sg=cl.acc.f.3pl mai vîrtos de omul (cc 2 .1581,272) more strong than people.def'Christ made all these things more than people did' b.Iară Domnul arătă că și de vulpile și and God shows that and than foxes.defand de pasările mai sărac iaste (cc 2 .1581,277) than birds.defmore poor is 'And God shows that he is poorer that foxes and birds' c. trupul mai slab iaste decît suflet (cc 2 .1581,424) body.defmore weak is than soul 'the body is weaker than the soul' d.Mai bunu-i ospățul cu verdeață de prieteșug și more good=is meal.def with greens of friendship and de har decît vițel de iasle cu vrajbă (DPar.1683,III/7 v ) of grace than veal of manger with brawl 'The meal of greens with friendship and grace is better than eating veal with brawl' In the present-day system of comparison, de limited its values and specialized for expressing measure phrases (Niculescu, 1999, p. 186), while decît extended its usage and took over the comparative complement (Stan, 2013, p. 310;gr, p. 506).
In later texts from the 17 th century ca is also attested (Frâncu, 2009, p. 198;Ciobanu, 2007); in the 16 th century, it was used only sporadically (13a,b), a fact which suggest that it was in an incipient stage of grammaticalization (see also Niculescu, 1999, p. 187-188;Stan, 2013, p. 311).The structure with the preposition ca was considered non-standard at the beginning, "a completely misguided Wallachian provincialism" (Tiktin, 1945, p. 68).The preference for the construction with decît is supported by latter work: "very often, decît is replaced by ca in the spoken language and even in the literary language.Educated speakers and good writers avoid this construction" (Iordan et al., 1967, p. 115).
(13) a. la noi nice un lucru nu-i mai bun și mai cu folos ca at us no a thing not=is more good and more useful than ceaea cînd murim pentru credința cea bună (dvs.1682-6, 15 v ) that when die.pres.2plfor faith.defthat good.f'For us, no other thing is better and more useful than when we die for the good faith' b.Și nu iaste alta mai de folos și mai înfrîmsețată, and not is other more useful and more beautiful ca dragostea ceaia nefățarnica (cc 2 .1581,140) than love.def that sincere 'And there is nothing else more useful and more sincere than sincere love' Another comparative of inequality structure involves an incomplete pattern, in which the comparative complement is absent (14a).In these contexts, the comparative complement is contextually recovered.In the old language, another elliptical pattern is attested: mai is missing but the comparative complement is overtly realized.The attestation of this pattern, which disappeared from the present-day language, proves that the co-occurrence of the comparative complement and the degree operator was not obligatory in the old language (Ciompec, 1985, p. 162)  In many structures from the old texts (15) a sort of generalized comparison (Ciompec, 1985, p. 164) is realized; this structure resembles the superlative one and included a prepositional complement headed by dentre / dentru 'among' (15a), preste 'over' (15b), pre 'on' (15c): (15) a. Că adică și dentru îngeri, carele era mai mare, that that.is and from angels which was more great trufa-l lepădă den ceriu (cc 2 .1581,3) pride.def=cl.acc.m.3sg throw.ps.3sg from Heaven 'That is, even of the angels, that who was greater was expelled from Heaven' b. fu mai mare preste toți în casa ei (dvs.1682-6,62 v ) be.ps.3sgmore great above all in house.defher 'she was greater above all in her house' c. mai mare e și mai înraltu e pre toți more great is and more high is over all oamenrii (ph.1500-1510, 81 v ) people.def 'he is the greater and higher than all the people'

Word order in comparative structures
Besides the canonical word order of the present-day language [operator + adjective + comparative complement (16a)], in the old language there are also numerous structures with pre-adjectival complements (16b-e) (Brăescu et al., 2015).These constructions, with pre-adjectival comparative complements, still attested in poetry and folkloric texts from the 19 th century, have been preserved in the present-day language (16f ) only in the religious, obsolete register (Zafiu, 2006, p. 217 The structures with pre-adjectival complements are also attested in other old Romance languages, for example in old Italian (Giusti, 2010, p. 596-598;Poletto, 2014, p. 76).These configurations have been associated (Ledgeway, 2012;Brăescu et al., 2015;Brăescu & Dragomirescu, 2017) with the discontinuous structures and related to the existence of certain relics of the non-configurational syntax in old Romanian, preserved from Latin.The disappearance of the structures under (16b-e) should be explained by an ongoing change in the setting of the head directionality parameter, from partial head-final to consistently head-initial and by establishment of a fully-fledged configurational syntax, in which the relations between constituents are encoded by word order.
To explain the ordering of heads and complements (the variation between head-initial and head-final structures), Ledgeway (2012) employs roll-up movement: the so-called free word order of Latin is to be explained by the roll-up movement, whereas the more rigid word order of the Romance languages is determined by the elimination of this type of movement.
In this light, the changes taking places in the passage from Latin to the Romance languages no longer appear to be so radical (Brăescu et al., 2015): Latin was a language in which the innovative head-initial syntax and the archaic head-final one were in competition (Ledgeway, 2012), a situation which carried over to old Romance (at least to old Romanian and to old Italian); the complete change from a head-final syntax to head-initial syntax was brought to a close in modern Romance.Expectedly, the old Romance languages (old Romanian included) were more similar to Latin in the domain of word order.

Conclusions
In diachrony, the comparative of superiority constructions, defined as complex structures expressing a relation between a property and a standard of comparison, are attested in different syntactic configurations.In this paper, we have analysed old Romanian texts with respect looking at three aspects: the grammaticalization path of the operator mai, the clausal realizations of the comparative complement, and word order in comparative structures.
The specialization of the operator mai to express the comparative of superiority was favoured by many processes characterizing the 16 th and the 17 th centuries: the disappearance of the competing form camai and the loss of the manner adverb mai.The competition between forms with the same function used in similar contexts and without any clear constraint represents a feature specific to all the degree operators and, actually, it is a state of all emerging systems.
The comparative complement in comparative of superiority structures was realized analytically in the old language, by means of several prepositional constructions.We have analyzed the distribution of the constructions with de 'of ' , decît and ca 'than' .The emergence of the analytical expressions (Ledgeway, 2012) illustrates a general tendency of all the weakened synthetic structures, which were to be progressively replaced by other competing structures and to undergo grammaticalization.
As far as the word order of the comparative complements is concerned, we have paid special attention to the "deviant" pattern, different from the one of the present-day language, the pattern with a preadjectival comparative complement.We have accounted for these structures using Ledgeway's (2012) insights, according to which the passage from Latin to Romance is characterized by an on-going passage

are blind in their souls: they are in a bigger sin' c. Acest păgîn mai om bun au
. In this world you should have nothing more dear and more valuable than God, you should not love your father and your mother more than you love God'