Max Wheeler - Catalan: a comprehensive grammar

Catalan: A Comprehensive Grammar is a complete reference guide to modern Catalan grammar, presenting an accessible and systematic description of the modern language.

The Grammar reflects the current reality of Catalan by acknowledging regional diversity and features Balearic and Valencian varieties alongside the language used in the Barcelona region.

The combined specialist knowledge of the author team ensures a balanced coverage of modern Catalan.

Features include:

comprehensive coverage of all parts of speech

a wealth of authentic examples illustrating language points

attention to areas of particular difficulty for those whose first language is English

full cross-referencing

detailed index

Catalan: A Comprehensive Grammar will remain the standard reference work for years to come.

Max W. Wheeler is Reader in Linguistics at the University of Sussex.

Alan Yates is Tiles Balears Professor of Catalan at the University of Sheffield.

Nicolau Dols is Professor Titular dEscola Universitaria at the University of the Balearic Islands.

First published 1999
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon , Oxon, OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York NY 100 16

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

1999 Max W. Wheeler, Alan Yates and Nicolau Dols

Transferred to Digital Printing 2006

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Wheeler, Max.
Catalan: a comprehensive grammar / Max W. Wheeler, Alan Yates and Nicolau Dols.
p. cm.(Routledge grammars)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Catalan languageGrammar. I. Yates, Alan. II. Dols.
Nicolau, 1967. III. Title. IV. Series.
PC3823.W44 199998-47194
449.982421dc21

Publisher's Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint
but points out that some imperfections in the original may be apparent

We dedicate this volume to the memory of Joan Gili (19071998)

This book is designed to provide an up-to-date, systematic description of the morphology and syntax of the modern standard Catalan language. In preparing it we have had in mind the needs of pre-university and university students, teachers, translators and those with a private or professional interest in the language as it is currently used by Catalan speakers in educated conversation and in the normal range of written registers. We note with pleasure the appearance of Jenny Brummes Praktische Grammatik der katalanischen Sprache (Wilhelmsfeld: Egert, 1997); we coincide with the aims and scope of this work in offering a substantial grammar of Catalan, in a language other than Spanish or Catalan itself, designed expressly for non-natives. Brummes work was published when the present volume was in the final stages of preparation, so we have been unable to make use of it in our own work. We have, of course, relied considerably on the extensive existing literature on Catalan grammar, though we have developed some topics which have not previously been covered in depth. We have also given particular emphasis to areas of usage which are likely to be difficult for users starting from English.

One assumption with which we have worked is that those who use this book, whether for reference or for systematic study, will already have acquired some basic familiarity with Catalan, either through immediate contact and total immersion or, more probably, through working with various methods (in the medium of English, Spanish or Catalan itself) for induction in the language. This Comprehensive Grammar is thus conceived as an extension or complement to a fairly wide repertoire of basic study materials, a sample of which is provided in the Further reading list. Another, related, assumption is that users of this book will be acquainted with basic traditional grammatical concepts and terminology; we aim to explain any more specialized concepts and terms as we go along. Such explanations can be located via the index.

Catalan is a member of the Romance family of languages which are modern forms of the Latin language which spread from Rome to much of Europe in the wake of the Roman empire around the beginning of the common era. As its geographical position might suggest, Catalan shares several features with its nearest Romance neighbours: Italian, Sardinian, Occitan, Spanish, while being distinct in several respects from all of them. The map on page xviii shows where Catalan is spoken and identifies the main dialect divisions. The second section of this Preface briefly discusses normative and standard Catalan in relation to the position of the language in the twentieth century and insofar as these important concepts affect criteria and procedures followed in the body of this book. We do not attempt to supply here any history of Catalan as a member of the Romance family of languages, or any discussion of the mightily complex issues of Catalan as a stateless language in post-Renaissance Europe, in contact/conflict with more powerful linguistic neighbours (primarily Spanish, but also French, and Italian). These sociolinguistic and politico-linguistic factors have been of great moment in shaping the historical evolution of Catalan and, especially in the twentieth century, in affecting the politics associated with community self-awareness centred in linguistic difference.

The territories where Catalan is natively spoken are:

(1) The Principality of Andorra.

(2) In France: almost all of the dpartement of Pyrnes-Orientales.

(3) In Spain:

(i) Catalonia (under the autonomous government, the Generalitat , of Catalonia), except for the Gascon-speaking Val dAran.

(ii) The eastern fringe of Aragon.

(iii) Most of the Comunitat Valenciana , excepting some regions in the west and south which have been Aragonese/Spanish-speaking since at least the eighteenth century.

(iv) El Carxe, a small area of the province of Murcia, settled in the nineteenth century.

(v) The Balearic Islands: Majorca and Minorca (Balearic stricto sensu ), Ibiza ( Eivissa ) and Formentera (strictly Illes Pitises ).

(4) In Italy: the port of Alghero in Sardinia.