Tense, Aspect and Mood in Romanian

Abstract

This account of the Romanian TAM-system has first and foremost descriptive purpose. With respect to theory, it can be situated in a functional-typological framework, taking surface morphology as a starting point. In its typological approach, however, it differs from standard grammarbook descriptions (such as Beyrer et al. (1987), where the majority of my examples come from). Strong theoretical implications will appear in the organization of this description, which tries to follow the internal organizational principles of the language (and here is a debatable claim at the outset), especially when I deviate from more common terminology.From time to time I will refer to the special situation of Romanian as a member of the Balkan sprachbund. This situation can explain some of the peculiar developments of a basically Romance language. A pan-romance comparison of verbal morphology is given in Iliescu/Mourin (1991).

Perfect Simple in Wallachia and Transylvania: A Typological Approach

“…In addition, some linguists favour theories assuming that in languages with the distinction IMPF:AOR two kinds of developments are noticeable: (a) the development of the Perfect into an Aorist (French) and (b) the development of the Perfect into a Preterit (most Slavic languages and, possibly Romanian) (Haase 1995). In this case, the argument would not be founded if we consider the equivalence between Aorist and Perfect and we cannot accept the Slavic influence as a reasonable explanation for the use in Romanian.…”