# Future tense



## (Infant)ry

Take a look at the following examples:

Future I:

Eu voi merge 

Future I (popular, or what`s it called already?!):

Eu o să merg 

Note: You really do not wanna use this, I mean which
Romance language forms the future tense by using the subjunctive? Some Slavic languages use this, like the Serbs and believe me you do not want to resemble them. Don`t take it too seriously.

Future II:

Eu voi fi mers

Future II (popular):

Eu am să fi mers

Plus some addition to the thread:

Eu vreau să  merg, Eu vreau merge

Eu pot să merg, Eu pot merge

I think all this is correct, what do you think?


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## OldAvatar

The way the future is formed, using the subjunctive/conjunctive, is not a Slavic characteristic. It is a particularity of Balkan linguistic union and it is considered to be a reminiscence of indigenous Thracian, Dacian and Illyrian tribes, long before the arrival of the Slavic populations.
Romanian language is a particular Romance language and you should place the language in connection with the Latin first and not with other Romance languages, which evolved in a parallel direction without any connections with Romanian.

Eu vreau să merg / Eu vreau a merge 

Eu pot să merg / Eu pot merge

are all correct.

I kindly suggest you to take it a bit easier, otherwise you will probably not receive anymore answers. I understand that you have something against some other nations, with or without a reason, but we don't, so, it is really not the place or the moment to offend others.


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## (Infant)ry

No kidding! man, I didn`t know that, I must have missed the particularity, I thought that was pure Slavic feature and don`t be so hasty, I am just trying to correct what`s wrong. 
P.S. You can`t put Dacian, Illyrian and Thracian tribes in the same category, they probably had differences, heck the Illyrians used live upon a time in history in the place where I come from; The Dalmatian coast.


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## OldAvatar

(Infant)ry said:


> P.S. You can`t put Dacian, Illyrian and Thracian tribes in the same category, they probably had differences, heck the Illyrians used live upon a time in history in the place where I come from; The Dalmatian coast.



You are right, it should have been a slash between them.


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## Spectre scolaire

OldAvatar said:
			
		

> The way the future [tense] is formed, using the subjunctive/conjunctive, is not a Slavic characteristic. It is a particularity of the Balkan linguistic union and it is considered [*by whom?*] to be a reminiscence of indigenous Thracian, Dacian and Illyrian tribes, long before the arrival of the Slavic populations.


 That is a very farfetched substratum theory that ought to be substantiated. Could we have some references here?  

In the same breath you claim the Romanian future to be “a particularity of the Balkan _Sprachbund_”. 
 ​


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## OldAvatar

"*Avoidance of infinitive*
"The use of the infinitive (common in other languages related to some of the Balkan languages, such as Romance and Slavic) is generally replaced with subjunctive constructions, following early Greek innovation.
in Macedonian, Greek and Tosk Albanian, the loss of the infinitive is complete
in Aromanian, Bulgarian and Southern Serbian dialects, it is almost complete
in Gheg Albanian and Megleno-Romanian, it is used only in a limited number of expressions
in standard Romanian, Serbian and Croatian, the infinitive shares many of its functions with the subjunctive
Turkish as spoken in Sliven and Šumen has also almost completely lost the infinitive, clearly due to the influence of the Balkan Sprachbund."
I know it's wiki, but it looks reliable enough to me. Also, you can research on Balkan Sprachbund, in case you have other points of view regarding the reliability of the source. Other linguists, indeed, do not agree with these theories, but, in my oppinion, these sorts of ideas deserve, at least, a closer attention.
Considering the fact that all Balkan languages, no matter the classification, share similar characteristics of forming the future tense and other similarities, it is presumed  that these particularities may have their origins in the indigenous world.
You can read the rest of the article, and also the bibliography here.
Also, another interesting material could be found here.

PS: May I politely suggest you to use Romanian instead of Rumanian, as forum's rules implicate?


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## (Infant)ry

First of all don`t trust wiki too much, it`s authors vary even I can edit there anything I want on my own will and I can put all sorts of stuff, false or true, in any stasis of mind or any kind of mood. Second, let`s estrange Romanian a way much from Balkan sprachbund, because all the connection they have with it is just a tiny Dacian link and who knows how much they were involved in the whole case, they were far from the Balkans, Romania belongs to Eastern Europe, Balkan is for us, the Croats, The Serbs and so forth. 
P.S. easy with what you say about the subjunctive in Croatian and Serbian. We do not form the future with the subjunctive and our grammar clearly alleges not to use the subjunctive with a modal verb form, that is what the Serbs do, you could say that we medium use the subjunctive.
P.S.2. From what I see the Romanian subjunctive is far different from the subjunctive forms of adjacent languages, you`ve got the să and că with different uses, I would say that the Romanian subjunctive is a worldwide linguist exception in all terms. 
P.S.3. Do not forget that The French can use the subjunctive when forming a modal verb sentence.


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## Outsider

OldAvatar said:


> "*Avoidance of infinitive*
> "The use of the infinitive (common in other languages related to some of the Balkan languages, such as Romance and Slavic) is generally replaced with subjunctive constructions, following early Greek innovation.


I think that's the best explanation. Other Romance languages form the future with the infinitive. But the infinitive is rarely used in Romanian, so it's replaced with a subjunctive phrase.

It's not uncommon for one Romance language to use the subjunctive where another uses the infinitive, or vice-versa. There are plenty of examples of this with Spanish versus Portuguese. It's also normal for the infinitive and the subjunctive to be interchangeable within the same Romance language, in certain kinds of clauses.


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## OldAvatar

Well. I must admit that I might have put the idea in an obscure light. I should have said that there is a theory saying that, which may bring another perspective, instead of saying that the respective theory would necessarily be the right one.


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## SerinusCanaria3075

OldAvatar said:


> Romanian language is a particular Romance language and you should place the language in connection with the Latin first and not with other Romance languages, which evolved in a parallel direction without any connections with Romanian.


I think this is the 2nd best explanation, after the great reminder that there are many similarities between the Greek and Romanian constructions through periphrasis.
More than anything, the fact that the Romanian language was "separated" from the rest of the other Romance languages led to different interpretations when it came to the Future tense. It was either enriched (or devastated in more negative terms) by other languages surrounding Romania, keeping in mind that Romanian was once written in the Cyrillic alphabet (which would have been strange to see Romanian written like so in 2008).

Anyway, only one form of the Future tense in Romanian is formed wih the subjunctive (o să cânt...), the rest are formed with either the short infinitive or the participle with the help of "să" (which only serves as a particle), therefore the one and only form that uses the *subjunctive *resembles that of Greek: _tha gráfo_ and _tha *grápso*_.
Romanian, on the plus side, only kept the simple future (like in English) rather than the Durative vs Punctual feature found in other Indo-European languages.

On the other hand, most Romance languages once formed the future through periphrasis, after of course getting rid of one Latin future form that resembled that of the past. This is where Romanian separates itself form the rest that started to form the future through the infinitive.Thus:
_ămābo -> cantare habeo_
Spanish: Cantar + *he* = cantar*é*
Por: Cantar + *hei *= cantar*ei*.

Some archaic forms are still heard (not much), such as "_*he de cantar*_" (I shall sing) or the more modern ones like "_*voy a cantar*_" but my point is that the idea of "I must" or "I have to sing" would explain why other languages chose an auxiliary verb like "vrea" (_*voi cânta / oi cânta*_) which after all, it's only there to help form the future and just because one form in Romanian is constructed using the subjunctive doesn't necessarily mean you have to use it, _i.e_ you have 3 other ones to choose from.

Just look at Sardinian, it has no synthetic forms for the future: 
_Deo __appo a caentare_ (it: io ho da cantare) and 
_Deo app'aer caentadu_. (lat: _cantavĕro_)
Romanian though does lack this last one "futuro anteriore" (future perfect?)

I'm sure you all are well aware of that.


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## robbie_SWE

SerinusCanaria3075 said:


> I think this is the 2nd best explanation, after the great reminder that there are many similarities between the Greek and Romanian constructions through periphrasis.
> More than anything, the fact that the Romanian language was "separated" from the rest of the other Romance languages led to different interpretations when it came to the Future tense. It was either enriched (or devastated in more negative terms) by other languages surrounding Romania, keeping in mind that Romanian was once written in the Cyrillic alphabet (which would have been strange to see Romanian written like so in 2008).
> 
> Anyway, only one form of the Future tense in Romanian is formed wih the subjunctive (o să cânt...), the rest are formed with either the short infinitive or the participle with the help of "să" (which only serves as a particle), therefore the one and only form that uses the *subjunctive *resembles that of Greek: _tha gráfo_ and _tha *grápso*_.
> Romanian, on the plus side, only kept the simple future (like in English) rather than the Durative vs Punctual feature found in other Indo-European languages.
> 
> On the other hand, most Romance languages once formed the future through periphrasis, after of course getting rid of one Latin future form that resembled that of the past. This is where Romanian separates itself form the rest that started to form the future through the infinitive.Thus:
> _ămābo -> cantare habeo_
> Spanish: Cantar + *he* = cantar*é*
> Por: Cantar + *hei *= cantar*ei*.
> 
> Some archaic forms are still heard (not much), such as "_*he de cantar*_" (I shall sing) or the more modern ones like "_*voy a cantar*_" but my point is that the idea of "I must" or "I have to sing" would explain why other languages chose an auxiliary verb like "vrea" (_*voi cânta / oi cânta*_) which after all, it's only there to help form the future and just because one form in Romanian is constructed using the subjunctive doesn't necessarily mean you have to use it, _i.e_ you have 3 other ones to choose from.
> 
> Just look at Sardinian, it has no synthetic forms for the future:
> _Deo __appo a caentare_ (it: io ho da cantare) and
> _Deo app'aer caentadu_. (lat: _cantavĕro_)
> Romanian though does lack this last one "futuro anteriore" (future perfect?)
> 
> I'm sure you all are well aware of that.


 
Lovely explanation SerinusCanaria3075! It actually brings a tear to my eye that a foreigner learning Romanian has a deeper understanding of the language than most natives. Keep doing an excellent job! 

 robbie


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## OldAvatar

> It was either enriched (or devastated in more negative terms) by other languages surrounding Romania, keeping in mind that Romanian was once written in the Cyrillic alphabet


I guess we owe that one to the Slavonic Orthodox church than to other surrounding populations. Orthodox Romanian church services used to be written in Slavonic and not in Romanian. So, it's the church the one which "brought" the alphabet and not a nation or another. Besides that, the Cyrillic alphabet was a particular alphabet, quite different than the Bulgarian/Serbian/Russian one.



> Romanian though does lack this last one "futuro anteriore" (future perfect?)


But Romanian does have "futuro anteriore - viitor anterior". It is not that often present in the language, but it is still there: 
Ex: El va fi fost.

Or, perhaps, I didn't get the idea right...


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## SerinusCanaria3075

I was also thinking religion had some important role, but that's a delicate subject that requires mature audiences.



OldAvatar said:


> But Romanian does have "futuro anteriore - viitor anterior". It is not that often present in the language, but it is still there:
> Ex: El va fi fost.
> 
> Or, perhaps, I didn't get the idea right...


There you go. That was very careless of me (still a rookie). So Romanian does has both Future tenses from Latin (_I will sing_ and _I will have sung_) plus some a few more to choose from.


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## (Infant)ry

Some archaic forms are still heard (not much), such as "_*he de cantar*_" (I shall sing) or the more modern ones like "_*voy a cantar*_" but my point is that the idea of "I must" or "I have to sing" would explain why other languages chose an auxiliary verb like "vrea" (_*voi cânta / oi cânta*_) which after all, it's only there to help form the future and just because one form in Romanian is constructed using the subjunctive doesn't necessarily mean you have to use it, _i.e_ you have 3 other ones to choose fr

Just look at Sardinian, it has no synthetic forms for the future: 
_Deo __appo a caentare_ (it: io ho da cantare) and 
_Deo app'aer caentadu_. (lat: _cantavĕro_)
Romanian though does lack this last one "futuro anteriore" (future perfect?)[/quote]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I wouldn`t say those are archaic forms you`ve just mentioned in Spanish and Sardinian. Most languages of the world have that kind of form of the future tense using have or want (*vrea)*, it`s similar to English in the example: you`ve got work to do, and you can`t name a future tense, it`s more of an optional choice of constructing the future with specific usage. The future tense with the subjunctive and the future tense with the infinitive probably evolved from some other Latin form, as the enclitic definite article in Romanian evolved from Latin demonstrative pronouns, don`t forget that in Italian, the pronoun conjuncts in a suffix with the imperative.
P.S. Futuro anteriore is not the future perfect. The English often mistake the future used only in the 1° conditional of Romance languages (ex,. voi fi mers) for their future perfect which is not the same thing.

PS.2 . Are the following both correct: am să  lucrez - - am a lucra ˙(or am lucra). I am not sure, please tell me.

PS.3. Romanian also has the future in the past, ex: aveam să  lucrez - - aveam a lucra (aveam lucra)?? Look up.


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## (Infant)ry

But Romanian does have "futuro anteriore - viitor anterior". It is not that often present in the language, but it is still there: 
Ex: El va fi fost.

Or, perhaps, I didn't get the idea right...[/quote]

I am afraid you are wrong, it is always used in the first conditional, ex. dacă  eu voi fi văzut amica ta, eu-ţi voi zice, or like this; când eu voi fi văzut amica ta, eu-ţi voi zice. Generally speaking, it is used in conditional sentences.


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## OldAvatar

Well, as far as I remember, _aveam a lucra_ is not actually categorized as a verb's tense. I think it is called _locuţiune verbală_ (_verbal locution _in English?) and it forms expressions which replace some tenses of the verb, and it is used, in general, for negative forms.
Examples: (*I haven't had anything to give.*)
_Nu aveam nimic a da. 
Nu aveam nimic să dau.
_


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## Outsider

OldAvatar said:


> [...] (_verbal locution _in English?) [...]


Verb phrase, or compound verb. (Most English tenses are compound.)


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## OldAvatar

@Outsider
Hmmm... I don't think we talk about the same thing:
_Locuţiune verbală_:
_A avea de gând_ = to plan
_A o lua la fugă_ = to start running.
Same situation is applied for the above example:
_am a lucra_


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## Spectre scolaire

This is a strange discussion. _OldAvatar_ seems to support a claim saying that the way future tense is formed in Romanian is due to a “reminiscence of indigenous Thracian, Dacian and Illyrian tribes” ! Finding this rather fanciful, I asked for some references.

At the same time _OldAvatar_ implicitly refers to Kristian Sandfeld’s wholly accepted and extremely productive theory of a Balkan _Sprachbund_ in which the loss of the infinitive _in Greek_ influenced other Balkan languages – together with a plethora of other linguistic similarities. One of the best syntheses on the subject is, in my own opinion, Emanuele Banfi: _Linguistica balcanica_, Bologna 1985. Lots of articles and a couple of other general surveys have been written, though, during the last 20 years.

The result of my posting is an avalanche of useful information about this loss-of-infinitive-phenomenon and its consequences, but nothing further on the alleged “substrata”. 

It was the latter which arose my concern , but if I managed to trigger a fruitful discussion about the construction of future tense in Romanian, I have every reason to see my posting as a useful one. 

And yet – if _OldAvatar_ should happen to look up some references for his subsidiary (or was it _primary_?) theory, I’d gladly be informed. 
 ​


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## OldAvatar

@Spectre scolaire

Come on, don't take it that way!
It is not my theory. It was a mistake from me to say that it would be a 100% true theory. But it is a theory. And it is possible to be true. We don't talk about Mathematics here.
One of the pioneers of this theory was Alexandru Rosetti, (Romanian Institute of Linguistic theories beares his name after all, together with Iorgu Iordan's) and his guidelines are respected by some. I'm not saying that he was absolutely right, but it is surely a subject to debate. Of course, there are some others scholars who don't agree with such a theory, including Romanian Alexandru Graur.



> in which the loss of the infinitive _in Greek_ influenced other Balkan languages


Why did Greek lose its infinitive and when did that happen?


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## (Infant)ry

Yes, it did lose its infinitive, not sure when, but it happened.I would like to point one more that the lose of infinitive in Greek didn`t horrendously influence Balkan linguistic union, even if it had, Romanian would have been light years away from it,  the Greek or better yet the Byzantine influence didn`t have a great foothold in Romania considering influence and inflection of grammar. Once again, Romanians developed their entire grammar from various Latin and Dacian grammar rules,shaping it in their own direction to a comprehensive sum. I would personally like to point out that Romanian subjunctive has no correlation to subjunctives in adjacent languages,its pretty unique.


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## Spectre scolaire

OldAvatar said:
			
		

> Why did Greek lose its infinitive and when did that happen?


 The Greek infinitive was irremediably “lost” by the time literature reemerges in the 11th century after a long period of practically no literary activity _in the vernacular_. 

The notion of “losing” a grammatical category is not a very fortunate one - I used the word ‘loss’ myself. . _There is always a gradual replacement_. In this case the infinitive was _giving way_ to another construction, i.e. to finite subordinate clauses – like we see in many other Balkan languages. (Personally, I only know it first hand from Greek and Albanian). This type of replacement obviously had far-reaching effects on the very syntactic structure of the language. In fact, the development from the vibrant classical category of infinitive to its complete disappearance – it is not true that the infinitive exists in some Modern Greek dialects – this development started already in the period between Classical and Hellenistic Greek. In the original text of the New Testament (Koiné Greek) – especially in the gospel of Marc – one can clearly see how the change is about to happen and how the substitute will turn out. 

It seems very probable that a reshuffling of the phonemic system of Greek not only affected the morphology of the language, but in the long run its syntax of which the infinitive substitute may be seen as the most spectacular outcome. (If you ask further why the phonemic system was altered, I'd say that through the conquests of Alexander the Great Greek language was _creolized_).

As long as this story is an ultimate premise for understanding future tense in Romanian, it should probably be included in this thread as a footnote. 

In certain Siculo-Italian dialects there is also a finite subordinate clause substitute to Standard Italian infinitive. The Greeks had been there too... 
 ​


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## (Infant)ry

As long as this story is an ultimate premise for understanding future tense in Romanian, it should probably be included in this thread as a footnote. 

In certain Siculo-Italian dialects there is also a finite subordinate clause substitute to Standard Italian infinitive. The Greeks had been there too... 
 ​[/quote]

No, enough with the Greeks already! I want the Greeks out of this conversation, you`re giving them too much space in this thread, I`ve had all the Greek I can take for one day, let`s just divert wherever this conversation is going, ok.  I will start by asking another q., about Future III tense in Romanian.


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## OldAvatar

Well, what I meant is that a language is changing only if it is in contact with other influences. You may call it even pressure, if you like. If Greek has had a "loss", and that "loss" triggered changes in surrounding languages too, then it should have happened under the pressure of other cultures or languages. Is that influence a Slavic, Turkish one or whatelse? I mean, infinitive is not lost just because suddenly it's been considered futile, right? It is much of a simple logic, isn't it?


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## (Infant)ry

Sure it´s not futile, could be of simple logic and you`re pretty right about Turkish influence, man, the Greeks sure suffered a lot from them in history, it sure was a toil being a submitter to the rule of Ottoman empire longer than any other country in the Balkan peninsula.


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## OldAvatar

But according to Spectre Scolaire, the changing took place long before the arrival of the Turks in the area. Or, at least, before they've had any strong influence in the Balkans. But I guess we're deeply going off topic...


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## (Infant)ry

YO, lend me your ears on this one, por favor.

I`ve been reading about future III tense (or is it called presumptive?) in Romanian and I can`t make out a single thing. At first it says that it can be used as an expression of presupposition, hope, doubt or hypothesis in the sentence. but the thing that confuses me is why it is sometimes translated as future I in English followed with an adverb: maybe, perhaps.... or as a modal verb. could, should, might.... I mean ok if it`s translated as a modal verb in English, but can`t you use something like; aş putea vine? and can I say something like: poate eu voi alege? If I i´ve been wrong so far, feel free to neglect this and briefly explain the tense.


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## (Infant)ry

Yeah I guess so. He is probably right.


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## OldAvatar

*poate (eu) voi alege *(*eu *is not needed, it is understood from the conjugation) _= perhaps I will choose
_It is simple future tense on indicative mode. The existence of the adverb *poate *doesn't change the tense or the mode of the verb. I guess it is the same in English.

*Aş veni* = _I would come__._
*aş putea* _*veni* _= _I could come _or _Could I come? _if it is interrogative
Both are conditional-optative mode, not indicative. And that's why it's a combined name (conditional-optative), because it could mean either a condition or an option, depending on the context.

So, besides the tenses, you should also take the modes into consideration...


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## Spectre scolaire

Just for the record: Turkish does not belong to the conventional _Sprachbund_ in the Balkans. Its linguistic impact on Balkan languages is of purely lexical character (loanwords, _calques_, idiomatic expressions), nor has any Balkan languages structurally influenced Turkish.

The relatively important Romanian lexical influence on Romany (“Gypsy language”) does not make the latter a candidate for the Balkan _Sprachbund_ either.

One of the reasons why the study of this _Sprachbund_ has triggered so much interest is obviously the fact that we are faced with four different groups of Indo-European languages, Albanian, Greek, Romance and Slavic, which share a number of common features. That is why I called (in #19) Sandfeld’s theory (from 1930) an “extremely productive” one. 

Now, having defined the framework in which Romanian future tense developed, I am pleased to see that we are back on track. 
 ​


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## (Infant)ry

Are you sure that Romanian had a big impact on Romany language, their language is not really defined and it varies from one country to another where they coexist as a minority, plus they always combine their language with the language of a country in which they are living. P.S. Thir speling i s atrocious (what a gag).


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## Outsider

OldAvatar said:


> Well, what I meant is that a language is changing only if it is in contact with other influences.


By "other influences" I presume you mean other languages. How do you know that languages can only change through outside influence?


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## OldAvatar

Not only languages, but also cultures, ways of thinking, habits etc. Why would a language get changed just by itself then? How can that happen? Are there any known examples of such radical changes without any outside interventions?


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## Outsider

OldAvatar said:


> Not only languages, but also cultures, ways of thinking, habits etc. Why would a language get changed just by itself then? How can that happen?


And why not? Languages are not static museum pieces, unless they're already dead. Each successive generation reinvents and changes a language a tiny bit. After several generations, you get a visible change.



OldAvatar said:


> Are there examples of such radical changes without any outside interventions?


Is there any evidence that languages can't change without the ("corruptive", I must presume) influence of other languages? Everyone here in this thread seems to be making that assumption: was the infinitive "corroded away" from Romanian because of the Slavic languages, or Greek?... Was the infinitive "corroded away" from Greek by Turkish, or by the Asian languages of the Hellenistic period?...

I just don't see why I should accept the premise in the first place. Certainly, I have never encountered any persuasive evidence that languages need other languages to change. Does anyone know of any?


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## OldAvatar

Well, I do not consider it corruptive at all. 
And it wasn't "corroded away" . As a matter of fact, I consider outside influences as being natural ways of helping a language to evolve. Isolation is not helpful at all. So, that's not the point. At least not mine.
And that's why I was surprised to hear that a language can change simply by itself. I always thought that languages get good, practical things one from another and not unnecessary parts. I thought evolution of languages is done by interraction and not by isolation.

Edit: Romanian did change a lot under the French and Italian influence. English did under the French one and so on.


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## Outsider

I don't deny the existence of mutual influences between languages. I just doubt that that process is necessarily the only one that can lead a language to change.



OldAvatar said:


> As a matter of fact, I consider outside influences as natural ways of helping a language to evolve. Isolation is not helpful at all.


If it were true that languages only change through outside interference, then a perfectly isolated language would remain the same indefinitely. It would be a very conservative language, and live forever. Ten thousand years later, people would still be able to read a text or understand a recording as though it had been written the previous day. I don't see anything wrong with that; I just doubt that it's how real languages would behave.

To go back to the topic of this thread, I wonder whether asking, as it were, "Which language first 'contaminated' the others with this loss of the infinitive?" is posing the right question. I have a question for all: are you sure that these things always start in one well identified language, and then spread to the others one by one? What if _all_ the languages in the Sprachbund (assuming this is indeed a Sprachbund phenomenon) have been converging to a common syntax simultaneously from the start?


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## (Infant)ry

Edit: Romanian did change a lot under the French and Italian influence. English did under the French one and so on.[/quote]

Romanian only experienced a vocabulary change under Italian and French influence, I don`t recall any grammar changes though. Also, a language can change on its own, as the time evolves, languages modernize and gain new traits from the need of its speakers, it`s just the mere time relation that develops a language, in which native speakers of a new generation abandon a seemingly obsolete language and adjust it idly without losing its integrity and genuine origin.


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## robbie_SWE

Outsider said:


> And why not? Languages are not static museum pieces, unless they're already dead. Each successive generation reinvents and changes a language a tiny bit. After several generations, you get a visible change.
> 
> Is there any evidence that languages can't change without the ("corruptive", I must presume) influence of other languages? Everyone here in this thread seems to be making that assumption: was the infinitive "corroded away" from Romanian because of the Slavic languages, or Greek?... Was the infinitive "corroded away" from Greek by Turkish, or by the Asian languages of the Hellenistic period?...
> 
> I just don't see why I should accept the premise in the first place. Certainly, I have never encountered any persuasive evidence that languages need other languages to change. Does anyone know of any?


 
I totally agree with your statement Outsider. 

Languages are to be seen as living organisms that can experience internal changes (one might continue the metaphor by comparing the internal changes with "mutations" or "radical cells" ) and external changes (like "liver spots" caused by pigmentation). 

In this case the Romanian language has had a bit of both. But deciding where one ends and another begins is very difficult (and personally quite uninteresting).

All the best, 

 robbie


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## avok

Spectre scolaire said:


> Just for the record: Turkish does not belong to the conventional _Sprachbund_ in the Balkans. Its linguistic impact on Balkan languages is of purely lexical character (loanwords, _calques_, idiomatic expressions), nor has any Balkan languages structurally influenced Turkish.




Hmmm , maybe not  the standard Turkish but Bulgarian Turkish or Turkish spoken in other parts of the Balkans is in the Balkan sprachbund.

ex. from Wikipedia:  "I want to write" : "isterim *yazayım*" in Bulgarian Turkish instead of  "*yazmak istiyorum*" in Standard Turkish.


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## Spectre scolaire

avok said:


> "I want to write" : "isterim *yazayım*" in Bulgarian Turkish instead of "*yazmak istiyorum*" in Standard Turkish.


 Such a construction is of course interesting, but it has nothing to do with Turkish being part of the Balkan _Sprachbund_.

As my answer would be off-topic in this thread, I have now posted an answer here.
 ​


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