The Convertor Status of Article of Case and Number in the Romanian Language

Abstract

This study is the outcome of research on the grammar of the contemporary Romanian language. It proposes a discussion of the marked nominalization of adjectives in Romanian, the analysis being focused on the hypostases of the convertor (nominalizer). Within this area of research, contemporary scholarly treaties have so far accepted solely nominalizers of the determinative article type (definite and indefinite) and nominalizers of the vocative desinence type, in the singular. However, with regard to the marked conversion of an adjective to the large class of nouns, the phenomenon of enclitic articulation does not always also entail the individualization of the nominalized adjective, as an expression of the category of definite determination. What is outlined, thus, is the situation of nominalized adjectives, in the vocative case, always accompanied, to the right, by pronominal possessive adjectives or by a genitive, in the absence of the head noun. As the expression of conversion, the enclitic article at the end of these nominalized adjectives can no longer coincide with the definite determinative article: despite the homonymy, it is an article of case and number nonetheless. Under these circumstances, the Romanian system actualizes the convertor in the nominalization of adjectives depending on the case of the nominalized lexeme: convertors of the desinence type and of the article of case and number type are actualized in the vocative (V), whereas convertors of the determinative article type (definite and indefinite) are actualized in the nominative, accusative, genitive and dative (NAccGD).