DIANA-MARIA ROMAN
DOI: 10.33993/dr.2025.1.79.88
Author's coordinates: Universitatea Babeș-Bolyai Facultatea de Litere
Cluj-Napoca, str. Horea, r. 31
Email: diana.roman@ubbcluj.ro
THE NEGATIVE SINGULAR IMPERATIVE IN ROMANIAN. A CONCISE MORPHOSYNTACTIC APPROACH
(Abstract)
In Romanian specialised literature, the imperative is described as having three traits that are relevant for this paper: (1) it is a personal mode, (2) the affirmative and negative forms do not coincide in the singular, and (3) the negative is formed with the infinitive. Considering the known grammatical homonymy between the infinitive citi1 [read1] as a unit, in Nu poate citi1. [He cannot read1.], and the infinitive citi2 [read2] as a subunit, in Aș citi2 o carte. [I’d like to read2 a book.,], both at the level of verbal lexemes as a whole and at that of the morphemic structure, scholars also accept the thesis that the infinitive citi1 [read1] as a unit in Nu poate citi1. [He cannot read1.] and the infinitive citi2 [read2] as a unit of the negative singular imperative Nu citi2! [Don’t read2!] are formally identical, the grammatical suffix-type flective -i being the carrier of different grammatical meanings in different contexts, as follows: infinitive in citi1 [read1] and imperative in citi2 [read2]. Thus, the morphemic structure of the negative singular imperative stops at the grammatical suffix -i, excluding the possibility of there being a flectional subunit of the type -Ø syncretic desinence, as an expression of the grammatical categories of person and number. However, neither the personal type of verbal forms, nor the use of those categories comes under question, thanks to certain features they have in common with the other imperative forms in which the desinence-type of flectional subunit is realised in the positive: the identical morphological value, as verbs, does not indicate conversion and the same structural syntactic position, as predicates, is occupied. Therefore, negative singular imperative verbal lexemes resort to non-flectional forms of person and number, derived from the subject by way of non-relational non-flectional agreement, and they must procure a different relateme, of adherence, to realise their syntactic function.
Keywords: infinitive, imperative, negative form, grammatical homonymy, non-flectional grammatical category, adherence.
Cuvinte-cheie: infinitiv, imperativ, formă negativă, omonimie gramaticală, categorie gramaticală aflectivală, aderență..