The Typology and dialectology of Romani

Morphology

z.l Nominative third person pronouns

The shape of the third person nominative pronouns (Friedman 1985, §2.3)
is consistently ArU: ov, oj, and ola -o la *he, she, they', which latter is used for
both genders, e.g. in reference to masc. pi. nouns such as manuka, as opposed
to masc. pi. on, which occurs only rarely. In other dialects, the shape can be
vov, voj, etc. (Dzambaz, Gurbet, Kalderas) oijov, joj, etc. (central and north-
em Europe).

2.2 The nominative plural definite article

The nominative plural definite article (Friedman 1985, §2.4) is consistently
the Arli o rather than e as found in other dialects, e.g. o Roma 'the Roms'.

2.3 The genitive marker

The long forms of the genitive {-koro, -kiri, -here; cf. Friedman 1985,
§2.3) are used with almost complete consistency: bas i lakiri kariera 'about her
career', ba^ o lakere udipa 'about her heights', baS o lakorofeniks 'about her
phoenix\ partijakere liderija 'party leaders', e romane poezijakoro dad 'the fa-
ther of Romani poetry', duje chavengiri daj 'mother of two children', o leskiri
antropologikani, socijalakiri, thaj kulturakiri dimenzija 'its anthropological, so-
cietal and cultural dimension', e minoritetengeri diivipaskeri praktika ko Balkani

ROMANI-LANGUAGE PRESS 1 9 1

'the reality (practicality) of life of minorities in the Balkans'. The one short geni-
tive in -ki also shows a different shape in the internal vowel of a long form: E
civilzacijakeri asimilacijaki balval 'the civilizing wind of assimilation'; cf. also ki
belgradeskeri TV. The form ko kher e Sakipengo 'at the house of the Sakips* is
the only other short genitive.

2.4 Possessive pronouns

The singular possessive pronouns or Romani (Friedman 1985, §2.2) show
a variety of shapes, among which the most common in the Balkans are (taking
the masculine first person as exemplary): miro, mlo, mro, mow, mo (for details,
see Boretzky and Igla 1994:388). Of these, the first two are markedly Arli, the
third is Burgudii, the fourth is shared by Burgudzi and D^ambaz (Gurbet),
while the last is common throughout Macedonia, Nonetheless, RS is distinctly
Arli in its favoring forms of the type mlo and makes infrequent concessions by
occasionally using forms of the type mo, e.g. Dikhindor ma te nasaven plo muj,
naSavgjepi but 'Taking care to save their face, they lost their butt.'

2,5 Aorist person markers

The shape of the first person aorist marker (Friedman 1985, §2.5) is a di-
agnostic feature separating the so-called Vlax from the Non-Vlax dialects of
Romani. 9 The former are characterized by -em, the latter by a back rounded
vowel, -om or -um. All three endings occur in the Romani dialects of
Macedonia, in Diambaz, Burgudii, and Arli, respectively. RS consistently uses
the Arli -um, e.g. adhiljum 'I remained', bistergjum 'I forgot', geljum 'I went',
khelgjum 'I danced', leljum 'I took' g'ndingjum 'I thought'. There is not much
dialectal variation in the markers of -the other persons (aside from 2 sg -al (vs
-an) in Sinti and some other dialects of former Austria-Hungary). ^^ RS, how-
ever, has a peculiar first person plural aorist marker, viz. -em rather than the
expected -am, e.g. baSalgjem 'we played', gelem 'we went', giljavgjem 'we
sang', kjergjem 'we did', lelem 'we took', manglem 'we wished', vakjergjem
'we spoke', dikhlem 'we saw'. On rare occasion, the expected -am is used:
adhiljam 'we remained', dikhljam 'we saw'. In the conjugated forms of 'be',
which constitute the historical source of these affixes, RS consistently has the
expected 1 sg sijum and 1 pi sijam. This may be an attempt to incorporate a
Diambaz feature with an altered meaning, but at present it remains unclear.

192 VICTOR A. FRIEDMAN

2.6 Imperfect/Pluperfect

RS is consistently Arli in its formation of the imperfect (Friedman 1985,
§2.5) adding the analytic preterit auxiliary sine (functioning as a particle) rather
than by suffixing -as to the conjugated present: ^ ^ Ko adava vakti kjerela sine pes
vakti [sic! = lafi] has o but love, a oj mi chorori na dzanela sine te dhorei 'At
that time it was said that it was a matter of a lot of money, but she, poor thing,
did not know how to [= would not have thought of] steal/ A sako dive o la
avena sine ko pobaro numero, pa akhal avilo pes dzi ko adava o la te chiven pes
ki privatikane khera, 'But every day they came in greater numbers, and thus it
came to this: they had to be put [up] in private houses.' Sa dzala sine ^ukar dii
na agorkjergjum ofakulteti. 'Everything went/was going fine until I finished
college.'

2. 7 Long versus short present tense forms

RS almost always follows the practice articulated in RG of limiting short
present forms (Friedman 1985, §2.5) to modal constructions sensu largo, i.e.
subordination to the future marker ka and the modal (conjunctive/subjunctive/
optative/conditional) marker te. The following examples are typical: na mangaja
te vakera 'we don't want to talk', tergjola thaj ka tergjol 'it remains and will re-
main'. The following two sentences constitute exceptions to this practice: Te
perena tumare bala masirinen o la loneja a pali odova thoven o len sar sakana. 'If
your hair is falling out, rub it with salt and then wash it as usual'. Ja ka adhava
basijaver mlo dikhibe - bi cenzurakoro, 'But I will leave my uncensored view
for another time'. The first of these is explicable either as a progressive (§aip
Jusuf, pc) or as conditional versus conjunctive (Boretzky and Igla 1994:402).

2.8 Adjective comparison and agreement

This is an area of grammar in which RS reflects dialectal compromise (cf
also Friedman 1985, §2.2). The comparative is formed using the Arli/Burgudii
prefix po- (from Macedonian) while the superlative is formed using the Diambaz
prefix maj' (from Romanian, as opposed to Arli naj- [< Macedonian] or em-
[<Turkish]), e.g. baro, pobaro, majbaro 'big, bigger, biggest'. The one remnant
of the old synthetic comparative in -eder is the item pobuter 'more' {<but
'very'), which is used more frequently than pobut. RS shows ordinary adjective
agreement, except for borrowings from Macedonian, which are taken over in the

ROMANI-LANGUAGE PRESS 1 93

Macedonian neuter, which looks like the Romani masculine (-o) but are then
treated as indeclinables in RS, e.g. socijalno buti 'welfare' (literally *social
work\ in which buti is feminine. If the adjective were made to agree, it would
be socijalni [which would be identical to the Macedonian plural].)

2,9 Derivation of abstract nouns

RS uses both -be and -pe for the derivation of abstract nouns from verbs
and adjectives (Friedman 1985, §2.1), It appears that -be is restricted to deverbal
nouns, while -pe is used for both deverbal and deadjectival nouns: akharipe
*invitation\ bipakjavipe 'distrust', dadipe *truth, reality', manu^ipe 'humanity',
nanipe 'destitution', $ajdipe 'possibility', dikhibe 'view', fiksiribe
'establishment', khelibe 'playing', /7W(5/fce 'question, ^'/c/t/ifca 'cares', prandiba
'weddings', mariba 'wars', hardzhiba 'expenses'. In at least one instance, the
affixes are used to distinguish meaning in a single stem, viz. mang- which has
such diverse but related meanings as 'want, wish, love, seek, beg, need, de-
mand' etc., whence mangipa 'needs' but mangibe 'desire'; cf. also namangibe
'hatred'.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The Typology and dialectology of Romani / edited by Yaron Matras, Peter Bakker and Hristo
Kyuchukov.

p. cm. -- (Amsterdam studies in the theory and history of linguistic science. Series
IV, Current issues in linguistic theory, ISSN 0304-0763 ; v. 156)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Romany language-Grammar. 2. Romany language-Dialects. I. Matras, Yaron. 1963- .
II. Bakker, Peter. III. Kichukov, Khristo. IV. Series.
PK2897.T97 1997

491.4'975--dc21 97-42187

ISBN 90 272 3661 5 (Eur.) / 1-55619-872-8 (US) (Hb; alk. paper) CIP

© Copyright 1997 - John Benjamins B.V.

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