The Complementiser System of Aromanian (South Albania)

We present an outline of finite complementation in varieties of Aromanian spoken in South Albania, in contact with Albanian, setting it in the context of the literature on Romanian, on Italian varieties and on Albanian. First, like Romanian, Albanian and some Italian varieties, Aromanian has two finite complementizers, connecting roughly to indicative and subjunctive mood. We show that the subjunctive complementizer is homophonous with the wh-pronoun ‘what’, ‘which’, reproducing a pattern independently documented for Abruzzese or Sardinian. The fact that homophony with wh-pronouns is not distributed randomly provides some support for current proposals to the effect that finite complementation in Romance involve a relativization strategy. Second, we investigate the distribution of the subjunctive particle, which is treated as a low complementizer (Fin) in recent cartographic approaches to Romanian and to other language with control into finite sentences (Greek, Calabrian and Sicilian varieties). We review alternative proposals to the effect that the subjunctive particle is not connected to the complementizer or modality system, but rather to the expression of the EPP (control). We show that distributional facts (for instance the particle position with respect to negation) are neutral as to the solution adopted and do not especially favour the cartographic solution. We also indicate how the complementation system of Aromanian bears signs of the contact with Albanian, for instance in the borrowing of the Albanian subjunctive particle të as a complementizer in Aromanian (ta), and in the borrowing of Albanian në for the expression of hypotheticals.