A Case of Clitic Personal Pronoun Borrowing in Abruzzian Romani. Premises, Processes and Outcomes of a Rare Contact-Induced Innovation

Abstract

Among the many Romani varieties spoken in Italy for centuries, Southern Italy Romani probably shows the highest degree of Romancisation, to be understood as a convergence toward Romance lexicon and structural patterns. The article takes into account Abruzzian Romani – the best described and most vital variety of Southern Italy Romani – and focuses on a cross-linguistically rather uncommon phenomenon: the borrowing of a clitic personal pronoun. Namely, Abruzzian Romani 1pl non-nominative clitic =ʧǝ cannot be traced back to an Indo-Aryan etymology, but must be considered a borrowing from Abruzzese. The article maintains that such an uncommon sort of borrowing must arise from special predisposing conditions and attempts to reconstruct them, concluding that only a cluster of cooperating factors, including common Indo-European origin of Romani and Abruzzese, independent sound changes and deep and centuries-long bilingualism of Abruzzian Roma, made this rare outcome of language contact possible.