From Verbal Periphrases to Complex Predicates

Book excerpt: This volume, which can be considered as a follow-up publication to Pusch & Wesch (2003), contains ten studies on verbal periphrases in a wide array of Romance languages, both in a synchronic and in a historic perspective. Thus, this collective volume addresses the Romance verbal periphrastic system as a whole. The aim of the contributions is twofold: on the one hand, the authors intend to enrich the knowledge about the inventory of verbal periphrases of Romance languages, both in descriptive and analytical terms. On the other hand, the volume seeks to provide new insights for the study of the grammatical, pragmatic, and cognitive foundations of verbal periphrases, in order to enlarge our comprehension of their genesis, their evolution and their usage. Languages treated in the contributions include Catalan, (European) French, Friulian, (European) Portuguese, Romanian, (European) Spanish, and Catalan Sign Language (LSC).