Two Convergent Effects of Language Contact in Romanian: The Relative Pronoun cine ‘who’

Abstract

This paper focuses on a construction attested in Old Romanian and Lipovan Romanian, but unavailable in standard Modern Romanian: the use of cine ‘who’ as a relative pronoun in headed relative clauses. We put forth the hypothesis that this structure is an effect of language contact. In particular, the interrogative cine ‘who’ acquired its relative value and the possibility to be used in headed relative clauses by grammatical replication of the Old Church Slavonic equivalent, respectively of the Russian equivalent. Although the two scenarios appear to be similar, the two varieties followed two distinct diachronic paths.