Motivated submorphology in French, Italian, and Spanish: the case of adverbs of place derived from Latin constructions with [dē + …]

Abstract

We compare the initial syllables of the French adverb series devant, derrière, dessus, dessous, dehors, dedans and their Italian equivalents davanti, dietro, sopra, sotto, fuori, dentro, and the Spanish delante, detrás, encima, debajo, fuera, dentro. We propose an explanation for the diversity of outcomes in these three Romance languages of Latin constructions in [dē + ...]. We show the relevance of the submorphological approach, in diachronic terms, to account for phonetic and semantic evolutions.