Balkan Romance : aspects on the syntax of Istro-Romanian

The present study presents the initial results of the documentation and (tentative) analyses of some aspects of the grammar of Istro-Romanian (IR), an understudied seriously endangered dialect from the Eastern Romance family, spoken in Croatia. The study is based on data which I collected throughout 2009 and 2010. Chapter 1 offers a brief overview of present-day IR, with references to the community and the linguistic identity. Chapter 2 discusses the properties that IR has in common (or according to which it differs) from languages belonging to the Balkan Linguistic Area, with a systematic comparative look at the three other Eastern Romance languages/dialects. Chapters 3 and 4 present original data on the Noun Phrase and Verb Phrase in IR, in the framework of recent generative studies. Finally, Chapter 5 takes a step further into possible formal comparative analyses – with either Romanian or Slavic, by looking at the behavior of clitic elements in IR.