LA STRUCTURE FORMÉE DU VERBE A VREA ‘VOULOIR’ ET DE L’INFINITIF EN ROUMAIN
THE STRUCTURE MADE OF THE VERB A VREA “WANT” AND THE INFINITIVE IN ROMANIAN

Summary/Abstract: The Structure Made of the Verb a vrea “want” and the Infinitive in Romanian. Based on a corpus containing old language texts as well as texts illustrating the regional varieties of Modern Romanian, the present article brings forth the peculiarities shown by the structure made of the verb a vrea “want” – both as a modal verb and as an auxiliary – and the infinitive. The features illustrated are related to: (i) the infinitive – subjunctive competition; (ii) the (non-) realization of the complementizer preceding the infinitive; (iii) the climbing phenomenon displayed by the argumental clitic of the infinitive. Compared to Old Romanian, current standard Romanian has lost certain syntactic features of the verb a vrea “want” and the infinitive, which are generally preserved in (more conservative) regional varieties of Modern Romanian. The analysis brings forth an important conclusion, namely the fact that, marginally (in the regional varieties, as well as in certain stylistic registers of the current language), the modal verb a vrea “want” behaves as a restructuring verb (as shown by the clitic climbing structures).

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