Origin and development of the suffix -ARÍA in Romance

Abstract The origin and development of the compound suffix -ARÍA in (Latin and) Romance has repeatedly been addressed in works on the history of Romance word formation, without however reaching a broad consensus. In the present article, the problem is discussed again from a pan-Romance perspective and on a broad factual basis. The first chapter argues that the compound suffix’s second element, i.e. -ÍA, was already highly polysemous in (late) Latin and that the Romance languages inherited this polysemy. It is therefore misguided to treat the semantic fragmentation of the suffix as a process that took place independently in the single Romance languages. We then turn to a description of the single Romance languages and dialects, treating first the state of the art for each of these and then presenting the different patterns that can be observed, especially in the older stages. The next chapter looks at the single patterns one by one, discussing to what extent they are present in each Romance language and at the dialectal level. The lexemes that turned out to be crucial from a diachronic perspective receive special attention. The final chapter summarizes the main findings, which depart in important ways from traditional wisdom.