Joel Rini
Research Summary
Joel Rini is Professor of Spanish linguistics and philology in the Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Spanish and French from Kent State University (1981) and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Romance Linguistics from the University of Michigan (1984, 1987). Specializing in the history of the Spanish language, Professor Rini has published two books and over 30 articles on various aspects of historical linguistics and Spanish historical grammar. He has presented scholarly papers in the US, England, and Spain, and in 1996 was invited as the “Distinguished Foreign Visitor” to address the Association of Hispanists of Great Britain and Ireland. He continues his scholarly pursuits in the areas of Spanish diachronic morphology and syntax.
Education
Ph.D., University of Michigan
M.A., University of Michigan
B.S., Kent State University
Publications
Books
Exploring the Role of Morphology in the Evolution of Spanish (John Benjamins, 1999)
Motives for Linguistic Change in the Formation of the Spanish Object Pronouns. Newark, Delaware: Juan de la Cuesta, 1992.
Selected Articles:
“Are Some Spanish Nouns Truly Grammatical Hermaphrodites?” Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie 132 (2016): 731-754.
“The Enigmatic Morphology of Spanish azúcar ‘sugar’ and the ‘New Feminine el.’” Iberoromania 80 (2014): 244-260.
"Un nuevo análisis de la evolución de los imperativos singulares irregulares di, haz, ve, sé, ven, ten, pon, sal, (val).” Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie 130 (2014): 430-451.
“When Spanish h- Went Silent. How Do We Know?” Bulletin of Spanish Studies 87 (2010): 431-446.
“On the Formation of the Present Indicative Paradigm of Spanish ir and the Origin of vamos and vais.” Studies on Ibero-Romance Linguistics Dedicated to Ralph Penny. Eds. Roger Wright/Peter Ricketts. Delaware: Juan de la Cuesta (2005): 59-73.
“The Origin of Spanish entre tú y yo, ‘between you and me’: A Typological Parallel to English ‘between you and I’?” Diachronica 20 (2003): 139-65.
“The Extraordinary Survival of Spanish veía: Another Facet of Analogy Revealed.” Hispanic Review 69 (2001): 501-25.
“The Rise and Fall of Old Spanish Y’ all: vos todos vs. vos otros.” Essays in Hispanic Linguistics Dedicated to Paul M. Lloyd. Eds. Blake, Robert J., Diana L. Ranson, and Roger Wright. Delaware: Juan de la Cuesta (1999): 209-21.
“The Formation of Old Spanish buey(s), bueyes, grey(s), greyes, ley(s), leyes, rey(s), reyes: A Morphophonological Analysis.” Hispanic Review 66 (1998): 1-19.
“The Origin of Spanish ser: A Phonosyntactic Analysis.” Romance Philology 50 (1997): 295-307.
“The Vocalic Formation of the Spanish Verbal Suffixes -áis/-ás, -éis/-és, -ois/-os, and -ís: A Case of Phonological or Morphological Change?” Iberoromania 44 (1996): 1-16.
“The Evolution of the Nature and Position of the Spanish Clitic Pronoun.” La corónica 24 (1995): 173-95.
“On the Evolution of Spanish cigüeña and the Blending of Multiple Variants.” Hispanic Review 61 (1993): 519-29.
“Metathesis of Yod and the Palatalization of Latin Medial /k’l/, /g’l/, /t’l/; /ks/, /ssj/, /sj/; /kt/, /ult/ in Hispano- and Luso-Romance.” Linguistic Studies in Medieval Spanish. Eds. Harris-Northall, Ray and Thomas D. Cravens. Hispanic Seminary for Medieval Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison (1991): 109-33.
“Dating the Grammaticalization of the Spanish Clitic Pronoun.” Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie 106 (1990): 354-70.
“On the Chronology of Spanish conmigo, contigo, consigo, and the Interaction of Phonological, Syntactic, and Morphological Processes.” Hispanic Review 58 (1990): 503-12.
“A New Perspective on the Origin of le for les.” Journal of Hispanic Philology 12 (1988): 207-19.