Variație în actualizarea complementului comparativ din grupul adjectival în româna actuală

This paper examines the variation in the actualization of the comparative complement with adjectival heads, based on the analysis of the contemporary Romanian corpus roTenTen. The study focuses on complements co-occurring with adjectival degree markers in inequality comparative constructions (superiority and inferiority), equality constructions, and comparative-partitive constructions (involving relative superlatives). The variation concerns not only the actualization versus non-actualization of the complement, but also the possible use of two or more connectors in the same type of comparative construction. The research investigates to what extent previous observations from the literature regarding the variation in comparative complement realization are validated by current usage as illustrated in the corpus, whether there are other relevant aspects reflected in the corpus, and how the current state of variation in comparative complement usage fits into the evolution of comparative constructions from the perspective of both inherent (linguistic) and academic (literary) norms of Romanian. Special attention was given to instances of cacophony(-like) avoidance, as there is heightened sensitivity about this phenomenon, which drives changes in the variation of comparative connectors. Specific key findings include: (i) ca ‘than’ is less frequent than decât ‘than’ and often occurs in lexicalized inequality constructions; (ii) two other prototypical equality comparison connectors, precum ‘as’ and ca și ‘(exactely) as’, appear, though rarely, in inequality comparisons; (iii) inferiority comparisons develop certain pragmatic uses that affect their grammatical expression; (iv) in comparisons of equality, the connector precum ‘as’ is a significant competitor to ca ‘as’ and ca și ‘(exactely) as’; (v) in comparative-partitive constructions, an unofficial prescriptive rule against using din with plurals has influenced the distribution of the prepositions din/dintre ‘of, from’, increasing the use of dintre ‘of, from’; (vi) usage variation is shaped not only by academic norms but also by non-linguists’ beliefs about proper literary language.