Ibero-Romance

If we assume that a division between 'Gallo-Romance' and 'Ibero-Romance' is valid, it is evident that French belongs to the former, Spanish and Portuguese to the latter. But how is Catalan to be treated, a language which exhibits features of both these groups? Is it essentially a Gallo-Romance or an Ibero-Romance language? The debate about this thorny question has occupied comparative Romance linguists for decades (see [..]). Badia i Margarit found a convincing solution to this long-standing problem with his frequently quoted formula that Catalan is a 'bridge language' between the Iberian Peninsula and France ([..]).