“Subject” clitics and particles in Provençal

Probus ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-215
Author(s):  
Paola Benincà
Keyword(s):  
Left Periphery ◽  
Peculiar Behaviour ◽  
Subject Clitics ◽  
Interrogative Clauses ◽  
Italian Dialects ◽  
Theoretical Side

Abstract Several Occitan dialects spoken in Western Piedmont exhibit no 1sg subject clitic form (a situation widely attested in Northern Italian dialects), although interrogative clauses with a 1sg subject feature an enclitic particle ke, identical to the complementiser. Many attempts have been made to interpret this ke as a reflex of Lat. E(G)O ‘I’ or originating from the reanalysis of the analogical -k displayed by verbs such as dik ‘I say’. Rather, I claim that ke is what it seems, namely the complementiser, and entertain the hypothesis that in these varieties the complementiser ended up satisfying EPP-like features. To support this analysis, I examine data from a wider area including Provençal, Gascon and Ibero-Romance dialects in which the complementiser is used as a proclitic particle in assertive clauses (Etxepare 2010 a.o.). On the theoretical side, I submit the hypothesis that the peculiar behaviour of the complementiser ke in that area has to do with the checking of a ‘speaker’ feature in the left periphery of the clause.

Remnant movement and smuggling in some romance interrogative clauses

2020 ◽  
pp. 255-317
Author(s):  
Cecilia Poletto ◽  
Jean-Yves Pollock
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Result ◽  
Language Learner ◽  
Morphological Properties ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Language Faculty ◽  
Remnant Movement ◽  
Free Relative ◽  
Interrogative Clauses ◽  
Italian Dialects

This chapter analyzes the syntax of interrogative clauses in French and in some Northern Italian dialects (NIDs), including so-called “wh-in-situ” configurations. It shows that their intricate properties can be derived from standard computations (“wh-movement” and remnant movement of vP/IP to a Top/ground slot) to either the vP Left periphery (“LLP”) or the CP domain (“HLP”). If so, it becomes necessary to raise the question of why some languages make use of the LLP or the HLP, or indeed both, like French, as argued in sections 2–7. In significant cases the morphological properties of the various Wh-words and the surface forms of the sentences provide all the clues required by the language learner and the linguist. In French, movement of interrogative pronouns to the HLP is actually movement to a free relative layer. This is an automatic consequence of the fact that, as in Germanic, most French and Romance wh-items are morphologically both (free) relative and interrogative pronouns. This will explain the distribution of French Quoi (what)—only an interrogative pronoun—and similar items in a number of NIDs (Che in Bellunese and Illasi, Què in Borgomanerese and Monese). In the same vein, sections 9–11 show that the fact that French Que is both an interrogative and relative element, in addition to being a clitic qua interrogative, will account for its properties in conjunction with a “smuggling” analysis of Subject Clitic Inversion (SCLI). Sections 14–16 show that many NIDs make use of both the LLP and the HLP and that smuggling is involved in deriving the form and interpretation of interrogative clauses in Bellunese, Illasi, and Monese. In addition to renewed empirical arguments in favor of remnant movement and smuggling, sections 2–7 argue that embedded interrogative infinitives in (at least) French are vPs and only have a (sometimes truncated) LLP. In addition to the fruitfulness of the “smuggling” idea for Romance, the main theoretical result of this chapter is that the interrogative syntax of the languages and dialects studied here supports the idea that “relative constructions” or “interrogative constructions” are not primitives of the language faculty, since in significant cases the derivation of questions activates both the interrogative side of the LLP and the (free) relative side of the HLP.

On the left periphery of three languages of Northern Italy

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-117
Author(s):  
Federica Cognola
Keyword(s):  
Northern Italy ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Simple Description ◽  
Functional Projection ◽  
Technical Sense ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Pragmatic Interpretation ◽  
Interrogative Clauses ◽  
Finite Verb

Abstract Through a focus on the properties of subject-finite verb inversion and XP fronting in three relaxed V2 languages, namely Cimbrian, Ladin and Mòcheno, this paper aims to widen and refine our understanding of relaxed V2 languages, i.e. languages in which the V2 property should be understood in a technical sense as obligatory V-to-C movement, not as a simple description referring to linearisation (Benincà 2006, 2013; Ledgeway 2016). It will be shown that inversion differs across relaxed V2 languages in two ways. In a first subtype, inversion is not associated with any marked pragmatic interpretation of the lexical subject and the subject appears in an A position in the IP area: this type is instantiated by Old Italian (Benincà 2006, Poletto 2014). A second option, instantiated by the languages considered in this paper, is that the lexical subject receives a pragmatically marked interpretation which is encoded in a Functional Projection (FP) in the vP periphery (Belletti 2004, Poletto 2006). This paper confirms that V3/V4 word orders involve the presence of a double articulation for foci and wh-elements, which appear in different positions in the CP layer in relaxed V2 languages (Poletto 2002, Wolfe 2015 a,b). It also contributes to our understanding of the syntax of topics in relaxed V2 languages by showing that (i) topics can be moved to CP and (ii) the movement option is not restricted to main clauses lacking an XP in the left periphery; it also occurs in interrogative clauses (unlike in the relaxed V2 varieties considered in Walkden 2014, 2015).

scholarly journals Synchronic and diachronic variation phenomena in inverted interrogative and related contexts in Northern Italian dialects

Nordlyd ◽  
10.7557/12.96 ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chiara Polo
Keyword(s):  
Present Contribution ◽  
Dialectal Variation ◽  
Syntactic Variation ◽  
Syntactic Rule ◽  
Ferdinand De Saussure ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
History Of ◽  
Diachronic Analysis ◽  
Interrogative Clauses ◽  
Italian Dialects

In the spirit of Ferdinand de Saussure, the present contribution is offered as an integrated synchronic and diachronic analysis of syntactic variation phenomena across a selected number of Veneto and other Northern Italian dialects: the main focus of the study will be on (unembedded) interrogative clauses. The goal targeted is to account for the wide range of structural options allowed by contemporary dialects (VS/SV/SVS) in the light of the discrepant evolutionary stages they embody and reflect, as independently reconstructed and singled out in the history of the Venetian dialect. Seemingly idiosyncratic contemporary inter-dialectal variation phenomena are thus viewed as functions of the different parametric values dialects activate in dependence on the position they occupy in an evolutionary continuum which promotes the elimination of an anciently fully productive inverted pattern VS (along with the syntactic rule V-to-C which possibly underlies its generation).

Pro-drop in interrogatives across older Germanic and Romance languages

2021 ◽  
pp. 97-136
Author(s):  
Federica Cognola ◽  
George Walkden
Keyword(s):  
Romance Languages ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Null Subjects ◽  
Null Subject ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
Agreement Morphology ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Interrogative Clauses ◽  
Germanic Languages

This chapter investigates the mechanisms of null subject licensing in direct interrogatives, an environment which is generally neglected in investigation into null subjects, using data from a range of early Romance and Germanic languages considered to be asymmetric pro-drop languages, i.e. languages in which null subjects are favoured in main clauses. We find that there is subtle variation between the languages in question, but that two factors in particular – interrogative type and person – are crucial in conditioning this variation, and we sketch analyses based on the differential availability of Agree relations with left-peripheral elements. Therefore, null subjects in main interrogative clauses are licensed in two slightly different manners in the two language families – a fact which we show follows from differences in the structure of their left periphery and in agreement morphology

The Phonology and Syntax of Preverbal and Postverbal Subject Clitics in Northern Italian Dialects

2008 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 523-563 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Cardinaletti ◽  
Lori Repetti
Keyword(s):  
Final Position ◽  
Null Subjects ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
Phonological Constraints ◽  
Subject Clitics ◽  
Lexical Items ◽  
Italian Dialects

We argue that preverbal and postverbal subject clitics in northern Italian dialects are the same lexical items. The different forms of proclitics and enclitics can be explained phonologically (i.e., by phonological constraints ranked in a particular order) and by the hypothesis that morphologically neutral vowels may be inserted in final position (what we call morphological epenthesis). The distributional differences in the paradigm derive from a competition between overt clitics and null subjects that is resolved in an intricate way across sentence types and across dialects and that depends on the interaction of clitic and verb movement and on Minimize Structure.

Subject clitics and clitic recycling: locative sentences in some Iberian Romance languages

1998 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
VÍCTOR M. LONGA ◽  
GUILLERMO LORENZO ◽  
GEMMA RIGAU
Keyword(s):  
Romance Languages ◽  
Lexical Structure ◽  
Subject Clitics ◽  
Italian Dialects ◽  
Spanish Dialects

The first concern of this article is an analysis of locative sentences in the Iberian Romances. It is argued that both the existential (〈HAVE〉) and the stative (〈BE〉) construction derive from a single abstract verb. Their differences are based in the presence vs. the absence of an incorporation process over an otherwise identical lexical structure. The second topic of the paper is a study of the behavior of pronominal clitics within these sentences. It is observed that while Catalan has a rich paradigm of clitics (accusative, dative, locative, partitive), languages like Asturian, Galician and certain Spanish dialects resort to a ‘recycling’ strategy in order to palliate the deficiencies of their clitic paradigms. In this respect, we will show how accusative clitics are used as partitive, locative, and even subject clitics. We also propose some of the principles which constrain the application of this strategy. Finally, an Appendix is devoted to certain uses of the accusative clitics as modal markers, also within locative sentences. These uses are closely related with the behavior of certain clitics in Northern Italian dialects.

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