Ladinia dolomitica

2020

Scopo di questo contributo è offrire una panoramica sull’area che viene usualmente definita “Ladinia dolomitica” e sulla varietà linguistica che vi viene tradizionalmente parlata, il ladino. L'articolo descrive brevemente la storia dell'area e dello sviluppo del ladino, e in seguito descrive le caratteristiche fonologiche, morfologiche, sintattiche e lessicali principali del ladino, che lo distinguono dalle vicine varietà italoromanze. In seguito si illustrano le peculiarità linguistiche dei singoli dialetti ladini, che sono parlati ognuno in una valle diversa delle Dolomiti. L'articolo è fortemente innovativo e originale, perché permette di ascoltare i file audio che esemplificano i tratti…

The Syntax–Pragmatics Interface in Heritage Languages: The Use of anche (“Also”) in German Heritage Speakers of Italian

2023

This paper deals with the use of anche (“also”) by German heritage speakers of Italian (“IHSs”). Previous research showed that anche and its German counterpart auch share many features but also display language-specific characteristics. According to previous research on bilingualism, heritage speakers show cross-linguistic influence (“CLI”) when a linguistic phenomenon is at the syntax–pragmatics interface and there is a partial overlap in the two languages at stake. Therefore, we expect the use of anche in IHSs to be influenced by CLI. By analysing data from a semi-spontaneous corpus, we investigate the production of anche in order to understand which factors shape the grammar of the IHSs.…

Microvariation in the Distribution of Resumptive Pronouns in the Left Dislocation Construction in Two Tyrolean Dialects of Northern Italy

2023

In this paper we document a so-far neglected case of microvariation involving resumptive pronouns in the left-dislocation construction in Meranese, spoken in South Tyrol, and Mòcheno, spoken in the Fersina valley (Trentino). While in standard German resumptive elements in this construction belong to the class of D-pronouns, the two Tyrolean dialects considered in the paper exhibit, as resumptive pronouns, both (i) D-pronouns and (ii) pronominal usages of the distal demonstrative formed by the definite article (D) and sèll corresponding to ‘that one’. We show that in both languages D+sèll forms overlap with German D-pronouns in most contexts, whereas D-pronou…

The expression of additivity in the Alps: German auch, Italian anche and their counterparts in Gardenese Ladin

2019

Additive particles (e.g. English also) usually operate on a constituent (‘domain of association’) signaling that it has to be added to a list of items already introduced in the context or inferable. In addition, they can also exhibit a more grammatical function acting as a focused constituent itself or a modal particle. In the present contribution, we aim to provide a classification of the usage patterns and main grammatical functions of the additive item also in the standard languages spoken in the alpine region of Trentino-South Tyrol, i.e. German (auch) and Italian (anche) and in a regional language, Gardenese Ladin (belonging to the Rhaeto-romance group), which displays two forms: nce a…

Pseudo-relatives, gerunds and infinitives in Romance: (only) superficial resemblances and structural connections

2013

L'argomento di questa monografia è un confronto tra i costrutti predicativi di tipo frasale nelle diverse varietà romanze. Mentre le pseudorelative sono diffuse pressoché in tutta la Romània, con qualche variazione parametrica minore, i gerundi predicativi e gli infiniti preposizionali sono usati solo in alcune varietà. Negli studi linguistici sull'argomento è mancata finora l'ottica comparativa, sia tra varietà diverse, sia tra costrutti predicativi diversi. Il mio lavoro si prefissa lo scopo di colmare questa lacuna, senza ignorare però i costrutti percettivi composti da un infinito semplice, che da parte della letteratura sono stati paragonati alle strutture predicative delle pseudorelat…

Progressive and predicative constructions with gerund in Romance. A contrastive analysis

2018

Progressive and predicative constructions formed with gerund are present in numerous Romance languages. In the literature, these two types of construction have often been considered as syntactically analogous. Through the application of syntactic tests, this study will show that, despite a number of similarities, progressive and predicative constructs with gerund are characterized by a different structure.

Expressing perception in parallel ways. Sentential Small Clauses in German and Romance

2021

This chapter compares Pseudo-relatives (‘PRs’), a construction found in most Romance languages, with ‘Subject-wieclauses’ (‘SWs’), a German construction in which the subject of an embedded wie-clause precedes the complementizer wie (‘how’; e.g. Ich sah Maria, wie sie sang, lit. “I saw Mary, how she sung”, i.e. ‘I saw Mary singing’). We show that both constructions mainly occur with perception verbs, and that they have a very similar syntactic behaviour; e.g., they can be coordinated with adjectival or prepositional small clauses and have anaphoric tense. Furthermore, they both have a clausal nature but can modify a DP. We thus propose to extend Casalicchio’s (2016) analysis of PRs to SWs: t…

Verb-Second and (micro)-variation in two Rhaeto-Romance varieties of Northern Italy.

2018

Rhaeto-Romance varieties are the only present-day Romance varieties which exhibit the Verb Second constraint (Benincà 1994, Poletto 2002, Salvi 2010). In this chapter we examine two properties typically ascribed to the Verb Second phenomenon, subject-finite verb inversion and restrictions on the co-occurrence of multiple constituents in the sentence-initial position, in two Rhaeto-Romance varieties spoken in South Tyrol (Province of Bolzano, Northern Italy). We demonstrate that both varieties behave like Verb-Second languages as far as both phenomena are concerned, but exhibit a specific Verb-Second system governed by the interplay between syntactic and discourse constraints which differs f…

Contact-induced phenomena in the Alps

2019

The main question underlying this chapter is to what extent language contact can affect syntactic structure. To tackle this issue we examine two relevant phenomena found in two minority languages spoken in the region Trentino-Alto Adige/South Tyrol: clitic climbing in Dolomitic Ladin and the use of the Romance complementizer ke in Cimbrian. Both phenomena are usually considered as the result of a contact-induced change influenced by the neighbouring Italo-Romance varieties. However, it is shown that the rising of clitic climbing is a language-internal process which is only accelerated by the contact with Italian. Similarly, the lexical borrowing of the complementizer ke in Cimbrian does not…

L'uso del gerundio con i verbi di percezione gardenesi

2011

L'articolo prende in considerazione i verbi che indicano una percezione sensoriale (per es. udëi 'vedere' audì 'sentire') e le strutture sintattiche che possono selezionare in ladino gardenese. In questa varietà (così come in badiotto, che qui non viene analizzato) si utilizza spesso un gerundio; lo stesso costrutto può essere usato anche in altre lingue romanze, come in francese o spagnolo, ma a differenza di queste il gardenese non permette come alternativa l'uso di un infinito semplice. Perciò le proposizioni gerundive hanno avuto uno sviluppo particolare in gardenese, che viene descritta e analizzata in questo articolo. Le caratteristiche più importanti dei costrutti gerundivi gardenesi…

Rheto-Romance Studies: Language and Linguistics

2019

This article resumes and critically discusses the literature published on Rhaeto-Romance (Romansh in Switzerland, Ladin and Friulian in Northern Italy) in 2017.

Gerunds become prepositional infinitives in Romance Small Clauses: the effects of later Merge to the syntactic spine

2019

This article offers a comparative analysis of ‘predicative’ gerunds (‘PGs’) and prepositional infinitives (‘PIs’), focussing on perception constructions in Spanish (PGs) and European Portuguese (PIs). I demonstrate that these two constructions are diachronically related and that they still have a similar syntax. The evidence discussed suggests that both constructions are Small Clauses headed by a preposition of central coincidence. In PGs, this preposition is merged in a low aspectual projection and incorporates into the verb. In PIs, an evolution of PGs, it is merged later in the structure. This leads to a layering process, i.e. the splitting of a single head into a series of heads and tra…

A syntactic analysis of the subject clitic a in the Friulian variety of Campone

2015

This article presents a syntactic analysis of the third person subject clitic a in Camponese, a heretofore unstudied Friulian variety. Following Poletto's (2000) map of subject clitics, we argue that it bears [+third person] features, and is, in fact, the spell-out of the functional head Subj°, located in the highest projection of TP (following Rizzi & Shlonsky 2007). In the first part of the article, we offer a detailed description of the distribution and syntactic properties of the subject clitic a, identifying its position in relation to the other elements that occur in the CP and TP. In the second part we discuss two proposals put forward to account for split clitics like a-l in the…

Predicative Gerunds in Spanish and Catalan

2014

In this article I discuss an instance of microvariation in Catalan, which regards the distribution of predicative gerunds. It is proposed that the differences depend on restrictions on the movement of the verb: the more it is restricted, the less contexts will allow the use of gerunds. A crucial argument for this analysis comes from the comparison with Cinque's (1999) hierarchy of functional heads: in all Catalan varieties gerunds can express the aspectual values which are lower in the hierarchy. Conversely, only the varieties where gerunds are most widespread (Central Catalan) allow them to express also the higher aspectual values. In the last part of the article, I argue that there is an …

La costruzione tian (tun) + infinito nel dialetto tedesco di Merano*

2012

This article deals with the 'do-support' phenomenon in the German Tyrolean dialect spoken in Merano/Meran (Northern Italy). We show that it is used in various contexts, which do not correspond to the contexts in which English resorts to do-support. In some of these contexts the do-support is obligatory, while in others it is optional.

Nominal Agreement in L2 Speakers of Italian: Suggestions for a Teaching Plan

2021

International audience; This paper addresses the topic of adult acquisition of nominal agreement in Italian, a crucial issue in teaching Italian as Second/Foreign Language. Building on a corpus containing spontaneous and semi-spontaneous production data from two advanced L2-speakers of Italian, I show that nominal agreement can be problematic even in the last stages of the acquisition process. The discussion of the instances of missing agreement in the corpus suggests that these are not due to a missing knowledge of the agreement rules in Italian, but instead on processing and production. In particular, some contexts prove to be more difficult than others: gender agreement (i.e., agreement …

Rheto-Romance Studies: Language and Linguistics

2022

This article resumes and critically discusses the literature published on Rhaeto-Romance (Romansh in Switzerland, Ladin and Friulian in Northern Italy) in 2019.

Il ruolo del contatto tra varietà tedesche e romanze nella costruzione «verbo più locativo»

2016

In this article we examine some effects of language contact in the multilingual province of Trento, where Romance and Germanic varieties have been in contact for centuries. We focus on the syntax of phrasal verbs (e. g. ‘go out’, ‘get away’) in Trentin, a Romance dialect group, in Fassan, a Rhaeto-romance variety, and in Cimbrian, a German(ic) minority language. In particular, we deal with two word order phenomena which might be attributed to contact with the more prestigious or widespread varieties spoken in the area: (i) in some Fassan phrasal verbs we find the order «Verb – XP – Locative element», which resembles the German order; (ii) in Cimbrian various syntactic positions are possible…

Morphologie und Syntax im Projekt ALD-DM

2017

Quest'articolo prende l'avvio dal contributo presentato al VI Colloquium Retoromanistich (cf. Bauer 2016) e offre un'analisi linguistica tra le varietà ladine e la quantificazione statistica degli aspetti morfologici e sintattici secondo il quadro teorico del progetto ALD-DM (Università di Salisburgo). All'interno del progetto, l'interpretazione fonetica e lessicale sulla base delle carte dell'atlante del ladino dolomitico (ALD) è invece già stata completata (pubblicazione della prima parte: 1998; della seconda parte: 2012). Dopo una breve introduzione al progetto, in quest'articolo si discutono tre aspetti morfosintattici (per es. l'omofonia delle desinenze verbali di terza persona singola…

La morfologia del verbo in alcune varietà del Piemonte sud-occidentale: fenomeni di irregolarità e regolarizzazione

2011

The article discusses some particularities of the verbal morphology in various Piedmontese varieties.

Parameterizing 'lexical subject-finite verb' inversion across Verb Second languages: On the role of Relativized Minimality at the vP edge

2020

By discussing novel data from two Dolomitic Ladin languages spoken in Northern Italy, Badiotto and Gardenese, we show that in these Verb-second languages subject-finite verb inversion i) is constrained by the syntactic (adverb or object) and discourse (focus or topic) nature of the sentence-initial constituent, and by the discourse status of the DP subject. We demonstrate that in both varieties subjects in inversion either appear in a FocusP of the vP periphery (Belletti 2004, Poletto 2010) or in an A position in the IP layer, and that the observed distribution of inversion follows from two universal constraints of movement affecting extraction through the vP edge: a) cyclicity (extraction …

Introduzione al Manuale di linguistica ladina

2020

Il capitolo presenta le finalità e la struttura del Manuale di linguistica ladina. In particolare, si discutono le principali questioni definitorie riguardo al glottonimo ed etnonimo ladino, si giustifica la delimitazione del ladino brissinotirolese, oggetto del Manuale, mediante una combinazione di criteri sia di linguistica interna che esterna, che vengono illustrati singolarmente, e infine si prospettano alcuni desiderata nell’ambito della ricerca scientifica sul ladino. This chapter discusses the aims and the structure of the Manuale di linguistica ladina. It focuses in particular on the main classifying issues about "Ladin" used as language name as well as ethnic defiinition; on the co…

Il clitico soggetto di terza persona al in friulano centrale. Proposta per una nuova analisi

2018

This chapter discusses the syntactic properties of the subject clitici pronoun 'al' ('he.CL') in Central Friulian. The description is based on a comparison with Western Friulian, in which the clitic cluster 'a l' occurs. We show that the Central Friulian 'al' is syntactically different and should be analysed as a single clitic. In the cases in which 'al' does not occur (this happens when another clitic pronoun is present), or when it occurs in the form -l (only after negation: 'nol' 'not=he.CL) is due to phonology. Our proposal is also strengthened by considering data from aphasia: aphasic speakers of Central Friulian seem to conceive the 'al' as a single clitic.

Ricostruire la diacronia della sintassi ladino-dolomitica con l'aiuto di Joppi. Il caso dei costrutti percettivi

2016

L'articolo discute la duplice variazione che riguarda i costrutti percettivi delle varietà ladine: da un lato l'uso di due forme verbali diverse (gerundi e infiniti preposizionali), e dall'altro le differenze tra questi costrutti in ladino e nelle varietà iberoromanze. Sulla base dei dati tratti principalmente dalla raccolta di testi friuliani di Vincenzo Joppi (1878), si mostrerà come le peculiarità dei costrutti percettivi ladini siano dovute al loro carattere conservativo, ma anche a un'innovazione interna al ladino. This article suggests that a diachronic analysis of a specific syntactic phenomenon in Romance allows us to formulate hypotheses that can be extended to those varieties that…

The Pseudo-Relatives and other Correspondent Constructions in the Romance Languages

2013

This chapter deals with the use of different construction selected by perception verbs in Romance, focusing in particular on Pseudo-relatives. They are compared with gerunds and infinitives, which are also used with perception verbs in Romance.

The use of gerunds and infinitives in perceptive constructions

2016

In this article I compare the use of gerunds with perceptive verbs in Spanish and in Gardenese, a Rhaeto-Romance variety spoken in Northern Italy: perceptive gerunds are used as secondary predicates in Spanish, but as defective TP-complements in Gardenese. Following Rizzi’s (2014) account of parametric variation, I propose that the differences are due to the interplay of three parameters: a [+progressive] feature on Gardenese perception verbs, the pure lexical status of perception verbs in Gardenese and a [+Agreement] feature on Spanish gerunds. The discussion of the parameters involved leads to more general considerations, as a new proposal for the structure of perceptive ECMs in Romance, …

On the null-subject phenomenon: an example of successful linguistic research

2018

This chapter deals with the history on the studies on null subjects, and on the most recent approaches.

Mòcheno e tamòcco: su due soprannomi etnici per tedesco

2016

In questo contributo discutiamo l’etimologia dei termini mòcheno e tamòcco, utilizzati in Trentino-Alto Adige per riferirsi a due gruppi tedescofoni e alla loro lingua. In particolare, mòcheno indica la popolazione e la lingua di ceppo tedesco della valle del Fersina in Trentino (anche detta Valle dei Mòcheni), mentre tamòcco è utilizzato in provincia di Bolzano come spregiativo per gli appartenenti al gruppo linguistico tedesco. L’obiettivo primario del contributo è proporre una sistematizzazione delle varie occorrenze di mòcheno e tamòcco nelle fonti, discutendo sia i risultati degli studi precedenti, sia nuovi dati onomastici, toponomastici e dialettali dell’area alpina orientale da noi …

On the Syntax of Fronted Adverbial Clauses in Two Tyrolean Dialects: The Distribution of Resumptive Semm

2023

Abstract This chapter discusses adverbial resumption in two Tyrolean dialects, Meranese and Mòcheno, which represent two privileged environments for investigations on microvariation. We show that certain classes of fronted adverbials are resumed in both languages by the resumptive element semm (lit. “there, then”), which behaves semantically like a generalized resumptive because it is used with a variety of adverbial clauses. However, unlike the Norwegian generalized resumptive studied by Christine Meklenborg, semm is a maximal category and cannot resume nominal arguments. We demonstrate that resumption with semm is limited to central adverbial clauses (e.g. temporal clauses), while periphe…

Ladinometria: Festschrift für Hans Goebl zum 65. Geburtstag / Miscellanea per Hans Goebl per il 65° compleanno / Publicazion en onour de Hans Goebl e…

2013

Das Gerundium im Italienischen und Spanischen: Ein syntaktischer Vergleich mit Ausblick auf das Ladinische

2015

Il presente articolo è dedicato al confronto tra l’uso del gerundio in italiano e spagnolo; a differenza di quanto si potrebbe pensare a prima vista, la loro corrispondenza formale non implica un identico uso sintattico. La divergenza principale è data dal gerundio predicativo, molto diffuso in spagnolo e agrammaticale in italiano, divergenza che è dovuta a una differente evoluzione sintattica risalente ai primi secoli delle lingue romanze. In spagnolo vi fu infatti la sostituzione sistematica del participio presente latino attraverso il gerundio, mentre nell’italiano del Tardo Medioevo emerse la tendenza a coindicizzare il soggetto del gerundio esclusivamente con il soggetto (o con l’agent…

Cambiamenti nell'uso dei soggetti clitici veneti: il ruolo del contatto con l'italiano

2018

This chapter discusses the results of a series of data on the syntax of subject clitic pronouns in Venetan dialects. The data were gathered through a crowdsourcing tool (google modules), and more than 700 participants took part in the inquiry. The data collection asked for grammaticality judgements on a series of contexts. The main research question was whether the syntax of subject clitics is changing in the language of the younger generation: this question is particularly important because the distribution of the Venetan varieties througout the Veneto region is changing, due to the increasing influence and presence of Italian, which is the L1 of most of the younger speakers. The results s…

Il ladino e i suoi idiomi

2020

In questo capitolo si illustrano le suddivisioni interne al gruppo ladino. Dopo aver sottolineato la posizione particolare dell’ampezzano (appartenente linguisticamente al gruppo cadorino), si mostra che le restanti varietà sono separate da tre diverse linee di demarcazione che si sovrappongono: una linea di origine altomedievale che corre da nord a sud, dividendo Fassa e Gardena da Badia e Fodom; una da ovest a est, più recente, che isola il ladino settentrionale (valli di Gardena e Badia) dal ladino meridionale; e infine una linea circolare che separa le varietà centrali da quelle periferiche.Nella seconda parte del capitolo sono discusse le differenze fonologiche, morfologiche, sintattic…

La costruzione 'con + DP + pseudorelativa': proposta per una duplice interpretazione

2015

This chapter deals with the so-called "absolute construction", an adverbial prepositional phrase headed by the preposition 'con' ('with') followed by a noun and a pseudo-relative clause (e.g. "Con Maria che piange, non possiamo uscire"). The main aim of the chapter is to show that Pseudo-relative clauses can have three different structures, and that two different types are used in the absolute construction, depending on the degree of syntactic integration of the prepositional phrase in the main clause. Fronted 'con'-clauses select a pseudo-relative clause with clausal status (CP), while sentence-final 'con'-clauses, which are more integrated, select a pseudo-relative clause with nominal sta…

Pseudo-relatives and their left-periphery

2016

In this article I propose a new analysis of Pseudo-Relative clauses ('PRs') within the Cartographic model (Rizzi 1997 a.o.). Heretofore, the apparently contradictory behaviour of PRs in the syntactic tests used to determine their structure has been very problematic. Based on new data from Italian, I show that PRs are Small Clauses with a ForceP projection. Moreover, I explain the inconsistent results of the syntactic tests by claiming that PRs can be embedded in different syntactic environments. More specifically, they can be inserted as 'bare' Small Clauses into the matrix clause or be part of a bigger structure: i.e., a Complex-DP, a locative adjunction or a 'Larsonian' structure.

VinKo

2018

L'articolo presenta lo strumento per linguisti VinKo (Varieties in Contact/Varietäten im Kontakt/Varietà in contatto), una piattaforma per la raccolta di dati orali di lingue non standard mediante crowdsourcing.

Rhaeto-Romance Studies: Language and Linguistics

2020

The Year's Work in Modern Language Studies is an annual critical bibliography of scholarly work done in the modern languages (except English). The bibliography is collaboratively edited under the direction of the general editors. All contributions are in English and written by acknowledged experts in the field.

Recensione di Lena Karssenberg, Non-prototypical Clefts in French. A Corpus Analysis of "il y a" clefts, Berlin/Boston, De Gruyter (Beihefte zur Zeit…

2021

Das zweifache Komplementierersystem im Zimbrischen: Romanische Entlehnung und Eigenentwicklung

2018

Cimbrian is a German(ic) minority language which has long been in contact with Romance varieties in the Northeast of Italy and represents an ideal object of analysis for investigating some specific issues in language contact, such as the borrowing of functional words. In this article, we first provide a detailed description of the Cimbrian subordination system putting forward an analysis of both the Romance loanword ke and the native complementizer az; secondly, we try to generalize the concept of ‘functional loanword’ comparing Cimbrian with typologically different languages. In a nutshell, we propose a common grammaticalization path, by which functional words borrowed from a model languag…