The morpho-syntactic encoding of discourse-linked topics: an agreement alternation in inversion in North-Eastern Italian varieties
Year: 2020
Type: article
Abstract: In this paper, I will argue that some languages dispose over two kinds of expletives: a purely syntactic expletive and a ‘thetic expletive’ enumerated from the lexicon and triggering a thetic interpretation of the sentence. I will present data from two North-Eastern Italian varieties that exhibit a participle agreement alternation in inversion, a phenomenon that has received little attention until now. It will become clear that the information-structural status of the DP and the pragmatic force of the sentence are crucial for the obtainment of agreement in these varieties, ultimately expressing the thetic/categorical divide (Kuroda 1972; Ladusaw 1994; Sasse 1987). I will argue against subject-verb agreement as a mere reflex of a Spec-Head configuration. Instead, Longenbaugh’s (2019) account of past participle agreement in Romance will be adopted for the syntactic analysis of the agreement alternation in a Minimalist vein.
DOI: 10.5334/gjgl.1115
Author: Silvia Schaefer
Institution: Goethe University Frankfurt
Language: English
Subfield: Language and Linguistics
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $551
OpenAlex ID: W3088038041