Pub Date : 2024-01-30DOI: 10.5565/rev/isogloss.341
Andrea Matticchio
This work discusses some aspects of the so-called “relaxed verb-second hypothesis” for Old Romance languages focusing on Old Italian data. Although the idea that Medieval Romance varieties displayed some kind of verb-second grammar is often accepted in the literature, careful consideration of the data and the predictions casts some doubts on this hypothesis and suggests pursuing a different road to account for word order phenomena in these varieties. The focus here is on verb-first main clauses, which result from merging a null element in the left periphery according to Wolfe’s (2015) influential work. If this approach is adopted, problems arise for the definition of the null categories that can occupy the left periphery of the clause: there is no motivation to postulate such elements unless a rule of obligatory pre-field occupation is independently justified, and the data speaks against such a rule. The question then arises whether a further weakened version of the relaxed V2 hypothesis is still preferable to a non-V2 analysis of Old Italian Grammar.
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Pub Date : 2024-01-30DOI: 10.5565/rev/isogloss.335
Tommaso Balsemin, Francesco Pinzin, Cecilia Poletto
In this work we show that Old Italo-Romance varieties have two types of pragmatic related movement to the left periphery of both the clausal and nominal domains: one that focuses the moved constituent itself and another that marks the moved constituent as background, resulting in emphasis of the non-moved portion. While Focus fronting does not obey the U20 restriction originally proposed in Cinque (2005), (back)grounding does. This counters the idea that only meaningless movements (i.e., movements deriving the canonical word order of a language) need to obey the U20 restriction, since some meaningful movements do as well. After having examined the properties of both types of constructions, we derive the distinction on the basis of the type of feature that triggers the movement. While operators like Focus have their own feature, which is read by the labeling algorithm, all other cases of movement must use the label of the lexical head, which therefore must be contained in the moved subtree. Hence, (back)grounding must drag along the lexical head to be labeled, while Focus does not need to.
{"title":"Universal 20 restriction reloaded","authors":"Tommaso Balsemin, Francesco Pinzin, Cecilia Poletto","doi":"10.5565/rev/isogloss.335","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/isogloss.335","url":null,"abstract":"In this work we show that Old Italo-Romance varieties have two types of pragmatic related movement to the left periphery of both the clausal and nominal domains: one that focuses the moved constituent itself and another that marks the moved constituent as background, resulting in emphasis of the non-moved portion. While Focus fronting does not obey the U20 restriction originally proposed in Cinque (2005), (back)grounding does. This counters the idea that only meaningless movements (i.e., movements deriving the canonical word order of a language) need to obey the U20 restriction, since some meaningful movements do as well. After having examined the properties of both types of constructions, we derive the distinction on the basis of the type of feature that triggers the movement. While operators like Focus have their own feature, which is read by the labeling algorithm, all other cases of movement must use the label of the lexical head, which therefore must be contained in the moved subtree. Hence, (back)grounding must drag along the lexical head to be labeled, while Focus does not need to.","PeriodicalId":503145,"journal":{"name":"Isogloss. Open Journal of Romance Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140481834","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-30DOI: 10.5565/rev/isogloss.330
Prudence De Pontbriand
The following paper considers the potential for optionality of anaphoric null objects in two early Romance languages: Old French and Old Tuscan. In both languages, anaphoric objects can be omitted in different syntactic contexts (e.g., in coordination with prepositional infinitives or in adjunct non-finite clauses). However, overt objects can be found in almost all contexts which also allow null objects. The current paper argues that null objects in both Old French and Old Tuscan were optional, in the sense that they were never the only option for objects, and that having a null or an overt object did not have bearing in the interpretation of the sentence.
{"title":"Exploring Optionality","authors":"Prudence De Pontbriand","doi":"10.5565/rev/isogloss.330","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/isogloss.330","url":null,"abstract":"The following paper considers the potential for optionality of anaphoric null objects in two early Romance languages: Old French and Old Tuscan. In both languages, anaphoric objects can be omitted in different syntactic contexts (e.g., in coordination with prepositional infinitives or in adjunct non-finite clauses). However, overt objects can be found in almost all contexts which also allow null objects. The current paper argues that null objects in both Old French and Old Tuscan were optional, in the sense that they were never the only option for objects, and that having a null or an overt object did not have bearing in the interpretation of the sentence.","PeriodicalId":503145,"journal":{"name":"Isogloss. Open Journal of Romance Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140480883","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-15DOI: 10.5565/rev/isogloss.369
Elena Isolani
Complementizer deletion (CD) in Italo-Romance varieties branches off in two different pathways: CD1, present in standard Italian with a bridge selecting verb and an irrealis embedded verb and CD2, available in Florentine and associated with a bridge or non-bridge selecting verb and a realis or irrealis embedded verb, but with an optional clitic element intervening between the main and the embedded verb. The traditional account unifies CD1 and CD2 claiming that they both represent the alternate checker of the overt complementizer: in CD1, the embedded verb moved to Fin° checks the relevant features, in CD2, the intervening element moved to Force° does the same. This article rests on the assumption that the alternative checking hypothesis is operative when the complementizer is omitted but proposes a different analysis for CD2. Some empirical evidence based on the order of the embedded verb and other left-peripheral elements will be provided to show that the embedded verb moves to ForceP. The analysis is framed within the Parametric Comparison Method, a comparative tool aimed at defining the parameters which regulate phenomena that operate in a specific syntactic domain (CP) and their functional implications.
{"title":"Verb movement in Florentine","authors":"Elena Isolani","doi":"10.5565/rev/isogloss.369","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/isogloss.369","url":null,"abstract":"Complementizer deletion (CD) in Italo-Romance varieties branches off in two different pathways: CD1, present in standard Italian with a bridge selecting verb and an irrealis embedded verb and CD2, available in Florentine and associated with a bridge or non-bridge selecting verb and a realis or irrealis embedded verb, but with an optional clitic element intervening between the main and the embedded verb. The traditional account unifies CD1 and CD2 claiming that they both represent the alternate checker of the overt complementizer: in CD1, the embedded verb moved to Fin° checks the relevant features, in CD2, the intervening element moved to Force° does the same. This article rests on the assumption that the alternative checking hypothesis is operative when the complementizer is omitted but proposes a different analysis for CD2. Some empirical evidence based on the order of the embedded verb and other left-peripheral elements will be provided to show that the embedded verb moves to ForceP. The analysis is framed within the Parametric Comparison Method, a comparative tool aimed at defining the parameters which regulate phenomena that operate in a specific syntactic domain (CP) and their functional implications.","PeriodicalId":503145,"journal":{"name":"Isogloss. Open Journal of Romance Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139622425","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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