Non-integrated conditionals as speech-event modifiers: evidence from Romance

Abstract

Capitalizing on the basic distinction between central and peripheral adverbial clauses, the main aim of this contribution is to shed some light on certain left-right asymmetries in the distributional properties of integrated and non-integrated (concessive) conditional clauses in standard Italian, drawing indirect evidence from multiple complementizer constructions in (early) Romance. By exploring the distribution of preposed central conditional clauses in multiple complementizer constructions in some early Italo-Romance varieties and in modern Ibero-Romance, I argue, following previous analyses, that this kind of adverbial clauses occupy a topic-related specifier position within the left periphery of embedded clauses; similarly, in modern Italian and in some Italo-Romance varieties, central (concessive) conditional clauses may undergo fronting to the specifier of a functional projection situated within the higher Topic field, but crucially below the Force node. I claim that, unlike central conditionals, non-integrated addressee-oriented conditional clauses should be analyzed as sentential speech event modifiers generated within the specifier of a speech-act related projection in the left-periphery above the Force node of the main clause, which accounts for their peculiar distributional properties.