{"title":"Inchoativity and mirativity in Italo-Romance and Balkan Slavic verbal periphrases.","authors":"Vincenzo Nicolò Di Caro, Luca Molinari","doi":"10.5565/rev/isogloss.333","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/isogloss.333","url":null,"abstract":"This paper investigates the properties of GO and TAKE used as functional verbs to express the beginning of an action or a state (inchoativity) or a sense of surprise, wonder, astonishment, or regret (mirativity) as found in a group of multiple verb constructions, in a macro-comparative perspective. Multiple Agreement Constructions (V1+mi/mu/da/če+V2[+finite]) and Pseudo-Coordination (V1+‘and’+V2[+finite]) are considered in Italo-Romance (Italian and Sicilian) and Balkan Slavic (Bulgarian), together with the Italo-Romance Infinitival Construction (V1+a+V2[-finite]), drawing from novel fieldwork data and online corpus data. GO and TAKE generally proved to be highly productive as both inchoative and mirative markers in all the languages considered. In particular, an analysis of cases in which these two functional verbs convey (to different degrees) both functions at once is provided, relying on the cognitive basis underlying the process of their grammaticalisation.","PeriodicalId":503145,"journal":{"name":"Isogloss. Open Journal of Romance Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140982280","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}
Greta Viale, A. Briglia, Massimo Mucciardi, Anna Carlier
{"title":"To be or to have? That is the question","authors":"Greta Viale, A. Briglia, Massimo Mucciardi, Anna Carlier","doi":"10.5565/rev/isogloss.346","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/isogloss.346","url":null,"abstract":"For the first time, systematic research of auxiliary selection in Italian is proposed using corpus analysis and natural language processing (NLP). By combining these methods, we seek to find the most significant factors that influence the choice of auxiliary in intransitive verbs with double auxiliation. These verbs have often been studied in the literature (e.g., peripheral verbs [Sorace 2000]), but they have never been addressed in a comprehensive way (Giancarli 2015). The findings emphasize the most significant factors influencing the choice of ‘be’ or ‘have’ based on semantic, syntactic, and morphological aspects. On the basis of corpus analysis and statistical tools (CHAID and Random Forest) evidence, we propose the internal cause and the human trait as the possible factors useful in untangling the knot of auxiliary selection within Italian verbs with double auxiliation. This article also presents a reflection on semi-auxiliary verbs, a particular group of Italian verbs that operate as semi-auxiliary by being followed by an infinitive. For this group of verbs, we propose that auxiliary selection depends not only on the semantics of the verb or of the subject, but mainly on the auxiliary selection of the infinitive.","PeriodicalId":503145,"journal":{"name":"Isogloss. Open Journal of Romance Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140997403","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}
{"title":"Superlatives, partitives and apparent φ-feature mismatch in Spanish","authors":"Luis Miguel Toquero Perez","doi":"10.5565/rev/isogloss.277","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/isogloss.277","url":null,"abstract":"Adjectival superlatives in Spanish are expressed by a definite determiner and the com-parative morpheme m ́as ‘more/-er’ modifying the adjective. While gender and numberconcord between the determiner, adjective and noun is generally obligatory, there is asubset of cases where it seems to be disrupted: the determiner surfaces as the so-calledneuter lo, the adjective spells out masculine and there is no overt noun. I argue that thisnon-canonical pattern is the result of a failed Agree dependency between probes on D anda noun underspecified for φ. Failure to value the probe triggers the emergence of defaultsat the point of Vocabulary Insertion: lo and masculine morphology on the adjective. Theanalysis that lo as genderless and numberless receives support from coordination patterns.","PeriodicalId":503145,"journal":{"name":"Isogloss. Open Journal of Romance Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141031578","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}
{"title":"Microvariation in the second form the infinitive in Campania","authors":"Kim A. Groothuis, Mirella De Sisto","doi":"10.5565/rev/isogloss.340","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/isogloss.340","url":null,"abstract":"Campanian dialects such as Neapolitan feature a so-called ‘second form of the infinitive’ (SFI), a form consisting of the bare verbal stem, which can be used after functional verbs. This paper addresses the microvariation concerning the construction by analysing novel data from the Valle Caudina, located to the northeast of Naples.\u0000The SFI is frequently found specifically with the imperative va ‘go!’. In Neapolitan, the form has been reanalysed as an imperatival form in this context, yielding an asyndetic imperative. At a first glance, the use of the SFI in Valle Caudina looks very similar to its Neapolitan counterpart, but unlike Neapolitan, the SFI in these varieties has remained non-finite and has not been reanalysed as an imperative. These dialects can thus be considered a previous stage of the development described for Neapolitan by Ledgeway (1997, 2007, 2009). This claim finds support in the absence of metaphonetic forms - which have appeared in Neapolitan, as a consequence of the reanalysis - as well as the presence of clitic climbing. Finally, unlike Neapolitan, the SFI is becoming less productive in the varieties of the Valle Caudina.","PeriodicalId":503145,"journal":{"name":"Isogloss. Open Journal of Romance Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140242346","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}
{"title":"Adverbial causal clauses as relative clauses","authors":"Emanuela Sanfelici, Sira Rodeghiero","doi":"10.5565/rev/isogloss.338","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/isogloss.338","url":null,"abstract":"This paper investigates to what extent adverbial causal clauses and relative clauses can be reduced as one and the same phenomenon. Whereas causal clauses have always posed a challenge for a unified account of relativization and adverbial subordination in theoretical studies, typological research has long demonstrated that causal clauses are diachronically connected to relative clauses as well as to adverbial subordinates that have been theoretically analysed as relative clauses. We argue that at least some causal clauses are underlyingly relative clauses over situations (see Arsenijević 2021). Our claim is supported by the diachronic development of the Italian subordinator siccome ‘because/since’, an univerbated form morphologically composed of two items, the comparative-similative wh-pronoun come ‘how’ and the demonstrative adverbial pronoun sì ‘so’. We demonstrate that the causal subordinator is derived from the comparative-similative one via a three-stage diachronic change which is formally captured in terms of type of movement and null elements (Kayne 2005, Cinque 2020b). In so doing, our paper extends a relative clause analysis to causal clauses and adds a novel path to the diachronic development of causal clauses.","PeriodicalId":503145,"journal":{"name":"Isogloss. Open Journal of Romance Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140243490","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}
{"title":"Clitics, DOM and ellipsis","authors":"Samara Almeida, Francisco Ordóñez","doi":"10.5565/rev/isogloss.352","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/isogloss.352","url":null,"abstract":"This paper discusses the correlation between clitics, DOM and ellipsis in Spanish. As observed by Cyrino & Ordóñez (2018), strict and sloppy readings can be obtained in both TP ellipsis and argument ellipsis with clitics. However, DOM animate antecedents severely limit the availability of sloppy readings in argument ellipsis with clitics. This is a new observation, and judgments about the lack of sloppy readings is often delicate. We carried out an experimental study in order to confirm the data reported in Cyrino & Ordóñez (2018). We also wanted to test whether this distinction applied to speakers of three different dialects of Spanish where distribution of clitics and doubling differs. The results show a significant statistical anti animacy effect for obtaining sloppy readings with clitics. This effect is not found with TP ellipsis. In this paper we propose a syntactic approach to account for such effect with clitics. We propose that clitics contain an empty doubled (see also Bošković 2018). We propose an analysis based on the idea that DOM objects are moved out of the vP and that the doubled DOM KP undergoes vehicle change to become a pronoun in the case of argument ellipsis.","PeriodicalId":503145,"journal":{"name":"Isogloss. Open Journal of Romance Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140248729","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}
{"title":"syntax and semantics of laisser in causative constructions","authors":"C. Raffy, M. Donazzan, Klaus von Heusinger","doi":"10.5565/rev/isogloss.320","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/isogloss.320","url":null,"abstract":"The French verb laisser (‘to let’) allows for two different syntactic constructions, an Exceptional Case Marking (ECM) construction and a Faire-Infinitive (FI) construction with a postverbal Causee, and for two different interpretations, authorize and not-intervene. According to previous studies (e.g. Kayne 1975), constructions are related to interpretations: the ECM can express intentionality, the FI cannot. In this paper, we explore a different hypothesis: the ECM construction is underspecified and allows for both interpretations, while the FI is restricted to the not-intervening interpretation. We provide empirical evidence from three distinct forced choice tasks in which participants had to match constructions and interpretations. The results reveal that, contrary to both early observations and our initial hypothesis, both constructions may allow for both interpretations, and variation depends less on the syntactic configuration than on semantic and pragmatic factors, namely on the lexical inferences triggered by the embedded verb and the authority relation between Causer and Causee expressed in the contexts.","PeriodicalId":503145,"journal":{"name":"Isogloss. Open Journal of Romance Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140276240","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}
{"title":"As small as they seem?","authors":"Mauro Viganò, C. Cecchetto, C. Donati","doi":"10.5565/rev/isogloss.367","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/isogloss.367","url":null,"abstract":"We present the results of an experimental study designed to investigate the acceptability of bare participial structures in spoken Italian. These sentences, despite being extremely reduced, have full illocutionary force. For the study, we proposed a technique to elicit grammaticality judgements suitable for structures that, although productive, are not used in the written form of the language. Our aim is to investigate the validity of the structural analysis of these sentences (Cecchetto & Donati 2022) according to which they are generated as small as VPs and they are not elliptical structures, i.e., they are not the result of phonological deletions from full-fledged sentences. The findings globally confirm the predictions of that account, as only require the activation of projections beyond the VP-layer, are rated as fully acceptable. However, the corresponding negative structures and some reduced structures with active transitive predicates received intermediate judgments of acceptability, contrary to the predictions. In the paper, we try to account for these unexpected results and argue that phonological deletion is available as well but is subject to tight constraints; most notably, it is restricted to the top of the tree.","PeriodicalId":503145,"journal":{"name":"Isogloss. Open Journal of Romance Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140448758","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}
{"title":"The production of relative clauses in Italian-speaking children with DLD","authors":"F. Arosio, Silvia Silleresi, M. Guasti","doi":"10.5565/rev/isogloss.306","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/isogloss.306","url":null,"abstract":"Children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) have been shown to struggle with the acquisition of complex structures requiring structural embedding and movement of a sentential element from its original position. This study examines the production of subject and object relative clauses (RCs) by Italian children, investigating whether: i) seven-year-old children with DLD are impaired in embedding or movement operations; ii) specific factors, such as animacy of the arguments, affect the production of sentences with movement and embedding, iii) the linguistic profile of children with DLD is qualitatively different from that of typically developing (TD) children. We elicited the production of RCs with animate and inanimate arguments in 12 Italian-speaking children with DLD (mean age = 7;2) and in two TD control groups: age matched (AM) and language matched (LM). Children with DLD produced fewer RCs than either control group and made different errors, showing a slightly different developmental path. Animacy mismatch did not improve RC production in any group. Results suggest that seven-year-old children with DLD are in a transitional stage: they can use embedding but still have difficulties with movement operations, especially in object RCs. This indicates that the language competence of children with DLD improves with age, but long-distance dependencies continue to be challenging.","PeriodicalId":503145,"journal":{"name":"Isogloss. Open Journal of Romance Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139860281","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}
{"title":"The production of relative clauses in Italian-speaking children with DLD","authors":"F. Arosio, Silvia Silleresi, M. Guasti","doi":"10.5565/rev/isogloss.306","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/isogloss.306","url":null,"abstract":"Children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) have been shown to struggle with the acquisition of complex structures requiring structural embedding and movement of a sentential element from its original position. This study examines the production of subject and object relative clauses (RCs) by Italian children, investigating whether: i) seven-year-old children with DLD are impaired in embedding or movement operations; ii) specific factors, such as animacy of the arguments, affect the production of sentences with movement and embedding, iii) the linguistic profile of children with DLD is qualitatively different from that of typically developing (TD) children. We elicited the production of RCs with animate and inanimate arguments in 12 Italian-speaking children with DLD (mean age = 7;2) and in two TD control groups: age matched (AM) and language matched (LM). Children with DLD produced fewer RCs than either control group and made different errors, showing a slightly different developmental path. Animacy mismatch did not improve RC production in any group. Results suggest that seven-year-old children with DLD are in a transitional stage: they can use embedding but still have difficulties with movement operations, especially in object RCs. This indicates that the language competence of children with DLD improves with age, but long-distance dependencies continue to be challenging.","PeriodicalId":503145,"journal":{"name":"Isogloss. Open Journal of Romance Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139800223","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}