Giuliana Giusti

A Unified Structural Representation of (Abstract) Case and Article

In this paper, I will argue for the assumption of a nominal functional projection FP that is the structural counterpart of (abstract) Case, and can therefore be claimed to be part of UG. Variation is to be found in the realization of this projection. I will claim that in languages with overt case marking, F is the place where nominal morphological case is realized, and in languages with articles, F is the place where the article is inserted. The intermediate stage, represented by languages with case and article, confirms our hypothesis in that the “strongest” case morpheme is predicted to be on the article, while case morphemes on other nominal elements, such as the head N and its adjectival modifiers, can be taken as agreement with F. This hypothesis derives in a straightforward fashion the development of several modern Indo-European languages from a stage with case and no article to an intermediate stage with an article inflected for case to a further stage in which the article has lost its case marking. It also distinguishes the (definite and indefinite) article from other kinds of so-called determiners (quantifiers, demonstratives, possessives). The empirical evidence provided in this paper is taken mainly from the Germanic languages.

The Acquisition of Adjectival Ordering in Italian

In this chapter, we analyze the syntax of nominal expressions in a corpus of early child speech collected at the University Ca’ Foscari of Venice. We focalize on the distribution of quantifiers, determiner-like adjectives, possessive adjectives, and descriptive adjectives. In adult Italian, these elements display a great degree of variation as regards word order. Comparing child production with both the input attested in our corpus and the data found in an electronic corpus of spoken Italian (Lessico di frequenza dell’italiano parlato, LIP, De Mauro et al. 1993), we show that child competence mirrors the adult competence of the spoken register in both syntax and pragmatics and is expectedly deviant from more formal varieties which are usually also taken into account by linguistic literature. From a methodological point of view, we ground our analysis on a well-developed theoretical approach to nominal structure which enables us to make a qualitative analysis in the absence of a large amount of data, as is in fact the case of adjectival modification in child production.

Indefinite Determiners: Variation and Optionality in Italo-Romance

The expression of indefiniteness presents a wide degree of variation across languages. In addition to indefinite quantifiers such as alcuni ‘some’ or pseudopartitive constructions such as un po’ di ‘a bit of ’, Italo-Romance varieties present at least five types of indefinite determiners that can combine with mass or plural nouns. Interestingly,more than one of these determinersmay be available in one and the same variety, producing a certain degree of optionality and / or a fine-grained distinction in the semantics of indefiniteness. In this paper, we concentrate on the most wide-spread forms of indefinite determiners, claiming that they are variants of one and the same syntactic structure. Assuming with Abney (1987) that the highest portion of the nominal structure (DP) includes two positions, a specifier (SpecDP) and a head (D), we take the indefinite operator, which provides the indefinite semantics, to occur in SpecDP, while the head D is specified for the gender and number features of the nominal projection. Both positions may be overt or covert. The indefinite operator can be realized by the uninflected form di, while the head D can be realized by the same form as the definite article. The option of filling either position with an overt or covert element gives rise to four different forms: the zero determiner, indefinite bare di, the so-called “partitive determiner” di+article, or the use of the definite article as indefinite determiner. We first show that in Italian, optionality is in some cases apparent, giving rise to subtle semantic differences. In particular, we show that in Italian, overt

Syntactic Protocols to enhance inclusive cultural identity. A Case study on Istro-Romanian clausal structure.

This paper has a general and a specific goal. The general goal is quite ambitious and consists in proposing a new linguistic approach, named Protocol Linguistics, that should encompass points of division among linguists of different theoretical persuasion and permit a common effort to put the most recent advances in linguistics at the service of general interests, such as language policies, language education, language rehabilitation, endangered language documentation, and many more third mission type of environments. The second specific goal is to provide an example of a possible protocol for the documentation of a severely endangered language, Istro-Romanian, a variety of eastern Romance spoken in the Istrian peninsula in Croatia, also named Vlaski or Žejanski. The general aim is to suggest that language awareness based on knowledge of syntax, which highlights similarities as well as differences and conceives the differences as variation among a small range of choices, can ground the construction of inclusive cultural identity, which will enhance social cohesion as well as the preservation of minority languages.