I am interested in (diachronic) language change, synchronic microvariation and comparative syntax. Specifically I am interested in the study of factors that determine optionality in syntax, as well as in interface issues. I have worked on a project on quantification in Old Italian, which studies the diachronic changes in the expressions of quantification in the Medieval period, and compares them to Modern Italian, until september 2017. As of October 2017 I no longer work in the Academia. Supervisors: Cecilia Poletto and Luigi Rizzi
In Modern Italian (MI), negative additives are focalizing elements that typically obey negative c... more In Modern Italian (MI), negative additives are focalizing elements that typically obey negative concord with a clausal negation or another licensing negative element. In this paper we investigate the diachronic evolution of one negative additive element, neanche ‘neither/not even’. In Old Italian (OI, Florentine variety of 1200-1370), morphologically complex negative additive focalizers such as neanche are not attested. Instead, the non-negative additive counterpart of neanche, anche, could combine with a negative marker or some other negative element: e.g. né/non…anche ‘neither/not even’. We show that, in OI, (i) the morphologically non-negative additive anche can be used both as a negative, as well as a positive polarity item; (ii) anche can function either as an aspectual/temporal marker with the meaning ‘(not) yet’, or as an additive focalizer with the meaning ‘neither/not even’; (iii) its different interpretations are mirrored by different syntactic positions, i.e. anche has an aspectual interpretation in the postverbal position taking scope over a verbal phrase (vP), and it has an additive interpretation in the preverbal position taking scope over a determiner phrase (DP); and (iv) anche triggers a focus semantic interpretation under both conditions: as an additive and an aspectual/temporal marker (see Rooth 1985, Chierchia 2013 on focus semantics). We speculate, on theoretical and empirical grounds, that the aspectual reading might be a subcase of the additive reading. We account for the diachronic evolution from neg(ation)+anche in OI to neanche in MI by suggesting that the grammaticalization of neanche originates from a particular construction in which additive anche is immediately right adjacent to the negative disjunction né (i.e. né+anche>neanche).
Stylistic Fronting (SF) is an optional syntactic phenomenon whereby a lexical item that may belon... more Stylistic Fronting (SF) is an optional syntactic phenomenon whereby a lexical item that may belong to various syntactic categories fronts to a pre-finite V position, if no subject is merged in SpecIP. Literature reports that SF is productive in Icelandic and Old Scandinavian, and it is also attested in some Old Romance languages (Old Catalan, Old French). This paper presents a phase-based analysis of SF in Old Italian. In this language, SF has some previously undiscussed characteristics. A corpus study shows that Old Italian displays a root/non-root asymmetry in the typology of fronting items. In root clauses, nominal elements, such as nominal predicates with a special semantics, front more frequently than verbal elements (infinitives, past participles), which most frequently front in non-root clauses. Since fronting in root clauses is intrinsically ambiguous with topicalization and focalization, it is not considered SF, and is not extensively discussed in this paper. By contrast, I analyze as proper SF the fronting operation that occurs in non-root clauses, and I argue that this is a movement anchoring the event-structure (vP) semantic content to the context (FinP). This type of movement is possible only if vP is not a phase and no intervening agentive external argument is merged in SpecvP. The fronted material is pragmatically presupposed and interpreted as ‘Subject of Predication’. Pragmatics tests corroborate the argument.
This paper deals with the diachrony of complementizer omission (C-omission) in Italian. C-omissio... more This paper deals with the diachrony of complementizer omission (C-omission) in Italian. C-omission is restricted to [-realis] clauses in Old as well as in Modern Italian, and to some types of declarative clauses in Modern Florentine (Cocchi & Poletto, 2005). This phenomenon is instead much more pervasive in the Renaissance period (Wanner 1981, Scorretti 1991) and invests basically all types of subordinate clauses. The present study concentrates on C-omission in Renaissance Italian relative clauses, which is attested in both subject and non-subject extractions. There is an asymmetry in the frequency of C-omission in subject/non-subject relative clauses, which is analyzed as the result of the combination of the active/inactive alignment that characterizes both Old and Renaissance Italian, and the loss of V2. The active/inactive distinction is attributed to the presence of a strong (*) feature on the low-phase head, Voice*, whereas the loss of V2 results from a parametric change on the higher phase head: from Fin* to Fin. The argument is corroborated by further comparative facts from Old Occitan and Old French.
Enjoy Linguistics. Luigi Rizzi's 60th Birthday Celebration.
This paper addresses the issue of optionality in complementizer insertion/drop and related subjec... more This paper addresses the issue of optionality in complementizer insertion/drop and related subject-object asymmetries inn A´-dependencies, by focusing on the variation attested in Mainland and Insular Scandinavian. On the one hand, there is extensive literature discussing subject/object asymmetries in complementizer insertion/drop in Mainland Scandinavian A'-dependencies. On the other hand, Icelandic does not display such an asymmetry but is the only Scandinavian language with productive Stylistic Fronting, whereas Faroese displays a mixed behavior. This paper proposes a unifying analysis for Mainland Scandinavian, Icelandic and, potentially, Faroese, and argues that SF and SOM insertion are two different strategies to check one of the (at least) two features encoded on the lowest CP head Fin0. Such feature-checking mechanism ensures proper anchoring of the clausal semantic content (i.e. event structure and clausal arguments) to the discourse. The account is based on comparative synchronic and diachronic facts, such as recent findings on long extractions in Mainland Scandinavian, with respect to drop/insertion of the complementizer SOM, and the diachronic evolution and loss of SF in Old Swedish (Delsing 2001), by contrast to Icelandic.
This talk illustrates some ongoing research on the syntax and interpretive properties of some Old... more This talk illustrates some ongoing research on the syntax and interpretive properties of some Old Italian (OI) indefinites in (anti-/non-)veridical contexts (cf. Giannakidou 1998). OI displays at least two series of elements in negative contexts, i.e. elements containing a negative morpheme (ne-words) and elements that are morphologically non-negative (alcun-words). Alcun-words and ne-words have several functions: they occur as NPIs; existential indefinites or real negative quantifiers. Our study on multiple occurrences of ne-words and alcun-words within the same clause reveals 4 distributional patterns occurring with a different frequency. We argue that the internal structural properties of ne-words and alcun-words are relevant for their syntactic distribution, and their interpretation, and we propose that Negative Concord and Negative Polarity Item licensing are two different mechanisms which nonetheless may interact.
In this talk we present a study of Old Italian n-words in a position that precedes the inflected ... more In this talk we present a study of Old Italian n-words in a position that precedes the inflected verb in relation to the syntax of negative concord (NC). We refer here to n-words as words morphologically starting with the negative morpheme n-. Our research questions are (i) How can we explain optional NC with n-words in Old Italian? (ii) Does a difference in the n-word position correlate with a difference in the NC pattern? We argue that the apparently completely optional NC of OI is the effect of a complex set of interacting conditions, which we try to identify. The internal structure of different types of n-words is reflected in their different syntactic distribution and semantic interpretation. We show that OI n-words are highly ambiguous elements, and only some of their readings qualify for [+Neg]-elements (i.e. those that undergo NC). We try to pair each reading to a distinct internal structure for OI n-words.
In Modern Italian (MI) negative additives are focalizing elements that typically obey negative co... more In Modern Italian (MI) negative additives are focalizing elements that typically obey negative concord with a clausal negation or another licensing negative element. In this paper we investigate the diachronic evolution of one negative additive element, neanche (= ‘neither/not even’) in MI. In Old Italian (OI, Florence variety of 1200-1370), morphologically negative additive focalizers as neanche are not attested. Instead, the non-negative additive counterpart of neanche, anche, could combine with a negative marker or some other negative element: e.g. né/non…anche (= ‘and.not/non…even/also). We show that in OI (i) the morphologically non-negative additive anche can be used both as a negative as well as a positive polarity item; (ii) anche can function either as a temporal/aspectual marker, or as an additive focalizer; and (iii) its function depends on its syntactic position, that is, semantics is mirrored by syntax. We further argue that MI neanche grammaticalization results from the adjacency between the disjunction né and anche in a particular construction. We conclude by discussing the typology of (negative) additives and aspectuals attested in some Italo-Romance and Gallo-Romance dialects.
We argue that some specific syntactic properties of Old Italian such as Stylistic Fronting, wides... more We argue that some specific syntactic properties of Old Italian such as Stylistic Fronting, widespread clitic climbing, low scrambling of objects and other XPs and VP-ellipsis derive from a parametrization of Voice. Specifically, VoiceP in Old Italian always bears a strong feature (*), which requires merger of overt lexical material. Being the projection that host [+agent] external arguments, Voice*P marks an active/inactive distinction (which is typical of Old Romance languages) and creates a phase-boundary. The prediction is that languages that have not or have lost Voice* do not present the above mentioned properties, which are related to a structural active/inactive distinction. This prediction is borne out both by synchronic and by diachronic evidence.
In Modern Italian (MI), negative additives are focalizing elements that typically obey negative c... more In Modern Italian (MI), negative additives are focalizing elements that typically obey negative concord with a clausal negation or another licensing negative element. In this paper we investigate the diachronic evolution of one negative additive element, neanche ‘neither/not even’. In Old Italian (OI, Florentine variety of 1200-1370), morphologically complex negative additive focalizers such as neanche are not attested. Instead, the non-negative additive counterpart of neanche, anche, could combine with a negative marker or some other negative element: e.g. né/non…anche ‘neither/not even’. We show that, in OI, (i) the morphologically non-negative additive anche can be used both as a negative, as well as a positive polarity item; (ii) anche can function either as an aspectual/temporal marker with the meaning ‘(not) yet’, or as an additive focalizer with the meaning ‘neither/not even’; (iii) its different interpretations are mirrored by different syntactic positions, i.e. anche has an aspectual interpretation in the postverbal position taking scope over a verbal phrase (vP), and it has an additive interpretation in the preverbal position taking scope over a determiner phrase (DP); and (iv) anche triggers a focus semantic interpretation under both conditions: as an additive and an aspectual/temporal marker (see Rooth 1985, Chierchia 2013 on focus semantics). We speculate, on theoretical and empirical grounds, that the aspectual reading might be a subcase of the additive reading. We account for the diachronic evolution from neg(ation)+anche in OI to neanche in MI by suggesting that the grammaticalization of neanche originates from a particular construction in which additive anche is immediately right adjacent to the negative disjunction né (i.e. né+anche>neanche).
Stylistic Fronting (SF) is an optional syntactic phenomenon whereby a lexical item that may belon... more Stylistic Fronting (SF) is an optional syntactic phenomenon whereby a lexical item that may belong to various syntactic categories fronts to a pre-finite V position, if no subject is merged in SpecIP. Literature reports that SF is productive in Icelandic and Old Scandinavian, and it is also attested in some Old Romance languages (Old Catalan, Old French). This paper presents a phase-based analysis of SF in Old Italian. In this language, SF has some previously undiscussed characteristics. A corpus study shows that Old Italian displays a root/non-root asymmetry in the typology of fronting items. In root clauses, nominal elements, such as nominal predicates with a special semantics, front more frequently than verbal elements (infinitives, past participles), which most frequently front in non-root clauses. Since fronting in root clauses is intrinsically ambiguous with topicalization and focalization, it is not considered SF, and is not extensively discussed in this paper. By contrast, I analyze as proper SF the fronting operation that occurs in non-root clauses, and I argue that this is a movement anchoring the event-structure (vP) semantic content to the context (FinP). This type of movement is possible only if vP is not a phase and no intervening agentive external argument is merged in SpecvP. The fronted material is pragmatically presupposed and interpreted as ‘Subject of Predication’. Pragmatics tests corroborate the argument.
This paper deals with the diachrony of complementizer omission (C-omission) in Italian. C-omissio... more This paper deals with the diachrony of complementizer omission (C-omission) in Italian. C-omission is restricted to [-realis] clauses in Old as well as in Modern Italian, and to some types of declarative clauses in Modern Florentine (Cocchi & Poletto, 2005). This phenomenon is instead much more pervasive in the Renaissance period (Wanner 1981, Scorretti 1991) and invests basically all types of subordinate clauses. The present study concentrates on C-omission in Renaissance Italian relative clauses, which is attested in both subject and non-subject extractions. There is an asymmetry in the frequency of C-omission in subject/non-subject relative clauses, which is analyzed as the result of the combination of the active/inactive alignment that characterizes both Old and Renaissance Italian, and the loss of V2. The active/inactive distinction is attributed to the presence of a strong (*) feature on the low-phase head, Voice*, whereas the loss of V2 results from a parametric change on the higher phase head: from Fin* to Fin. The argument is corroborated by further comparative facts from Old Occitan and Old French.
Enjoy Linguistics. Luigi Rizzi's 60th Birthday Celebration.
This paper addresses the issue of optionality in complementizer insertion/drop and related subjec... more This paper addresses the issue of optionality in complementizer insertion/drop and related subject-object asymmetries inn A´-dependencies, by focusing on the variation attested in Mainland and Insular Scandinavian. On the one hand, there is extensive literature discussing subject/object asymmetries in complementizer insertion/drop in Mainland Scandinavian A'-dependencies. On the other hand, Icelandic does not display such an asymmetry but is the only Scandinavian language with productive Stylistic Fronting, whereas Faroese displays a mixed behavior. This paper proposes a unifying analysis for Mainland Scandinavian, Icelandic and, potentially, Faroese, and argues that SF and SOM insertion are two different strategies to check one of the (at least) two features encoded on the lowest CP head Fin0. Such feature-checking mechanism ensures proper anchoring of the clausal semantic content (i.e. event structure and clausal arguments) to the discourse. The account is based on comparative synchronic and diachronic facts, such as recent findings on long extractions in Mainland Scandinavian, with respect to drop/insertion of the complementizer SOM, and the diachronic evolution and loss of SF in Old Swedish (Delsing 2001), by contrast to Icelandic.
This talk illustrates some ongoing research on the syntax and interpretive properties of some Old... more This talk illustrates some ongoing research on the syntax and interpretive properties of some Old Italian (OI) indefinites in (anti-/non-)veridical contexts (cf. Giannakidou 1998). OI displays at least two series of elements in negative contexts, i.e. elements containing a negative morpheme (ne-words) and elements that are morphologically non-negative (alcun-words). Alcun-words and ne-words have several functions: they occur as NPIs; existential indefinites or real negative quantifiers. Our study on multiple occurrences of ne-words and alcun-words within the same clause reveals 4 distributional patterns occurring with a different frequency. We argue that the internal structural properties of ne-words and alcun-words are relevant for their syntactic distribution, and their interpretation, and we propose that Negative Concord and Negative Polarity Item licensing are two different mechanisms which nonetheless may interact.
In this talk we present a study of Old Italian n-words in a position that precedes the inflected ... more In this talk we present a study of Old Italian n-words in a position that precedes the inflected verb in relation to the syntax of negative concord (NC). We refer here to n-words as words morphologically starting with the negative morpheme n-. Our research questions are (i) How can we explain optional NC with n-words in Old Italian? (ii) Does a difference in the n-word position correlate with a difference in the NC pattern? We argue that the apparently completely optional NC of OI is the effect of a complex set of interacting conditions, which we try to identify. The internal structure of different types of n-words is reflected in their different syntactic distribution and semantic interpretation. We show that OI n-words are highly ambiguous elements, and only some of their readings qualify for [+Neg]-elements (i.e. those that undergo NC). We try to pair each reading to a distinct internal structure for OI n-words.
In Modern Italian (MI) negative additives are focalizing elements that typically obey negative co... more In Modern Italian (MI) negative additives are focalizing elements that typically obey negative concord with a clausal negation or another licensing negative element. In this paper we investigate the diachronic evolution of one negative additive element, neanche (= ‘neither/not even’) in MI. In Old Italian (OI, Florence variety of 1200-1370), morphologically negative additive focalizers as neanche are not attested. Instead, the non-negative additive counterpart of neanche, anche, could combine with a negative marker or some other negative element: e.g. né/non…anche (= ‘and.not/non…even/also). We show that in OI (i) the morphologically non-negative additive anche can be used both as a negative as well as a positive polarity item; (ii) anche can function either as a temporal/aspectual marker, or as an additive focalizer; and (iii) its function depends on its syntactic position, that is, semantics is mirrored by syntax. We further argue that MI neanche grammaticalization results from the adjacency between the disjunction né and anche in a particular construction. We conclude by discussing the typology of (negative) additives and aspectuals attested in some Italo-Romance and Gallo-Romance dialects.
We argue that some specific syntactic properties of Old Italian such as Stylistic Fronting, wides... more We argue that some specific syntactic properties of Old Italian such as Stylistic Fronting, widespread clitic climbing, low scrambling of objects and other XPs and VP-ellipsis derive from a parametrization of Voice. Specifically, VoiceP in Old Italian always bears a strong feature (*), which requires merger of overt lexical material. Being the projection that host [+agent] external arguments, Voice*P marks an active/inactive distinction (which is typical of Old Romance languages) and creates a phase-boundary. The prediction is that languages that have not or have lost Voice* do not present the above mentioned properties, which are related to a structural active/inactive distinction. This prediction is borne out both by synchronic and by diachronic evidence.
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Papers by irene franco
We show that, in OI, (i) the morphologically non-negative additive anche can be used both as a negative, as well as a positive polarity item; (ii) anche can function either as an aspectual/temporal marker with the meaning ‘(not) yet’, or as an additive focalizer with the meaning ‘neither/not even’; (iii) its different interpretations are mirrored by different syntactic positions, i.e. anche has an aspectual interpretation in the postverbal position taking scope over a verbal phrase (vP), and it has an additive interpretation in the preverbal position taking scope over a determiner phrase (DP); and (iv) anche triggers a focus semantic interpretation under both conditions: as an additive and an aspectual/temporal marker (see Rooth 1985, Chierchia 2013 on focus semantics). We speculate, on theoretical and empirical grounds, that the aspectual reading might be a subcase of the additive reading.
We account for the diachronic evolution from neg(ation)+anche in OI to neanche in MI by suggesting that the grammaticalization of neanche originates from a particular construction in which additive anche is immediately right adjacent to the negative disjunction né (i.e. né+anche>neanche).
Talks by irene franco
We show that in OI (i) the morphologically non-negative additive anche can be used both as a negative as well as a positive polarity item; (ii) anche can function either as a temporal/aspectual marker, or as an additive focalizer; and (iii) its function depends on its syntactic position, that is, semantics is mirrored by syntax. We further argue that MI neanche grammaticalization results from the adjacency between the disjunction né and anche in a particular construction. We conclude by discussing the typology of (negative) additives and aspectuals attested in some Italo-Romance and Gallo-Romance dialects.
We show that, in OI, (i) the morphologically non-negative additive anche can be used both as a negative, as well as a positive polarity item; (ii) anche can function either as an aspectual/temporal marker with the meaning ‘(not) yet’, or as an additive focalizer with the meaning ‘neither/not even’; (iii) its different interpretations are mirrored by different syntactic positions, i.e. anche has an aspectual interpretation in the postverbal position taking scope over a verbal phrase (vP), and it has an additive interpretation in the preverbal position taking scope over a determiner phrase (DP); and (iv) anche triggers a focus semantic interpretation under both conditions: as an additive and an aspectual/temporal marker (see Rooth 1985, Chierchia 2013 on focus semantics). We speculate, on theoretical and empirical grounds, that the aspectual reading might be a subcase of the additive reading.
We account for the diachronic evolution from neg(ation)+anche in OI to neanche in MI by suggesting that the grammaticalization of neanche originates from a particular construction in which additive anche is immediately right adjacent to the negative disjunction né (i.e. né+anche>neanche).
We show that in OI (i) the morphologically non-negative additive anche can be used both as a negative as well as a positive polarity item; (ii) anche can function either as a temporal/aspectual marker, or as an additive focalizer; and (iii) its function depends on its syntactic position, that is, semantics is mirrored by syntax. We further argue that MI neanche grammaticalization results from the adjacency between the disjunction né and anche in a particular construction. We conclude by discussing the typology of (negative) additives and aspectuals attested in some Italo-Romance and Gallo-Romance dialects.