«Inversion» as focalization and related questions

The main empirical area studied in this article concerns so called subject «inversion» structures. The proposal is put forth that the postverbal subject is licensed in the specifier of a low Focus projection, internal to the functional clausal architecture. Focus is considered a morphosyntactic feature giving rise to its own projection and constituting a regular checking domain. Consequences of the hypothesis are investigated for other structures assumed to involve the same process of clause internal focalization such as: structures containing «emphatic» pronouns, structures undergoing complement reordering, unaccusative structures. Some speculative remarks are also made on the so called process of «marginalization» which is taken to constitute a case of clause internal «topicalization»; the process is also assumed to be involved in interrogative structures necessarily requiring a postverbal subject which displays behaviors different from the focalized postverbal subject of declarative sentences.La principal àrea empírica estudiada en aquest article té a veure amb les anomenades estructures d'«inversió» del subjecte. Es defensa la proposta que el subjecte postverbal es legitima a l'especificador d'una projecció de Focus incrustada, interna a l'estructura oracional funcional. El Focus es considera un tret morfosintàctic que dóna lloc a la seva pròpia projecció i que constitueix un domini de comprovació regular. S'investiguen les conseqüències de la hipòtesi per a altres estructures que es considera que impliquen el mateix procés de focalització interna a l'oració, com ara: estructures que contenen pronoms «emfàtics», estructures que pateixen reordenació dels complements, estructures inacusatives. També es fan algunes remarques especulatives sobre l'anomenat procés de «marginalització» que es considera un cas de «topicalització» interna a l'oració; s'assumeix que el procés també intervé en les estructures interrogatives que requereixen necessàriament un subjecte postverbal que presenta comportaments diferents del subjecte postverbal focalitzat de les oracions declaratives

Kinds of evidence for linguistic theory*

The intimate relation between general theoretical hypotheses and the empirical data which can support them is the central topic of this paper. Data from different modes of acquisition are reviewed and discussed in the light of their significance for linguistic theory. Traditionally assumed correlations of properties related to the setting of the null subject parameter, availability of post-verbal subjects and modifications on the shape of the complementizer, are reinterpreted in terms of “weak” (not necessary) and “strong” (necessary) correlations on the basis of experimental acquisition data. Paths of acquisition of French and Italian clitic pronouns in different modes of acquisition are considered revealing of the possibly different analysis that clitic pronouns can be more readily subject to in different languages

Kinds of evidence for linguistic theory*

The intimate relation between general theoretical hypotheses and the empirical data which can support them is the central topic of this paper. Data from different modes of acquisition are reviewed and discussed in the light of their significance for linguistic theory. Traditionally assumed correlations of properties related to the setting of the null subject parameter, availability of post-verbal subjects and modifications on the shape of the complementizer, are reinterpreted in terms of “weak” (not necessary) and “strong” (necessary) correlations on the basis of experimental acquisition data. Paths of acquisition of French and Italian clitic pronouns in different modes of acquisition are considered revealing of the possibly different analysis that clitic pronouns can be more readily subject to in different languages

Multilingual Competence Influences Answering Strategies in Italian–German Speakers

The present study aims at analyzing the role of nativeness, the amount of input in L1 acquisition and the multilingual competence in the performance of Italian–German bilingual speakers. We compare novel data from the performance of adult L2 learners (L1: Italian; late L2: German) and that of heritage speakers (heritage language: Italian; majority language: German) to previous data from monolingual speakers of Italian. The comparison deals with the produced word order at the syntax-discourse interface in sentences containing New Information Subjects in answers to questions that prompt the identification of the clausal subject. Overall, adult L2 speakers and heritage speakers perform alike but crucially differently from Italian monolinguals. These data reveal that multilingual proficiency determines an increased variety in the adopted answering strategies; in particular, the German-like strategy is active in Italian. Nativeness alone is thus no guarantee for a homogeneous performance across groups, nor do we find similar patterns of performance in speakers who grew up as monolinguals. Data also show heritage speakers’ sensitivity to verb classes, with answering strategies varying in accordance with the verb argument structure. Participants’ productions reveal an interesting relation in sentences with transitive verbs between subject position (pre-/postverbal) and object form (lexical DP/clitic pronoun)

The Role of D-Linking and Lexical Restriction in Locality Violations

The major contrast discussed in the literature to show an obviation of the wh-island effect often involves a bare wh- element in the role of the intervener (e.g. who) and a “complex” wh-phrase (e.g. which book) in the role of the moved item. This contrast is not minimal, since it is not sufficient to disentangle the role of D-linking (Pesetsky 1987) from that of the so-called “lexical restriction” (Friedmann, Belletti, and Rizzi 2009). In this work we try to fill this gap by contrasting, in an argumental wh- island configuration (e.g. “… [who read …]”), which NP vs. what NP both in English and in Italian (e.g. which/what book and quale/che libro). We argue that while both wh- phrases can be genuinely considered “lexically restricted”, the first, and not the second, has properties that make it allegedly D-linked (i.e. a canonical partitive interpretation is available). Our acceptability studies show that (in both languages) no significant difference is revealed in the scores attributed to the two extracted wh-phrases and no significant variance (e.g. indicating a binomial distribution) is observed in the condition what NP. The first result indicates that the “D-linking” hypothesis as an independent source of amelioration is inadequate; the second result suggests that also the hypothesis that the condition what/che NP might be ambiguous between a D-linked and a non-D-linked reading is unlikely

Towards a Fine-Grained Theory of Focus

This paper investigates the roles of focus, arguing that such a notion is too wide and can be applied to several phenomena. I show that focus needs to be further specified for (at least) another feature and is therefore made of smaller primitive traits. These can combine to create bundles of features, which give rise to the several types of foci we know. Moreover, these features are subject to parametrization and can thus account for cross-linguistic differences