V1 clauses and EPP in Old Italian

Altres ajuts: This research is part of a project funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) - GRK2636.This work discusses some aspects of the so-called "relaxed verb-second hypothesis" for Old Romance languages focusing on Old Italian data. Although the idea that Medieval Romance varieties displayed some kind of verb-second grammar is often accepted in the literature, careful consideration of the data and the predictions casts some doubts on this hypothesis and suggests pursuing a different road to account for word order phenomena in these varieties. The focus here is on verb-first main clauses, which result from merging a null element in the left periphery according to Wolfe's (2015) influential work. If this approach is adopted, problems arise for the definition of the null categories that can occupy the left periphery of the clause: there is no motivation to postulate such elements unless a rule of obligatory pre-field occupation is independently justified, and the data speaks against such a rule. The question then arises whether a further weakened version of the relaxed V2 hypothesis is still preferable to a non-V2 analysis of Old Italian Grammar

Floods, landscape modifications and population dynamics in anthropogenic coastal lowlands: the Polesine (northern Italy) case study

It is widely recognized that the complex relationship between humans, soil, and water has become increasingly complicated due to anthropogenic activities, and is further expected to worsen in the future as a result of population dynamics and climate change. The present study aims at shedding light on the multifaceted links between floods, landscape modifications, and population dynamics in anthropogenic coastal lowlands, using a large flood-prone area (the Polesine Region, northeastern Italy) as a significant case study. Based on the analysis of historical events and the results of hydraulic modeling, it is shown that human interventions on both the landscape and the subsoil have substantially altered the flooding dynamics, exacerbating hydraulic hazard. Furthermore, the combined analysis of people and assets exposure to inundation reveals that flood risk is not properly taken into account in land-use planning, nor it is properly understood by people living in areas subject to low-probability, high-impact flooding events

An Integrated Approach for Evaluating the Restoration of the Salinity Gradient in Transitional Waters: Monitoring and Numerical Modeling in the Life Lagoon Refresh Case Study

Large lagoons usually show a salinity gradient due to fresh water tributaries with inner areas characterized by lower mean values and higher fluctuation of salinity than seawaterdominated areas. In the Venice Lagoon, this ecotonal environment, characterized in the past by oligo‐mesohaline waters and large intertidal areas vegetated by reedbeds, was greatly reduced by historical human environmental modifications, including the diversion of main rivers outside the Venice Lagoon. The reduction of the fresh water inputs caused a marinization of the lagoon, with an increase in salinity and the loss of the related habitats, biodiversity, and ecosystem services. To counteract this issue, conservation actions, such as the construction of hydraulic infrastructures for the introduction and the regulation of a fresh water flow, can be implemented. The effectiveness of these actions can be preliminarily investigated and then verified through the combined implementation of environmental monitoring and numerical modeling. Through the results of the monitoring activity carried out in Venice Lagoon in the framework of the Life Lagoon Refresh (LIFE16NAT/IT/000663) project, the study of salinity is shown to be a successful and robust combination of different types of monitoring techniques. In particular, the characterization of salinity is obtained by the acquisition of continuous data, field campaigns, and numerical modeling

A hierarchical TP structure in Ancient Greek

A vast body of research has proposed that Ancient Greek exhibits a fairly free word order, unconstrained by purely syntactic principles, and only determined by stylistic and expressive factors. Successive investigations have explored the possibility that at least a portion of the Ancient Greek clause structure conforms to already attested linguistic tendencies, according to various theoretical frameworks. This paper contributes to the debate by investigating a rather understudied clausal domain, namely the mood-tense-aspect portion of the clause structure (the so-called tense phrase, TP), with the help of a novel diagnostic, i.e. adverb placement. We argue that a hierarchical structure can be envisaged for the Classical Greek TP. We examine the position of the finite verb and the distribution of subject and object DPs in relation to the order of a series of temporal-aspectual adverbs. By adopting Cinque’s (1999) adverb hierarchy, we show that the relative order of adverbs obeys the hierarchical structure proposed there for functional categories. If a fixed position for adverbs is assumed, as in Pollock (1989) and Cinque (1999), they can be used as markers to determine the position of other constituents in the clause, such as verbs and DPs. We then demonstrate that verb placement as well as the subject/object DP position with respect to various adverbs can be well accounted for within the cartographic model

La previsione in tempo reale dei livelli idrometrici di piena del fiume Bacchiglione a Ponte degli Angeli, Vicenza

Il disastroso evento di piena che ha colpito il Veneto il primo novembre 2010, particolarmente drammatico per la citt\ue0 di Vicenza, ha reso evidente la necessit\ue0 di disporre di metodi di previsione, soprattutto a breve termine, che siano efficaci strumenti di supporto alle decisioni. Infatti, nelle fasi concitate di un\u2019alluvione che colpisce un\u2019area urbana densamente popolata, \ue8 assai difficile mantenere una visione chiara dell\u2019evoluzione dell\u2019evento e, di conseguenza, stabilire e coordinare un piano per la gestione delle fasi dell\u2019emergenza. Questa nota presenta un modello di previsione che adotta un metodo di tipo statistico basato sull\u2019acquisizione in tempo reale dei dati misurati dalle stazioni idro-meteorologiche del bacino del Bacchiglione e delle previsioni di modelli meteorologici