Embedded interrogatives as free relatives

In this work we intend to show that a typical property of North-Eastern Italian dialects (NEIDs) namely the sequence wh-complementizer in embedded interrogatives (which in some dialects also extends to non-standard (under the definition by Obenauer 2006) and even standard main questions originally developed out of a free relative structure where the complementizer is actually not a complementizer but part of the internal structure of the wh-item heading the relative clause

Word Order variation in L1 and L2 Italian speakers : the role of Focus and the Unaccusativity Hierarchy

This paper investigates the Italian Word Order variation in the position of subjects (S) with respect to finite predicates (V) in two adult populations: L1-Italian speakers and L1-French L2-Italian speakers. We test how discourse focus (Belletti, 2001) and a decomposed approach to Unaccusativity, i.e., Unaccusativity Hierarchy (Sorace, 2000), determine the SV/VS variation in L1 and L2 populations. The results of a forced-choice preference task show that both factors constrain the Italian word order in L1 and L2 Italian speakers: the VS order was preferred in the narrow focus and with Change of Location unaccusative verbs in both populations, although with different proportions. Overall L2 speakers chose the SV order more consistently than L1 speakers but they did so mainly with the less-core unaccusative verbs of the Unaccusativity Hierarchy. We account for these findings suggesting a return to the original version of the Interface Hypothesis (Sorace, 2005), which predicts that interface phenomena, including those at the syntax-lexicon interface, represent a vulnerable domain in L2 acquisition

Le frasi relative in franco-italiano

Il presente contributo propone un primo confronto linguistico tra due testi franco-italiani e testi in francese, italiano e veneto antichi, avvalendosi dell’uso di corpora dotati di annotazione morfo-sintattica secondo i criteri adottati dal Penn Treebank Project. I testi franco-italiani investigati sono l’Entrée d’Espagne e l’Orlandino della Geste Francor. Lo studio esplora la sintassi delle frasi relative nei due testi franco-italiani, al fine di offrire una descrizione preliminare del loro sistema linguistico. L’analisi evidenzia la natura ibrida del sistema linguistico dei due testi franco-italiani, individuando tratti condivisi con le lingue romanze più prossime, nonché tratti peculiari del franco-italiano. This work represents a first attempt to compare the linguistic system of two Franco-Italian texts with texts in Old Italian, Old Veneto, and Old French, by using morpho-syntactically annotated corpora following the guidelines of the Penn Treebank Project. The two Franco-Italian texts investigated are Entrée d’Espagne and Orlandino, from the Geste Francor. The study investigates the syntax of relative clauses in the two Franco-Italian texts with the aim to provide a first description of their linguistic systems. In so doing, we determine the nature of the hybrid linguistic system of the two Franco-Italian texts by individuating those features that are shared with the closest Old Romance languages and those that are idiosyncratic to Franco-Italian. Keywords:  frasi relative, corpora, lingue misterelative clauses, corpora, mixed language

Le frasi relative in franco-italiano

Il presente contributo propone un primo confronto linguistico tra due testi franco-italiani e testi in francese, italiano e veneto antichi, avvalendosi dell\u2019uso di corpora dotati di annotazione morfosintattica secondo i criteri adottati dal Penn Treebank Project. I testi franco-italiani investigati sono l\u2019Entr\ue9e d\u2019Espagne e l\u2019Orlandino della Geste Francor. Lo studio esplora la sintassi delle frasi relative nei due testi franco-italiani, al !ne di o"rire una descrizione preliminare del loro sistema linguistico. L\u2019analisi evidenzia la natura ibrida del sistema linguistico dei due testi franco-italiani, individuando tratti condivisi con le lingue romanze pi\uf9 prossime, nonch\ue9 tratti peculiari del franco-italiano

The Semantics of Gradable Adjectives in Italian-speaking Children and Adults

Contribution to Linguistic Evidence 202

YOUNG ADULTS’ INFERENTIAL READING SKILLS – RECOGNISING IMPLICIT AND UNSTATED CONTENT IN ITALIAN L1 AND ENGLISH L2

Understanding a written text involves not only making sense of its overtly expressed literal content, but also retrieving its subtly conveyed implied meanings by resorting to contextual clues. This process requires making pragmatic inferences. Previous studies have mainly focused on the processing of scalar implicatures in various populations, such as L2 learners, children, elders and individuals with Atypical Development. However, research on the inferential skills of L1 speakers and Typical Development (TD) young adults, and related to other kinds of implied meanings, is more limited. In this study we investigated the reading comprehension abilities of TD adults in the retrieval of various kinds of meanings in a written narrative text, both in L1 Italian and in L2 English. Adopting a between-subjects design, we administered an online questionnaire, in Italian and English versions, to Italian university students enrolled in various degree courses (54 participants per version). The questionnaire included a reading passage and multiple-choice comprehension items designed to assess the retrieval of 11 units of presupposed information, 4 units of entailed information, and 4 units of unstated content. Our findings partially diverged from previous research: a) the L2 speakers exhibited higher overall comprehension accuracy than L1 speakers; b) entailments were easier to retrieve than presuppositions or unstated information; and c) the L2 speakers’ performance did not appear to correlate with their proficiency level. We offer tentative explanations for these results: i) the students may have had more experience in comprehension tasks in their L2 or may have approached the questionnaire in the L2 with more attentiveness; ii) detecting entailments may be less challenging than other types of content since it involves recognising obvious reformulations of content; and iii) the levels of L2 proficiency were uneven across participants, or the participants’ self-reported L2 proficiency levels might not have accurately reflected the participants’ actual abilities, or at and intermediate/advanced proficiency level, the ability to retrieve meanings in text may be tied to cognitive factors that cut across language varieties.   Abilità di lettura inferenziale dei giovani adulti - riconoscimento di contenuti impliciti e non dichiarati in italiano L1 e inglese L2 La comprensione di un testo scritto comporta non solo decifrarne il contenuto letterale, espresso esplicitamente, ma anche recuperarne i significati impliciti, veicolati indirettamente, ricorrendo a indizi contestuali. Questo processo necessita di inferenze pragmatiche. Studi precedenti si sono concentrati principalmente sull'elaborazione di implicazioni scalari in varie popolazioni, come gli apprendenti di L2, i bambini, gli anziani e gli individui a sviluppo atipico. Tuttavia, la ricerca sulle abilità inferenziali di parlanti di L1 e di giovani adulti a sviluppo tipico (TD), nonché relativa ad altri tipi di significati impliciti, è più limitata. In questo lavoro abbiamo indagato le capacità di comprensione di adulti TD nel recupero di vari tipi di significati in un testo narrativo scritto, sia in italiano L1 che in inglese L2. Impostando uno studio between-subjects, abbiamo somministrato un questionario online, in versione italiana e inglese, a studenti universitari italiani iscritti a vari corsi di laurea (54 partecipanti per versione). Il questionario comprendeva un brano di lettura e domande di comprensione a scelta multipla tese all’individuazione di 11 informazioni presupposte, 4 informazioni implicate logicamente e al riconoscimento di 4 informazioni non presenti nel testo. I risultati divergono parzialmente da quelli di ricerche precedenti: i parlanti di L2 hanno mostrato una comprensione complessiva più alta rispetto ai parlanti di L1; le implicazioni sono risultate più facili da recuperare rispetto alle presupposizioni o alle informazioni inespresse; e il grado di accuratezza delle risposte dei parlanti di L2 non sembra correlato al loro livello di competenza. I risultati ottenuti suggeriscono queste considerazioni: è possibile che gli studenti avessero maggiore esperienza nello svolgere compiti di comprensione nella L2 che non nella L1, o che abbiano affrontato il questionario nella L2 con maggiore attenzione; l'individuazione delle implicazioni potrebbe essere meno impegnativa rispetto ad altri tipi di contenuti, in quanto comporta il riconoscimento di ovvie riformulazioni dei contenuti; e i livelli di competenza nella L2 erano disomogenei tra i partecipanti, oppure non erano stati riportati accuratamente

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

The native speaker in Italian-dialects bilingualism: insights from the acquisition of Vicentino by preschool children

This paper investigates the bilingualism originating from the native competence of a standard language (Italian) and a vernacular non-standardized local dialect (henceforth, bilectalism). We report results on the comprehension and production of narrative stories by 44 3- to 5-year-old typically developing children exposed to both Italian and Vicentino from birth. Our findings show that all children produced and comprehended Italian. As for the dialect, children can comprehend Vicentino, despite not producing any dialectal element. The study further revealed an implicational scale in dialectal competence: if a child exhibits some productions with dialectal syntax, s/he also produces dialects at the phonological, morphological, and lexical levels. These findings are in line with the dialectological studies on adult speakers: dialectal competence should be arranged along a fine-grained continuum and the dialectal speaker should be considered as a multi-factorial notion. Our study extends this observation to children’s dialectal acquisition