Localizing conditional clauses in the left periphery: evidence from multiple complementizer constructions in romance

This article analyzes the distribution of conditional clauses in multiple complementizer constructions, showing that preposed adverbial clauses could occupy in early Italo-Romance varieties different specifier positions within the left periphery of embedded clauses, a possibility that has been lost with time in Italo-Romance but is still attested in modern Ibero-Romance. It is further argued that in multiple complementizer structures the highest complementizer invariably lexicalizes the head Force°, while the other occurrences of the complementizer mark the lower boundary of the main two Topic subfields

RUR53: an Unmanned Ground Vehicle for Navigation, Recognition and Manipulation

This paper proposes RUR53: an Unmanned Ground Vehicle able to autonomously navigate through, identify, and reach areas of interest; and there recognize, localize, and manipulate work tools to perform complex manipulation tasks. The proposed contribution includes a modular software architecture where each module solves specific sub-tasks and that can be easily enlarged to satisfy new requirements. Included indoor and outdoor tests demonstrate the capability of the proposed system to autonomously detect a target object (a panel) and precisely dock in front of it while avoiding obstacles. They show it can autonomously recognize and manipulate target work tools (i.e., wrenches and valve stems) to accomplish complex tasks (i.e., use a wrench to rotate a valve stem). A specific case study is described where the proposed modular architecture lets easy switch to a semi-teleoperated mode. The paper exhaustively describes description of both the hardware and software setup of RUR53, its performance when tests at the 2017 Mohamed Bin Zayed International Robotics Challenge, and the lessons we learned when participating at this competition, where we ranked third in the Gran Challenge in collaboration with the Czech Technical University in Prague, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Lincoln (UK).Comment: This article has been accepted for publication in Advanced Robotics, published by Taylor & Franci

Online Learning for 3D LiDAR-based Human Detection: Experimental Analysis of Point Cloud Clustering and Classification Methods

This paper presents a system for online learning of human classifiers by mobile service robots using 3D~LiDAR sensors, and its experimental evaluation in a large indoor public space. The learning framework requires a minimal set of labelled samples (e.g. one or several samples) to initialise a classifier. The classifier is then retrained iteratively during operation of the robot. New training samples are generated automatically using multi-target tracking and a pair of "experts" to estimate false negatives and false positives. Both classification and tracking utilise an efficient real-time clustering algorithm for segmentation of 3D point cloud data. We also introduce a new feature to improve human classification in sparse, long-range point clouds. We provide an extensive evaluation of our the framework using a 3D LiDAR dataset of people moving in a large indoor public space, which is made available to the research community. The experiments demonstrate the influence of the system components and improved classification of humans compared to the state-of-the-art

Anchoring primary and secondary interjections to the context

On the basis of empirical evidence from various Italian dialects, I argue that primary and secondary interjections lexicalize different functional heads which are computed syntactically at the edge of the clause. Secondary interjections should be clearly distinguished from primary ones; only secondary interjections lexicalizing a SpeechAct° head represent autonomous speech acts and are prosodically and syntactically independent from the co-occurring clause, which they can attract to their specifier position, raising eventually to the adjacent head Speaker° in order to achieve the necessary spatio-temporal contextual anchoring. Primary interjections, which can co-occur with secondary ones and surface clause-initially, lexicalize arguably the highest functional head Speaker°, interacting in interesting ways with lower projections and with the overt realization of the complementizer in Force°

Lo statuto categoriale di 'come' in italiano antico e la sua distribuzione in contesti subordinati

In questo lavoro si è analizzato lo statuto categoriale dell'elemento 'come' in italiano antico, evidenziandone la sostanziale ambiguità tra la natura di proiezione massimale e quella di testa sintattica in alcuni contesti subordinati, una ambiguità che si è protratta fino all'italiano moderno; sulla base della sua distribuzione in frasi interrogative dipendenti, si è cercato inoltre di stabilire un confronto tra due diverse analisi della periferia sinistra della frase

Alcune ipotesi sulla struttura interna delle frasi ridotte epistemiche

In questo articolo prenderò in esame la struttura interna delle frasi ridotte epistemiche sulla base di dati comparativi, utilizzando la nozione di inversione del predicato e la distinzione ormai standard tra predicati Individual Level e predicati Stage Level. Proporrò che le frasi ridotte epistemiche siano composte di tre livelli strutturaIi, cioè tre diverse proiezioni funzionali, rispettivamente RP, FP ed XP. Il nesso predicativo tra soggetto e predicato può venire espresso nella testa più bassa R°, che può essere lessicalizzata come elemento preposizionale, o nelle teste più alte F° e X°, che possono essere lessicalizzate come copule infinitivali. Le restrizioni sull’ordine relativo di soggetto, copula e predicato in italiano possono essere spiegate ipotizzando la presenza di un topic spazio-temporale astratto che può bloccare la salita del predicato dalla frase ridotta nucleare

Aspetti sintattici e interpretativi delle frasi interrogative non canoniche in italiano antico e moderno

In this article I discuss some syntactic and interpretive aspects of non-canonical interrogative clauses in old and modern Italian, underlining analogies and differences with respect to canonical interrogative clauses on the one hand and with exclamative clauses on the other. I will show that the interpretive shades of the utterance have precise syntactic correlates in the different structural position occupied by the wh-operator within the left periphery of the clause. Moreover, I will point out that the basic interpretive property of non-canonical interrogatives is that their illocutionary function does not correspond to the elicitation of an informative answer from the addressee. More precisely, I will propose that, although they both involve the expression of the speaker’s bewilderment caused by an unexpected state of affairs, non-canonical wh-questions and wh-exclamatives are to be clearly distinguished with respect to their illocutionary force: while non-canonical wh-questions constitute directive speech acts which express the implicit request for the hearer to provide a plausible account for the contingent situation, wh-exclamatives are more akin to assertions, and rather aim at expressing the speaker’s surprise about the clash between the expected state of affairs and the actual one

Osservazioni comparative sull'uso della particella frasale po/pa in area bellunese e dolomitica

In questo articolo mi propongo di fornire una analisi comparativa delle proprietà distribuzionali e interpretative della particella di origine avverbiale po/pa nella regione dolomitica. Confrontando il comportamento sintattico ed il contributo semantico-pragmatico di questa particella in diverse aree dialettali, e segnatamente nell’area bellunese e dolomitica, cercherò di caratterizzare meglio il processo diacronico di grammaticalizzazione che essa ha subito in alcune varietà retoromanze centrali in cui è diventata una marca di frase interrogativa canonica. Nel mio lavoro farò riferimento al ruolo che questa particella svolge nel determinare lo stato epistemico dei partecipanti al discorso, che si correla direttamente alla definizione di particella modale come elemento che esprime una informazione sull’atteggiamento del parlante o sulla condizione epistemica degli interlocutori, senza tuttavia contribuire al contenuto descrittivo dell’enunciato