Isogloss. Open Journal of Romance Linguistics

Book review: Irimia, Monica Alexandrina, & Mardale, Alexandru (eds.). 2023. Differential Object Marking in Romance: Towards microvariation. John Benjamins.

2024-06-19T15:59:28+02:00

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Cross-linguistic variation in the expression of ignorance

2024-05-02T16:25:39+02:00

This article examines the properties of epistemic indefinites (EIs) when pluralized, focusing on the following puzzle: while ignorance is expressed by both singular and plural EIs in a number of languages, e.g. German, only the singular conveys ignorance in languages such as Spanish and French. What is the nature of this parameter? We propose that, despite appearances and, in contrast with the German situation, algunos and French quelques are not lexically related to singular epistemic algún and quelque, respectively. We show that, in these languages, singular EIs give rise to a conventional implicature -- in the sense of Potts (2005)--, rather than a conversational implicature based on Gricean reasoning, as in Alonso-Ovalle & Menéndez-Benito (2011) for Spanish: the ignorance expressed in Spanish and French is inherent to singular EIs. Using evidence from the inclusive/exclusive distinction (Krifka 1989; Sauerland 2003; Farkas & de Swart 2010; Martí 2020), we provide support for the idea that, despite plural morphology, the role of algunos EIs and quelques EIs is to express paucity (adding evidence for Martí (2015) proposal for Spanish).

Presentational nana constructions in Reunion Creole

2024-04-17T10:03:26+02:00

This paper discusses a cluster of related constructions in Reunion Creole involving nana ‘have’. Focusing on a presentational construction that is functionally equivalent to the il y a-cleft of French, I argue that a once bi-clausal cleft has developed into a monoclausal broad focus construction in Reunion Creole. I present a Role and Reference Grammar analysis of both the bi-clausal cleft and the monoclausal construction, and in the former, I explain how the cleft relative clause differs from restrictive relative clauses.

Investigating the effect of prosodic markedness on the interpretation of simple disjunction in Romanian

2024-01-12T12:37:26+01:00

According to Horn’s (1984) Principle of Division of Pragmatic Labor, marked forms should have marked meanings. We investigate differences in the interpretation of two prosodically distinct forms of the disjunction sau in Romanian (‘A sau B’): (i) neutral rise-fall prosody, and (ii) marked rise-fall-rise prosody, where both disjuncts are stressed. Adults typically interpret disjunction inclusively (A or B, possibly both) or exclusively (A or B, but not both), while children interpret it inclusively or conjunctively (A and B), cf. Singh et al. (2016) and Tieu et al. (2017). We ask whether similar preferences hold for Romanian and probe into the understudied role of prosody. Given adults’ greater sensitivity to prosody compared to children (Gotzner et al. 2013), we predict they might associate marked sau with the marked exclusive meaning more than children do. We tested Romanian-speaking adults and 5-year-olds using a forced-choice task, in which two puppets made guesses about what would happen, using either neutral sau or marked sau. While adults preferred neutral sau to describe contexts in which both disjuncts were true and marked sau for contexts in which only one disjunct was true, children selected the two disjunctions indiscriminately. We conclude that, unlike adults, children do not distinguish between prosodically marked and unmarked forms of disjunction.

The Ibero-Romance rhotics

2024-01-15T20:53:27+01:00

The two rhotic consonants of Ibero-Romance languages are characterised by their very specific distribution and by the prosodic weight of one of them. Data has hitherto suggested a geminate-to-single contrast for the pair of rhotics. It will be shown here that this view must be rejected in favour of another which sees these putative geminates as complex syllabic onsets. But this hypothesis only holds if it can be shown that sonorants and only sonorants are likely to have weight in onset position in these languages. The Alignment theory of sonority makes this possible since sonority and weight appear as particular cases of the behaviour of the nucleus in that framework.

Differential Object Marking and discourse prominence in Spanish

2024-02-21T16:03:26+01:00

Spanish, like many other Romance and non-Romance languages, shows Differential Object Marking (DOM), i.e., some direct objects are morphologically marked by the prepositional marker a ‘to’, while others remain unmarked. The literature has proposed different sentential parameters in order to capture this variation (Fábregas 2013, among others), including topicality (see Leonetti 2004, Iemmolo 2010, among others). In addition, Laca (1995: 82f.) has argued that DOM also depends on discourse properties. She assumes that in Spanish the use of DOM with an indefinite direct object signals that more information about this object referent is to be expected in the upcoming discourse (see also Comrie 1981/1989). First empirical evidence for this hypothesis comes from DOM in Romanian (Chiriacescu & von Heusinger 2010). In this paper we explore the hypothesis that, in Spanish, human indefinite direct objects with DOM show more forward-looking potential than those without DOM. We present original results from two corpus studies and two paragraph continuation tasks. The corpus studies provide support for the discourse effect of DOM, while the paragraph continuation tasks do not, which might be due to the particular design of our experimental items. We evaluate the different parameters that contribute to the discourse prominence of a direct object with DOM and those that might mask such effects. We conclude that there is evidence that DOM contributes to discourse prominence, but that further studies are necessary.

Types of zero complements in French and Spanish prepositional phrases

2023-09-11T16:29:02+02:00

Some French prepositions can appear without an overt complement. The discussion about the status of such zero complements (starting with Zribi-Hertz's (1984a, 1984b) seminal work) is still ongoing. More recently, Authier (2016) argued that French prepositions are heterogeneous in this respect: The zero complement of only some prepositions is a null pronoun (e.g., avec 'with', but not pour 'for'). I aim to take this discussion one step further and scrutinize whether the zero complement of one and the same preposition can have different statuses. To this end I compare zero complements in two contexts: reduced sentences with a contrastive focus on the preposition vs. prepositions in full sentences without contrastive focus on the preposition. Based on data from acceptability judgment experiments, I will show that the zero complements in these two contexts underly different restrictions with respect to animacy and crosslinguistic distribution (comparing French and Spanish). This suggests two types of zero complements in the case of prepositions like avec: null pronouns in non-contrastive contexts, and background deletion in contrastive contexts. Additionally, the data provides novel insights about strong pronouns vs. zero complements in French and Spanish PPs, highlighting different animacy restrictions on zero complements and strong pronouns in the two languages.

The D(emonstrative)-construction

2024-02-26T18:53:20+01:00

This paper explores a newly identified contrastive topic configuration in Spanish. Coined by de Andrade (2018) for Galician and European Portuguese, the D(emonstrative)-construction features a left-dislocated topic and d(emonstrative)-pronoun resumptive. This study investigates whether the D-construction exists in Spanish, and if so, with which syntactic properties.

We administered an acceptability judgment task on the D-construction, Clitic Left Dislocation (CLLD), Hanging Topic Left Dislocation (HTLD) and Focus Fronting (FF) to Spanish speakers. The task tested the role of the left-dislocate, case connectivity, subject-verb inversion, embedding, recursivity, and sensitivity to island constraints.

Simple instances of the D-construction received consistently high ratings, demonstrating that it exists in Spanish. There was individual variation regarding the role of the left-dislocate and case connectivity. The D-construction did not require subject-verb inversion, was non-recursive and demonstrated selective island sensitivity. Findings for CLLD, HTLD and FF were mostly in line with previous literature.

The D-construction did not exactly pattern with CLLD, HTLD, nor FF; it is characterized by a unique set of syntactic properties. We propose that both left-dislocated elements are base-generated at Spec, TopP: the fronted DP is a hanging topic, and its resumptive d-pronoun is linked to a clitic within the main clause via an A'-chain.

As small as they seem?

2023-09-11T16:29:42+02:00

We present the results of an experimental study designed to investigate the acceptability of bare participial structures in spoken Italian. These sentences, despite being extremely reduced, have full illocutionary force. For the study, we proposed a technique to elicit grammaticality judgements suitable for structures that, although productive, are not used in the written form of the language. Our aim is to investigate the validity of the structural analysis of these sentences (Cecchetto & Donati 2022) according to which they are generated as small as VPs and they are not elliptical structures, i.e., they are not the result of phonological deletions from full-fledged sentences. The findings globally confirm the predictions of that account, as only require the activation of projections beyond the VP-layer, are rated as fully acceptable. However, the corresponding negative structures and some reduced structures with active transitive predicates received intermediate judgments of acceptability, contrary to the predictions. In the paper, we try to account for these unexpected results and argue that phonological deletion is available as well but is subject to tight constraints; most notably, it is restricted to the top of the tree.

The production of relative clauses in Italian-speaking children with DLD

2023-02-22T12:15:13+01:00

Children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) have been shown to struggle with the acquisition of complex structures requiring structural embedding and movement of a sentential element from its original position. This study examines the production of subject and object relative clauses (RCs) by Italian children, investigating whether: i) seven-year-old children with DLD are impaired in embedding or movement operations; ii) specific factors, such as animacy of the arguments, affect the production of sentences with movement and embedding, iii) the linguistic profile of children with DLD is qualitatively different from that of typically developing (TD) children. We elicited the production of RCs with animate and inanimate arguments in 12 Italian-speaking children with DLD (mean age = 7;2) and in two TD control groups: age matched (AM) and language matched (LM). Children with DLD produced fewer RCs than either control group and made different errors, showing a slightly different developmental path. Animacy mismatch did not improve RC production in any group. Results suggest that seven-year-old children with DLD are in a transitional stage: they can use embedding but still have difficulties with movement operations, especially in object RCs. This indicates that the language competence of children with DLD improves with age, but long-distance dependencies continue to be challenging.

Verb movement in Florentine

2023-09-01T09:26:50+02:00

Complementizer deletion (CD) in Italo-Romance varieties branches off in two different pathways: CD1, present in standard Italian with a bridge selecting verb and an irrealis embedded verb and CD2, available in Florentine and associated with a bridge or non-bridge selecting verb and a realis or irrealis embedded verb, but with an optional clitic element intervening between the main and the embedded verb. The traditional account unifies CD1 and CD2 claiming that they both represent the alternate checker of the overt complementizer: in CD1, the embedded verb moved to Fin° checks the relevant features, in CD2, the intervening element moved to Force° does the same. This article rests on the assumption that the alternative checking hypothesis is operative when the complementizer is omitted but proposes a different analysis for CD2. Some empirical evidence based on the order of the embedded verb and other left-peripheral elements will be provided to show that the embedded verb moves to ForceP. The analysis is framed within the Parametric Comparison Method, a comparative tool aimed at defining the parameters which regulate phenomena that operate in a specific syntactic domain (CP) and their functional implications.

The Romance Inter-Views 3

2024-07-14T11:02:51+02:00

The Romance Inter-Views are short, multiple Q&A pairs that address key issues, definitions and ideas regarding Romance linguistics or general linguistics from a Romance viewpoint. Prominent exponents of different approaches to the study of Romance linguistics are asked to answer some general questions. The answers are then assembled so that readers can get a comparative picture of what’s going on in the field.

This is the third Inter-view. The first Inter-view, on Syntax, can be found here. The second Inter-view, on Cartography, can be found here.