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In early Romance the finite verb raises in root clauses to the vacant C position, a movement operation frequently accompanied in turn by fronting of a pragmatically salient constituent to a preverbal position within the C-domain. Although this structural characterization of early Romance V2 word order overwhelmingly accounts for the core cases, there remains a smaller number of contexts in which the V2 effect appears to be satisfied by other means. More specifically, in addition to the move option, we argue that the V2 constraint may be met in early Romance by the Merge option: in the former case this involves movement of the finite verb to the empty C head, whereas in the latter case the V2 requirement is met by merging sì (<sic ‘thus, so’) directly in C°. This analysis radically departs from traditional analyses of Romance sì, which characterize it either as a coordinating conjunction or, in recent generative analyses, as a pleonastic phrasal category associated with a specifier position within CP. Our proposed analysis makes some interesting and novel predictions both about the rather restricted distribution of sì in Old Neapolitan, many aspects of which remain unexplained under the alternative accounts, and the C-related functional positions involved in medieval Romance V2.

This paper provides further evidence in support of the view that the left periphery, traditionally associated with the single functional projection CP, should be redefined in terms of a richly articulated C space hosting a series of distinct functional projections. Such a conception of the left periphery is demonstrated to provide a simple solution to some superficially puzzling facts regarding the distribution of the southern Italian dual complementiser system, which proves sensitive to the presence of topics and foci. In particular, the apparent complementiser alternations witnessed in a number of early southern dialects, which are traditionally argued to involve two distinct lexical complementisers, are shown to find a more natural explanation in terms of an analysis which views the two complementisers simply as distinct realisations of a single underlying complementiser, variously spelt out in one of two distinct morphological forms in accordance with the different positions it targets within the C space. Significantly, these various movement operations through the C space affecting the complementiser are demonstrated to have an overt reflex at PF in a number of revealing cases in the form of phonetically overt traces left in various functional heads by the complementiser as it raises through the left periphery.

No abstract

In the present article we shall reconsider the category infinitive in Romance and, in particular, examine the variation in function and form exhibited by the various species of Romance infinitive. Despite a number of differences, the range of variation exhibited by such infinitival forms is not unconstrained. Rather, basing ourselves on a proper understanding of the formal properties of such infinitival forms, it is possible to define a macrocategory of infinitive, within which all the various species of Romance infinitive may be felicitously subsumed. In the light of such a definition of the category of Romance infinitive, we shall propose a new candidate for infinitival status from the dialects spoken in southern Calabria, which are traditionally described as making very little use of the infinitive, regularly using in its place finite clauses on a par with the indigenous Greek dialects of this region. It is these same finite clauses that we shall argue are, in fact, inflected infinitival constructions. Though a controversial hypothesis, departing considerably from standard accounts, it will be demonstrated that traditional analyses like those of Rohlfs (1969: 717;1972) have long obscured the real facts behind such constructions.