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This monograph investigates the syntax of the finite verb in Mòcheno, a minority language spoken in a German speech island of Northern Italy. Basing her study on detailed new data collected during extensive fieldwork, and focusing on finite verb movement; on multiple access to the left periphery; on pro licensing and on the distribution of OV/VO word orders, the author refutes the traditional view that the syntactic variation found in Mòcheno is due to the presence of two competing grammars as a consequence of contact with Romance varieties and accounts for the peculiarities of Mòcheno syntax within a theory couched in the framework of Generative Grammar. This book contributes to our understanding of the verb-second phenomenon and sheds new light on the asymmetries between Old Romance and Germanic verb-second languages. A useful tool for all linguists working on both theoretical and comparative syntax and to anyone interested in language variation, dialectology and typology.

The aim of the present article is to discuss the syntactic distribution and semantic/pragmatic interpretation of the discourse particle ben (lit. ‘well’) as used in the Trentino regional variety of Italian. Regarding its distribution, the results of our investigation with native speakers show that ben is admitted in any of the tested TAM contexts (save for non-root embedded clauses) and always sits between the lexical/auxiliary/restructuring verb and the non-finite form. As for its interpretation, it is shown that ben is used to negate an implicit or explicit negative presupposition, i.e. it is primarily connected with negation. These syntactic and interpretative properties are captured by claiming that ben sits in NegPresuppositionalP, where it is licensed by the (c)overt operator no located in ForceP.

In this paper we carry out a systematic comparison between the German and Italian particles auch and anche (meaning “also”) and provide a formal account of the data couched within the cartographic approach to syntax (Cinque 1999; Rizzi 1997; Cinque & Rizzi 2010). Based on the available literature and on novel data, we show that in both languages this particle exhibits three main functions: (i) additive particle; (ii) connective adverb (residual in Italian) and (iii) modal particle – which correlate with a different syntactic status of the particle (head or maximal projection) and with a different position within the clause. When used as an additive particle, auch/anche lexicalize a head in the lower portion of the clause and function as focalizers (in the sense of Kayne 1998, 2005). When they are connective adverbs, they are maximal projections hosted in a functional projection dedicated to adverbs. Finally, when used as a modal particle auch/anche are heads found in the higher portion of the IP layer. German auch and Italian anche are however not identical, since when used as an additive particle, German auch, but not Italian anche, is compatible with discontinuous constructions in which a given XP in the scope of auch can be moved to Spec,CP leaving auch within the clause. Moreover, German auch is compatible with a variety of illocutionary types in its use as a modal particle, whereas anche can only be used in declarative clauses. We show that the former fact follows from asymmetries in movement options between the two languages (topics move in German but not in Italian) and the latter results from the nature of anche as a polarity item.

In this article I demonstrate that in two varieties of Mòcheno, a German dialect spoken by about 600 people in the Fersina valley (Trentino, Northern Italy), referential null subjects can be licensed in main, but not in embedded clauses. This particular root-embedded asymmetry, known as “asymmetric