The paper deals with verb-particle constructions in Italian, i.e. complex predicates formed by a verbal base and a modifying post-verbal particle. In recent years a lot of interest has been devoted to these constructions in the Germanic languages, and investigation has been focusing mostly on their structure. Recently, some studies have shown that similar constructions also exist in the Italian language. Our contribution adopts a constructionist approach and aims at improving our knowledge of the properties of verb-particle constructions in Italian with particular reference to semantics and Aktionsart. The paper shows that Italian post-verbal particles contribute to the Aktionsart of verb-particle constructions. Even though Italian does not present a coherent system of actional particles, there are nonetheless some traces of regularity. One case in point is the emergence of a specific verbparticle construction with via ÔawayÕ that developed an actional function. The paper also discusses the diachronic and synchronic relationship between verbal prefixes and post-verbal particles, trying to determine whether these two strategies cooperate or compete in the expression of locative and aspectual meanings.

The paper addresses the issue of the syntax-lexicon distinction from a Construction Grammar perspective. In the constructionist framework, the construction is the basic unit of linguistic analysis and there is no clear-cut division between lexical items and syntactic structures. Under this view, phenomena which are intermediate between syntax and the lexicon are expected. Apart from well-known cases such as idioms and compounds, there can be found in various languages a number of multi-word expressions that are not fully syntactic objects. I refer to these units as phrasal lexemes. The paper shows that, although phrasal lexemes follow the syntactic patterns of the language, they clearly have a lexical, naming function and, furthermore, they are more restricted compared to canonical phrases. This is exemplified by two case studies from Italian, namely noun-preposition-noun combinations and verb-conjunction-verb combinations. Construction Grammar not only offers efficient tools for describing these expressions, but also allows to treat phrasal lexemes as distinct with respect to both words and canonical phrases, without abandoning any of these notions.

This paper aims at giving an up-to-date picture of compounding in Italian on the basis of most recent literature. First and foremost, we illustrate the basic units of Italian compounds, including semiwords, and we offer an operational definition of compounding that will be adopted throughout the paper. Secondly, we focus on the crucial issue of the demarcation of compounds: several criteria are given to distinguish compounds from derived words, phrases and also phrasal lexemes. Third, we offer a classification of Italian compounds according to two hierarchically ordered criteria -the grammatical relation between the constituents and the presence/absence of the head -and then we illustrate the main formation patterns that give rise to such compounds. Finally, we discuss crucial theoretical issues such as headedness and the relationship between compounding and inflection. Introduction*In recent times, a huge amount of work has been done on compounds that improved our understanding of the phenomenon (cf. e.g. the two edited volumes by Lieber and Štekauer 2009 and Scalise and Vogel 2010). Moreover, the * The article is the result of the close collaboration of both authors, who are listed in alphabetical order. For academic purposes, Francesca Masini is responsible for sections 2, 3, 8, and Sergio Scalise for sections 1, 4, 5, 6, 7. List of abbreviations: A = adjective; Adv = adverb; Conj = conjunction; F = feminine; GEN = genitive; LV = linking vowel; M = masculine; N = nouns; NEUT = neuter; NOM = nominative; P = preposition; PASS = passive; PL = plural; SG = singular; SUF = suffix; V = verb.Brought to you by | University of Manitoba Authenticated Download Date | 8/26/15 10:17 AM Brought to you by | University of Manitoba Authenticated Download Date | 8/26/15 10:17 AM 3. Montermini (2010: 89) suggests that the first hypothesis might apply to cases such as Anglo-American, in which Anglo is not a free form, but a specific bound form that occurs only in coordinate compounds. Brought to you by | University of Manitoba Authenticated Download Date | 8/26/15 10:17 AM

We propose a constructionist approach to the polyfunctionality of the Italian focus particle magari (roughly corresponding to ‘maybe’, but also ‘I wish’). The sheer syntactic versatility of this word leads us to detect its formal regularities at the level of discourse configurations. This level of analysis, identified within the French linguistic tradition, is defined by the maintenance of a predicate-argument-adjunct structure in discourse. The salient feature of discourse configurations is their shape, which can be described by referring to a number of topological patterns: lists of elements in the same syntactic position, repetition of syntactic structures, shifting of elements from a post-verbal to a pre-verbal position and so on. These topological patterns are meaningful to an extent and they are eligible to be regarded as constructions. Magari is shown to be regularly associated with a general topological pattern, namely a list of items that occupy the same syntactic position as the item focused by magari. Each semantic function of magari correlates with one particular kind of list. These associations of a form (the different types of lists) and a meaning (the functions of magari) are shown to be related to one another by means of inheritance links.

This paper contributes to the study of evaluative morphology by investigating an emerging morphological construction in Italian within the framework of Construction Morphology. The schema in question, which contains the string simil- (related to the adjective simile ‘similar’) plus a nominal or adjectival base, is analyzed as a newly-created construction that conveys a number of closely-related senses (i.e., fakeness, imitation, resemblance, vagueness, and kin-categorization) revolving around the functional domain of approximation, which has received much less attention than other domains within evaluative morphology. Beside discussing the formal, semantic and usage properties of simil- expressions on the basis of corpus data, we propose a constructional network that accounts for their behavior. Finally, we discuss the nature of simil- as an affixoid and explore its relationship with other competing (morphological and, more marginally, analytic) strategies in Italian.