Language contact and variation patterns in Walser German subordination

Abstract

Walser German is an archaic variety of Alemannic still spoken in few isolated communities in the Italian Alps. These dialects are characterized by ex treme variability, language contact and decay. Moreover, they have developed independently from one another, partly because of different sociolinguistic con ditions and partly because lack of contact from one another. Today, this variety of linguistic outcomes and sociolinguistic contexts offers us wealth of linguistic material that can help us reconstruct the development of innovative syntactic structures in subordination and of a mixed system of complementizers.