The syntax of subject pronouns in heritage languages

Abstract

List of abbreviations xiiiChapter 1. Introduction 1.1. Heritage languages and contact 1.2. How to analyse contact-induced change in Italo-Romance varieties 1.2.1. Feature-reassembly and the bottleneck hypothesis 1.2.2. Subject pronouns: simplification, stability and complexification 1.3. Information structure and syntax: two approaches 1.3.1. The cartographic approach to the left periphery 1.3.2. Towards a feature-based approach 1.3.3. Beyond C: discourse features in v and D 1.4. Research questions and structure of the dissertation 1.4.1. Research questions 1.4.2. Chapter outline Chapter 2. Referentiality and the internal structure of subject pronouns 2.1. Introduction 2.2. Null and overt subjects: an overview 2.3. The internal structure of pronouns 2.3.1. Introducing the [R] feature 2.4. The interpretation of null and overt subjects: topic, linking and logophoricity

Geographical maps meet place names where languages meet dialects: The case of Italian

“…We operated a manual analysis to localize terms that could potentially be attested in only one region. In Italy, geo-linguistic regions representing the distribution of dialects and administrative regions only loosely coincide (Frasson, 2022: Ch. 1; Lameli et al, 2010: Ch.…”

“…the generic term ‘rua’ in the city of Ascoli Piceno; De Stefani, 2004). Italian and other Romance varieties spoken in the Italian peninsula (or ‘dialects’) have co-evolved from Latin for several centuries, after all (Berruto, 2012; Frasson, 2022; Maiden and Parry, 1997). Though diachronic trajectories may obfuscate these dialectal origins via phonological changes (Stolz et al, 2017), a rich toponomastic tradition has carefully documented these roots (e.g.…”

The importance of features and exponents

“…Multiple frameworks have been developed and used to capture this insight: Syntax-before-morphology (White 2003; see also Lardiere 1998a, b), the Missing Surface Inflection Hypothesis (Haznedar & Schwartz 1997;Prévost & White 2000a, b), and Feature Reassembly (Lardiere 2005(Lardiere , 2008(Lardiere , 2009Frasson 2022; see also Hicks & Domínguez 2020). 1 Despite their differences, the key point all of these approaches converge on is that the absence of overt morphology does not necessarily entail the absence of functional categories in the syntax.…”

“…Space prevents us from discussing this link any further. Frasson 2022). That is, as features became the prime explanans for language variation more generally, they also came to play a pivotal role in work on L2 grammars.…”

Brazilian Venetan is going leísta

“…The data presented in this section show that Brazilian Venetan displays a different distribution of accusative and dative clitics with respect to the patterns described for accusative and dative clitics in section 2.1. for homeland Venetan. The data discussed in the present section are examples extracted from the spoken corpus of Brazilian Venetan, available on the website of the Microcontact Atlas 5 and already discussed in Frasson (2022b). The Brazilian Venetan data present in the Atlas were collected in the state of Rio Grande do Sul and include recordings of spontaneous speech by 21 speakers of the variety.…”