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Raffaella Folli
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Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Linguistic Inquiry (2020) 51 (3): 425–470.
Published: 01 July 2020
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We propose that the well-known verb-framed/satellite-framed variation observed by Talmy ( 1975 , 1985 , 2000 ) is a true syntactic parameter of a well-understood type: a head movement parameter. We claim that it depends on an uninterpretable feature bundled with the particular v head used in change-of-state constructions that forces the head of the Res(ult)P complement of v to undergo head movement to v in Italian. The technical apparatus employed is a feature-driven head movement parameter, of the same kind that accounts for the familiar V-to-T or T-to-C movement variation crosslinguistically. We argue that in Talmy’s class of verb-framed languages, head movement of the embedded Res head to change-of-state v is mandatory, just as head movement of v to finite T is mandatory in V-to-T movement languages. Unlike previous proposals, this approach does not ascribe a deficiency to verb-framed languages, either in their semantic composition inventory or in their inventory of structural operations, both deficiencies being prima facie implausible from a biolinguistic/Minimalist perspective.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Linguistic Inquiry (2019) 50 (3): 439–486.
Published: 01 June 2019
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In this article, we argue that a set of unexpected contrasts in the interpretation of clitic-left-dislocated indefinites in Greek and Italian derive from structural variation in the nominal syntax of the two languages. Greek resists nonreferential indefinites in clitic left-dislocation, resorting to the topicalization of an often bare noun for nonreferential topics. By contrast, clitic left-dislocation is employed in Italian for topics regardless of their definite/indefinite interpretation. We argue that this contrast is directly linked to the wide availability of bare nouns in Greek, which stems from a structural difference in the nominal syntax of the two languages. In particular, we hypothesize that Greek nominal arguments lack a D layer. Rather, they are Number Phrases. We situate this analysis in the context of Chierchia’s (1998) typology of nominals. We argue that, on a par with Italian nouns, Greek nouns are [−arg, +pred]. However, they do not employ a syntactic head (D) for type-shifting to e . Rather, they resort to covert type-shifting, a hypothesis that is necessary to account for the distribution and interpretations of bare nouns in Greek, vis-à-vis other [−arg, +pred] languages like Italian and French.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Linguistic Inquiry (2007) 38 (2): 197–238.
Published: 01 March 2007
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As shown by Kayne (1975), Romance causatives with faire fall into two classes, faire infinitif (FI) and faire par (FP). We argue from Italian data that the properties of the two classes depend on the nature of the complement of fare :FI embeds a vP, FP a nominalized VP. The syntactic and semantic characteristics of these complements account straightforwardly for well-known differences between FI and FP, including the previously untreated “obligation” requirement in FI, absent in FP. Our analysis also accounts for another subtle restriction on the formation of FP: the existence of an animacy requirement on the subject of fare , absent in FI. Finally, we argue that only FP can undergo passivization; this accounts for a previously unobserved asymmetry in passivizability of causatives of unergative and unaccusative intransitive verbs.