Browsing by Author "Baldi, Benedetta"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    Clitics in imperative: proclisis, enclisis and mesoclisis in Albanian and in Italo-Romance varieties of Lausberg area
    (Wydawnictwo KUL, 2020) Baldi, Benedetta; Savoia, Leonardo M.
    The relation between morpho-syntactic structure and its externalization into interpretive levels is the topic of this article. In many languages, typically in Romance and Albanian varieties, modal contexts, specifically imperative and infinitive, and negation, give rise to phenomena of clitic reordering and an interesting micro-variation. Imperative differs from declarative sentences in selecting enclisis except in negative contexts. Moreover, in Albanian mesoclisis appears in the 2nd plural person of imperative, between the verbal base and the person inflection. A similar distribution characterizes Calabro-Lucanian varieties spoken in Lausberg area, in contact with Arbëresh (Italo-Albanian) dialects. This article proposes to analyze the influence of modal contexts on the lexicalization of object clitics (OCls) and their different behavior in connection to their referential properties. Our descriptive and theoretical starting point is the representational morpho-syntactic approach adopted in Manzini and Savoia (2011 and subsequent works; see Section 5).
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    Enclisis, mesoclisis and inflection in Italo-Romance varieties: A minimalist analysis
    (KUL Publishing House, 2023) Savoia, Leonardo M.; Baldi, Benedetta
    This contribution addresses a central theme in morphological analysis, namely the relationship between clitics and inflectional elements. Important contributions on the point are due to Anderson (1992) and Marantz (1988), who, in different ways, connect clitics and affixes. We will propose a solution based on the idea that clitics are part of the inflectional arrangement of the verbal head. Specifically, we will investigate two types of data coming from some Romance varieties in which enclisis and mesoclisis phenomena interact with word formation. These phenomena affect the expression of the Internal Argument and lead us to rethink the analysis of enclisis and mesoclisis in terms of the ability of the inflected verb to realize Phasal domains. In other words, morphology is part of the syntactic computation, and morphemic elements, endowed with interpretable content, are introduced by the operation of Merge.
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    Phenomena in Romance verb paradigms: Syncretism, order of inflectional morphemes and thematic vowel
    (Wydawnictwo KUL, 2022) Baldi, Benedetta; Savoia, Leonardo M.
    This article aims to propose a treatment of the internal morphological organization of words, based on the idea that morphology is part of syntactic computation. We disagree with Distributed Morphology model, whereby morphology is identified with a post-syntactic component conveying an information ‘separated from the original locus of that information in the phrase marker’ (Embick and Noyer 2001: 557) by rules manipulating syntactic nodes. We also consider inadequate the costly and complex syntactic structures that cartographic approach maps into inflectional strings. We pursue a different conceptualization assuming that morphology is governed by the same rules and principles of syntax. Sub-word elements, including inflections, thematic exponents and clitics, are fully interpretable and enter (pair-)merge operations (in the sense of Chomsky 2020a,b, 2021) according to their content, giving rise to complex words.
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    Rising and falling diphthongs in Romance languages: A study of the phonological string
    (Wydawnictwo KUL, 2024) Savoia, Leonardo M.; Baldi, Benedetta
    This article discusses the phonological status of diphthongs and their role in the melodic and rhythmic organization of vowel and consonant sequences. We examine the nature of rising diphthongs and their distribution in relation to syllabic structure. Structural approaches, such as GP, admit only falling diphthongs, insofar as only these respect the governing relation within the nucleus or rhyme, which requires the head to be on the left. However, rising diphthongs are widespread in languages and are subject to similar distributional constraints as falling diphthongs. The latter, in turn, also show realizations different from those generally considered canonical in the literature, such as English [ai] of my. Furthermore, not only rising but also falling diphthongs can occur in closed syllables. We argue for a model capable of unifying the treatment of diphthongs, aiming to achieve at least a descriptive adequacy. We adopt a CVCV approach, which aims to account for the organization of phonetic sequences and the licensing relations between vowels (and consonants) based on the melodic strength of the vowels.
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    The interaction between relevant-set based operators and a topic–predicate dimension
    (Wydawnictwo KUL, 2018) Savoia, Leonardo M.; Baldi, Benedetta; Manzini, M. Rita
    In Sardinian, Friulian, Rhaeto-Romance, Occitan (not considered in this work) and Franco-Provençal varieties spoken in peripheral Italian areas, the -i inflection is not totally eradicated but interacts with plural -s. The coexistence of -s and -i reflects syntactic constraints. Specifically, -i is in complementary distribution with -s or it combines with –s, giving rise to a duplicated lexicalization of plurality. In any event, it is specialized for a subset of the morpho-syntactic contexts. The distribution of -i generally involves the D domain, i.e. determiners and clitics. In some cases, -i is limited to the D elements. Different agreement systems on D and on N emerge, recalling partial or asymmetric agreement phenomena known in literature. Moreover, in the relevant varieties (-)i is in turn the inflection of the dative clitic; this suggests that (-)i is endowed with a slightly different content from plural -s, that, on the contrary, shows no connection with dative.