Towards a Typology of Zero Aboutness

Expletive A in Fornese and Chiru in Cilentano

Datos Bibliográficos

ID5900909
AutoresSimone De Cia (0000-0002-7720-359X, University of Manchester, autor de correspondencia), Mariangela Cerullo (University of Naples Federico II)
Año2024
Volumen9
Número2
Páginas60
Fecha de publicación2024-02-07
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaLanguages (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 2226-471X • E-ISSN: 2226-471X
EditorialMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/languages9020060
OpenAlexW4391604746
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas55

This paper investigates the syntactic-pragmatic behavior of two expletive-like elements, namely a and chiru, in Fornese and Cilentano, two Romance varieties spoken in Northern and Southern Italy, respectively. We argue that a and chiru are not bona fide expletive subjects but discourse-pragmatic expletives, which mark zero aboutness or the absence of an aboutness referent in an utterance. The investigation of Fornese and Cilentano points towards the existence of a sub-class of null-subject languages where aboutness as a discourse feature must be structurally satisfied by merging an overt or null topic in the syntactic spine of the clause. In the absence of such an element-for example, in thetic clauses-a discourse-pragmatic expletive is externally merged as a last-resort strategy to satisfy [uAboutness]. We argue that, in these null-subject languages, the satisfaction of the discourse feature [uAboutness] is an LF requirement, which is subject to a parametric choice. We show that, in Fornese, "default" [aboutness] is satisfied in SubjP, which is the canonical syntactic position for overt subjects within a cartographic approach. In Cilentano, on the other hand, [aboutness] is satisfied in a higher position within the C-domain, namely ShiftP, the canonical syntactic position that hosts overt aboutness/shift topics

Linguistics · Natural language processing · Sociology · Typology · Zero (linguistics · Anthropology · Computer Science · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Linguistics and language evolution · Philosophy · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation