Corrado Donati
Biographic Data
| ID | 694133 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Corrado Donati |
| GIVEN NAMES | Corrado |
| FAMILY NAME | Donati |
| SIGNATURE | DONATI C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Laboratoire de Linguistique Formelle |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7173-1041 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 15 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1992 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Exploring bimodal lexical access in unimodal bilinguals through videos with captions
Studies on bimodal bilingualism showed that bimodal lexical access is not costly compared to unimodal lexical access, but that it can be even advantageous. We asked whether the same can be observed in unimodal bilinguals as long as some bimodal conditions are provided. We exploited the ecological bimodal setting of subtitled videos and designed four versions of a semantic categorization task, with unimodal (spoken or written language) and bimodal…
Investigating locality constraints on wh -in situ in French
Most analyses of wh -questions posit the existence of a dependency between the scope position and the theta position of the wh -constituent, both in ex situ questions and in in situ questions, but they disagree on the nature of this dependency and in particular on whether it is the same or different in the two strategies. The aim of this article is to verify how things stand in French, which is a mixed language allowing both in situ and ex situ w…
Processing code-blending beyond the lexical level
Bimodal bilinguals master languages in two modalities, spoken and signed, and can use them simultaneously due to the independence of the articulators. This behavior, named code-blending, is one of the hallmarks of bimodal bilingualism. Lexical experiments on production and comprehension in American Sign Language/English showed that blending is not cognitively costly and facilitates lexical access. In this work, we replicated the blending advantag…
Assessing Lexical and Syntactic Comprehension in Deaf Signing Adults
Among the existing sign language assessment tools, only a small number can be used in clinical settings. This contribution aims at presenting three comprehension assessment tests (two lexical and one syntactic) that offer a solid basis to build tools to assess language impairments in deaf signing adults. We provide the material and guidelines, based on psychometric analyses of the items, to make these tests suitable for clinical assessment. They …
On the nature of role shift
Attitude role shift is a sign language strategy to report someone else’s utterance or thought. It has been analyzed either as a kind of demonstration or, alternatively, as a complex construction involving subordination plus a context-shifting operator. The present work reports the results of a sentence-to-picture matching task developed in three different sign languages (Italian Sign Language, French Sign Language and Catalan Sign Language) with …
A subject advantage in covert dependencies
Studies on sentence processing have shown that, as with all A‐bar dependencies, content questions involving wh movement display a subject advantage. Very little is known, however, about wh ‐in‐situ questions. The aim of this article is to fill this gap and explore whether a subject advantage can be found in wh ‐in‐situ questions. We report the results of a sentence‐to‐picture matching task using in‐situ wh questions in French Sign Language. Three…
Labeling (Reduced) Structures
In this article, we analyze five reduced structures in Italian that display morphological agreement between their past participle and their internal argument. Three of the five structures have full illocutionary force despite lacking the middle field and the left periphery. We explain this fact (and the differences with the two remaining participial structures) by extending to object agreement cases Chomsky's (2019) hypothesis that clauses are ex…
On the properties of null subjects in sign languages
The typology of subject omission in simple declarative sentences ranges from languages that simply do not allow it like English and French to languages that allow it as long as a minimum degree of topicality is guaranteed like Chinese and Japanese. In between there are various languages in which subject omission is licensed, for example by rich agreement like in Italian and Spanish, or by a particular set of grammatical features like first and se…
Measuring sign complexity
The study of articulatory complexity has proven to yield useful insights into the phonological mechanisms of spoken languages. In sign languages, this type of knowledge is scarcely documented. The current study compares an error-driven measure and a model-driven measure of complexity for signs in French Sign Language (LSF). The former measure is based on error rates of handshape, location, orientation, movement, and sign fluidity in a repetition …
Avoiding Gaps in Romance
Existing evidence suggests that the parser avoids positing a movement dependency if the grammar does not require doing so. By investigating the processing of two syntactic ambiguities that have not been the subject of processing studies before, we provide more conclusive evidence for this parsing bias in two Romance languages: French and Italian. In two acceptability-judgment experiments and two self-paced-reading studies, we found that sentences…
Whatever His Arguments, Whatever -Relatives Are Not Free Relatives
This is a reply to Caponigro 2019, which argues that the phrase structure theory proposed in Donati and Cecchetto 2011 and Cecchetto and Donati 2015 falls short of accounting for the attested patterns of free relative clauses. Caponigro questions the reliability of the data supporting D&C’s hypothesis that ever-relatives introduced by a phrase (ever+NP relatives) should not be assimilated to free relatives. This reply reports the findings of four…
The extent of language co-activation in bimodal bilinguals
Preview this article: The extent of language co-activation in bimodal bilinguals, Page 1 of 1 /docserver/preview/fulltext/lab.6.6.05bra-1.gif
On Labeling
In this paper, we critically re-examine the two algorithms that govern phrase structure building according to Chomsky (2005).We replace them with a unique algorithm, the Probing Algorithm, which states that the probe of any kind of Merge always provides the label.In addition to capturing core cases of phrase structure building, this algorithm sheds light on Principle C effects and on the syntax of wh constructions, which we analyze as cases of co…
From focus to syntax
Pirandello nel linguaggio della scena
Il paradigma inquieto
On Labeling
In this paper, we critically re-examine the two algorithms that govern phrase structure building according to Chomsky (2005).We replace them with a unique algorithm, the Probing Algorithm, which states that the probe of any kind of Merge always provides the label.In addition to capturing core cases of phrase structure building, this algorithm sheds light on Principle C effects and on the syntax of wh constructions, which we analyze as cases of co…
From focus to syntax
Labeling (Reduced) Structures
In this article, we analyze five reduced structures in Italian that display morphological agreement between their past participle and their internal argument. Three of the five structures have full illocutionary force despite lacking the middle field and the left periphery. We explain this fact (and the differences with the two remaining participial structures) by extending to object agreement cases Chomsky's (2019) hypothesis that clauses are ex…
Il paradigma inquieto
Pirandello nel linguaggio della scena
From focus to syntax
On Labeling
In this paper, we critically re-examine the two algorithms that govern phrase structure building according to Chomsky (2005).We replace them with a unique algorithm, the Probing Algorithm, which states that the probe of any kind of Merge always provides the label.In addition to capturing core cases of phrase structure building, this algorithm sheds light on Principle C effects and on the syntax of wh constructions, which we analyze as cases of co…
The extent of language co-activation in bimodal bilinguals
Preview this article: The extent of language co-activation in bimodal bilinguals, Page 1 of 1 /docserver/preview/fulltext/lab.6.6.05bra-1.gif
Whatever His Arguments, Whatever -Relatives Are Not Free Relatives
This is a reply to Caponigro 2019, which argues that the phrase structure theory proposed in Donati and Cecchetto 2011 and Cecchetto and Donati 2015 falls short of accounting for the attested patterns of free relative clauses. Caponigro questions the reliability of the data supporting D&C’s hypothesis that ever-relatives introduced by a phrase (ever+NP relatives) should not be assimilated to free relatives. This reply reports the findings of four…
Avoiding Gaps in Romance
Existing evidence suggests that the parser avoids positing a movement dependency if the grammar does not require doing so. By investigating the processing of two syntactic ambiguities that have not been the subject of processing studies before, we provide more conclusive evidence for this parsing bias in two Romance languages: French and Italian. In two acceptability-judgment experiments and two self-paced-reading studies, we found that sentences…
On the properties of null subjects in sign languages
The typology of subject omission in simple declarative sentences ranges from languages that simply do not allow it like English and French to languages that allow it as long as a minimum degree of topicality is guaranteed like Chinese and Japanese. In between there are various languages in which subject omission is licensed, for example by rich agreement like in Italian and Spanish, or by a particular set of grammatical features like first and se…
Measuring sign complexity
The study of articulatory complexity has proven to yield useful insights into the phonological mechanisms of spoken languages. In sign languages, this type of knowledge is scarcely documented. The current study compares an error-driven measure and a model-driven measure of complexity for signs in French Sign Language (LSF). The former measure is based on error rates of handshape, location, orientation, movement, and sign fluidity in a repetition …
Assessing Lexical and Syntactic Comprehension in Deaf Signing Adults
Among the existing sign language assessment tools, only a small number can be used in clinical settings. This contribution aims at presenting three comprehension assessment tests (two lexical and one syntactic) that offer a solid basis to build tools to assess language impairments in deaf signing adults. We provide the material and guidelines, based on psychometric analyses of the items, to make these tests suitable for clinical assessment. They …
On the nature of role shift
Attitude role shift is a sign language strategy to report someone else’s utterance or thought. It has been analyzed either as a kind of demonstration or, alternatively, as a complex construction involving subordination plus a context-shifting operator. The present work reports the results of a sentence-to-picture matching task developed in three different sign languages (Italian Sign Language, French Sign Language and Catalan Sign Language) with …
A subject advantage in covert dependencies
Studies on sentence processing have shown that, as with all A‐bar dependencies, content questions involving wh movement display a subject advantage. Very little is known, however, about wh ‐in‐situ questions. The aim of this article is to fill this gap and explore whether a subject advantage can be found in wh ‐in‐situ questions. We report the results of a sentence‐to‐picture matching task using in‐situ wh questions in French Sign Language. Three…
Labeling (Reduced) Structures
In this article, we analyze five reduced structures in Italian that display morphological agreement between their past participle and their internal argument. Three of the five structures have full illocutionary force despite lacking the middle field and the left periphery. We explain this fact (and the differences with the two remaining participial structures) by extending to object agreement cases Chomsky's (2019) hypothesis that clauses are ex…
Processing code-blending beyond the lexical level
Bimodal bilinguals master languages in two modalities, spoken and signed, and can use them simultaneously due to the independence of the articulators. This behavior, named code-blending, is one of the hallmarks of bimodal bilingualism. Lexical experiments on production and comprehension in American Sign Language/English showed that blending is not cognitively costly and facilitates lexical access. In this work, we replicated the blending advantag…
Investigating locality constraints on wh -in situ in French
Most analyses of wh -questions posit the existence of a dependency between the scope position and the theta position of the wh -constituent, both in ex situ questions and in in situ questions, but they disagree on the nature of this dependency and in particular on whether it is the same or different in the two strategies. The aim of this article is to verify how things stand in French, which is a mixed language allowing both in situ and ex situ w…
Exploring bimodal lexical access in unimodal bilinguals through videos with captions
Studies on bimodal bilingualism showed that bimodal lexical access is not costly compared to unimodal lexical access, but that it can be even advantageous. We asked whether the same can be observed in unimodal bilinguals as long as some bimodal conditions are provided. We exploited the ecological bimodal setting of subtitled videos and designed four versions of a semantic categorization task, with unimodal (spoken or written language) and bimodal…
Linguistics (12 works) · Computer Science (8 works) · Philosophy (8 works) · Psychology (8 works) · Natural language processing (6 works) · Hearing Impairment and Communication (5 works) · Mathematics (5 works) · Philosophy (5 works) · Sign language (5 works) · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation (5 works)