On the property-denoting clitic ne and the determiner de/di

A comparative analysis of Catalan and Italian

Bibliographic Data

ID3989106
AuthorsM Teresa Espinal (0000-0002-8079-7253, Universitat Autonòma de Barcelona), Giuliana Giusti (0000-0002-4574-3866, Ca' Foscari University of Venice, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume62
Issue2
Pages457-489
Publication date2024-03-25
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLinguistics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0024-3949 • E-ISSN: 1613-396X
PublisherWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1515/ling-2022-0084
OpenAlexW4391722904
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited38

The clitic pronoun ne and the functional element de introducing nominal constituents have many nominal and prepositional functions across Romance languages. In this article, we focus on the nominal functions, singling out three different bundles of semantic features that characterize both ne and de. They can denote properties of individual entities, properties of kinds, or predicate properties. The article shows that Catalan ne and de display the three types of denotation, while Italian ne and de only display the first one. This article further supports the hypothesis that the indefinite determiner de can be overt or silent, thereby unifying de-phrases (and the Italian partitive article) with bare nouns. The analysis of de as an indefinite determiner is then extended to adjectival de, which is claimed to mark concord features on adjectives in both Catalan and Italian

Catalan · Clitic · Denotation (semiotics) · Determiner · Linguistics · Noun · Predicate (mathematical logic) · Pronoun · Romance languages · Computer Science · Linguistic Studies and Language Acquisition · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Mathematics · Philosophy · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation

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