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Differential Object Marking and the properties of D in the dialects of the extreme south of Italy

Published version
Peer-reviewed

Change log

Authors

Schifano, N 
Silvestri, Giuseppina  ORCID logo  https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4448-7709

Abstract

jats:pThis paper discusses two case studies of microvariation in accusative marking in the Italo-Romance varieties of the extreme south of Italy. In particular, the diatopic variation displayed by the dialects of southern Calabria gives rise to peculiar patterns of alternation between presence or absence of the marker a ‘to’ in flagging the accusative. The realisation of accusative case is partially governed by semantic and referential features, i.e. specificity and animacy. In addition, the nature of the realisation of the D head results in a degree of competition between zero marking and analytic accusative marking with a. Given the century-long co-existence of Latin/Romance and Greek in southern Calabria, the relevant morphosyntactic patterns in Case-marking will also be examined from a language contact perspective. We will highlight how the relevant outcomes do not simply involve borrowing mechanisms or template copying from the lending variety but, rather, produce hybrid structures no longer ascribable to a purely Romance or Greek grammar.</jats:p>

Description

Keywords

Case, DOM, DP, Italo-Greek, Italo-Romance, language contact

Journal Title

Glossa

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2397-1835
2397-1835

Volume Title

4

Publisher

Open Library of the Humanities
Sponsorship
Leverhulme Trust (RPG-2015-283)
The Leverhulme Trust; Project Title: Fading voices in Southern Italy: investigating language contact in Magna Graecia; Research Project RPG-2015-283