Yes-no question/marking in Italian dialects : a typological, theoretical and experimental approach

Lusini, S. (2013)

Doctoral Thesis

This dissertation provides an account of polar questions in Italian dialects from a typological, theoretical and empirical perspective. Both data from the existing literature and new data from the author’s fieldwork are included in this study. It is shown that Italian dialects display a relatively large number of typologically diverse yes/no question-marking strategies, as opposed to Standard Italian and Romance. The variation found in Italian dialects is surprising, given that they are closely related from a typological point of view. Furthermore, Several Tuscan, Central and Southern Italian dialects display a specific construction that poses a challenge for standard typological classifications of polar questions in the world’s languages. A theoretical analysis is proposed in order to account for the syntactic properties of this yes/no question-marking strategy. Although this construction includes two fully-inflected verbs, it is argued that it should be analyzed as a monoclausal utterance. A number of syntactic tests are developed to shed some light on its underlying structure. Further evidence for the proposed analysis comes from the results of empirical testing. A production experiment was carried out to investigate the phonetic realization of this construction. The results of the experiment show that this constructions patterns with specific phonetic cues, which unambiguously signal its monoclausal status. This study is of relevance to anyone interested in descriptive typology, theoretical syntax and experimental phonetics, as well as Italian dialectology.

• Typology
• Yes-no question/marking
• Syntax
• Experimental phonetics
• Dialectology
• Italian dialects

• All authors: Lusini, S.
• Supervisor: D'Alessandro, R.A.G.; Heuven, V.J.J.P. van; Rooryck, J.E.C.V.
• Qualification: Doctor (dr.)
• Awarding Institution: Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL), Faculty of Humanities, Leiden University
• Date: 2013-02-27
• Title of host publication: LOT dissertation series
• Publisher: Utrecht: LOT
• ISBN (print): 9789460930980
• Name: 314
• Court: LEI Universiteit Leiden
• Sponsorship: The research leading to this dissertation was funded by the Lingua scholarship. This scholarship was paid for by Elsevier out of a substantial amount of the royalties for Lingua. As the recipient this scholarship, I also had to provide administrative assistance to the Executive Editor of Lingua, prof.dr. J.E.C.V. Rooryck.