MARIACHIARA BERIZZI - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by MARIACHIARA BERIZZI
De Gruyter eBooks, Sep 10, 2018
After a general overview of standard and non standard strategies of direct interrogative clause f... more After a general overview of standard and non standard strategies of direct interrogative clause formation in some varieties of English, the thesis focuses on the phenomenon of subject-auxiliary inversion in the wh-indirect interrogative clause in Hiberno English. We argue that the wh-dependent interrogative clause and the headless relative clause display a number of similarities and more than one point of contact in a diachronic perspective. In the light of this, our syntactic proposal discusses the possibility, in the Cartographic Approach, that wh-indirect interrogative clause displaying inversion has the syntactic structure of a headless relative clause, and not that of an interrogative. In the-fine structure‖ of the Left Periphery, the wh-item is thus hosted in the Spec of the higher projection WhRelP dedicated to wh-relativisers and not in the Spec of the lower IntWhP, the projection in which interrogative wh-elements are located in both main and embedded contexts. It follows that the activation of the higher projection WhRelP does not prevent verb raising to C and inversion can display. In order to support this hypothesis, evidence is provided from both Romance and Germanic languages. In the last Chapter, we turn our attention the peculiar status of the wh-element what. Adopting a cross-linguistic perspective, we analyse the occurrence of what in both the interrogative and relative system. In order to provide evidence in favour of the underspecified nature of what in English, we concentrate on the-why‖-like interpretation in the colloquial language and in the dialectal varieties and on the relative uses of what and its distinctive syntactic features in the dialects of England. In this regard we will show that there are reasons to believe that relative what has become a complementiser.
From Sounds to Structures, 2018
In this contribution I will focus on the functional preposition ma “to”, “in” (˂ Lat. IN MEDIO AD... more In this contribution I will focus on the functional preposition ma “to”, “in” (˂ Lat. IN MEDIO AD, cf. Rohlfs 1969: § 639) attested in a number of central Italian dialects and galloitalic varieties of both Romagnolo and Northern Marchigiano area. Ma is the result of a complex process of grammaticalization of a nominal element, originally an adjective which underwent a process of nominalization in Latin. The case of ma is not an unicum. It is a wellknown fact that several prepositions are the results of grammaticalization processes of nominal or adjectival elements. Furthermore, a number of prepositions in the Germanic languages and in Romance stem from Indo-European *medhyo and Latin mĕdio, respectively. The article is organized as follows: section 2 is dedicated to a general description of the phenomenon, its geographical distribution and the contexts of use which emerged from two main sources: the ASIt (Syntactic Atlas of Italy) data base and the AIS (Swiss-Italian Atlas). In sect...
After a general overview of standard and non standard strategies of direct interrogative clause f... more After a general overview of standard and non standard strategies of direct interrogative clause formation in some varieties of English, the thesis focuses on the phenomenon of subject-auxiliary inversion in the wh-indirect interrogative clause in Hiberno English. We argue that the wh-dependent interrogative clause and the headless relative clause display a number of similarities and more than one point of contact in a diachronic perspective. In the light of this, our syntactic proposal discusses the possibility, in the Cartographic Approach, that wh-indirect interrogative clause displaying inversion has the syntactic structure of a headless relative clause, and not that of an interrogative. In the-fine structure‖ of the Left Periphery, the wh-item is thus hosted in the Spec of the higher projection WhRelP dedicated to wh-relativisers and not in the Spec of the lower IntWhP, the projection in which interrogative wh-elements are located in both main and embedded contexts. It follows that the activation of the higher projection WhRelP does not prevent verb raising to C and inversion can display. In order to support this hypothesis, evidence is provided from both Romance and Germanic languages. In the last Chapter, we turn our attention the peculiar status of the wh-element what. Adopting a cross-linguistic perspective, we analyse the occurrence of what in both the interrogative and relative system. In order to provide evidence in favour of the underspecified nature of what in English, we concentrate on the-why‖-like interpretation in the colloquial language and in the dialectal varieties and on the relative uses of what and its distinctive syntactic features in the dialects of England. In this regard we will show that there are reasons to believe that relative what has become a complementiser.
De Gruyter eBooks, Sep 10, 2018
After a general overview of standard and non standard strategies of direct interrogative clause f... more After a general overview of standard and non standard strategies of direct interrogative clause formation in some varieties of English, the thesis focuses on the phenomenon of subject-auxiliary inversion in the wh-indirect interrogative clause in Hiberno English. We argue that the wh-dependent interrogative clause and the headless relative clause display a number of similarities and more than one point of contact in a diachronic perspective. In the light of this, our syntactic proposal discusses the possibility, in the Cartographic Approach, that wh-indirect interrogative clause displaying inversion has the syntactic structure of a headless relative clause, and not that of an interrogative. In the-fine structure‖ of the Left Periphery, the wh-item is thus hosted in the Spec of the higher projection WhRelP dedicated to wh-relativisers and not in the Spec of the lower IntWhP, the projection in which interrogative wh-elements are located in both main and embedded contexts. It follows that the activation of the higher projection WhRelP does not prevent verb raising to C and inversion can display. In order to support this hypothesis, evidence is provided from both Romance and Germanic languages. In the last Chapter, we turn our attention the peculiar status of the wh-element what. Adopting a cross-linguistic perspective, we analyse the occurrence of what in both the interrogative and relative system. In order to provide evidence in favour of the underspecified nature of what in English, we concentrate on the-why‖-like interpretation in the colloquial language and in the dialectal varieties and on the relative uses of what and its distinctive syntactic features in the dialects of England. In this regard we will show that there are reasons to believe that relative what has become a complementiser.
From Sounds to Structures, 2018
In this contribution I will focus on the functional preposition ma “to”, “in” (˂ Lat. IN MEDIO AD... more In this contribution I will focus on the functional preposition ma “to”, “in” (˂ Lat. IN MEDIO AD, cf. Rohlfs 1969: § 639) attested in a number of central Italian dialects and galloitalic varieties of both Romagnolo and Northern Marchigiano area. Ma is the result of a complex process of grammaticalization of a nominal element, originally an adjective which underwent a process of nominalization in Latin. The case of ma is not an unicum. It is a wellknown fact that several prepositions are the results of grammaticalization processes of nominal or adjectival elements. Furthermore, a number of prepositions in the Germanic languages and in Romance stem from Indo-European *medhyo and Latin mĕdio, respectively. The article is organized as follows: section 2 is dedicated to a general description of the phenomenon, its geographical distribution and the contexts of use which emerged from two main sources: the ASIt (Syntactic Atlas of Italy) data base and the AIS (Swiss-Italian Atlas). In sect...
After a general overview of standard and non standard strategies of direct interrogative clause f... more After a general overview of standard and non standard strategies of direct interrogative clause formation in some varieties of English, the thesis focuses on the phenomenon of subject-auxiliary inversion in the wh-indirect interrogative clause in Hiberno English. We argue that the wh-dependent interrogative clause and the headless relative clause display a number of similarities and more than one point of contact in a diachronic perspective. In the light of this, our syntactic proposal discusses the possibility, in the Cartographic Approach, that wh-indirect interrogative clause displaying inversion has the syntactic structure of a headless relative clause, and not that of an interrogative. In the-fine structure‖ of the Left Periphery, the wh-item is thus hosted in the Spec of the higher projection WhRelP dedicated to wh-relativisers and not in the Spec of the lower IntWhP, the projection in which interrogative wh-elements are located in both main and embedded contexts. It follows that the activation of the higher projection WhRelP does not prevent verb raising to C and inversion can display. In order to support this hypothesis, evidence is provided from both Romance and Germanic languages. In the last Chapter, we turn our attention the peculiar status of the wh-element what. Adopting a cross-linguistic perspective, we analyse the occurrence of what in both the interrogative and relative system. In order to provide evidence in favour of the underspecified nature of what in English, we concentrate on the-why‖-like interpretation in the colloquial language and in the dialectal varieties and on the relative uses of what and its distinctive syntactic features in the dialects of England. In this regard we will show that there are reasons to believe that relative what has become a complementiser.