NUMBER and GENDER distribution in Lunigiana DPs

NUMBER and GENDER distribution in Lunigiana DPs

Edoardo Cavirani [email protected]

LOT winter school 2015

NUMBER and GENDER distribution in DPs

•  Variation in NUMBER and GENDER feature distribution/lexicalization –  SG/PL –  M/F

•  Geographical and linguistic domain –  Lunigiana (MS), Italy –  South-westernmost set of Northern-Italian dialects

•  Theoretical framework Nanosyntax (Starke 2002, 2009)

Lunigiana dialects

Lunigiana dialects

‘Superficial’ variation (in a transition area?)

“[…] no other region of the Peninsula can present the scholar with so many phonetic varieties in such a small area […]; here the phonetic laws of a village differ […] from the ones of nearby villages. The origin of this endless variation can be found […] in the encounter within this region of Tuscan, Ligurian and Emilian: indeed, it can be said that Lunigiana dialects represent the joining link between the above mentioned dialects […]” (Giannarelli 1913: 261)

Lunigiana dialects

From a ‘superficial’ toward a ‘deeper’ variation Phonetics

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Morphosyntax

•  Colonnatese [ˈdona] ‘woman’ [ˈdonja] ‘women’ •  St. Italian [ˈdonːa] ‘woman’ [ˈdonːe] ‘women’

•  Colonnatese [ N [ pl [ f ] ] ] | | j a •  St. Italian [ N [ pl [ f ] ] ] |__| e

Nanosyntax

•  The ‘bigger’ the syntactic structures (Rizzi 1997; Kayne 2005), the ‘smaller’ their ingredients (i.e. their terminal nodes)

from morphemes/words to morphosyntactic features

•  Since the terminals are sub-morphemic, morphemes span several terminals

from one morpheme-one terminal to one morpheme-one subtree

Nanosyntax

•  Lexical entries as subtrees paired with phonological and conceptual information

<ph. info, syntactic tree, conceptual info>

•  Late insertion: syntax is pre-lexical, and lexical insertion is ‘just’ a way of (phonologically and conceptually) interpreting syntax (at PF and LF)

•  (Phrasal) Spellout matches the trees built by syntax with the subtrees stored inside lexical entries (Starke 2009)

lexical entries inserted at phrasal nodes

Nanosyntax

•  SUPERSET PRINCIPLE (Taraldsen 2009):

A vocabulary item A associated with the feature set F can replace a subtree X with the feature set F’ iff F is a

superset of F’

•  Cyclic spellout: “a spellout attempt after every merger operation. Each successive spellout overrides previous successful spellouts. Since the merger is bottom-up, the biggest match will always override the smaller matches” (Starke 2009)

The ‘biggest’ wins

Colonnatese vs Standard Italian

Colonnatese

[ˈdona] ‘woman’ [ N [ f ] ] |

[ˈdonja] ‘women’ a

Lexical entry: a = [ f ]

St. Italian

[ˈdonːa] ‘woman’ [ N [ f ] ] |

[ˈdonːe] ‘women’ a



Colonnatese

[ˈdona] ‘woman’ [ N [ pl [ f ] ] ] | |

[ˈdonja] ‘women’ j a

Lexical entry: i = [ pl ]

St. Italian

[ˈdonːa] ‘woman’ [ N [ pl [ f ] ] ] |__|

[ˈdonːe] ‘women’ e

Lexical entry: e = [ pl [ f ] ]


•  Invariance of syntactic derivation

[ N pl [ N f [ N ] ] ]

•  Variation in the lexical entries

Colonnatese St. Italian

[ˈdona] a = [ f ] [ˈdonːa] a = [ f ] [ˈdonja] i = [ pl ] + a = [ f ] [ˈdonːe] e = [ pl [ f ] ]

Colonnatese

Within-DP features distribution in Colonnatese

complementary distribution of NUMBER: either on N or on D (Local redundancy; Barbiers 2013), but GENDER on both

[ˈdonja] ‘women’ [ N [ pl [ f ] ] ] | | [tre ˈdonja] ‘three women’ j a [λa ˈdona]* ‘the women’ [ D [ pl [ f ] ] [ N [ pl [ f ] ] ] ]

| | | | [tantja ˈdona] ‘many women’ j a j a

*vs [la ˈdona] ‘the woman’ > [λa] = l + i + a

Colonnatese


NO complementary distribution of NUMBER in masculine DPs

[ˈɔm] ‘man’ [ˈɔmi] ‘men’ [tanti ˈɔmi] ‘many men’ NB: because of apocope, Colonnatese (and in general

Lunigiana dialects) lost masculine endings (-o and -e)

Colonnatese


MASCULINE is lexicalized by the subtree [ N [ m ] ]

[ˈɔm] ‘man’ [ N [ m ] ] |__| ɔm

[ˈɔmi] ‘men’

[tanti ˈɔmi] ‘many men’

Colonnatese


PLURAL MASCULINE is lexicalized by the subtree [ pl [ m ] ]

[ˈɔm] ‘man’

[ˈɔmi] ‘men’ [ N [ pl [ m ] ] ] |__| i

[tanti ˈɔmi] ‘many men’

Colonnatese


PLURAL is delinked in the NP (Local redundancy; Barbiers 2013)

[ˈɔm] ‘man’

[ˈɔmi] ‘men’

[tanti ˈɔmi] ‘many men’ [ D [ pl [ m ] ] [ N [ pl [ m ] ] ] |__| |__| i i

Colonnatese


PLURAL is delinked in the NP, as in FEMININE NPs

[tanti ˈɔmi] [ D [ pl [ m ] ] [ N [ pl [ m ] ] ] NB: i is still partially |__| |__| linked to the NP i i

[tantja ˈdona] [ D [ pl [ f ] ] [ N [ pl [ f ] ] ] ] NB: i is no more | | | | linked to the NP j a j a

Colonnatese MASCULINE vs FEMININE


“double expression of feature bundles” (Barbiers 2013) in DPs

•  Invariance at PF

“PF deletes one of them partially under local recoverability” (Barbiers 2013)


[ pl [ f ] ] > [ pl [ f ] ] [ pl [ m ] > [ pl [ m ] ] | | | | |__| |__| j a j a i i

Enlarging the dataset I

Colonnatese




Carrarese


[ˈdone] ‘women’ a



Colonnatese

[ˈdona] ‘woman’ [ N [ pl [ f ] ] ] | |


Lexical entry: i = [ pl [ m ] ]

Carrarese

[ˈdona] ‘woman’ [ N [ pl [ f ] ] ] |__|

[ˈdone] ‘women’ e

Lexical entry: e = [ pl [ f ] ]

Colonnatese vs Carrarese


[ N pl [ N f [ N ] ] ]


Colonnatese Carrarese

[ˈdona] a = [ f ] [ˈdona] a = [ f ] [ˈdonja] i = [ pl ] [ˈdone] e = [ pl [ f ] ]


Within-DP features distribution in Carrarese

NO complementary distribution of NUMBER: both on N and on D (NO Local redundancy)

[ˈdone] ‘women’ [ N [ pl [ f ] ] ] |__| [tre ˈdone] ‘three women’ e [le ˈdone] ‘the women’ [ D [ pl [ f ] ] [ N [ pl [ f ] ] ] ]

|__| |__| [tante ˈdone] ‘many women’ e e

Colonnatese vs Carrarese


“double expression of feature bundles” (Barbiers 2013) in DPs

•  Variation at PF (or maybe not: no difference)

“PF [(maybe) DOES NOT] delete one of them partially under local recoverability” (Barbiers 2013)


Colonnatese Carrarese

i = [ pl [ m ] ] + a = [ f ] e = [ pl [ f ] ]

Enlarging the dataset II

Colonnatese




Ortonovese


[ˈdona] ‘women’ a

Lexical entry: a = [ f ] (?)


Colonnatese

[ˈdona] ‘woman’ [ N [ pl [ f ] ] ] | |


Lexical entry: i = [ pl ]

Ortonovese

[ˈdona] ‘woman’ [ N [ pl [ f ] ] ] |__|

[ˈdona] ‘women’ a

Lexical entry: a = [ pl [ f ] ]

Colonnatese vs Ortonovese


[ N pl [ N f [ N ] ] ]


Colonnatese Ortonovese

[ˈdona] a = [ f ] [ˈdona] a = [ f ]* [ˈdonja] i = [ pl ] [ˈdona] a = [ pl [ f ] ] *given the SUPERSET PRINCIPLE, the sg.f can be spellout by the lexical entry a = [ pl [ f ] ]


Within-DP features distribution in Ortonovese

NO complementary distribution: both on N and on D (NO Local redundancy ?)

[ˈdona] ‘women’ [ N [ pl [ f ] ] ] |__| [tre ˈdona] ‘three women’ a [la ˈdona] ‘the women’ [ D [ pl [ f ] ] [ N [ pl [ f ] ] ] ]

|__| |__| [tanta ˈdona] ‘many women’ a a


Within-DP features distribution in Ortonovese

NO complementary distribution: both on N and on D (NO Local redundancy ?)

[la ˈdona al ˈkanta] ‘the woman sings’

[ D [ f ] [ N [ f ] ] … [ V [ sg ] ] ] | | | a a a

[la ˈdona al ˈkantŋ̩] ‘the women sing’

[ D [ pl [ f ] ] [ N [ pl [ f ] ] ] … [ V [ pl ] ] ] |__| |__| | a a ŋ̩

Colonnatese vs Ortonovese


“double [/multiple?] expression of feature bundles” (Barbiers 2013) in DPs

•  Invariance at PF

PF [DOES or DOES NOT] delete one of them [or even more?] under local recoverability” (Barbiers 2013)


Colonnatese Ortonovese

[ˈdona] a = [ f ] [ˈdona] a = [ f ] [ˈdonja] i = [ pl ] [ˈdona] a = [ pl [ f ] ]

Conclusions

St. It. Carr. Col. Ort.

Syntactic derivation

[ N pl [ N f [ N ] ] ] ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

“Double expression of

feature bundles” ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

PF “Local redundancy” ✗ ✗ ✓ ?

Lexical entries

a = [ f ] ✓ ✓ ✓ ✗ a = [ pl [ f ] ]

e = [ pl [ f ] ] ✓ ✓ ✗

i = [ pl ] a = [ f ]

✗ a = [ pl [ f ] ]

References Barbiers S. (2013). Where is syntactic variation? . In P. Auer, J. C. Reina, & G.

Kaufmann (Eds.), Language Variation - European Perspectives IV. (Vol. 14, pp. 1-26). (Studies in Language Variation). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Giannarelli D. (1913). Studi sui dialetti Lunigianesi compresi fra la Magra e l’Appennino Reggiano. In Revue de dialectologie romane, V, pp. 261-311.

Kayne, R. S. 2005, Some notes on comparative syntax, with special reference to English and French. In R. Kayne and G. Cinque (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Syntax. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 3-69.

Luciani L. (1999). Il dialetto Carrarese. Suoni, forme, costrutti, parole. Carrara: Aldus.

Manzini M. R. & Savoia L. M. (2005). I dialetti italiani e romanci. Morfosintassi generativa, 3 voll.. Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso.

Starke M. (2002). The day syntax ate morphology. Class taught at the EGG summer school, Novi Sad.

Starke M. (2009). A short primer to a new approach to language. In Nordlyd, 36.1. Taraldsen T. (2009). Lexicalizing number and gender in Colonnata. Ms., University

of Tromsø . Rizzi L. (1997). The fine structure of the left periphery. In Elements of grammar, pp.

281-337. Netherlands: Springer.

NUMBER and GENDER distribution in Lunigiana DPs

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