V-N Compounds In Italian

In this paper I discuss patterns of word-internal agreement. I examine Italian V-N compounds of the type grattacielo (scrape sky = “skyscraper”), suggesting that their morphological behavior can be accounted for if we assume that processes of agreement similar to those at the level of sentence-syntax take place below the word level. V-N compounds that contain feminine nouns of class –a: casa, case (“house, houses”) under pluralization show feminine morphology (-e), even though they are syntactically masculine: take masculine determiners and form derivatives as simple masculine nouns do. Yet, the masculine plural inflection (-i) is not allowed:

il carica-batteria

the-MASC charge-battery

“the battery charger”

I carica-batteriE / *carica-batteriI

the-MASC charge-batteries

“the battery chargers”

I show that this surprising appearance of feminine inflection is expected if agreement, viewed as as the operation of “feature sharing” (Frampton et al, 2000; Pesetsky & Torrego, 2004), takes place between the pieces of the structure.

Published online: 31 August 2006
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.275.10gra