Cover not available
Part of
Discourse-oriented Syntax
Edited by Josef Bayer, Roland Hinterhölzl and Andreas Trotzke
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 226] 2015
► pp. 71–92

Italian verb-based discourse particles in a comparative perspective

| Universita` Ca’ Foscari Venezia

This paper provides a syntactic analysis of Italian verb-based discourse particles. In spite of their utterance-peripheral distribution and their pragmatic content, they should be considered as integrated in the sentence with which they are associated. It is argued that sentence-initial and sentence-final particles are not derivationally related but are merged in different layers of the clause (CP and IP, respectively). Following Haegeman and Hill (2013) and (2014), it is proposed that sentence-initial particles occur in Speech Act projections above Rizzi’s (1997) ForceP. The interaction of particles and vocatives is also discussed. In a comparative perspective, some differences between Italian and West Flemish have been correlated with the different distribution of discourse particles, namely as specifiers and heads, respectively.

Published online: 16 December 2015
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.226.04car
References
Bayer, Josef
2008 From modal particle to interrogative marker: A study of German denn . In Functional Heads, Laura Brugé, Anna Cardinaletti, Giuliana Giusti, Nicola Munaro & Cecilia Poletto (eds), 13-28. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Bazzanella, Carla
2001 I segnali discorsivi. In Grande Grammatica Italiana di Consultazione, Vol. III, Lorenzo Renzi, Giampaolo Salvi & Anna Cardinaletti (eds), 225-257. Bologna: il Mulino.Google Scholar
Cardinaletti, Anna
2002 Against optional and zero clitics. Right dislocation vs. marginalization. Studia Linguistica 56: 29-57. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2007 Für eine syntaktische Analyse von Modalpartikeln. In Gesprochene Sprache - Partikeln Band 1, Eva M. Thüne & Franca Ortu (eds), 89-101. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
2011 German and Italian modal particles and clause structure. The Linguistic Review 28: 493-531. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cinque, Guglielmo
1991 Mica: note di sintassi e pragmatica. In Teoria Linguistica e Sintassi Italiana, 311-323. Bologna: Il Mulino.Google Scholar
1999 Adverbs and Functional Heads. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Coniglio, Marco
2005 Deutsche Modalpartikeln: Eine syntaktische Analyse. MA thesis, University of Venice.Google Scholar
2006 German modal particles in the functional structure of IP. University of Venice Working Papers in Linguistics 16: 57-95.Google Scholar
2008 Modal particles in Italian. University of Venice Working Papers in Linguistics 18: 91-129.Google Scholar
2011 Die Syntax der deutschen Modalpartikeln: Ihre Distribution und Lizenzierung in Haupt- und Nebensätzen. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2014 The fine structure of force: On the interaction of modal particles with illocutionary force and clause type. In On Peripheries. Exploring Clause Initial and Clause Final Positions, Anna Cardinaletti, Guglielmo Cinque & Yoshio Endo (eds), 103-140. Tokyo: Hituzi Syobo Publishing.Google Scholar
Giorgi, Alessandra
2010 About the Speaker: Toward a Syntax of Indexicality. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Grosz, Patrick
2005  dn in Viennese German. The Syntax of a Clitic Version of the Discourse Particle denn . Diplomarbeit, Universität Wien.
2007 German discourse particles are weak sentence adverbs. In Proceedings of the “XXXII Incontro di Grammatica Generativa”. Firenze, 2-4 March 2006, Maria Cecilia Picchi & Alan Pona (eds), 79-91. Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso.Google Scholar
Haegeman, Liliane & Hill, Virginia
2013 The syntacticization of discourse. In Syntax and its Limits, Raffaella Folli, Robert Truswell & Christina Sevdali (eds), 370-390. Oxford: OUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2014 Vocatives and speech act projections: A case study in West Flemish. In On Peripheries: Exploring Clause Initial and Clause Final Positions, Anna Cardinaletti, Guglielmo Cinque & Yoshio Endo (eds), 209-236. Tokyo: Hituzi Syobo Publishing.Google Scholar
Kayne, Richard
1994 The Antisymmetry of Syntax. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Moro, Andrea
2003 Notes on vocative case. A case study in clause structure. In Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2001 [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 245], Josep Quer, Jan Schroten, Mauro Scoretti, Petra Sleeman & Els Verheugd (eds), 247-261. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Penello, Nicoletta & Chinellato, Paolo
2008. Le dinamiche della distribuzione di ciò in Veneto. Breve saggio di microvariazione. In L’Italia dei Dialetti. Proceedings of the Dialectology Meeting of Sappada/Plodn – 2007, Gianna Marcato (ed.), 111–118. Padova: Unipress.Google Scholar
Rizzi, Luigi
1997 The fine structure of the left periphery. In Elements of Grammar, Liliane Haegeman (ed.), 281-337. Dordrecht: Kluwer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schaden, Gerhard
2010 Vocatives: A note on addressee-management. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 16: 176-185.Google Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A
1968 Sequencing in conversational openings. American Anthropologist 70: 1075-1095. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sigurðsson, Halldór Ármann
2004 The syntax of person, tense, and speech features. Italian Journal of Linguistics / Rivista di Linguistica 16: 219-251.Google Scholar
2011 Conditions on argument drop. Linguistic Inquiry 42: 267–304. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Speas, Peggy & Tenny, Carol
2003 Configurational properties of point of view roles. In Asymmetry in Grammar, Vol.1: Syntax and Semantics [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 57], Anna-Maria Di Sciullo (ed.), 315-344. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 26 other publications

Badan, Linda
2020. Italian Discourse Markers: The Case of Guarda te*. Studia Linguistica 74:2 ► pp. 303 ff. DOI logo
Badan, Linda
2021. Chapter 5. Verb-based discourse markers in Italian. In Pragmatic Markers and Peripheries [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 325], ► pp. 143 ff. DOI logo
Catasso, Nicholas
2021. Some notes on central causal clauses in Venetian. Poznan Studies in Contemporary Linguistics 57:4 ► pp. 519 ff. DOI logo
Catasso, Nicholas
2021. How theoretical is your (historical) syntax? Towards a typology of Verb-Third in Early Old High German. The Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 24:1 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Cognola, Federica & Silvio Cruschina
2021. Between Time and Discourse A Syntactic Analysis of Italian poi . Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie occidentale :55 DOI logo
Coniglio, Marco
2022. Chapter 1. On the adverbial origin of German modal particles. In Discourse Particles [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 276], ► pp. 13 ff. DOI logo
Corr, Alice
2022. The expression of affect. In The Grammar of the Utterance, ► pp. 157 ff. DOI logo
Corr, Alice
2022. Conclusions. In The Grammar of the Utterance, ► pp. 299 ff. DOI logo
Corr, Alice
2022. Interjections and particles. In The Grammar of the Utterance, ► pp. 99 ff. DOI logo
Corr, Alice
2022. The grammar of dialogue. In The Grammar of the Utterance, ► pp. 251 ff. DOI logo
Corr, Alice
2022. Introduction. In The Grammar of the Utterance, ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Corr, Alice
2022. A grammar for the utterance. In The Grammar of the Utterance, ► pp. 15 ff. DOI logo
Corr, Alice
2022. Vocatives. In The Grammar of the Utterance, ► pp. 51 ff. DOI logo
Corr, Alice
2022. Utterances without commitment. In The Grammar of the Utterance, ► pp. 203 ff. DOI logo
Corr, Alice
2022. The Grammar of the Utterance, DOI logo
Corr, Alice
2022. Doing things with utterance grammar. In The Grammar of the Utterance, ► pp. 135 ff. DOI logo
De Cristofaro, Elisa, Linda Badan & Adriana Belletti
2023. Discourse markers in L1 and L2 Italian: A cartographic analysis of the sentence-internal position. Second Language Research DOI logo
Dohi, Atsushi
2021. A formal approach to role language: sentence-final particles and the speaker-hearer link. Journal of Japanese Linguistics 37:2 ► pp. 203 ff. DOI logo
Pan, Victor Junnan
2022. Deriving Head-Final Order in the Peripheral Domain of Chinese. Linguistic Inquiry 53:1 ► pp. 121 ff. DOI logo
Trotzke, Andreas & Sergio Monforte
2019. Basque question particles. Linguistic Variation 19:2 ► pp. 352 ff. DOI logo
Van Olmen, Daniël & Vittorio Tantucci
2022. Getting attention in different languages: A usage-based approach to parenthetical look in Chinese, Dutch, English, and Italian. Intercultural Pragmatics 19:2 ► pp. 141 ff. DOI logo
Van Olmen, Daniël & Jolanta Šinkūnienė
2021. Introduction. Pragmatic markers and peripheries. In Pragmatic Markers and Peripheries [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 325], ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Özsoy, A. Sumru
2019. Derivation of Fronting in Turkish. In Word Order in Turkish [Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 97], ► pp. 139 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2022. General Preface. In The Grammar of the Utterance, ► pp. vii ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2022. List of Abbreviations. In The Grammar of the Utterance, ► pp. xi ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2022. Copyright Page. In The Grammar of the Utterance, ► pp. iv ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 15 september 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.