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Structuring Variation in Romance Linguistics and Beyond: In honour of Leonardo M. Savoia
Edited by Mirko Grimaldi, Rosangela Lai, Ludovico Franco and Benedetta Baldi
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 252] 2018
► pp. 31–55

Chapter 2
Gender, number and inflectional class in some Northern Italian dialects

The plural inflection ‑i and the interpretation of N morphology

| University of Florence
| New University of Lisbon

In many Northern Italian varieties the plural inflection ‑i has a restricted distribution, targeting feminine class nouns, determiners and adjectives. The ‑i morpheme also occurs with clitic pronouns, both subjects and objects. The crucial point we address is the relation between the plural specialized morpheme ‑i and its distribution among noun classes. We account for the distribution of the inflection ‑i on the basis of a theoretical treatment of the internal structure of the noun, along the lines of Manzini and Savoia (2017a, b).

Keywords: nominal class, gender, number, clitic, Northern Italian dialects
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction: The framework
  • 2.The distribution of the plural ‑i in North Italian dialects
  • 3.Plural and D field
    • 3.1The inflection of clitics
  • 4.Some proposals for the analysis
    • 4.1The nature of -i
    • 4.2The nominal inflection
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 19 December 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.252.02bal
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