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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. 111–120

Chapter 7
Micro‑ and macro-variation

From pronominal allomorphies to the category of irreality/non-veridicality

| University of Florence

Manzini and Savoia (2005, 2017) argue that morphophonology is involved in enclisis/proclisis alternations only in so far as it externalizes the syntactico-semantic category of non-veridicality, as outlined here in Section 1. In Section 2 we review typological literature reporting that the irrealis category governs the alternation between different pronominal series cross-linguistically. This evidence potentially fulfills a prediction issuing from the treatment of Romance. What is more, comparison between treatments of Romance microvariation and of typological macrovariation reveals a propensity to treat the former in terms of morphophonological organization and the latter in terms of conceptual systems. If Manzini and Savoia are correct, efforts at defining opposed notions of macro‑ and micro-parametrization are not warranted by the evidence (Section 3).

Keywords: clitics, modality, microvariation, parameters, Romance
Article outline
  • 1.Enclisis/proclisis alternations in Romance
  • 2.Realis/irrealis alternations in the typological debate
  • 3.Microvariation and macroparameters
  • References
Published online: 19 December 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.252.07rit
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