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Part of
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. 121–131

Chapter 8
Concealed pseudo-clefts? Evidence from a Lombard dialect

| CNRS, University of Côte d'Azur
| University of Zurich

This paper focuses on the syntax of clefts in the Lombard dialect of Comun Nuovo (Bergamo). In this dialect, clefts are highly constrained (in particular, they are ungrammatical in questions) and, in the contexts where clefts and pseudo-clefts alternate, the distinction between the two is often blurred. We argue that Comunuovese clefts are better analysed as concealed pseudo-clefts (Paul 2001 a.o.).

Keywords: clefts, pseudo-clefts, northern Italian dialects, interrogatives
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Types of clefts
  • 3.An aside on interrogatives in CN
  • 4.Cleft interrogatives
    • 4.1who/what interrogatives
    • 4.2Temporal interrogatives
    • 4.3Other interrogatives
  • 5.Summary and theoretical implications
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 19 December 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.252.08pes
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