This paper explores the syntactic status of che and (il)
qual(e) relativizers, i.e. what are standardly referred to as relative complementizers and
relative pronouns, in Old and Modern Italian and Italian varieties and proposes a unified analysis for both types of items. It
takes into account the ongoing debate regarding the categorial status of relativizers (Kayne
1975, 2008, 2010; Lehmann 1984; Manzini & Savoia 2003, 2011, among many others) and aims at showing that what we call complementizers are not
C0 heads, as commonly assumed. Instead, we propose that both relative “complementizers” and “pronouns” have the
same categorial status, i.e. they are wh-items and are part of the relative clause-internal head.
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