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Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 10: Selected papers from 'Going Romance' 28, Lisbon
Edited by Ernestina Carrilho, Alexandra Fiéis, Maria Lobo and Sandra Pereira
[Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 10] 2016
► pp. 139–170

Yes/no interrogatives and focus in Sardinian

| Georg-August-Universität Göttingen

In this article, I analyze several structures used to form yes/no questions in Sardinian within a cartographic generative framework. The leading hypothesis (building on previous work) is that the standard yes/no question device is based on the activation of FocP (see Rizzi 1997 et seqq.). Whereas two mechanisms (involving fronting to the left periphery) are already quite well known, the syntactic properties of a third type, formed with the element ite (originally meaning ‘what’), are described for the first time, based on the inquiry of speakers. I show that ite is also located in FocP, similar to the question particle a, though it functions quite differently. The final analysis challenges the view that Int(errogative)P is universally needed to license yes/no questions; it seems instead that in Sardinian IntP is available in a very limited way and subject to specific conditions, which are also addressed in the article.

Keywords: clause typing, FocP, focus, interrogative particles, IntP, optionality, Sardinian, special questions, yes/no questions
Published online: 8 December 2016
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/rllt.10.08men
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