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Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 14: Selected papers from the 46th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Stony Brook, NY
Edited by Lori Repetti and Francisco Ordóñez
[Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 14] 2018
► pp. 103–133

Chapter 7
Parametric comparison and dialect variation

Insights from Southern Italy

| Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia
| University of York
| University of York
| Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia
| University of York
| University of Cambridge, Queen’s College

This paper applies the Parametric Comparison Method (PCM) to the description of syntactic variation in the nominal domain in a representative subset of Romance dialects of Southern Italy. We observe that, in order to perform successfully at the level of micro-comparison, the method must be supplemented by parameters specifically targeting this level of resolution. We sketch some such (micro-)parameters, investigate their interaction with the observed surface patterns, and show that their distribution broadly matches the received wisdom about the dialectal structure of Italo-Romance.

Keywords: syntactic, microvariation, dialect classification, parametric comparison method, Southern Italo-Romance, noun phrase, adjectives, genitives, possessives, kinship nouns
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.A syntactic classification of Southern Italo-Romance
  • 3.Towards higher resolution
    • 3.1Adjectives and noun movement
    • 3.2Genitives
    • 3.3Possessives
    • 3.4Kinship terms
    • 3.5Summary
  • 4.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 13 August 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/rllt.14.07gua
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