THE MORPHOSYNTAX OF KINSHIP TERMS AND ENCLITIC POSSESSIVE CONSTRUCTIONS IN THE DIALECT OF ARDORE SUPERIORE Sonia Masi University of Western Ontario Introduction From a linguistic point of view, Italy is considered one of the most heterogeneous and diverse countries in Europe, as there are still hundreds of regional, non-standard varieties spoken by over half of Italy’s population (Coluzzi 2009). These non-standard varieties (often inaccurately referred to as ‘Italian dialects’) are widely considered to be separate varieties from Standard Italian, despite the fact that they all descended from the Vulgar Latin spoken in Italy during the period of the Roman Empire (Clivio et al. 2011). Thus, it is unsurprising that they differ from one another and from Standard Italian with respect to certain morpho-syntactic phenomena. Significant variation among the dialects can be seen, for instance, in the area of possession, especially in the possession of inalienable nouns (Cardinaletti and Giusti 2018, Trionfera 2018, Ledgeway 2016, etc.). In the dialects spoken in northern Italy (roughly the regions of Valle D’Aosta, Piedmonte, Liguria, Lombardia, Emilia-Romagna, Veneto, Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Trentino-Alto Adige), pre- nominal possessive adjectives are generally used in the possession of kinship nouns, a subclass of inalienable nouns (Cardinaletti and Giusti 2018). Conversely, in the dialects spoken in southern Italy and in parts of central Italy (roughly the regions of Molise, Abruzzo, Campania, Basilicata, Apulia and Calabria), the use of enclitic possessives (henceforth EPs) is widespread and preferred over possessive adjectives in the possession of kinship nouns, especially with 1SG and 2SG possessors (Trionfera 2018). EPs are bound, post-nominal possessive forms that attach almost exclusively to the class of kinship terms, and they are a well-documented phenomenon that does not exist in the dialects of northern Italy, nor in Standard Italian. In this paper, I examine the class of kinship nouns and the syntactic distribution of EPs in an undocumented, emigrated dialect of southern Italy: the dialect of Ardore Superiore (DAS), which is spoken by Italian-Montrealers who were born in the Calabrian town of Ardore Superiore in the early twentieth century and the children of these immigrants. Moreover, I compare these kinship nouns and EPs with those that occur in the EP constructions of the other dialects of central and southern Italy (hereafter the DSI). The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to explain why EPs only attach to a specific sub- class of kinship nouns in the DAS by exploring their semantic, morphological and phonological restrictions on this nominal class; second, to discuss the syntactic distribution of EPs in the nominal domain and to evaluate previous syntactic proposals on EP constructions with respect to the EP phenomenon in the DAS. Thus, this paper aims to answer the following research questions: 1. Which kinship nouns belong to the semantic class of kinship nouns that can be enclitically possessed in the DAS? 2. To which of the morpho-phonological forms of these specific kinship terms do EPs in the DAS attach? 3. What is the syntactic position of EPs in the nominal domain? © 2021 Sonia Masi Western Papers in Linguistics / Cahiers linguistiques de Western 2 4. Do the syntactic analyses of EP constructions in the DSI account for the EP constructions in the DAS? 5. If not, in which areas are these syntactic proposals lacking? This paper is organized into three major parts (Part I, Part II and Part III). Part I discusses my research methodology and provides an introduction to the topic of inalienable possession in the DSI. Part II and Part III are dedicated to addressing my research questions. Part II explores the semantic and morpho-phonological features of the class of kinship nouns that occur in EP constructions of the DAS. More specifically, in section 4 of Part II, I discuss how the class of kinship nouns is semantically distinct from other sub-classes of inalienable nouns, which is why it is often singled out for special morpho-syntactic treatment in the world’s languages (subsection 4.1). I also discuss the class of kinship nouns from a typological and anthropological perspective (subsections 4.2 and 4.3, respectively). Finally, I explore the DAS-specific definitions of family under which a kinship term in the DAS must fall in order for it to be enclitically possessed (subsection 4.4). In the following section (section 5), I discuss the role that morphology plays in restricting the set of kinship terms to which EPs in the DAS attach (subsection 5.1). I also discuss which kinship nouns in the DAS undergo a change in phonological form in EP constructions and what those phonological changes are (subsection 5.2). Part III examines the syntactic distribution of EPs in the DAS and evaluates the previous syntactic analyses of EP constructions in the DSI. More specifically, in section 6 of Part III, I explore the claim that EPs are in complementary distribution with determiners in the DSI and the DAS. I also demonstrate that determiners are exceptionally excluded with possessive adjectives in Standard Italian when the possessee is an unmodified, singular kinship noun (subsection 6.1). This leads to the discussion on Penello (2002), which addresses why singular, unmodified kinship nouns in Standard Italian behave differently from other kinship nouns with regards to the definite article (subsection 6.2). In the same subsection, I also discuss the limitations of the proposal. Subsequently (in subsection 6.3), I attempt to address these limitations by exploring Longobardi’s influential (1994; 1996) N to D-raising analysis of proper nouns and how it relates to kinship nouns. In section 7, I discuss two syntactic analyses of EP constructions in the DSI: one that adopts Longobardi’s (1994; 1996) N to D-raising analysis and one that argues in favour of a small clause analysis. More specifically, I discuss Fahrnbach’s (2019) syntactic analysis of EP constructions across the DSI (subsection 7.1), followed by D’Alessandro and Migliori’s (2017) small clause analysis of EP constructions in the region of Abruzzo (subsection 7.2). Ultimately, I argue in favour of Fahrnbach’s (2019) analysis for the DAS, as there is insufficient evidence for a small clause analysis. Finally, I provide a conclusion that revisits the main points raised throughout this paper. Part I: Methodology and Inalienable Possession in the DSI 1. Research Methodology In this section, I discuss how my research was designed to investigate the EPs and the class of kinship nouns in the DAS, all with the aim of addressing the research questions of this paper. 1.1. Recruitment For this research, it was necessary to reach out to native speakers of the DAS. This was done through phone calls and house visits. I am a member of the community that includes native speakers 3 of the DAS (my mother is the child of parents who were born and raised in the town of Ardore Superiore before immigrating to Montreal in the 1960s), so I was able to recruit my family members and paesani1 without any recruitment materials. Everyone I reached out to expressed a desire to have their dialect documented, so I did not encounter any issues in the recruitment process. 1.2. Participants A total of ten native speakers of the DAS participated in this study. The participants live in the Greater Montreal area (specifically the city of Laval and the neighbourhoods of Montreal-Nord and St. Leonard) and belong to roughly the same socio-economic class (upper middle-class or middle-class). There was an equal number of male and female participants, and of the ten total speakers, three of the participants were born in the town of Ardore Superiore, while seven were first generation Italian-Canadians born to these immigrants. The participants were between the ages of 45 and 90 years old; thus, I elicited information from two generations of speakers. The older generation included both monolingual speakers of the DAS and late bilinguals of French (learning French in their twenties and thirties). The younger generation, on the other hand, included only native speakers of the DAS that attained near-native fluency in English and French in early childhood. It is unlikely that there was any transfer from English or French, considering it is usually a speaker’s second or third language that exhibits transfer from the dominant language, which, in this case, would be the DAS (Ard and Homburg 1983). Furthermore, EP constructions do not exist in these other languages. It is important to note that the only criteria that the participants had to meet for this research was native fluency in the DAS and permanent residency in Montreal. I chose the community of speakers in Montreal because it is the only community that I had access to that speaks the DAS fluently outside of Italy. 1.3. Interview Procedure Twelve interviews were conducted in total; eight participants were interviewed once, and two participants were interviewed twice. The participants that were interviewed twice belonged to different generations. The interviews ranged from 30 minutes long to almost 2 hours. On average, however, the interviews were approximately 45 minutes long. Before the interviews began, I had my participants sign a document that outlined to what they would be consenting by participating in this research. Once consent was established, then I proceeded with my interviews, which were audio-recorded. The participants were asked to give acceptability judgments on EP constructions with different types of kinship nouns. The possessive structures were delivered orally, as the DAS does not have a written tradition. For the most part, they were asked yes/no questions of the type: 1.