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Passives and Impersonals on Evidence from Romance Dialects of Italy

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Passives and Impersonals on Evidence from Romance Dialects of Italy PASSIVES AND IMPERSONALS ON EVIDENCE FROM ROMANCE DIALECTS OF ITALY A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE FACULTY OF HUMANITIES 2017 VICTORIA L CHAPMAN SCHOOL OF ARTS, LANGUAGES AND CULTURES TABLE OF CONTENTS List of abbreviations 4 Abstract 5 Declaration 6 Copyright 7 Acknowledgements 8 Dialect map 9 1. Introduction: The Romance Dialects of Italy 10 2. Passives and impersonals 19 2.1 Passives and impersonals in the literature 19 2.2 What is a passive structure? 20 2.3 A typological change in the transition to Romance 24 2.4 Passive constructions in the Romance dialects of Italy 26 2.4.1 Passive and perfect auxiliary selection: avere vs. essere 27 2.4.2 Passive-like strategies in Italo-Romance 31 2.5 Passives and the Transitivity Hierarchy 33 2.6 Passives in the Role and Reference Grammar framework 38 2.7 What is an impersonal structure? 46 2.8 Impersonal constructions in the Romance dialects of Italy 51 2.9 Hierarchy of impersonals 58 2.10 Impersonals in the Role and Reference Grammar framework 59 3. Methodology 65 4. Passives and impersonals in Sicilian 70 4.1 Analysis of passives in the Palermitan dialect 70 4.2 Analysis of impersonals in the Palermitan dialect 92 5. Passives and impersonals in Abruzzese 105 5.1 Analysis of passives in the Tollese dialect 105 5.2 Analysis of impersonals in the Tollese dialect 122 5.3 Nome 131 5.3.1 The syntax of nome 134 2 5.3.2 Nome as a man-impersonal 138 5.4 Impersonals in Tollese and the Hierarchy of Impersonals 144 6. Passives and impersonals in Tuscan 145 6.1 Analysis of passives in Tuscan dialects 145 6.2 Analysis of impersonals in Tuscan dialects 163 6.2.1 Referential si 169 6.2.2 Referential si and the Unaccusativity Hypothesis 170 6.3 Hierarchy of Impersonals 182 6.4 Conclusion 186 7. Further analysis 188 7.1 Summary of passive data 188 7.2 Analysis of the Hierarchy of Impersonals 189 7.3 Agreement features 197 7.4 Features systems and Role and Reference Grammar 204 7.5 Analysis of nome 209 8. Conclusion 216 Bibliography 218 Appendix 1: Questionnaire 223 Appendix 2: Nome questionnaire 232 Word count: 52,404 3 List of abbreviations * ungrammatical form # grammatical form which is not accepted in the given context 1/2/3 first person/second person/third person Ø unspecified in the Logical Structure AGX Agreement Index Node AUX auxiliary CL clitic F feminine IMP impersonal INF infinitive M masculine OCL object clitic PL plural PSA Privileged Syntactic Argument PTCP participle PrCS pre-core slot REFL reflexive RRG Role and Reference Grammar SCL subject clitic SG singular 4 Abstract This study investigates passive and impersonal constructions in three Romance dialects of Italy: Sicilian, Abruzzese and Tuscan. The aim of this investigation is twofold: on the one hand I aim to contribute to the documentation of the dialects of Italy, and on the other, I aim to build on existing theories on passive and impersonal constructions. Whilst there is to date no detailed discussion of passive structures in Italo- Romance dialects, works such as Cennamo (1997), Ledgeway (2009) and Rohlfs (1969) suggest that passive structures are unpopular in the dialects of Italy. I explore the extent to which the passive is rejected in each dialect, and, where it is not used, which constructions are used in its place. From the data I have collected on passive constructions in these three dialects, a pattern emerges: the acceptability of the passive directly relates to the transitivity of the verb. Whilst the acceptability of the passive varies from dialect to dialect, one consistent result is that passives are affected by the ranking of the verb on the Transitivity Hierarchy (Hopper and Thompson 1980) and its entailments. This thesis presents interesting findings on si impersonals, uno, third person plural impersonals and the Abruzzese nome, which is of particular interest, and which I claim is an impersonal clitic, that holds a plural feature. Throughout my discussion of impersonals, I develop a hierarchy of impersonals, which is based on the semantic features (+/- referential, +/- definite, +/- irrealis) of each impersonal type. This hierarchy captures all of the impersonal types found in the three dialects, and allows for cross-dialectal analysis. I present novel findings relating to the Tuscan first person plural impersonal si and the split in its usage, which, to my knowledge has not yet been discussed in the relevant literature. The data show that Tuscan first person plural impersonal si can be used with transitive and unergative verbs but not with unaccusatives. I propose a reason for this split, which is based on what I term agreement features (person, number, gender). As well as providing a detailed analysis of each impersonal type, I attempt to refine existing definitions of impersonals and propose that all types of impersonal constructions can be defined by their deficiency in one of the three agreement features, in other words, they are ‘feature deficient constructions’. 5 Declaration I declare that no portion of the work referred to in the thesis has been submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning 6 Copyright i. The author of this thesis (including any appendices and/or schedules to this thesis) owns certain copyright or related rights in it (the “Copyright”) and s/he has given The University of Manchester certain rights to use such Copyright, including for administrative purposes. ii. Copies of this thesis, either in full or in extracts and whether in hard or electronic copy, may be made only in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) and regulations issued under it or, where appropriate, in accordance with licensing agreements which the University has from time to time. This page must form part of any such copies made. Page 10 of 25Presentation of Theses Policy iii. The ownership of certain Copyright, patents, designs, trademarks and other intellectual property (the “Intellectual Property”) and any reproductions of copyright works in the thesis, for example graphs and tables (“Reproductions”), which may be described in this thesis, may not be owned by the author and may be owned by third parties. Such Intellectual Property and Reproductions cannot and must not be made available for use without the prior written permission of the owner(s) of the relevant Intellectual Property and/or Reproductions. iv. Further information on the conditions under which disclosure, publication and commercialisation of this thesis, the Copyright and any Intellectual Property and/or Reproductions described in it may take place is available in the University IP Policy (see http://documents.manchester.ac.uk/DocuInfo.aspx?DocID=24420), in any relevant Thesis restriction declarations deposited in the University Library, The University Library’s regulations (see http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/about/regulations/) and in The University’s policy on Presentation of Theses. 7 Acknowledgements I am extremely grateful to my supervisor, Professor Delia Bentley, who has provided me with continuous support, encouragement and motivation, not only during my PhD course, but throughout the nine years I have been a student at the University of Manchester. I am exceptionally thankful to Delia for her dedication to this project, for the hours she has spent discussing ideas with me, and for inspiring me to pursue my research in this field. I would also like to express my gratitude to my second supervisor, Professor John Payne, for his invaluable advice and guidance throughout this course. I am grateful to John for his approachability and for the time he has spent sharing his expertise with me and helping me to develop my ideas. I am indebted to the translators and informants who so kindly agreed to share their knowledge with me and who spent so much of their time helping me with my fieldwork. I am particularly grateful to Robert and Monica Hastings, Elena D’Avenia, Cassandra Galletti and Irene Lorenzini for their patience, hospitality and kindness during my time in Italy. I would like to thank my family, in particular my Dad, Stephen Stampone, and my husband, David Chapman, who have given me tremendous support and encouragement during the past four years and without whom I could not have completed this thesis. Finally, I dedicate this work to the community of Fraine, in particular my grandfather, Vincenzo Stampone, who inadvertently sparked my passion for the dialects of Italy and led me to begin my studies in Italian. 8 Dialect map 1 2 = locations of dialects investigated Line 1 = La Spezia-Rimini line Line 2 = Rome-Ancona line 9 Chapter 1. Introduction: The Romance dialects of Italy. This thesis investigates passive and impersonal constructions in three Romance dialects of Italy: Tuscan, Sicilian and Abruzzese, which belong to the sub-family of Romance called Italo-Romance. The Romance dialects of Italy provide a rich and fertile terrain for linguistic analysis. In both diachronic and synchronic terms, the phonology, morphology and vocabulary of the dialects have long been the focus of research, whereas variation in the domain of syntax has not yet received the same level of attention (Vincent 2014:1). In providing a detailed analysis of these constructions, I have a twofold aim: on the one hand, I aim to contribute to the field of Italian dialectology, documenting the dialects further, and, on the other, I aim to contribute to the existing literature on passives and impersonals. Throughout this thesis, I use both the term ‘Italo-Romance dialects’ and the term ‘the Romance dialects of Italy’ to refer to the Romance dialects spoken on the Italian peninsula.
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