RoLinC talk: Kim Groothuis

Tomorrow ​(12th November) at 12-1pm (UK time), Kim A. Groothuis (Universiteit Gent) will be giving a talk entitled, Neapolitan chillo at the syntax-discourse-prosody interface.  

Abstract:

Neapolitan, like other Campanian varieties, features a construction in which the distal demonstrative (chillo, chella, chello ‘that.M/F/N.SG’ < Lat. ECCU + ILLU(M)) is used as an apparent expletive subject, occurring with impersonal predicates, as in (1). Moreover, chillo can also double and agree with the semantic subject of a clause (2), yielding the so-called ‘double-subject construction’ (cf. a.o. Sornicola 1996; Ledgeway 2000: 77–78; Ledgeway 2009; Ledgeway 2010; Maturi 2002: 225–228; Maturi 2023: 80–81; Vitolo 2006; Gaeta 2014; De Cia & Cerullo 2024).

(1) Chello  chiove.

that.N   rain.3SG

‘(that is because) It rains.’

(2) Chella  venette                  ’a     guagliona.

that.F   come.PST.3SG  the   girl

‘The girl came.’ (Nap., Sornicola 1996: 328)

A unified analysis for these two uses has been proposed by Ledgeway (2010), who argues that in both cases, pragmatic chillo is located in a specifier position of a SubjP within the topic field in the left periphery. By doubling the semantic subject, chillo marks it as a shift (accessible) topic; in its neuter form (e.g. (1)), it can refer to a presupposition present in the discourse, transforming an originally thetic structure into a categorical one.

In this talk, I will discuss some open questions about chillo in Neapolitan connected to the syntax-discourse and syntax-prosody interfaces. Although in many cases chillo indeed doubles a subject that becomes a new topic, in other cases the semantic subject it agrees with has a more focal nature (e.g. (3-4)). I will therefore explore additional hypotheses regarding the discourse function(s) that doubling chillo can mark and how this can be modelled within the left periphery of the clause (cf. Rizzi 1997, among many others).

(3) E      chillo    [pure  ‘o     mandriano]     se         cresce         ’o      puorco.

and  that.M   even the  herdsman.M   REFL=grow.3SG    the  pig

‘And even the pig herder raises his pig.’ (Nap., Ledgeway 2010: 281)

(4) Chella   è  [Nanninella]     c’a  cumbenato   sto    imbruoglio (no   Marianna).

that.F     be.3SG   Nanninella       that   have.3SG  caused            this  mess              not  Marianna

‘It is Nanninella who has made this mess (not Marianna).’

Regarding the syntax-prosody interface, I will report on ongoing research (in collaboration with Claudia Crocco, cf. Groothuis & Crocco submitted) in which we investigate the intonational patterns that characterize the different pragmatic uses of chillo and what they can tell us about their syntax. Data collected with a Discourse Completion Task (cf. e.g. Blum-Kulka 1982; Vanrell, Feldhausen & Astruc 2018) in combination with a reading task show that chillo is consistently pitch-accented in its pragmatic and non-deictic pronominal uses, unlike when it functions as a demonstrative determiner. Additionally, a prosodic boundary is present between agreeing chillo and the coreferent DP. Several prosodic features conspire to realise this boundary, although not all markings necessarily co-occur simultaneously. These findings confirm the left peripheral position of chillo and suggest a diachronic connection with the demonstrative pronoun, rather the determiner.

Link: Please register here. You will shortly receive the relevant Zoom link.