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Impersonal si/se constructions in Northern Italian dialects
Diego Pescarini (Zürich)
The paper aims to account for the syntax of impersonal si/se constructions in northern Italian
dialects (NIDs). The analysis is couched within the Principles and Parameters framework (Baker
2001), in particular it follows the research agenda put forth by Roberts & Holmberg 2010 and
following works. The central idea is to organise the parameters of Universal Grammar into
hierarchies of binary choices whose interaction gives rise to complex but non-chaotic crosslinguistic variation. The highest position in a hierarchy defines a macroparameter responsible for a
major typological property, while lower positions define successively more local properties
including those regarding specific lexical items (the so-called microparameters).
As for impersonal si/se constructions, I will focus on two properties subject to cross-linguistic
variation:
- the occurrence of an expletive subject clitic in impersonal si/se constructions, cf. (1)
(Pescarini 2014 a.o.).
- restrictions on the impersonal si/se in the following environments: unaccusative
constructions (e.g. passives), in combination with accusative clitics, cf. (2), and, to a lesser
extent, with unaccusative verbs, (3) (Dobrovie-Sorin 1998 on Romanian; Parry 1998 on
Piedmontese; Salvi 2008 on old Italian);
(1)
a. __
b. U
se dorme / magna doman
s drøma / mångia adman
EXPL= s= sleeps eat
tomorrow
‘We will sleep/eat/leave tomorrow’
(Vicentino, Venetan)
(Monregalese, Piedmontese)
(2)
a. __
b. U
(Vicentino, Venetan)
(Monregalese, Piedmontese)
(3)
a. __
b.*U
(Vicentino, Venetan)
(Monregalese, Piedmontese)
se
lo
magna doman
s
(*lu) mångia adman
EXPL= s=
it= eats
tomorrow
‘We will eat it tomorrow’
se parte doman
s pårta adman
EXPL= s= leave tomorrow
‘We will leave tomorrow’
I entertain the hypothesis that the above properties are somehow related, although they follow from
independent parametric choices.
The restrictions in (2)-(3) result from a microparameter regarding the argument status of the
clitic si/se (Cinque 1988, but see Dobrovie-Sorin 1998 and D’Alessandro 2001 for criticism): in
almost all the romance languages si/se can withdraw the thematic role of the external argument
(hence, si/se is [+arg]), while only a subset of the Romance languages allow a [-arg] si/se to cooccur with a null subject pro, which in that case is given an arbitrary rather than a specific
interpretation. [+arg] si/se is therefore limited to occur with verbs projecting an external argument
(hence, transitives and unergatives, but not unaccusatives), while [-arg] si/se can occur – in tensed
environments – with any type of verb.
Furthermore, as [+arg] si/se withdraws the external theta role, Accusative case cannot be
assigned to the internal argument which, as a consequence, cannot be pronominalized by an
accusative clitic, cf. (2b). Conversely, [-arg] si/se entails the presence of a nominative pro, which
allows the internal argument to be pronominalized by a complement pronoun.
The [±arg] microparameter acts in concert with the Null Subject Parameter (NSP), which in fact
can be viewed as a hierarchy of parameters defining properties of subjects and subject-related
elements such as subject clitics. In principle, high ranked parameters such as the NSP are expected
to obliterate microparametric choices: in French, for instance, the [-arg] se, i.e. the se occurring with
a null subject, is ruled out a priori by the NSP.
With this in mind, let us turn to the second property at issue, namely the presence of an expletive
clitic in impersonal si/se constructions. According to Poletto 2000, Italian subject clitics are hosted
in a set of agr-like positions at the IP/CP border that she terms the Higher Functional Field. Crossdialectal variation w.r.t. the distribution of subject clitics arises because the presence of subject
clitics in the Higher Functional Field depends on language-specific (though systematic) conditions
related to a number of factors, e.g. person, type, position of the subject, etc. Roughly, certain
dialects, that I term ‘partial’ clitic systems, allow pro to be licensed by agr elements located outside
the Higher Functional Field (e.g. verb agreement), while ‘radical’ clitic systems always require a
subject clitic in the Higher Field. The difference between ‘partial’ and ‘radical’ clitic systems is
encoded in the hierarchy of the NSP.
In the paper I show that the observed microvariation results from the interaction between the
[±arg] microparameter (which needs further refinement) and the parametric choices responsible for
the distinction between radical and partial subject clitic systems encoded in the NSP hierarchy.
Furthermore, I will show that the microvariation displayed by NIDs confirms the hypothesis that
high ranked parametric choices affect microparametric ones. In a nutshell, I will show that radical
clitic systems – i.e., those with expletives – are more restrictive than partial clitic systems regarding
the syntax of the impersonal si/se, which amounts to saying that the parameters responsible for the
syntax of radical systems affect in some way the [±arg] microparameter ruling the distribution of
si/se.
According to the proposed analysis, this is not unexpected. Recall that in radical systems pro
cannot be licensed by elements occurring outside the Higher Functional Field. This in principle
excludes also the [–arg] si/se, which normally sits outside the Higher Functional Field. In fact, save
for dialects in which si/se behaves like a fully-fledged subject clitic (see Tortora 2014 on the dialect
of Borgomanero), the impersonal si/se is located in a lower area of the clause, hosting complement
clitics.
References
Baker, M. (2001). The Atoms of Language: The Mind's Hidden Rules of Grammar. New York:
Basic Books.
Cinque G. (1988), On si constructions and the theory of arb, in “Linguistic Inquiry” 19, 521-82.
D’Alessandro, R. 2001. Impersonal si constructions. Berlin – New York: Mouton De Gruyter.
Dobrovie-Sorin C. (1998), Impersonal se Constructions in Romance and the Passivization of
Unergatives, in “Linguistic Inquiry” 29.3, 399–437.
Roberts, I and A. Holmberg (2010). ‘Introduction: parameters in minimalist theory’, in T.
Biberauer, A. Holmberg, I. Roberts and M. Sheehan (eds.), Parametric Variation : Null subjects
in Minimalist Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1-57.
Parry M. (1998), The Reinterpretation of the Reflexive in Piedmontese: 'Impersonal' SE
Constructions, in “Transactions of the Philological Society” 96, pp. 63-116
Pescarini, D. (2014). ‘I clitici soggetto espletivi nei dialetti settentrionali: una tipologia dei contesti
impersonali’ L’Italia dialettale 75: 229-246.
Poletto, C. (2000), The Higher Functional Field, New York – Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Salvi, Giampaolo 2008. “Imperfect systems and diachronic change”. In The Paradox of
Grammatical Change: Perspectives from Romance, Detges, Ulrich and Richard Waltereit (eds.),
127–146.
Tortora, Ch. (2014). A Comparative Grammar of Borgomanerese. Oxford – New York : Oxford
University Press.