Papers by Mara Frascarelli
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According to the minimalist program any movement operation is driven by morphological requirement... more According to the minimalist program any movement operation is driven by morphological requirements, necessary for the interpretation at the interfaces (FL, FF). In this system, the notion of features checking stands as a fundamental one insofar as it provides the only legitimate violation to Procrastinate, triggering movement in overt syntax. In particular, strong features drive movement under the Last Resort. In this paper, several arguments are given in favour of the inclusion of the syntactic analysis of Focus within the feature-checking framework. Focus is thus encoded in the strong feature [+F] and its interpretation involves the existence of specific instructions given to the computational system in order to check and assign [+F] in the proper checking configuration. In the first three sections the notion of Focus will be examined. A few considerations will show that Focus cannot be defined in the terms of discourse-pragmatic dichotomies ; consequently, a syntactic approach to Focus will be proposed. In the second part, the theoretical assumptions of our proposal will be argued and supported by means of the exposition of some empirical data. The aim of the present work is to show the advantages of our approach when dealing with focus-related syntactic phenomena, paying a particular attention to the postverbal position of subjects in Italian
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L1 Acquisition and L2 Learning, 2021
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Syntax, 2019
This article explores the acceptability and interpretation of referential null subjects in severa... more This article explores the acceptability and interpretation of referential null subjects in several varieties of Spanish (both Peninsular and American varieties) in different syntactic contexts (matrix and embedded) and distinct clause types (under bridge verbs, under factive verbs, and in adverbial clauses). Based on the results of an original online survey, completed by almost 300 respondents all over the world, it is shown that, in contrast with a consistent‐pro‐drop language like Italian, some Spanish varieties exhibit partial‐pro‐drop properties; this contributes to a recent line of research dealing with partiality in consistent‐pro‐drop languages. We argue that such variation can be accounted for within an information‐structure approach, in which the Topic Criterion (Frascarelli 2007), the formation of topic chains, and the existence of silent topics play a crucial role. Degrees of partiality are attributed to an interface condition that combines information‐structure requireme...
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Lingua, 2019
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The Linguistic Review, 2019
Based on the theory proposed in Frascarelli (2007), according to which the interpretation of null... more Based on the theory proposed in Frascarelli (2007), according to which the interpretation of null subjects depends on an Agree relation betweenproand a specific type of Topic (i.e. the A-Topic, cf. Frascarelli & Hinterhölzl 2007), the first objective of this paper is to evaluate this theory from an acquisitional perspective on children from 3 to 9 years old. Furthermore, since the A-Topic is argued to be systematically associated to specific discourse, prosodic and syntactic properties, a second objective of this paper is to check whether the relevant acquisition correlates with information-structural and interface-related competences. Based on an original experiment designed to examine Topic chains in children’s narrative, evidence is provided that this productive ability is not fully acquired at the age of 9 and that its progress proceeds in three steps, involving different levels of grammar. Specifically, in a first phase children tend to assume their personal experience and disc...
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Lingua E Stile, 2000
Cleft constructions constitute a difficult challenge for linguistic analysis, due both to the cro... more Cleft constructions constitute a difficult challenge for linguistic analysis, due both to the cross-linguistic variety of their realisations and to the peculiar syntactic and semantic effects they display. Following recent proposals on copular sentences within the Minimalist framework, the present paper offers an analysis of the cleft construction as a Small Clause whose constituents are, on the one hand, a relative clause headed by a Null Operator and, on the other hand, the cleft constituent. Syntactic evidence is provided that the cleft constituent is an Identificational Focus, which Operator-moves to the Specifier of the Focus Phrase projection in order to check the Focus ([+F]) feature with the matrix copula and identify (i.e., assign a value to) the Null Operator within the relative clause. This analysis is consistent with minimalist tenets insofar as movement operations are only driven by morphological requirements, necessary for interface interpretation, and includes cleft constituents within the current analysis of (narrow) Focus as a feature-checking operation. The investigation is mainly focused on English, however cross-linguistic considerations are also present in order to test and support the validity of the analysis proposed.
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Interface Explorations, 2009
Page 1. Position, function and interpretation of topics in Somali Mara Frascarelli and Annarita P... more Page 1. Position, function and interpretation of topics in Somali Mara Frascarelli and Annarita Puglielli 1. Introduction In recent analyses evidence has been provided for a systematic connection between the discourse functions ...
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Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 2013
This paper proposes an interface approach to (pseudo)cleft constructions, in which their semantic... more This paper proposes an interface approach to (pseudo)cleft constructions, in which their semantic, syntactic, discourse and intonational properties are examined in a cross-linguistic perspective. Following most influential studies, the relevant constructions are analyzed as specificational copular sentences, in which the two major constituents – a (free) relative DP and the (to be) focused phrase – are merged in a SC structure. However, based on formal evidence and discourse considerations, we take the clefted constituent to be merged as the predicate of the relevant construction, thus departing from the general view. Finally, (pseudo)clefts are also shown to imply a Topic strategy. This proposal is substantiated by intonational investigation, showing a crucial correlation between tonal events and the information-structural articulation activated by clefting. Keywords: Focus; interface; (pseudo)clefts; specificational copular sentences; (different types of) Topic(s)
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Boundaries of Morphology and Syntax, 1999
... of contrastive Focus: (23) a. La MARIA gl'/* V ha parlato, non la Carla F b. La MARIA 0/... more ... of contrastive Focus: (23) a. La MARIA gl'/* V ha parlato, non la Carla F b. La MARIA 0/* l'ha parlà, no la Carla T the M. SCL. ... Somali, however, which has ACC as the unmarked case, seems to support this hypothe-SiS. ... REFERENCES Antinucci, Francesco & Guglielmo Cinque. ...
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Papers by Mara Frascarelli