Thesis Chapters by Caterina Bonan
This contribution proposes a preliminary reassessment of the cartography of a number of syntactic... more This contribution proposes a preliminary reassessment of the cartography of a number of syntactic phenomena that fall under the broad label of 'focus'. The main aim of this work is to encourage a discussion and amendment of the cartography of focus projections based on a cross-linguistic comparison of the movement properties of interrogative wh-elements and of prosodically-marked nominal focalisations. Additionally, a new understanding of the syntactic properties of wh-movement and focus will be proposed which, based on Rizzi's (2017) notions of 'movement' and 'Spell-Out' parameters, reduces the observed cross-linguistic variations to the combination of simple binary choices. I will claim that the notion of 'focus projection' is semantically and empirically insufficient to account for the wide array of focal phenomena attested cross-linguistically while abiding by the 'One feature-One head' rule and 'Uniqueness of focus' principle: criterial fields are needed instead.
Books by Caterina Bonan
(In prep) It-clefts: Empirical and Theoretical Surveys and Advances
Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs. De Gruyter., 2021
Berlin: de Gruyter (with C. Bonan).
This monograph offers an innovative understanding of the mechanisms involved in Romance 'optional... more This monograph offers an innovative understanding of the mechanisms involved in Romance 'optional' wh-in situ. New supporting evidence in favour of Cable's (2010) Grammar of Q is presented, as well as novel implementations of his original theory. In particular, it is claimed that wh-in situ idioms are characterised not only by language-specific choices between QP-projection and Q-adjunction, and between overt and covert movement of Q, but also in terms of the locus where they check the features relevant to wh-questions: while some languages check both [q] and [focus] in C, others make use of the clause-internal vP-periphery to check [focus]. Thanks to the vast amount of data presented and discussed, along with the predictions and theoretical contributions made, this monograph will be of interest to a wide range of specialists in human language, from typologists to Romance specialists and formal syntacticians, but also to the many experts in languages with overt Q-particles who wonder why Romance specialists have long been so resistant to the implementation of silent Q-particles in their theoretical models.
Romance Interrogative Syntax: formal and typological dimensions of variation.
Linguistik Aktuell / Linguistics Today 266, 2021
Generative Grammar in Geneva volume X
This book collects thirteen peer reviewed articles authored by past, current and future doctoral ... more This book collects thirteen peer reviewed articles authored by past, current and future doctoral students in linguistics at the University of Geneva. It is a collection of papers which seeks to reflect the wealth of the ongoing research carried out by the junior scholars of the department of linguistics. The selection of papers presented above results from a single blind peer review process, one or two rounds, preceded by a preliminary screening carried out by fellow PhD and postdoc students. The double effort of the contributors serving as both authors and reviewers was invaluable.
Papers by Caterina Bonan
Glossa: A journal of general linguistics, 2021
This article outlines an implementation of Cable's (2010) Grammar of Q that considers the role pl... more This article outlines an implementation of Cable's (2010) Grammar of Q that considers the role played by the periphery of vP, hitherto unexplored in this framework. Empirically, I offer a new example, in a new language family, of a known manifestation of wh-in situ: I argue that Trevisan, a Northern Italian dialect, displays compulsory clause-internal focus movement of both wh-elements and contrastive foci. Theoretically, I use the Trevisan data to present a new, tweaked application of previously proposed approaches whereby wh-elements do not contribute to clause-typing and Q-particles are cross-linguistically needed in the computation of answer-seeking wh-questions. My claim is that wh-in situ languages are characterised not only by language-specific choices between projection and adjunction of Q and overt vs covert movement of Q, but also in terms of the loci where the features relevant to wh-questions, [q] and [focus], are checked: while some languages check both in C, others make use of the clause-internal vP-periphery to check [focus]. The theory developed in this article provides an innovative understanding of the mechanisms involved in Northern Italian wh-in situ that reduces all core properties to different combinations of the setting of simple, universal microparameters related to interrogative wh-movement.
On focal and wh-projections, indirect wh-questions, and quantificational chains
Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2017. Selected papers from 'Going Romance' 31, Bucharest., 2021
In this chapter, I investigate the cartography of focus using novel data from non-standard Italia... more In this chapter, I investigate the cartography of focus using novel data from non-standard Italian (non-StandIT) and Trevigiano, a Venetan dialect. I argue that focus is less constrained in indirect wh-questions in these varieties than in Standard Italian (StandIT). Indeed, in Trevigiano both focalised objects and adverbials are felicitous in constructions with a lower wh-phrase. Using Featural Relativized Minimality, I argue that in the case of direct objects, the problem of crossing chains is circumvented using an IP-internal clitic that absorbs the [+N] feature of the direct object.
On ‘why’ in situ in Northern Italian dialects: evidence from Trevisan
WHY IS ‘WHY’ UNIQUE? ITS SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC PROPERTIES (Gabriela Soare, ed.), 2021
‘Why’ has been argued to be externally-merged directly in the Left Periphery of the clause (Rizzi... more ‘Why’ has been argued to be externally-merged directly in the Left Periphery of the clause (Rizzi 2001, Shlonsky & Soare 2011, Stepanov & Tsai 2008, a.o.) and is not expected to surface clause-internally (‘in situ’), yet it does in Trevisan, a Venetan dialect. In this paper, we present and discuss the different distributional properties of the two truth-conditionally equivalent why-words of Trevisan, parché and parcossa, and argue that their different distributional properties can be explained in terms of different external-merge sites, i.e. left-peripheral and TP-internal, respectively.
Isogloss: Open Journal of Romance Linguistics, 2021
The mainstream literature on the Romance dialects of northern Italy has explained the morphosynta... more The mainstream literature on the Romance dialects of northern Italy has explained the morphosyntax of clause-internal wh-elements in answer-seeking interrogatives as either the result of interrogative movement into the lower portion of the high left periphery (Munaro et al. 2001, Poletto & Pollock 2015, a.o.), or as a canonical instance of scope construal (Manzini & Savoia 2005;2011). New empirical evidence from Romance suggests that there is more at stake in the computation of wh-interrogatives than we used to think, and that neither of the existing approaches to northern Italian 'wh-in situ' can be maintained. Here, I argue that northern Italian dialects and Asian languages are, at least in this respect, more similar than we originally thought, and then I offer a new, derivationally economic and cross-linguistically supported understanding of the morphosyntax of northern Italian wh-in situ: the theory of WH-TO-FOC. Accordingly, all cross-linguistic core properties of this phenomenon can be attributed to different combinations of the setting of universal micro-parameters related to the interrogative movement of wh-elements.
On ‘why’ in situ in Northern Italian dialects: Evidence from Trevisan.
Why is ‘why’ unique? Its syntactic and semantic properties, 2021
‘Why’ has been argued to be externally merged directly in the Left Periphery of the clause (Rizzi... more ‘Why’ has been argued to be externally merged directly in the Left Periphery of the clause (Rizzi 2001, Shlonsky & Soare 2011, Stepanov & Tsai 2008, a.o.) and is not expected to surface clause-internally (‘in situ’), yet it does in Trevisan, a Venetan dialect. In this paper, we present and discuss the different distributional properties of the two truth-conditionally equivalent why-words of Trevisan, parché and parcossa, and argue that their different distributional properties can be explained in terms of different external-merge sites, i.e., left-peripheral and TP-internal, respectively.
The article will appear in a thematic volume on ‘why’ edited by Gabriela Soare.
Generative Grammar in Geneva XI, 2018
The goal of this paper is to show that in Trevigiano, a Romance dialect of the Venetan area, ‘ins... more The goal of this paper is to show that in Trevigiano, a Romance dialect of the Venetan area, ‘insituness’ is actually an instance of wh-movement targeting a TP-internal focal position, whP (‘little whP’). This is true not only in matrix but also in embedded question, where wh-phrases are licensed under two specialized embedding COMPs, ‘che’ and ‘se’. These properties make ‘insituness’ in Trevigiano incompatible with remnant-IP movement à la Poletto and Pollock (2015, and previous related works) and call for a different analysis, thus raising a number of questions on the intrinsic nature of ‘optional insituness’ in Romance.
Drafts by Caterina Bonan
This contribution proposes a preliminary reassessment of the cartography of a number of syntactic... more This contribution proposes a preliminary reassessment of the cartography of a number of syntactic phenomena that fall under the broad label of 'focus'. The main aim of this work is to encourage a discussion and amendment of the cartography of focus projections based on a cross-linguistic comparison of the movement properties of interrogative wh-elements and of prosodically-marked nominal focalisations. Additionally, a new understanding of the syntactic properties of wh-movement and focus will be proposed which, based on Rizzi's (2017) notions of 'movement' and 'Spell-Out' parameters, reduces the observed cross-linguistic variations to the combination of simple binary choices. I will claim that the notion of 'focus projection' is semantically and empirically insufficient to account for the wide array of focal phenomena attested cross-linguistically while abiding by the 'One feature-One head' rule and 'Uniqueness of focus' principle: criterial fields are needed instead.
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Thesis Chapters by Caterina Bonan
Books by Caterina Bonan
Papers by Caterina Bonan
The article will appear in a thematic volume on ‘why’ edited by Gabriela Soare.
Drafts by Caterina Bonan
The article will appear in a thematic volume on ‘why’ edited by Gabriela Soare.