Papers by Marco Casentini
Long-distance dependencies are a major property of human language, deriving from the successive a... more Long-distance dependencies are a major property of human language, deriving from the successive application of movement operations across sentences. Nevertheless, this possibility seems to be restricted by the presence of barriers, which ‘trap’ constituents in more or less 'resistant' syntactic islands. Given this scenario, this paper paper investigates a specific type of island, namely factive complements, which are traditionally considered ‘weak’ islands. The main goal is thus to verify the status of factive islands in Italian, based on original experimental data. Moreover, since island effects have been generally tested against wh-extractions, a secondary goal of the present study is to verify whether other types of A’-movement, such as Focus fronting, can be restricted by island effects as well. The results obtained from two experimental tests, carried out with the collaboration of a total of 310 informants, provide evidence that Italian factive islands seem to lie somewhere between strong and weak islands, qualifying as a sort of ‘intermediate’ island. Indeed, direct objects appear to be less constrained than subjects, indirect objects and adjuncts. Furthermore, the extraction of a Focus constituent from a factive complement lowers the acceptability of the sentence, thus indicating that (factive) islands are indeed sensible to Focus fronting.
This article investigates the acquisition of null subjects (henceforth NSs) in (radical pro-drop)... more This article investigates the acquisition of null subjects (henceforth NSs) in (radical pro-drop) Chinese by learners whose native language is (non-pro-drop) Englishhenceforth ELsworking within the 'topic chain' information-structural approach. Our main goal is to verify whether a learner's proficiency level can have an impact on the interpretation and acceptability of embedded NSs when more than one head is proposed for the relevant topic chain in different structural contexts (i.e., complements of bridge and factive verbs). The results of a pilot experimental test suggest that the requirement for a minimal overt link (MOLC) in the relevant chain plays an important role for ELs with a lower proficiency level. Conversely, MOLC restrictions do not affect ELs with a higher proficiency. Furthermore, the results show that ELs can correctly distinguish between complements of bridge and factive verbs already at an HSK 3 level. As for interpretation, results suggest that contextual information cannot supersede structural constraints for ELs. However, since a clash with contextual information seems to not affect acceptability for ELs, contrary to Chinese Native Speakers, we propose that even HSK 5 students have not fully acquired the competence for managing NSs in a radical language such as Chinese.
This article deals with the phenomenon of Focus Fronting and addresses the vexed question of its ... more This article deals with the phenomenon of Focus Fronting and addresses the vexed question of its optional realization. A novel path for explanation is thus proposed, based on intervention effects and, in particular, on Superiority at the External Merge of arguments in the vP shell. To this purpose, an original experimental test has been designed for a systematic comparison between Subject and Object Focus in corrective replies, from which evidence is provided for a significant difference between transitive, unaccusative and unergative verbs. Furthermore, a gradient approach is advocated for intervention effects, based on the combination of different features. The incidence of alternative Focus constructions is also taken into consideration (i.e., postverbal Subject, cleft sentences and passives) and relevant asymmetries are treated in a comprehensive account.
L’analisi linguistica e letteraria (32)3, 2022
The present study is based on the working hypothesis that the discourse marker (DM) nà 那 cannot f... more The present study is based on the working hypothesis that the discourse marker (DM) nà 那 cannot freely co-occur with any sentence final particle (SFP). Indeed, the corpus-based analysis conducted, substantiated by means of statistical analyses, display the existence of a strong correlation between the DM na and ne 呢 and a 啊, rather than other SFPs. Within a generative approach, it is assumed that the DM na is located in Spec,RespP (thus accounting for its sentence-initial position), whereas the SFPs ne and a are heads of RespP and Ground Speaker P respectively. Furthermore, RespP and Ground Speaker P are assumed to be head-initial phrases, and p movement of CP to their Spec is proposed, in order to comply with specific prosodical require-p ments. Finally, data seem to support the proposal that multiple RespPs exist, accounting for the possibility to give the Addressee more than one instruction to interpret Speaker's utterances.
Studies in Chinese Linguistics, 2019
Based on original data collected through an online experiment, evidence is provided in this paper... more Based on original data collected through an online experiment, evidence is provided in this paper that the interpretation of null subjects in a radical pro-drop language like Chinese relies on the topic criterion proposed for consistent and partial pro-drop languages (Frascarelli 2007 and Frascarelli 2018), thereby supporting the theory that the null subject parameter implies an information-structural strategy for interpretation. Nevertheless, radical Chinese shows specificities that must be integrated in this theory for a comprehensive account. In particular, even though silent topic can start chains (consistent with the topic criterion), data show a significant preference for overt and local topics as antecedents. This locality requirement thus integrates phonological visibility in a general syntactic condition (minimal overt link condition), proposing an interesting parallel with the properties shown by partial pro-drop languages (Frascarelli and Jimenez-Fernandez in press). The ...
Book chapters by Marco Casentini
LA CINA DELLE OLIMPIADI DAL 2008 AL 2022. PAROLE, LEGGI E PAESAGGI URBANI IN MUTAMENTO, 2024
Negli ultimi anni la Cina ha iniziato a prestare sempre più attenzione
alle tematiche sociali rig... more Negli ultimi anni la Cina ha iniziato a prestare sempre più attenzione
alle tematiche sociali riguardanti la disabilità e, grazie ai loro risultati, gli atleti
paralimpici iniziano ad essere percepiti come eroi. Il presente studio, basato
sull’analisi di due corpora di articoli giornalistici sulle Paralimpiadi di Pechino
del 2008 e le Paralimpiadi Invernali di Pechino 2022, mostra come questo
cambiamento di percezione si rifletta sull’uso del pronome di prima persona
plurale wǒmen 我们 ‘noi’. Nello specifico, si osserva un incremento nell’uso del
‘noi’ inclusivo, che comprende sia gli atleti olimpici che paralimpici, a discapito
del ‘noi’ esclusivo, che viene invece usato per distinguere gli atleti paralimpici
(tāmen 他们 ‘loro’) dagli atleti normodotati e, più in generale, dal resto della
popolazione (‘noi’).
Studies on Chinese Language and Linguistics in Italy, 2023
This paper proposes an analysis of overt and null subjects in sentences in which the Chinese conn... more This paper proposes an analysis of overt and null subjects in sentences in which the Chinese connective 然后ránhòu ‘then’ is used as a temporal conjunction (CJ) or a discourse marker (DM). Following a corpus-driven approach, we collected 192 occurrences of ranhou from a 2.5h randomly selected sub-corpus of telephone conversations between native speakers of Chinese. Statistical results show that (i) ranhou is used more often as a DM than as a CJ and that (ii) the subject following the DM is mostly overt, even in cases when the topics in the two clauses connected by ranhou are the same. Our syntactic interpretation of the result is that, when used as a DM, ranhou sits in a functional domain above the clause, whereas, when used as a CJ, it is adjoined to VP. In conclusion, we propose subject/topic overtness as a significative feature in making a distinction between CJ and DM ranhou.
Il cinese è una lingua morfo-sillabica il cui sistema ortografico presenta tre livelli: il tratto... more Il cinese è una lingua morfo-sillabica il cui sistema ortografico presenta tre livelli: il tratto, il radicale e il carattere. Ogni carattere occupa uno spazio tipografico e corrisponde ad un morfema e la parola è, di solito, composta da due caratteri. Questo articolo mostra come si sviluppa la sensibilità linguistica verso gli elementi sublessicali negli apprendenti italofoni che studiano cinese nella scuola secondaria. Nello specifico si fornirà un quadro dello sviluppo della sensibilità strutturale, submorfemica, e morfemica che sembrano tutte e tre incrementali rispetto all'anno di studio della lingua e in parziale correlazione tra loro.
Percorsi in Civiltà dell’Asia e dell’Africa. I Quaderni di studi dottorali alla Sapienza, 2021
Based on original data collected through two on-line acceptability experiments, evidence is provi... more Based on original data collected through two on-line acceptability experiments, evidence is provided that null subjects are interpreted as co-referent with a specific type of Topic, which is the Aboutness-shift Topic (henceforth, A-Topic), also in a radical null subject language like Mandarin Chinese, similarly to consistent (Frascarelli 2007) and partial null subject languages (Frascarelli 2018, Frascarelli, Jiménez-Fernández 2019). Data collected also support the hypothesis put forth in Bianchi, Frascarelli (2010), according to which bridge and factive verbs are crucially different in regards of the possibility to realize embedded A-Topics in their complements. Specifically, it will be shown that the complement of bridge verbs, endowed with illocutionary force, can host A-Topics, thus allowing for embedded null subjects to be interpreted as co-referent with an extra-clausal referent. On the contrary, this possibility seems to be excluded in case of factive verbs: since their complements are presuppositions, no A-Topics can be hosted in their CP area, consequently blocking a pure pragmatic interpretation of embedded null subjects (contra Zheng 2001, Xu 2005, Song 2009, Yuan 2014).
Reviews by Marco Casentini
Do adult learners of a second language (L2) have access to Universal Grammar? Does the first lang... more Do adult learners of a second language (L2) have access to Universal Grammar? Does the first language (L1) influence the acquisition of the L2? And if so, to what extent? Without subscribing to one particular theoretical approach, the authors of the chapters in this collection answer these (and many other) questions while presenting new empirical data. All the works in this book offer a comprehensive overview of the current flourishing contributions on language acquisition. Furthermore, this collection highlights two distinctive features: (a) the excellent variety of the students investigated in the studies (i.e. heritage speakers, instructed and non-instructed learners, and immigrants); (b) the pedagogical implications that emerged from these data. In the first chapter, Achimova and Déprez investigate the acquisition of definiteness and specificity’s features by English learners of L2-French. To check for correlations between the type of context and article choice errors, the autho...
Ripensare l’insegnamento delle lingue straniere a partire dall’esperienza della didattica a distanza, 2021
IT La presente recensione mira ad offrire una valutazione critica del volume Teaching Language On... more IT La presente recensione mira ad offrire una valutazione critica del volume Teaching Language Online di Victoria Russel e Kathryn Murphy-Judy. Nella prima parte della recensione viene introdotto l’argomento generale trattato dal libro, descrivendone brevemente i contenuti di ogni capitolo. Nella seconda parte si fornisce una descrizione dei contenuti in prospettiva critica, evidenziandone i punti di forza e le eventuali criticità. Parole chiave: DIDATTICA DELLE LINGUE, INSEGNAMENTO ON-LINE, ADDIE EN This review aims to offer a critical evaluation of the book, Teaching Language Online, by Victoria Russel and Kathryn Murphy- Judy. In the first section of the review, the general topic of the book is discussed, and a brief description of the contents of each chapter is offered. The second section consists of a description of its contents through a critical perspective highlighting its strengths as well as its weaknesses. Key words: LANGUAGE TEACHING, REMOTE TEACHING, ADDIE ES Esta rese...
Thesis Chapters by Marco Casentini
Based on original data collected through an acceptability experiment, the present work aims to sh... more Based on original data collected through an acceptability experiment, the present work aims to show that a null subject (NS) is interpreted as co-referent of an Aboutness-Shift Topic (A-Topic) also in a radical null subject language like Mandarin Chinese, similarly to consistent and partial null subject languages like Italian and Finnish respectively (cf. Frascarelli 2007, 2018). Nevertheless, the data regarding acceptability of NSs in Mandarin Chines show specificities that must be integrated in this theory for a comprehensive account. Furthermore, the analysis of central and adverbial clauses will show that A-Topics in Mandarin Chinese are derived by movement from their internal subject position in the T-domain to the split-CP area. Moreover, based on the data collected through an ad hoc oral production experiment, it will be shown that different types of Topics (namely, A-Topic, C(ontrastive)-Topic and g(iven)-Topic) show different and specific intonational contours, even in a tone language like Chinese. Finally, a Topic hierarchy will be proposed, according to which an A-Topic precedes both a C- and a G-Topic, with the latter following the C-Topic.
Books by Marco Casentini
The present analysis builds upon and extends proposals from recent research regarding the interpr... more The present analysis builds upon and extends proposals from recent research regarding the interpretation of null subjects (NSs) in consistent and partial NS languages. These proposals suggest that the interpretation of a NS depends on its connection to a specific type of Topic, notably the Aboutness-Shift Topic (A-Topic), which initiates a Topic chain (cf. Frascarelli 2007). The investigation seeks to determine: (i) whether NSs in Chinese are interpreted within a topical chain headed by an A-Topic, and (ii) if different types of Topics occupy distinct positions in the left periphery of sentences and exhibit specific prosodic features, despite the tonal nature of Chinese. This work will present an analysis demonstrating the necessity of distinguishing between Aboutness-Shift, Contrastive, and Given Topics in Chinese, based on a prosodic and contextual examination of 852 tokens obtained from an oral production experiment specifically designed for this study, in addition to data from the analysis of two unscripted interviews. The collected data will also be analyzed to establish the existence of a Topic hierarchy in Chinese. Additionally, the data will demonstrate that even in a radical NS language like Mandarin Chinese, NSs rely on a linking relation with the A-Topic heading a Topic chain.
Conference Presentations by Marco Casentini
The present study aims to conduct a phonetic analysis of two SFPs that are segmentally identical ... more The present study aims to conduct a phonetic analysis of two SFPs that are segmentally identical and phonologically unspecified, both being T0 syllables. Specifically, the SFPs under investigation are ma 吗 (hereinafter “ma1”), which marks yes-no questions, and ma 嘛 (hereinafter “ma2”), which is generally used in declarative sentences to convey various pragmatic functions. All selected SFPs in this study follow another T0 syllable (the functional particle le 了) so as to highlight their intonational plasticity, thereby minimizing the potential influence of preceding tone-bearing syllables. The target segments under investigation are all sonorant. The dataset consists of 137 occurrences (ma1 n=65; ma2 n=72) drawn from approximately 30 hours of spontaneous telephone conversations from the CallFriend Corpus (2018). Data were annotated and analyzed using the ProsodyPro script (Xu, 2013) in Praat. The extracted f0 values were normalized per sentence using z-scores and were time-normalized for statistical analysis. Specifically, the statistical analysis was twofold, employing both “simple” GAMs (generalized additive models) and GAM Trees. The results indicate that ma1 and ma2 exhibit distinct f0 contours. Specifically, ma1 displays a rising contour, whereas ma2 shows a falling contour. However, it should be noted that significant differences are observed only in the contour, not in the register (i.e., pitch height). The presence of a negation marker in the sentence also appears to significantly affect the f0 contour of ma2: in sentences containing a negation marker, ma2 exhibits a sharper pitch contour, while in the absence of a negation marker the contour is smoother and more convex. Given that ma2 marks various pragmatic meanings, we expected that it would not be defined by a single intonational pattern, in contrast to ma1, which exhibited only one distinct intonational pattern regardless of the presence of a negation marker. In addition to highlighting the phonological significance of intonational patterns in MC as a tone language, these results reveal distinctive intonational characteristics in the pitch contours of SFPs. Moreover, they suggest that phonological features consistently shape T0 SFPs in alignment with the pragmatic meaning of the utterance, potentially rendering SFPs more phonologically “specifiable” than previously anticipated in the literature.
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Papers by Marco Casentini
Book chapters by Marco Casentini
alle tematiche sociali riguardanti la disabilità e, grazie ai loro risultati, gli atleti
paralimpici iniziano ad essere percepiti come eroi. Il presente studio, basato
sull’analisi di due corpora di articoli giornalistici sulle Paralimpiadi di Pechino
del 2008 e le Paralimpiadi Invernali di Pechino 2022, mostra come questo
cambiamento di percezione si rifletta sull’uso del pronome di prima persona
plurale wǒmen 我们 ‘noi’. Nello specifico, si osserva un incremento nell’uso del
‘noi’ inclusivo, che comprende sia gli atleti olimpici che paralimpici, a discapito
del ‘noi’ esclusivo, che viene invece usato per distinguere gli atleti paralimpici
(tāmen 他们 ‘loro’) dagli atleti normodotati e, più in generale, dal resto della
popolazione (‘noi’).
Reviews by Marco Casentini
Thesis Chapters by Marco Casentini
Books by Marco Casentini
Conference Presentations by Marco Casentini
alle tematiche sociali riguardanti la disabilità e, grazie ai loro risultati, gli atleti
paralimpici iniziano ad essere percepiti come eroi. Il presente studio, basato
sull’analisi di due corpora di articoli giornalistici sulle Paralimpiadi di Pechino
del 2008 e le Paralimpiadi Invernali di Pechino 2022, mostra come questo
cambiamento di percezione si rifletta sull’uso del pronome di prima persona
plurale wǒmen 我们 ‘noi’. Nello specifico, si osserva un incremento nell’uso del
‘noi’ inclusivo, che comprende sia gli atleti olimpici che paralimpici, a discapito
del ‘noi’ esclusivo, che viene invece usato per distinguere gli atleti paralimpici
(tāmen 他们 ‘loro’) dagli atleti normodotati e, più in generale, dal resto della
popolazione (‘noi’).