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In:Italian Dialectology at the Interfaces
Edited by Silvio Cruschina, Adam Ledgeway and Eva-Maria Remberger
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 251] 2019
► pp. 185–202

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On the syntactic encoding of lexical interjections in Italo-Romance

 | Università Ca’ Foscari – Venezia
Published online: 5 February 2019
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.251.09mun
Abstract
Based on evidence from Italo-Romance, in this article I argue that lexical interjections can be split into three categories, depending on whether they must, they can or they cannot be integrated with the associated clause; the degree of integration with the co-occurring clause depends on the merge position of the interjection. Only interjections lexicalizing the functional head SpeechAct° represent autonomous linguistic acts and are therefore prosodically and syntactically independent from the associated clause; from this position they can attract the associated clause to the corresponding specifier position or raise to the adjacent head Speaker° in order to provide the necessary contextual anchoring. Interjections lexicalizing the lower projection EvalSP do not have these properties and are intrinsically discourse-linked.
Article outline
  • 1Introduction
  • 2.Discourse-linked interjections
    • 2.1Emilian dialects
    • 2.2Standard Italian
  • 3.A hybrid class of interjections
    • 3.1Emilian dialects
    • 3.2Standard Italian
  • 4.Non-integrated interjections and contextual anchoring
    • 4.1Venetan dialects
    • 4.2Standard Italian
    • 4.3On contextual anchoring
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowldgement
  • Notes
  • References
References (28)
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