N Morphology and its Interpretation: The Neuter in Central Italian Varieties and its Implications

Ludovico Franco ^[1] ; M. Rita Manzini ^[2] ; Leonardo M. Savoia ^[2]
1. [1] Universidade Nova de Lisboa
  
  Universidade Nova de Lisboa
  
  Socorro, Portugal
2. [2] University of Florence
  
  University of Florence
  
  Firenze, Italia
Localización: Isogloss: Open Journal of Romance Linguistics, ISSN-e 2385-4138, Nº. Extra 0, 2015 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Special Issue on Italo-Romance Morphosyntax), págs. 41-68
Idioma: inglés
Enlaces
- Texto completo 1 2 3

Resumen
- In this work we will characterize Romance N class morphology as endowed with asemantic content, providing evidence about the active involvement of N class at the syntaxsemanticinterface. We will argue that the so-called neuter of Central Italian dialects involvescoding of the mass/count distinction by N class morphology. The mass vs. count contrast can beinterpreted as the reflex of a more primitive property, which opposes non-individual content toinstances of individual denotation, since the -o ‘neuter’ inflection of Central Italian varieties iscompatible not only with mass nouns but also with eventive contents and with the invariableinflections found with perfect participles of unergative/transitive verbs. We will show that Mass vs.count semantic content associated to and encoded through N class is available in other Indo-European languages and in genetically unrelated languages and we will support the idea that N classcan function as a classifier.