About

The goal of this research project is the comparative analysis of synchronic variation in Italian and Portuguese relative clauses. Specifically, the aim is to check if and how certain phenomena of syntactic variation are connected. Comparing Italian and Portuguese is particularly interesting since Portuguese shares some characteristics with earlier stages of Italian or its dialectal varieties, respectively.

Relative clauses are distinguished by attributively adding material to a constituent of a matrix clause. Most analyses differentiate between restrictive relative clauses, which contribute to the head’s identification by limiting its referential scope, and appositive relative clauses, which add an extra information that is not relevant for identifying the nominal phrase modified by the relative clause. This is illustrated for Portuguese in example (1):

1. restrictive:

   O livro que te falei é o mais bonito.

   “The book that I told you about is the most beautiful.”

2. appositive:

   Lisboa, que é a capital do país, fica na estremadura.

   “Lisbon, which is the country’s capital, is in Estremadura.”

The common assumption is that the different meanings of the two relative clause types result from different syntactic structures or from their different structural and discursive linking. Appositive relative clauses are said to be syntactically more independent, or located at a higher structural level than restrictives. At the same time, some types of relativizing elements (e.g. o qual/quem (Ptg.), il quale/cui (It.), el cual/quien (Sp.)) are found only in appositives, not in restrictives (Cinque 1974). However, under thorough consideration, it becomes clear that the Romance languages display a great variability with respect to the realization of relative clauses. The aforementioned relative elements, for example, do show up in restrictive relative clauses that are introduced by a preposition.

Via an in-depth empirical analysis, the following points will be investigated:

1. the question, by which phenomena appositive and restrictive relative clauses are characterised, and if there is indication for supposing that more than two types of relative clauses exist
2. the theoretical and empirical evaluation of different analyses regarding the morphosyntactic status of the relativizing element
3. the connection between variability of relative clause constructions and other language specific properties.

Publications

Articles and Book Chapters

• Poletto, Cecilia and Emanuela Sanfelici (2015). On demonstratives in relative clauses. In G. Busà and Sara Gesuato (eds.): Lingue e contesti. Studi in onore di Alberto Mioni. Padua: CLEUP. 561-571.
• Sanfelici, Emanuela, Irene Caloi and Cecilia Poletto (2014). Subject-Object asymmetries in relative clauses: An investigation into three new empirical domains. Quaderni di lavoro ASIt, 18.

Presentations and Talks

• Rinke, Esther and Elisabeth Aßmann (2016). Relative que in European Portuguese. Poster presented at the Hispanic Linguistics Symposium (HLS). Georgetown University, Washington, DC, 7-9 October 2016.
• Rinke, Esther and Elisabeth Aßmann (2015). The internal and external syntax of restrictive relative clauses with que in European Portuguese. Paper presented at the XXXI Encontro Nacional da Associação Portuguesa de Linguística (ENAPL). Universidade do Minho, Braga, 28-30 October 2015.
• Sanfelici, Emanuela and Cecilia Poletto (2015). On complementizers: insights from Italian restrictive relative clauses. Paper presented at the 48th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europea (SLE). University of Leiden, 2-5 September 2015.
• Poletto, Cecilia and Emanuela Sanfelici (2015). Demonstratives as relativizers in Italian Dialects. Paper presented at the XXI Giornata di Dialettologia. University of Padova, 19th June 2015.
• Sanfelici, Emanuela and Cecilia Poletto (2015). Relative clauses in Italian varieties - On the nature of the relativizers. Paper presented at the Workshop European Dialect Syntax VIII (Edisyn). University of Zurich, 11-13 June 2015.
• Sanfelici, Emanuela and Cecilia Poletto (2014). On the nature of complementizers: Insights from Italian subject relative clauses. Paper presented at the 28th venue of Going Romance. University of Lisbon, 4-6 December 2014.
• Poletto, Cecilia and Emanuela Sanfelici (2014). What’s in a C? On restrictive subject relatives. Paper presented at the Workshop "Variation in C: macro- and micro-comparative approaches to complementizers and the CP phase". University of Venice, 21-22 October 2014.
• Sanfelici, Emanuela, Jacopo Garzonio and Cecilia Poletto (2014). Why relative clauses follow Keenan and Comrie’s generalization: a case study on the status of Old Italian complementizers. Paper presented at the XVI DiGS. University of Budapest, July 2014.
• Sanfelici, Emanuela and Cecilia Poletto (2014). Subject-Object asymmetry in relative clauses: an investigation into Italian dialects. Paper presented at the DGfS. Universität Marburg, March 2014.
• Poletto, Cecilia and Emanuela Sanfelici (2014). The syntax of demonstratives and speech participants' features: new insights from a Lucan dialect. Paper presented at the DGfS. Universität Marburg, March 2014.
• Poletto, Cecilia, Irene Caloi and Emanuela Sanfelici (2013). Subject and object relative clauses in Italian varieties. Paper presented at the XIX Giornata di dialettologia. University of Padua. June 2013.
• Caloi, Irene, Emanuela Sanfelici and Cecilia Poletto (2013). Subject-object asymmetry in relative clauses: an investigation into three new empirical domains. Paper presented at the VII Workshop European Dialectal Syntax. University of Konstanz. June 2013.