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Microvariation in Verbal and Nominal Agreement: An Analysis of Two Lombard Alpine Dialects

  • Diego Pescarini EMAIL logo
From the journal Probus

Abstract

In Bregagliotto and Mesolcinese, two Lombard Alpine dialects, feminine plural agreement/concord is marked by the formative -n, a reflex of the third person plural verbal ending. In Bregagliotto, plural -n triggers mesoclisis of the feminine subject clitic in contexts of inversion, whereas in the noun phrase -n behaves as a second-position element marking plural feminine concord. Mesolcinese exhibits verbal gender agreement as the formative -n occurs on the inflected verb whenever a feminine plural subject or the feminine plural object clitic occurs; in feminine plural DPs, -n is attached to any element except the definite article. I argue that the Bregagliotto system emerged when -n was reanalysed as an adjunct pluraliser, whereas in Mesolcinese -n has been turned into a marker of morphophonological concord/agreement.


Corresponding author: Diego Pescarini, BCL, CNRS, Université Côte d’Azur, Nice, France, E-mail

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Published Online: 2021-04-26
Published in Print: 2021-09-27

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