The Syntax of the Dialect of Bari
type: CreativeWork
description: This dissertation describes and analyses a selection of morphosyntactic phenomena from the nominal, verbal and clausal domains of Barese, an upper southern Italian dialect of Puglia. Chapter 2 analyses pragmatically unmarked and marked sentential word orders in Barese. Barese is a null-subject language whose unmarked transitive word order is (S)VO, in which syntactic constituents can be displaced in accordance with their pragmatico-semantic relevance to the discourse. One peculiarity of Barese regards intransitives encoding a loco-temporal (c)overt argument, where VS and SV orders may both mark sentence-focus. While VS encodes a null loco-temporal argument, SV serves to encode broad focus whenever S is ‘accessible’ in the mind of both discourse participants forming part of their ‘common ground’. Chapter 3 examines the structure of Barese nominal expressions, focusing on the interaction between adjectives, possessives and demonstratives. Barese nominals nearly systematically precede adjectives and possessives, except for a small class of rudimentary evaluative adjectives which may occur prenominally. These orders, derived via the phrasal movement of the nominal across its modifiers, are contrasted with the head movement of a morpholexically restricted class of kinship nominals which can be modified by a defective set of enclitic possessives. The final section analyses the behaviour of Barese demonstratives, which only occur in prenominal position. In particular, a peculiar Barese structure which combines the definite article with the distal demonstrative pronoun is analysed, highlighting how it specifically marks discourse-old referents. Chapter 4 describes the mechanisms of auxiliary selection and past participle agreement operative in Barese. In relation to the former, Barese displays three different factors which may determine auxiliary selection, namely person, tense and mood. These three dimensions of variation are analysed in terms of parameter hierarchies whic…
abstract: This dissertation describes and analyses a selection of morphosyntactic phenomena from the nominal, verbal and clausal domains of Barese, an upper southern Italian dialect of Puglia. Chapter 2 analyses pragmatically unmarked and marked sentential word orders in Barese. Barese is a null-subject language whose unmarked transitive word order is (S)VO, in which syntactic constituents can be displaced in accordance with their pragmatico-semantic relevance to the discourse. One peculiarity of Barese regards intransitives encoding a loco-temporal (c)overt argument, where VS and SV orders may both mark sentence-focus. While VS encodes a null loco-temporal argument, SV serves to encode broad focus whenever S is ‘accessible’ in the mind of both discourse participants forming part of their ‘common ground’. Chapter 3 examines the structure of Barese nominal expressions, focusing on the interaction between adjectives, possessives and demonstratives. Barese nominals nearly systematically precede adjectives and possessives, except for a small class of rudimentary evaluative adjectives which may occur prenominally. These orders, derived via the phrasal movement of the nominal across its modifiers, are contrasted with the head movement of a morpholexically restricted class of kinship nominals which can be modified by a defective set of enclitic possessives. The final section analyses the behaviour of Barese demonstratives, which only occur in prenominal position. In particular, a peculiar Barese structure which combines the definite article with the distal demonstrative pronoun is analysed, highlighting how it specifically marks discourse-old referents. Chapter 4 describes the mechanisms of auxiliary selection and past participle agreement operative in Barese. In relation to the former, Barese displays three different factors which may determine auxiliary selection, namely person, tense and mood. These three dimensions of variation are analysed in terms of parameter hierarchies whic…
author: Andriani, Luigi
language: en
keywords: Barese, morphosyntax, Italian dialect, Romance languages
license: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/6bfd7e49-c7c9-4d2a-af0a-c1e7d685d40d/download
license: https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/
date published: 2017-11-16
date modified: 2026-07-24T01:33:28Z
provider: Cambridge University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Cambridge

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.17863/CAM.15625