L'uso dell'infinito nei dialetti liguri : infinito con soggetto espresso e infinito flesso nel dialetto di Cicagna (GE)

Abstract

In many varieties of Romance languages the subject of an infinitive clause may be expressed. This construction is examined with particular reference to the dialect of Cicagna (in the province of Genova), and the contexts admitting this use are pointed out. The author shows how whether or not the subject is expressed strictly depends on the freedom of control of the subject of the infinitive by the main clause. He goes on to describe a form of inflectional infinitive (with personal endings) of the verb to be which may occur in phrasal structures introduced by modal verbs in some Apulian, Tuscan and Ligurian (Cicagna) dialects. A comparison with forms of the inflectional infinitive in Portuguese, Sardinian and ancient Neopolitan points up the differences : the morphology is different, the concepts almost complementary. The author suggests that the presence of an inflectional infinitive presupposes the presence of infinitive clauses with a subject or free control, and that the latter presence is a property of all pro-drop languages