Partitives and Indefinites: Phenomena in Italian Varieties

Abstract

AbstractThis contribution examines the relation between genitives/ partitives and indefinites in some Italian varieties. A central question concerns the nature of the prepositionde/di(DE) ‘of’ (< Latinde), specifically investigated in contexts where it does not introduce the usual possessive or partitive reading: bare partitives/Partitive articles of Italian varieties, negative contexts in which a negative marker select a partitive occurrence ofDEof the typemia+DEin Northern Italian dialects and the linker‐like element in Southern Italian dialects. We propose that these structures rely on the lexical content ofDE, corresponding to the elementary relation part‐whole and that their particular behaviour can be treated in the terms of pair‐merge in the sense of Chomsky (2020). The indefinites in varieties devoid of thepartitive articlewill be treated in the final section.