The possessive enclitics with kinship nouns in Italo-Romance and the possessive determiners in the Francoprovençal of Faeto

Abstract

Abstract This paper deals with the possessive constructions in Italo-Romance dialects compared with the possessive constructions of one Francoprovençal (Gallo-Romance) variety spoken in Faeto (Foggia, Apulia). Francoprovençal possessive constructions are at a first glance distinct from Central and Southern Italian possessive constructions, mainly since in Francoprovençal (as in French) possessive forms (clitics) are prenominal. In Central and Southern Italian dialects, we find instead a split possession: 1) postnominal enclitic possessives (weak possessive markers) associated with parental kinship nouns distinct from 2) prenominal possessives associated with common nouns and postnominal strong possessive forms. Crucially, I claim that enclitic possessives are inflexional affixes, that receive a structural word-internal linearization from the same external (syntactical) linearization identified for proclitic possessive markers (in Faeto). I retain that the distinction between postnominal weak enclitics in Italian dialects and Francoprovençal weak prenominal possessive constructions is based on the inalienability (parental kin nouns + enclitics in DP). All possessive clitics (proclitics and enclitics) show a common syntactic configuration and differ only in Distributed Morphology, according to a “late” feature insertion and operations after syntax. Indeed, the possessive determiners represent three different morphological spells out of the same syntactic object: the bundle of features [Person], [(Gender) Number], [Definite], generated in functional heads.