Abstract
This article presents novel data on the yet unnoticed phenomenon of article-drop in the variety of Livinallongo/Fodom (Ladin). The fundamental aim is to provide a morphosyntactic analysis capturing the following: a) omission of the definite article is only possible in (spatial) PPs and with a specific set of data; b) the noun can be interpreted as a specific definite as well as a weak definite; c) omission interacts with structural properties of the nominal complement like Number features and the structural type of nominal modifiers. The account developed here builds on the hypothesis that despite appearances article-drop contexts in Fodom feature an active D category in their structure, which is licensed by the head noun via phrasal Spell Out (cf. Starke 2009a; 2011a; Baunaz and Lander 2018b; Caha 2009a; 2018a; Pantcheva 2011a, a.o.) and is argued to be superior to alternative accounts in terms of selection of a null D by the P0 head or movement of the noun.
Highlights
This article deals with article-drop in the variety of Livinallongo/Fodom, which is part of the Ladin area1
The account developed here builds on the hypothesis that – despite appearances – article-drop contexts in Fodom feature an active D category in their structure, which is licensed by the head noun via phrasal Spell Out
This section will show that Fodom has productive article-drop in spatial PPs, with the qualification that this can occur only with specific nouns
Summary
This article deals with article-drop in the variety of Livinallongo/Fodom, which is part of the Ladin area. The account developed here builds on the hypothesis that – despite appearances – article-drop contexts in Fodom feature an active D category in their structure, which is licensed by the head noun via phrasal Spell Out (cf Starke 2009 and ff., Caha 2009, 2018, Pantcheva 2011, Baunaz and Lander 2018a a.o.). Fodom article-drop is restricted to PPs (1a), where a specific set of singular count nouns can exceptionally occur articleless, despite requiring the article in other structural environments (1b), as is generally the case in Romance:. It will be argued that all of the above properties (and the lexical restrictions of what nouns head the relevant bare complements) can be straightforwardly accounted for by taking nouns allowing article-drop to be able to Spell Out a D level.
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