Università Roma Tre

This course is intended to analyse, within the Generative framework, the interplay ("interface") between syntax, prosody and discourse grammar, in relation to a hierarchy of functional projections in the left periphery of the sentence, dedicated to the encoding of information-structural features and determining the interpretation of (different types of) Topic and Focus. In particular the course will focus on three major issues:
(1) the interpretation of different types of focus (informative, corrective, contrastive, mirative) and its formal realization, both from a prosodic and a syntactic viewpoint (in situ vs. fronted, in matrix vs. embedded clauses) in typological diverse languages. Special attention will be dedicated to postverbal subject in Romance languages.
(2) The creation of topical chains and the interpretation of null subject comparing consistent, partial and radical pro-drop languages.
(3) The acquisition of the competences connected to the issues dealt with in (1) and (2) in children from 3 to 8 years old.

- Bianchi, V. & G. Bocci (2012). Should I stay or should I go? Optional Focus movement in Italian. In C. Pinon (ed.) Empirical Issues in Syntax and Semantics 9, 1-16.
- Bianchi, V. (2013). On Focus movement in Italian. In Victoria Camacho-Taboada et al (eds.), Information Structure and Agreement, 194-215. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, John Benjamins.
- Frascarelli, Mara (2007) Subjects, Topics and the Interpretation of Referential pro. An interface approach to the linking of (null) pronouns. In Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 25, 4: 691-734
- Frascarelli, Mara (in press), The interpretation of pro in consistent and partial NS languages: A comparative interface analysis, in: Bidese, Ermenegildo/Cognola, Federica (edd.), Understanding pro-drop. A synchronic and diachronic perspective, Oxford: Oxford University Press
- Frascarelli, Mara et al. (in preparation), The interpretation of null and pronominal subjects from an evolutionary perspective. Ms. presented at the PRIN Workshop (Florence 2016).
- Krifka, Manfred (2007). Basic Notions of Information Structure. In C. Féry et al. (eds.), The Notions of Information Structure, Potsdam, Universitätverlag Potsdam, 13-55.