Microvariation in verbal and nominal agreement: An analysis of two Lombard Alpine dialects

Diego Pescarini (1)

1 BCL, équipe Dialectologie et Linguistique formelle

In Bregagliotto and Mesolcinese, two Lombard Alpine dialects, feminine plural agreement/concord is marked by the formative-n, a reflex of the 3rd person plural verbal ending. In Bregagliotto, plural-n triggers mesoclisis of the feminine subject clitic in contexts of inversion, whereas in the noun phrase-n behaves as a second-position element marking plural feminine concord. Mesolcinese exhibits verbal gender agreement as the formative-n occurs on the inflected verb whenever a feminine plural subject or the object clitic occurs; in feminine plural DPs,-n is attached to any element except the definite article. I argue that the Bregagliotto system emerged when-n was reanalysed as an adjunct pluraliser, whereas in Mesolcinese-n has been turned into a marker of morphophonological concord/agreement.

Mots clés: Italo-Romance; adjunction; metathesis; mesoclisis; microvariation; concord; agreement

Domaines: Linguistique

Diego Pescarini. Microvariation in verbal and nominal agreement: An analysis of two Lombard Alpine dialects. Probus, In press, ⟨10.1515/probus-2021-0003⟩. ⟨hal-03094907v2⟩