Indefinite DPs in the Gallo-Romance of Piedmont, in some Marginal Northern Italian Varieties and in Romansh

Abstract

This article investigates indefinite DPs in some Romance varieties spoken in border contexts between linguistic groups. Specifically, we will consider Occitan and Franco-Provençal varieties of western Piedmont, the western Ligurian dialects, the Lombard-Alpine dialects, and Romansh, also in comparison with other North-Italian systems. The central issue is the nature of the construcs DE + article/Bare Noun of Italian varieties, where the preposition de/di (DE) ‘of’ does not introduce the usual possessive or partitive PPs, but DPs with indefinite reading. In negative contexts, such phrases mostly require the narrow scope interpretation. We argue that DE + bare noun constructs, as generally bare partitives, are based on the lexical properties of the preposition DE.