Is it prosody that settles the syntactic issue?

An analysis of italian cleft sentences

Authors

  • Maria Cristina Pinelli Università degli Studi di Firenze
  • Cinzia Avesani National Research Council (ISTC - CNR), Padua
  • Cecilia Poletto Università degli Studi di Padova / Goethe-Universität Frankfurt

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17469/O2104AISV000009

Keywords:

cleft sentences, left focalization, prosody-syntax interface

Abstract

The present study aims at investigating the prosodic realization of Italian cleft sentences, in order to provide some new cues for their still debated syntactic interpretation. A monoclausal approach to the analysis of cleft sentences (a.o. Meinunger, 1998) parallels them to left focalization constructions, while a biclausal approach (a.o. Belletti, 2008) considers them composed of a main copular clause and an embedded pseudo-relative clause. A systematic comparison between cleft sentences and left focalizations – carried out through an experimental study and an analysis of pitch accent distribution, scaling, and prosodic phrasing – leads to conclude that their prosodic realization is very similar, thus suggesting that a monoclausal analysis for cleft sentences is supported by prosodic data.

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Published

31-12-2018

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