When the Parametric Comparison meets the CP: a preliminary taxonomy of Italo-Romance varieties

ELENA ISOLANI

Keywords: parameters, comparative syntax, complementizer phrase, Italo-Romance, PCM

Abstract:

Background: The Parametric Comparison Method (PCM) is an innovative tool for language
comparison that strives to reconstruct linguistic phylogeny and to provide new linguistic taxonomies
relying on the notion of syntactic parameter (Longobardi 2005; Longobardi & Guardiano 2009, 2017;
Guardiano et al. 2020, i.a.). To achieve this goal, the PCM is grounded in the Modularized Global
Comparison (MGC), testing an indefinite parametric database across an unrestricted language inventory
within a single domain (Longobardi 2003). Over the last twenty years, studies primarily involved the
nominal domain, releasing a list of 97 parameters tested on 69 languages across 13 language families
(Crisma et al. 2020). This presentation, rather, delves into an unexplored syntactic domain, the
complementizer phrase (CP), selecting a language sample of Italo-Romance varieties spoken in various
regions. The goal is twofold: first, proving that the PCM does not exclusively function with the nominal
domain, but can also be successfully expanded to other structural modules, provided that an effective
parametric database is built, second, investigating and categorizing the greatly recognized micro
variation in Italo-Romance varieties through a trustworthy parametric tool capable of depicting
minimal variational patterns and offering a revised taxonomy.
Building the Parametric System: The formulation of a parametric database regularizing the CP was
framed with the cartographic approach (Rizzi 1997, i.a.). Each head of the split-CP is independently
treated to detect the most salient patterns of variation and the respective parameters regulating them.
Broader phenomena (e.g. the realization of a clause-type, the occurrence of a discourse-type exponent
etc.) are mapped with core (macro-)parameters, which frame more detailed (micro-)parameters
expressing fine-grained patterns of variation (e.g. the operation involved in the realization of clause
type, the syntactic nature of the items involved etc.). The core parameters were constructed according
to a parameter schema (Longobardi 2005; Gianollo et al. 2008) asking whether a feature F is
grammaticalized, checked, spread or strong. Therefore, it was necessary to retrieve a bundle of
universally definable features and verify whether these operations occur. The selection of the feature
analysed for each head shows a clear deviance from Rizzi (1997) who postulated a one-to-one
association between a functional feature and a functional head. Once the core featural-driven
parameters, regulating major structural-building operations, were established, other parameters, which
regulate salient patterns of variation, were framed within them. The valuation of parameters in the
schema sheds light on other structural phenomena, whose (micro-)parameterization is contingent on the
value assigned to the parameters in the schema, displaying a significant cross-linguistic variation among
the languages tested. In total, 97 parameters were produced and tested.

Submission Number: 134