Subjects, Topics and the Interpretation of Referential pro.

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theory (cf. Goldsmith ed. 1999), can be described as L*+H, L* and H*. 11 Crucially, information-structural analysis shows that this tonal tripartition is phonological, since each tone is associated with specific discourse properties of the Topic constituent. F&H (2007) thus propose a systematic distinction between Aboutness-shift Topics (characterized by the rising L*+H contour 12 ), Familiar Topics (marked with a L*-tone) and Contrastive Topics (marked by a H-pitch). Since the interpretation and formal properties of the first two types of Topics will play an important role in the following discussion, let us consider them in some detail (on Contrastive Topics, see Büring 1999; F&H 2007). 3.1 The Aboutness-shift Topic While every Topic expresses, in some sense, pragmatic ‘aboutness’ (Reinhart 1981), the specificity of the Aboutness-shift Topic is to newly propose or reintroduce a topic in the discourse (cf. Givón 1983). As stated in the introduction, this Topic – like the others considered in this work – qualifies as a CLLD constituent (Cinque 1990). Hence, it is basegenerated in the C-domain (Cinque 1990, Frascarelli 2000, 2004a), it is resumed by a clitic (when available) and is preceded by a preposition, if connected with an indirect object role. 13 11 The description of intonational contours is based on Pierrehumbert’s (1980) system – generally known as ‘ToBI’ – in which tonal events are described as sequences of low (L) and high (H) tones, which determine the shape of the F0 contour. In particular, pitch accents (marked with a ‘star’) are aligned with tonic vowels and render prominent the linguistic material with which they are associated. The connection between tonal events and specific discourse categories has been supported cross-linguistically in recent analyses (cf., among others, Pierrehumbert and Hirschberg, 1990; Hayes and Lahiri 1991; Frascarelli 2004b). 12 For the sake of phonological description, a specification is in order concerning cross-linguistic alignment in the rising tone. F&H’s data show that the tonic vowel is mostly aligned with the low part of the rise in Italian (yielding a L*+H tone), while in German the peak is reached at the end of the tonal event (and described as L+H*). Hence, the relevant rising tone would be better described as (L+H)*, following Marotta’s (2000) suggestion for ToBI notation. However, since this allophonic variation is immaterial for the present analysis, the general ToBI transcription will be used for the sake of simplicity. 13 For these properties, the Aboutness-shift Topic should not be confused with a Hanging Topic (cf. Benincà et al. 1988, Benincà 2001). Hanging Topics are not preceded by prepositions and are obligatorily resumed (cf. (ia)), also in the case of complements for which resumption is not compulsory in CLLD (cf. (ib)). Moreover, Hanging Topics can be resumed by full pronouns (cfr. (iia)), while this is excluded for Aboutness-Shift Topics (since strong pronouns are used to obviate reference with respect to the current Aboutness-shift Topic, cf (iib)): (i) a. Leo *(gli) parlerò domani. (Hanging Topic) Leo to.him talk.FUT.1SG tomorrow ‘Leo, I will talk to him tomorrow.’ b. A Leo (gli) parlerò domani. (Aboutness-Shift Topic) to Leo to.him talk.FUT.1SG tomorrow ‘I will talk to Leo tomorrow.’ (ii) a. Leo k ho deciso di darlo a lui k il libro. (Hanging Topic) Leo have.1SG decided of to give.it to him the book ‘Leo, I decided to give the book to him.’ b. *A Leok ho deciso di darlo a luik il libro. (Aboutness-shift Topic) Moreover, the few data provided by the corpus (only four cases) show that Hanging Topics do not serve as the antecedent for a following NS: they precede all other Topics (providing a sort of a ‘title’), with no syntactic connection with the rest of the sentence (consistent with Benincà et al. 1988, p. 131). Crucially, they do not necessarily propose a topic shift (as is shown in (iii) below – taken from the corpus – which is a reformulation of a former statement) and, accordingly, they are not always marked by a rising tone: (iii) …perché il Colosseo (Hanging Topic), praticamente, nel piano terra ci sono tutti questi archi e ogni ingresso era numerato. ‘…because the Colosseum, in a few words, on the ground floor there are all these arches and every entrance had a number.’ To conclude, Hanging Topics have distinct formal and discourse properties with respect to the Aboutness-shift Topic and are located in a specific (higher) position in the C-domain (as is proposed in Rizzi 1997b and Benincà 2001). Therefore, the hierarchy proposed in (12) below is not meant to be exhaustive and only refers to the (CLLD-like) types of Topic examined in F&H (2007). 6
Among the different types of Topic analyzed in F&H (2007), the Aboutness-shift Topic is realized in the highest TopP projection (cf. distributional evidence in Frascarelli 2006 and F&H 2007) and, intonationally, it is signaled by a rise in the F0 contour that is aligned with the tonic vowel in its full extension. The rising (L*+H) tone is therefore associated with ‘aboutness’ (Reinhart 1981), in terms of something that is introduced in the conversation to propose a shift. In order to provide an illustration of this contour and the discourse function associated with the relevant Topic, consider example (8) below. Here, a student is giving her opinion about the material of a self-learning course. For quite some time she talks in general terms; then, she interrupts her narration and proposes a new topic – the direct object (DO) l'ultima unit (‘the last unit’) – in order to announce that she is working on it at the moment: 14 (8) Il materiale era tantissimo quindi all'inizio l'ho fatto tutto di corsa cercando di impiegarci il tempo che dicevate voi magari facendolo un po' superficialmente pur di prendere tutto- l’ultima unit la sto facendo l'avevo lasciata un po' da parte […] ‘The material was quite a lot, so at the beginning I did it all in a rush, trying to do it in the time that you had fixed, perhaps a little superficially, so as to do everything- I’m doing the last unit now, I had put it aside before […]’ Figure 1 As we can see, the topic-shift is signaled by a sharp rise on the tonic syllable – the diphthong [ju] – and likewise by a sharp fall after it. The predicative part of the sentence (la sto facendo ‘I’m doing it’) is maintained on a low range and no particular peaks can be noticed (as is generally the case for broad focus sentences in Italian; cf. D’Imperio 2002; Frascarelli 2004b). 3.2 The Familiar Topic A low tone is inherently associated with (CLLD) Topics that refer to given information in the discourse (cf. also Pierrehumbert and Hirschberg 1990). The relevant Familiar Topic is thus a D-linked constituent, 15 used to refer to background information, for topic continuity (Givón 1983) or (in the right periphery) as an ‘afterthought’. Consider, for instance, example (9) below. As the context makes clear, the DO la conferma (‘the check’) represents a topical element, which is first introduced by speaker A 14 Here and in the following examples, overt pronouns, pros and their antecedents are marked in boldface. Contexts are given in detail since they are crucial for discourse analysis. The sequences illustrated in the following Figures are underlined in the text. 15 Discourse (D)-linked elements relate to referential sets pre-established in the discourse. The relevant notion originates from a syntactic-theoretic background (Pesetsky 1987), dealing with a specific type of whconstituents (namely, ‘which N’) which demand an answer from a specific set (determined by the head noun; cf. among others, Cinque 1990; Rizzi 1990). 7
Page 1 and 2: Subjects, Topics and the Interpreta
Page 3 and 4: (2) Aboutness-shift Topic > Contras
Page 5: The problem is, therefore, to defin
Page 9 and 10: As is shown, the tonic vowels of th
Page 11 and 12: lunatico, è capace che domani non
Page 13 and 14: guarda devi uscire (Figure 10) a Ma
Page 15 and 16: Figure 11 Also in this case, recove
Page 17 and 18: introduce an overt one and consider
Page 19 and 20: Figure 14 Then, a new Topic is prop
Page 21 and 22: The subject QP in sentence (23) can
Page 23 and 24: in Frascarelli 2000, 2004a). As an
Page 25 and 26: 5.3 Rizzi’s (2006) Subject Criter
Page 27 and 28: component can forget about the othe
Page 29 and 30: the spirit of the present proposal,
Page 31 and 32: . [la storia che ha raccontato Leok
Page 33 and 34: (54’) … e [ [ [ogni studentej]
Page 35 and 36: Calabrese, Andrea. 1986. ‘Pronomi
Page 37 and 38: ⎯⎯⎯ 1989. ‘The Null Subject
Page 39: SigurDsson, Halldór Á. and Joan M

Subjects, Topics and the Interpretation of Referential pro.

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