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draft of November 2011

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3.1 Greek manipulates structure while Italian manipulates Ds<br />

Let us focus on the non-referential indefinites in some more detail. Consider the minimal pair<br />

in (9).<br />

(9) a. Una segrataria *(la)-trovi facilmente/ prima o poi una segretaria *(la)-trovi<br />

A secretary her.cl-find easily/ sooner or later a secretary her.find<br />

A secretary, you fill find her easily/ sooner or later you will find her<br />

b. Gramatea tha (*ti) vrite sigura<br />

Secretary will her.cl find-2pl certainly<br />

A secretary you will find her certainly.<br />

As already seen, Greek employs Topicalisation when a non-referential interpretation is in-<br />

tended while Italian clld. Thus, the clitic ti is ungrammatical in Greek but la obligatory<br />

in Italian. However, (9b) points to a further difference between the two languages: the dislo-<br />

cated phrase in Greek is a bare noun while in Italian the indefinite article is indespensible.<br />

Example (10), where the bare noun is preceded by mia is possible in Greek, but there is a<br />

strong preference to read mia as one. 8<br />

(10) mia grammatea tha vrite sigura<br />

one-fem secretary will find-2pl certainly<br />

It seems then that Greek is sensitive to the (in)definiteness <strong>of</strong> the topic and has two<br />

distinct topic strategies: indefinite topics are typically bare nominals linked to a gap, while<br />

definite/referential topics are preceded by an article and linked to a pronominal clitic (11).<br />

By contrast, Italian indefinite topics as in (9a) are structurally very similar to the clld-ed<br />

definite topic in (11b); both types involve clld.<br />

(11) a. ti Maria tha ti vrite sigura sto grafio<br />

the-acc Maria will her.cl find-2pl certainly at-the <strong>of</strong>fice<br />

Maria you’ll certainly find her at the <strong>of</strong>fice.<br />

b. il libro che cerchi lo trovi sul tavolo<br />

the book that are-looking-for.2sg it.cl find-2sg on-the table<br />

8 Greek has no indefinite article distinct from the numeral one.<br />

9

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