A Grammar of Italian Sequence of Tense - Lear

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A Grammar of Italian Sequence of Tense
being evaluated with respect to the speaker’s temporal location. These two syntactic
relations therefore, are responsible for the DAR phenomena.
In the next section I’ll develop this idea, by comparing the properties of embedded
clauses with a subjunctive verbal forms with the indicative clauses I just illustrated. The
differences between the interpretive properties of indicative and subjunctive clauses –
roughly speaking, DAR vs. non-DAR interpretation– will be shown to correlate with
syntactic differences in the C-layer, providing therefore an argument in favor of the
proposal. In particular, I will propose that when there is no DAR interpretation, the
highest position in the C-layer is not realized.
3. Subjunctive complement clauses
3.1. Sequence of Tense with the subjunctive
In Italian –and in other Romance languages as well– some verbs select in the
subordinate clause a special verbal form, called subjunctive. The subjunctive cannot
appear as the verbal form of a main assertion. If used in non-subordinate clauses, it
always conveys a nodal meaning. Consider for instance the following example:
(28) Che il diavolo ti porti!
That the devil take(SUBJ PRES) you!
In this case for instance, the sentence is an optative one and could never be interpreted
as an assertion.
In complement contexts, the choice between an embedded indicative and an embedded
subjunctive is not free, but is due to the properties of the superordinate verb. In Italian
for instance typically the subjunctive appears in subordinate contexts, under verbs of
believing/ thinking/ wishing etc. 12
Consider the following examples:
12 . See Giorgi & Pianesi (1997, ch.4) for an analysis of the contexts admitting an embedded subjunctive
in Italian and for a cross-linguistic analysis across Romance an Germanic. The issue however has been
widely addressed in the literature. For a most recent analysis, see Quer (to appear) and papers published
there.