A Grammar of Italian Sequence of Tense - Lear

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A Grammar of Italian Sequence of Tense
As I illustrated above, the presence of the high C-projection plus the obligatory relation
between the main verb and the embedded one gives rise to the DAR. This has been
shown to take place in the case of indicative complement clauses, and in some cases of
subjunctive clauses.
What prediction can be made at this point with respect to relative clauses? Note that
relative clause can appear both with an indicative and with a subjunctive verbal form: 32
(89) Gianni vuole sposare una donna che ha più di 40 anni
Gianni wants to marry a woman who is(IND PRES) older that 40
‘Gianni wants to marry a certain woman who is older than 40
(90) Gianni vuole sposare una donna che abbia più di 40 anni
Gianni wants to marry a woman who is(SUBJ PRES) older than 40
‘Gianni wants to marry any woman who is older than 40’
The difference between the sentence with the indicative relative clause and the one with
the subjunctive one is the following: in the first case Gianni wants to marry a certain,
specific, woman, who has the property of being older than 40. In the second case,
Gianni wants to marry one non-specific woman, whatever woman, having the property
of being older than 40. The difference in meaning is obviously connected to the
difference in the mood selection, as discussed in the literature on the topic. Here I will
take for granted the selection issue and consider the temporal interpretation in
particular.
Given the framework above, in indicative clauses the presence of the left-most
complementizer in the C-layer forces the interpretation of the embedded eventuality
with respect to the speaker’s temporal coordinate. Hence, the prediction is that this will
be true also of indicative relative clauses. Conversely, the presence of the subject’s
temporal coordinate is not required in subjunctive contexts – because they are not
complements of attitude predicates – hence, no subject-related temporal interpretation is
predicted to arise (obligatorily) in subjunctive clauses.
32 . In Italian the complementizer cannot be deleted in either case, presumably because it bears the wh-
features of the clause.