Topics in Morphosyntax: Structures and Strategies.

The course will address topics in morphosyntax with special emphasis on the syntax-discourse interface; it will follow the guidelines of the cartographic projects in combination with minimalist assumptions. Its empirical focus  will mainly consider Romance languages in a comparative perspective, also taking into close consideration data coming from different sources ranging from grammaticality judgments to spontaneous and elicited productions under experimental conditions, both in adults and children, in normal and atypical development. The topics that will be addressed in close detail include: the nature of clefts, their structures and derivations, their informational value in relation with the low vP-periphery of the clause and the high left periphery; the strategies at play in the interpretation of personal pronouns, crucially involving the clausal  edge; the analysis of passive sentences in a smuggling type approach; relative clauses and the asymmetries in subject vs object relatives and locality issues in the derivations implied.