The position of adjective in Latin and Italian

A Split-DP Hypothesis for Latin and Italo-Romance. The idea is that, not only does Latin have a DP
structure although not featuring a definite article, but the freedom in word order of Latin can be
assumed because the structure of the DP in Latin is more split, more of a left periphery than
Italian. There is a large debate on whether languages with no articles and with free word order are
CONFIGURATIONAL = have syntactic structure or not.
The order is so free in languages such as Latin, that we can find pieces of a nominal constituents
displaced in the sentence( discontinuous consitutents). Another property is that they have NO
pronouns (no direct/indirect object). So all these features (the list) have allowed to state that
these languages are DISCOURSE CONFIGURATIONAL = they do not have the subject position
namely the TP, but they have just FOCUS AND TOPIC projections while the TP is flat, it does not
merge the arguments.
another hypothesis is by Boskovic who said that these languages do not have functional heads
(structural defective). They mainly merge lexical heads.

The change between Latin and all Romance languages has implied the development of a
hierarchical structure.
The issue here is that having less rich morphology (romance) we need to projects more structures.
What we want to claim is that: Latin is as configurational as Romance
-same hierarchy of inflectional features
-same ….. of modification = order of adjectives and modifiers of the noun is not that free as it may
be suggested

In Latin the features are realised as BOUND/inflectional morphemes while in Romance as free
morphemes. Another difference is the agreement/concord of possessives (gender/number/case).

Parameter Change

In Romance case does exist but IT IS NOT OVERT ON THE NOUN.

Structure of the talk

How the talk was delivered (scaletta)

Section 1

Noun is the lexical part, while gender, number, reference and case are features in a hierarchy.
Reference (is the DP?). Case is targeted from the external part of the structure, that’s why is the
top-most element.
How are these features realised in Latin?

PUELLA = all the features are bundled in one word; while in Western Romance there is a
definite/indefinite article.Gender and number are bundled with the noun, reference is bundled
with non-over case. What is interesting is that gender and number are redundantly bundled with
the article.

Hierarchical Layers of Adjectival Modification

Possessive AdJ in Latin are similar to Italian, they concord in gender and number with the noun
and they end up very high. Quantity adj. are similar, they concord in Italian. Descriptive adj, which
concord for gender and number.

Latin is a corpus language, we do not have native speakers. However, we have a quite big corpus
of examples. Despite adjectives are not obligatory, in fact we have lots of NPs without any
adjectives and rarely do we have adjectives that co-occur with one another, Rossella Iovino did a
detailed work on adjectival order (the one on the previous slide).
The difference between Latin and Italian is that in italian, relational adj. CANNOT BE PRENOMINAL

*forensi arti
arti forensi

They must be POSTNOMINAL; the noun can be in the middle position in Latin and must be at least
in the middle position in Italian.

Situazione familiare (postnominal)

*familiare situazione

The noun can be in the middle-high position in Latin (vocabuluum..), where the descriptive
adjectives precedes the relational adjectives. So we can assume that N has moved 2 steps.

1’) la parola antica greca (greco is more interpeted as a descriptive adj here)

We can move the subconstituent block N + relational adj to the left. (mirror order = subconstituent
movement)

Low position

My forensic arts
Meae forenses artes

Latin has exactly the same order as English, the noun merges with the Rel adj. and stay in place.
However the noun could move to the left, so we would have

Suam rem familiarem

The block of N+ relational can move to the left of the descriptive adj, but it could also move the
noun on its own to the left of a descriptive adj. (vocabuluum anticum grecum) and eventually to
the left of a quantity adj and even higher than the possessive adj.

Let’s now see what happens in Italian.

The noun always appears on the left of the Rel. adj, unless it is emphatic/old Italian. Realtional adj,
preceding descriptive when we have 2 adjectives. We cannot have very high position of N. N can
move up to a certain position but not too far.

Old Italian
The N can also be realised in the lowest position, at the right of the relational adj.

Il mio mortale nemico

Mortale nemico is also possible in modern Italian because It is a collocation.

Uno cavallo suo morello (would be agrammaticla in. Modern Italian)

Let’s observe the left periphery in Latin. (higher than the DP)

In order to mark the left periphery we take NP with a demonstrative, because we know that the
demonstrative is the highest modifier. It is usually higher than all adjectives, but if the adjectives is
focalized we can have it at the left of the demonstrative.

Vetere moves to the left of ILLA (this is a marked order); only one adjective can precede the
demonstrative. This strongly support the idea according to which this is the same hierarchy we
find in Italian and that the marked order is due to the movement of the adjective.

Left Periphery in Old Italian

Col suo corno dritto.

Col DRITTO suo corno (focused)

This focused element is parallel to Latin apart from the fact that in old Italian we have an article
and the latter is higher than the dislocated element.

DISCONTINUOUS CONSTITUENTS

Discontinuous constituents can be due to the fact that in Latin the left periphery is not embedded
under the DP, but it is available for further movement outside the nominal environment; while in
Old and Modern Italian, which have both developed an overt DP, this D is higher than the left
periphery, so the left periphery is available but the movement of constituents is kept inside the
nominal expression.

Let’s have a look at some discontinuous constituents in Latin within the nominal domain:

Tempus = nominal, neuter, singular.

Huius is gentive; the demonstrative modifies the genitive (querellae) but it precedes the noun that
selects querelae. The proposal is that huius has moved from the left periphery of the embedded
DP to the left periphery of the Nominative DP. This is not possible in Italia; in Italian we have to
keep “this” in the prenominal position of lamentela and we cannot move it out.

Another example is when the element is moved out of its GENITIVE phrase and also out of the left
periphery of the DP that embeds it into the verbal constituent, probably in the left periphery of
the clause.
This is case of PRISTINAE at the beginning of a clause, then we have an infinitival verb “residere”
which is embedded in a finite verb “seem”. So what is the subject of residere? = “the memory of
the virtue”, but the adjective” old” modifies virtue.
Conclusionnsssss