The expression of indefiniteness in Italo-Ferrarese bilectal speakers

Abstract

In this study, the expression of indefiniteness in Italo-Ferrarese bilectal speakers is investigated. The research was carried out through an online questionnaire consisting in a battery of socio-demographic questions, a battery of questions adapted from the Bilingual Language Profile scale, and a Forced-Choice task with acceptability judgments. The stimuli checked for the choice of indefinite determiners in object position according to the presence of negation, noun type, event type, and Clitic Left Dislocation. Moreover, we tested specialization of meaning. We show that both Italian and the Ferrarese dialect are provided with three core indefinites: the zero determiner (zero), the definite article (art), and the partitive determiner (di+art). In Italian, we find a higher frequency of zero than di+art, which occasionally specializes for specificity or small quantity. The dialect instead prefers di+art to the zero and rarely realizes the above-mentioned semantic specialization. As for dislocated objects, both languages allow for zero, di+art, and the indefinite operator di to be resumed by the quantitative clitic. However, the dialect prefers di+art, while in Italian, the remaining options are found most often. Finally, the accusative clitic resumes nominal expressions with art in both languages. We further show that language dominance produces substratum interference into Italian or interference of Italian into the dialect. However, interference only involves the use of di+art, and not of zero. We argue in favour of the micro-comparative approach. In fact, the two grammars display points of both divergence and convergence. Nevertheless, the latter process favours the dialectal features over the neo-standard Italian ones