The Expression of Indefiniteness in the Coneglianese Dialect

Abstract

This work aims to analyse the syntax and semantics of indefinite determiners in the dialects spoken in the Conegliano area. The research stems from the observations and results of the wide variability in the expression of indefiniteness across Italo-Romance varieties (Cardinaletti and Giusti, 2018, 2020, Giusti, 2020). The study was conducted through the submission of an online survey administered on Qualtrics mainly composed by two tests: respectively written in Italian and in the dialectal variety spoken by the author. More specifically, the survey includes a questionnaire of 72 multiple choice items per test where each interviewee is asked to evaluate the acceptability of each determiner in contexts that differs in respect to tense and aspect. Four determiners are taken into consideration, respectively ZERO, ART, di+ART and bare di. At first, a sociolinguistic profile of the participants is requested where it is asked information about gender, age, educational attainment and attitude towards Italian and the dialect spoken in the Conegliano area. The results show that ZERO and ART are the most accepted determiners in both languages to express indefiniteness, however we will see that ZERO is the most chosen one in the dialect, while in Italian ZERO and ART compete closely as the most appropriate form. Surprisingly, few cases of di+ART were registerd carrying small quantity interpretation throughout our corpora, while bare di, even though is not a possible option in the Venetian dialect, was attested as an acceptable response in some situations.