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Inflected prepositions in Italian

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 February 2020

Donna Jo Napoli  and
Joel Nevis
Donna Jo Napoli
Affiliation:
Swarthmore College
Joel Nevis
Affiliation:
Ohio State University
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Extract

In Italian certain prepositions (Ps) can appear morphologically combined with articles, inflecting for number and gender. We will dub this the inflected form of the P for the moment, without prejudice as to the analysis of this form:

(1) Sta nella terza camera ‘It's in the third bedroom’ is in/the (fern sg) third bedroom

(2) C' è abbastanza carta sulle scrivanie there is enough paper on/the (fern pi) desks ‘There's enough paper on the desks’

(3) Ci va col vicino there goes with'the (masc sg) neighbour ‘He's going there with his neighbour’

(4) L' ho dato ai ragazzi ‘I gave it to the boys’ it I–have given to/the (masc pi) boys

The inflected form of the P has desinences similar to those found on the articles and the demonstrative adjective quel(lo). These forms are given overleaf in Table I (where only one inflected P is shown, but the forms for the other inflected Ps vary for number and gender in the same way).

Type
Research Article
Information
Phonology , Volume 4 , May 1987 , pp. 195 - 209
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

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Footnotes

*

We thank Marina Nespor, Nigel Vincent, Arnold Zwicky and an anonymous reviewer for numerous criticism of an earlier version of this work, all of which improved it.

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