ConSOLE 31 2023 • Bielefeld University

Influential inflection: testing the role of overt morphology in the distribution of Italian colour adjectives

Tommaso Mattiuzzi, Giacomo Presotto, Viktor Koehlich

Goethe University Frankfurt

mattiuzzi@em.uni-frankfurt.de
Adjective OrderMorphosyntaxItalian Linguistics

Abstract

This study investigates the behaviour of non-inflecting adjectives in Italian, which differ from regular adjectives in lacking gender and number agreement with the noun. We claim that, keeping the semantic interpretation constant, the ability to inflect determines whether an adjective can appear prenominally, with non-inflecting adjectives confined to the postnominal position. Supporting our claim with quantitative data from a 5-point Likert scale acceptability judgement task, we argue that this pattern escapes principled explanations in prominent theories of adjective ordering and highlights the role of Concord in licensing structural configurations.

Access & Citation

Citation Formats

APA Style

Tommaso Mattiuzzi, Giacomo Presotto, Viktor Koehlich (2023). influential inflection: testing the role of overt morphology in the distribution of italian colour adjectives. In Proceedings of ConSOLE 31, edited by Iva Kovač, Paul Meisenbichler, Atefeh Shahbazi, Hadis Tamleh, Maximilian Wiesner, (pp. 109–132).

BibTeX

@inproceedings{mattiuzzi-inflection-2023, title={Influential inflection: testing the role of overt morphology in the distribution of Italian colour adjectives}, author={Tommaso Mattiuzzi and Giacomo Presotto and Viktor Koehlich}, booktitle={Proceedings of ConSOLE 31}, year={2023}, pages={109–132}, editor={Iva Kovač and Paul Meisenbichler and Atefeh Shahbazi and Hadis Tamleh and Maximilian Wiesner} }

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