Microvariation and Change in the Romance Left Periphery

Abstract

Despite the vast literature which has accrued on the fine structure of the Romance left periphery, there exists no diachronic account of the emergence of the considerable microvariation between Romance varieties today. Focussing in particular on the syntax of French and Venetan varieties, this article suggests that certain northern Romance varieties have diverged maximally from an Early Medieval Romance norm in which each left-peripheral Head attracts a wide variety of suitable Goals for movement, unlike the ‘innovative’ Romance grammars which emerge in the post-medieval period where the suitable class of Goals becomes restricted along categorial or information-structural grounds. The account predicts that the most ‘conservative’ Modern Romance grammars allow widespread argument fronting via movement, whereas their most ‘innovative’ counterparts show heavy restrictions on such operations.

Revisiting Syntactic Microvariation and Diachrony in the Dual Complementizer Systems of Upper Southern Italy1

“…This is another aspect that deserves further investigation, also in light of more general changes occurring in the Romance left periphery. As argued by Wolfe (2022), movement-especially focus movement-to the left periphery has become more restricted in some modern Romance varieties in the transition from medieval Romance.…”