Auxiliary selection in Italian restructuring: An insight into the size of the clause
Irene Amato
May 2023
 

In Standard Italian, restructuring clauses are characterized by apparently optional transparency effects in the choice of the clausal perfect auxiliary. In the perfect periphrasis, the auxiliary associated with the modal verb can be either HAVE or the one corresponding to the lexical verb (BE or HAVE). In this paper, I argue that there is no true optionality: different auxiliaries show up because the modal verb can select complements of different sizes. Assuming that auxiliary selection is a form of person Agree, different complement sizes determine different Agree domains. In particular, the “transparent” auxiliary results from a vP complement, while a TP complement leads to HAVE insertion.
Format: [ pdf ]
Reference: lingbuzz/007883
(please use that when you cite this article)
Published in: Syntax
keywords: agree, auxiliary selection, clitic climbing, restructuring, standard italian, morphology, syntax
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