Italian Factive islands are not 'that weak' : New evidence from the factive/bridge distinction
Carella, Giorgio (University of Roma Tre)
Frascarelli, Mara (Roma Tre University)
Casentini, Marco (Università Ca' Foscari Venezia)

Date:	2023
Abstract:	Long-distance dependencies are a major property of human language, deriving from the successive application of movement operations across sentences. Nevertheless, this possibility seems to be restricted by the presence of barriers, which 'trap' constituents in more or less 'resistant' syntactic islands. Given this scenario, this paper paper investigates a specific type of island, namely factive complements, which are traditionally considered 'weak' islands. The main goal is thus to verify the status of factive islands in Italian, based on original experimental data. Moreover, since island effects have been generally tested against wh-extractions, a secondary goal of the present study is to verify whether other types of A'-movement, such as Focus fronting, can be restricted by island effects as well. The results obtained from two experimental tests, carried out with the collaboration of a total of 310 informants, provide evidence that Italian factive islands seem to lie somewhere between strong and weak islands, qualifying as a sort of 'intermediate' island. Indeed, direct objects appear to be less constrained than subjects, indirect objects and adjuncts. Furthermore, the extraction of a Focus constituent from a factive complement lowers the acceptability of the sentence, thus indicating that (factive) islands are indeed sensible to Focus fronting.
Note:	Acknowledgments. We would also like to thank Valentina Bianchi, for her crucial criticism on a previous version of this work.
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Factive Islands ; Focus Fronting ; A'- movement ; Long-distance dependencies ; Movement constraints
Published in:	Isogloss, Vol. 9 Núm. 4 (2023) , p. 1-30 (Articles) , ISSN 2385-4138

Adreça original: https://revistes.uab.cat/isogloss/article/view/v9-n4-carella-frascarelli-casentini
Adreça alternativa: https://raco.cat/index.php/isogloss/article/view/v9-n4-carella-frascarelli-casentini
DOI: 10.5565/rev/isogloss.321

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