Volume 78, Issue 1 - Special Issue: Arbëresh: typology, syntax and Romance contact; Guest Editors: Leonardo Maria Savoia and Giuseppina Turano

This article aims to describe the morpho-syntactic properties and the geographical distribution of some aspectual constructs in Italo-Albanian varieties spoken in Southern Italy. Aspectual verb forms in Arbërishtja are different from those present in Balkan Albanian and have been in part connected with Romance influence and contact, hypothetically already before the Italo-Albanian colonies were formed. More precisely, I will deal with the imminential reading assigned to pluperfect and past pluperfect in some Arbëresh varieties and the various periphrases with progressive interpretations present in such dialects. The crucial role of the studies on Italo-Albanian of some authors, such as De Rada, a Calabrian Arbëresh scholar of nineteenth century, and the Albanian intellectual and linguist Martin Camaj is investigated.

Albanian has been studied in the past as part of the Balkan Sprachbund , but also in terms of its affiliation to the language area defined as “Standard Average European” (SAE). The present paper argues in favour of considering the particular role of contact-induced changes in Italo-Albanian varieties and their possible impact on the position of the latter in such typological constructs, especially with regard to its SAE features.

Centuries of language contact with Italo-Romance varieties have strongly affected the Italo-Albanian dialects in many respects. The following study focuses on loan words (MAT loans), on the one hand, with regard to their integration into the Italo-Albanian sound system and, on the other hand, with regard to the morphological integration of verbs into the historically given system. As for the sound level, especially geminates and laterals are prone to deviations from simple phonetic integration, with the laterals being characterised by a considerable interdialectal and intradialectal variation. Moreover, the study shows that the results of the originally phonetic type of integration were dynamised over time when the donor language changed from the local dialect to Italian, thus resulting in a purely analogical way of integrating newer borrowings. Consequently, Italian loanwords, until recently, have continued to be integrated with (assumed) dialectal characteristics, which make it often difficult to assign the borrowings to a specific period. A similar phenomenon is observed with respect to the morphological integration of verbs in some dialects, where the dialectal merger of infinitive classes is transferred to Italian loan verbs. However, the integration of loan verbs follows different regional principles, whereby a group of dialects from southern Apulia via northern Basilicata to Campania is characterised by the preservation of the original integration mechanism based on the shortened infinitive with the ending class in - oɲ.

This work is an attempt to present a description of the verbal system of Arbëresh dialect spoken in Contessa Entellina, in Sicily. It focuses on the various ways in which person, tense, mood and aspect are encoded, on the salient features of the verbal derivation and verbal inflection. Through a description of the various forms, the author shows how a large number of verbs alternate between several stem. This study, that documents an endangered language, may constitute a starting point for further researche into the Arbëresh varieties.

Balkan languages show control (bound reading) of the embedded subject in finite contexts, unlike Romance and English which require a non-finite. These finite clauses are introduced by the so-called subjunctive particle ( prt ), namely tə in Arbëresh ( të in Albanian standard orthography). Finite control of this kind has long been a problem for generative grammar accounts. Many analyses have followed an Anglocentric approach, assimilating finite control contexts to non-finite ones, thus, justifying the existence of PRO for all cases of control. We review some attempts at enforcing PRO structures for Balkan languages as well as some alternatives, and the reasons that militate against them. We focus on the properties of tǝ- sentences and what sort of evidence they provide for a better understanding of control, showing that the two crucial factors are finite inflection and the prt . In this context we consider the implications of the Form Copy (FC) account of control proposed by Chomsky, Noam. 2021. Minimalism: Where are we and where can we hope to go. Gengo Kenkyu 160. 1–41, Chomsky, Noam. 2024. The miracle creed and SMT. In Matteo Greco, Davide Mocci (eds.), A Cartesian Dream. A geometrical account of syntax in honor of A. Moro, 17–40. LingBuzz Press. https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12076/16417 for Balkan finite control, arguing that it offers an alternative that resolves the issue whether finite control involves PRO or pro as the controlled subject.

This article examines the agreement system in DPs in some Arbëresh varieties. As we will see, in DPs, the distribution of the inflectional exponents is asymmetric, in the sense that, while the oblique is generally registered on every element in the DP, nominative and accusative are realized only on D or a modifier in its domain. This asymmetry also affects the expression of gender and number and interacts with the extensive syncretism among the exponents. By comparison, the varieties spoken in Albania realize the exponents of gender/number and case, including the accusative, on all elements within the DP. Our morpho-syntactic analysis assumes that morphemes are endowed with interpretable content and morphology is part of the syntactic computation.

The study aims at showing the multiple and mediating relations of Albanian, as well as the Italo-Albanian Tosk variety, with other languages and cultures of the Balkans and Mediterranean studied in a typical contact-language situation. The contact analysed is lexical, sometimes semantic, and involves Middle Greek, Slav, Iranic sources (principally Persian), Arabic and Turkish elements, alongside the presence of some fairly rare Latin lexemes that appear as Albanian/Arbëresh allvan , kodër , kuvënt , mat , ndregullarënj , shesh , and which are not generally attested in the Romance languages. Limited lexical examples are used in a typical contact-linguistics situation, since most relations occur first within the Byzantine Empire, successively in an Osmanli dominated Turkish Empire. This short study attempts to show that not only Albanian but also Italo-Albanian (Arbëresh) have played, within what André Guillou (1989. L’Italie byzantine. Un modèle culturel de province , 629–639. Rome: Mélanges de l’école française de Rome, tome 101, n. 2: 636) called a “civilisation mixte” situation, a relevant role in both Balkan and Mediterranean language contact and are not mere “receivers”.

The present work is devoted to the complementizer system of three Arbëresh dialects spoken in the province of Crotone, in Calabria. Unlike standard Albanian (to which Arbëresh is genetically related) that has two different complementizers, and unlike Italian (which has been the contact language for more than five centuries) that has only one complementizer, the complementizer system of the Arbëresh dialects considered here has four different lexical items, corresponding to the English ‘that/what’. They have a well-defined distribution. The element se selects declarative/indicative clauses. Sa and ku introduce complements to modal, aspectual, causative and control verbs and select subjunctive clauses. Ç is used to introduce both relative and exclamative sentences. Based on distributional tests in relation to Topic and Focus phrases, and on the interaction of these complementizers with the subjunctive particle të , I argue that these four elements occupy different positions within the CP domain. In particular, modifying Rizzi’s system (1997), who splits the CP field in two different heads, Force and Finiteness, I argue that the CP system of the Arbëresh varieties has four different heads.