Optionality in the Expression of Indefiniteness: A Pilot Study on Piacentine

Abstract

Optionality is an issue within the minimalist theory of language, in which the principle of the “last resort” does not admit competing options to express the same meaning. What is needed is a solid empirical base showing that apparently competing forms do specialize for some syntactic/semantic traits. Hence, the aim of this pilot study is to investigate optionality in the choice of competing indefinite determiners in Piacentine, an Italo-Romance variety spoken in north-western Italy. Sixteen native Piacentine speakers were presented with a questionnaire to collect linguistic data. Statistical analyses of the data were performed to seek correlations between the choice of the indefinite determiners and some syntactic/semantic traits that were controlled for. The results indicate that Piacentine displays four main determiners, labeled ART, di+art, bare di, and ZERO. ART and di+art are the most widespread determiners allowing both narrow and wide scope and occurring in all the investigated contexts. Bare di is instead the unmarked form for expressing non-existential indefiniteness in negative contexts and only has narrow scope. ZERO co-varies with bare di, and its use was strengthened by contact with Italian, preventing its loss, differently from French, which lost ZERO instead.

1. Introduction

This paper presents the first pilot study which deeply investigates how indefiniteness is syntactically expressed in a north-western Italo-Romance variety spoken in the province of Piacenza, Emilia-Romagna (Italy).1 The aim is twofold: (i) filling a gap in the literature, which lacks fine-grained analyses of the determiner system in specific varieties spoken on the Italian peninsula, and (ii) contributing to the understanding of variation and optionality in language. This study is rooted in a recent line of inquiry (cf. Cardinaletti and Giusti 2018, 2020) aiming at investigating variation and optionality in the expression of indefiniteness in Italian and Italo-Romance.

Before turning to the implementation of the research, the key concepts of variation and optionality (cf. Section 1.1), and expression of indefiniteness (Section 1.2) will be briefly defined to better highlight the contribution of the present study (Section 1.3).

The rest of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2 describes materials and methods of the research. Section 3 shows the results of data analysis. Section 4 discusses and interprets the results, highlighting the important findings. Section 5 concludes the paper.

1.1. Variation and Optionality in Syntax

Variation is an intrinsic dimension of natural languages. Berruto (2010, p. 226), Chambers (1995, pp. 206–53) states that “variation permeates all languages, has a socio-cultural as well as a biological foundation and shows itself in multifarious manners with an adaptive significance.” Variation comes in different forms depending on the external factors it is influenced by space (diatopic variation), time (diachronic variation), social status (diastratic variation), channel (diamestic variation), and communicative situation (diaphasic variation).

Space is particularly relevant when it comes to the Italian linguistic situation (Berruto 2010 apud Berruto 1989). There is in fact a great number of Italo-Romance varieties (commonly defined dialects) spoken on the territory of the peninsula.2 This traces back to the pre-Latin inhabitants of the territory, who transferred to Latin the features typical of their own languages after the Roman occupation (cf. Loporcaro 2009, p. 34). This transfer was induced by language contact. The contact gives rise to variability, which may (but must not) induce language change (cf. Poplack and Levey 2010). This perfectly fits for the Italian peninsula, whose linguistic diversity is a fertile ground for studying optionality.

The phenomenon of optionality in syntax can be defined as “the coexistence within an individual grammar of two or more variants of a given construction, which: (1) make use of the same lexical resources; and (2) express the same meaning” (Sorace 2000, p. 93). A typical example is the optionality of complementizer drop in English in a sentence such as I think (that) John is a fool (Müller 2003, p. 289).

Optionality is tolerated in transformational grammars of the 1960s and in Chomsky’s (1981) Government and Binding framework, as it arose from an optional application of the transformations taking place in syntax (cf. Müller 2003). However, with the Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1995), optionality becomes a challenge for a theory in which syntactic operations (Merge) are seen as a “last resort”, i.e., they only apply if strictly necessary. As soon as these operations are optional, they are no longer a “last resort”. This leads to the problem that, if several forms qualify as optimal, the question arises as to which one of them is to be chosen.

Various solutions have been proposed to tackle this issue. Some of them place the locus of optionality external to the grammar, such as the coexistence of multiple independent grammars in the same speaker (cf. Kroch 1989). Others view optionality as rooted in the grammar itself, as in the case for freely ranked constraints of grammar (Optimality Theory, cf. Müller 2003 apud Prince and Smolensky 1993), equally costly derivations (cf. Biberauer and Richards 2006), structures differing in a minimal specification of uninterpretable features (cf. Adger 2006, 2016) or probabilities built into the linguistic system giving rise to variants as probabilistic outcomes (cf. Labov 1969, 1972).

The above-mentioned theories crucially do not deal with the optionality found inside the determiner system, which is widespread in the Romance panorama (cf. Giusti 2021) and therefore requires our attention. The Italo-Romance ground is particularly fertile for the study of optionality given the presence of several determiners which can be used to express indefiniteness in (apparent) free co-variation. Moreover, this language family has thus far received little attention concerning this aspect.

The present research fills this gap, investigating the indefinite determiners and optionality in their choice in a particular Italo-Romance variety spoken in the province of Piacenza.

1.2. The Expression of Indefiniteness

Indefiniteness refers to a broad and many-sided phenomenon, which interfaces with semantics, syntax, and pragmatics. It forms a dichotomy with its positive counterpart, i.e., definiteness. Several proposals try to define the opposing definite vs. indefinite, respectively, in terms of uniqueness vs. non-uniqueness (e.g., Russell 1905), familiarity vs. novelty (e.g., Heim 1982), and specificity vs. non-specificity (e.g., Fodor and Sag 1982).

Here, a more syntax-oriented definition has been adopted, treating indefinites as those “determiner phrases (DPs) […] headed by […] an indefinite D(determiner)” (Brasoveanu and Farkas 2016, p. 238). Indefinites introduce some entity in the discourse and present it as new, in contrast to definites which refer to familiar entities (cf. Heim 1982). The contrast between indefinites and definites is provided in (1a) vs. (1b), respectively.

(1)	a.	Mary visited a garden, some garden(s), some of the gardens, a certain garden.
	b.	Maurice visited the/this garden, these gardens/the capital of Albania/the largest museum in the world. (Brasoveanu and Farkas 2016, p. 238)

Since expression of indefiniteness is a broad term, this study makes use of it by narrowing its semantics to the subset of indefinites, which are the object of the present investigation. In what follows, expression of indefiniteness will be referred to as the strategies used to introduce uncontroversial indefinites (cf. Brasoveanu and Farkas 2016). An unmarked indefinite is ”existential and its referent is not uniquely identifiable” (Brasoveanu and Farkas 2016, p. 239). An example is given in (2).

(2)

Muriel visited gardens when she traveled to France this summer. (Brasoveanu and Farkas 2016, p. 239)

1.3. Variation in the Italian and Italo-Romance Determiner System

The Italian and Italo-Romance panorama is a flourishing field for studying the expression of indefiniteness given the amount of available indefinite determiners (cf. Cardinaletti and Giusti 2018), which prima facie seem to occur in free co-variation. The main determiners are:

• The zero determiner introducing bare nominals, henceforth labeled “ZERO” (cf. (3a)).3
• The definite article with indefinite interpretation, henceforth “ART” (cf. (3b)).
• The simple di determiner, homophonous to the genitive preposition, referred to as “bare di”, common in certain north-western Italo-Romance varieties (cf. (3c)) and only appearing on dislocated indefinites in standard Italian (cf. (3c’)).
• The partitive determiner, which displays a superficial syncretism with the articulated preposition introducing partitive constructions. This determiner combines di with the morphology of the definite article. It will be labeled “di+art” (cf. (3d)).
• The determiner-like certo “certain”, which is used as an indefinite determiner only in some southern varieties (Rohlfs 1968, p. 119) (cf. (3e)). In standard Italian, it only conveys a specific reference (cf. (3e’)).

(3)	a.	Mangio	Ø		biscotti
		I-eat	ZERO		biscuits
	b.	Mangio	i	biscuits
		I-eat	ART	biscuits
		“I eat biscuits.”
	c.	sei	fyse	d’	aqua
		if-there	was	di	water
		“If there was water.”			(Piedmontese; Berruto 1974, p. 57)
	c’	Di	biscotti,	ne	mangio
		di	biscuits	NE	I-eat
		“Of biscuits, I eat.”
	d.	Mangio	dei	biscotti.
		I-eat	di+art	biscuits
		“I eat some biscuits.”
	e.	cǝ	šta	cirta	pǝrzonǝ
		there	is	certo	people
		“There are some people.”			(Abruzzese; Rohlfs 1968, p. 119)
	e’.	Mangio	solo	certi	biscotti
		I-eat	only	certo	biscuits
		“I only eat certain (kinds of) biscuits.”

Other indefinite determiners are found along with the forms presented above: quantifiers such as alcuni “some”, molti “a lot”, and pochi “a few”, and the indefinite article un(o)/a “a/one”.4 Since the indefinite article is restricted to singular NPs,5 and quantifiers belong to a separate syntactic category external to the nominal expression (cf. the QP-Hypothesis, Cardinaletti and Giusti 1990), only the determiners in (3) are relevant for the research presented below.

1.4. True Optionality in Italian?

The amount of different indefinite determiners serving the same function and occurring in (apparent) free co-variation would give rise to optionality, which is not permitted in recent theories of language (cf. Section 1.2).

This issue has given rise to a recent line of research, started by Cardinaletti and Giusti (2018). The authors individuate some clear tendencies in the use of the indefinite determiners across Italy, due to the analysis of AIS maps.6 The analysis of the map 1037 “If there was water” (conveying a core existential indefiniteness) allows for the individuation of a clear pattern: in central Italy, the use of ART is predominant. This tendency spreads north- and southwards; however, coming up to the extreme areas (extreme north and extreme south, including Sicily and Sardinia), a prevalent use of ZERO is found instead.7 The extreme north-western territory bordering with France displays a great use of bare di.8 The tendency towards a greater use of bare di and ART overlap in the area roughly corresponding to Emilia-Romagna: here, the two determiners “merge”, giving rise to a widespread use of di+art.9

Analyzing other AIS maps, Cardinaletti and Giusti (2018) note that some determiners specialize semantically: ART are preferred in salient contexts (map 1343 “(go to the cellar) to take wine”), while di+art conveys small quantity interpretation (map 637, “(to go and look for) violets”). They may specialize for other traits in specific varieties. In the dialect of Ancona, ART and di+art operate a division of labors, the former specializing for narrow scope and the latter for wide scope (cf. Cardinaletti and Giusti 2018, p. 152).

An analysis based exclusively on the AIS maps would be incomplete, as they only provide narrow scope contexts, rarely reporting more than one form and depict the linguistic situation at the beginning of the last century. Furthermore, they leave open the question of the situation in the national language. Cardinaletti and Giusti (2020) provide an answer to the last issue, discussing the results of a pilot study conducted on informal Italian. The data were collected via an online questionnaire submitted to native speakers of Italian from all the areas of the peninsula. Their questionnaire investigated some important traits, which were individuated by Cardinaletti and Giusti (2018) as relevant for the choice of the indefinite determiner, namely:

• Noun class: mass nouns vs. plural count nouns.
• Polarity: negative vs. positive sentences.
• Sentential aspect: telic vs. atelic sentences.
• Sentence type: episodic vs. generic.
• Scope of the indefinite: wide vs. narrow.
• Meaning specialization: saliency vs. small quantity.

The results of their study suggest some optionality in the use of ZERO and ART across the whole peninsula. ZERO occurs more frequently than ART, especially in those lateral areas (Sicily and the north-east) in which the local varieties use ZERO as the unmarked form for core indefiniteness (cf. Cardinaletti and Giusti 2020, p. 709). Moreover, the results confirm the authors’ previous predictions that ART tends to specialize for saliency contexts, while di+art conveys small quantity interpretation. The latter determiner in informal Italian seems to be restricted to positive episodic sentences, and its occurrence is greater in Emilia-Romagna,10 even though it does not seem to be the unmarked form.

1.5. Aim and Research Questions

The present study is the first research focusing on the determiner system in the variety spoken in the province of Piacenza (henceforth Piacentine).11 Piacenza is the main town in the west-most province of Emilia-Romagna, in the north-western part of Italy. This area is particularly interesting as it is the crossroad in which the tendencies of di and ART merge together, giving rise to a predominant use of di+art (cf. Section 1.4).

The research questions leading this pilot study are formulated in (4).

(4)

Research questions for the study on Piacentine:

• How many and which indefinite determiners are available in Piacentine?
• If more than one indefinite determiner is available (as expected), is there optionality in the choice of competing forms?
• If pure optionality is excluded, what are the features they specialize for?
• Are there any observable patterns that may be reduced to contact with Italian?12

Since the availability of multiple determiners is expected, the working hypotheses may be formulated for questions (4b) and (4c), which will be answered by the statistical analysis of the data. The hypotheses are as follows:

• Null hypothesis: determiners freely co-vary with one another. There is optionality in the expression of indefiniteness.
• Alternative hypothesis: different determiners cannot freely co-vary with one another. Optionality is only apparent, and the occurrence of a given form may be predicted to a certain extent by the syntactic environment and/or the semantic traits of the sentence.

The question in (4d) cannot be answered quantitatively as the present research focused only on Piacentine. However, the observation of the results allows to identify some relevant tendencies.

The research questions in (4) will be answered by an adaptation to Piacentine of Cardinaletti and Giusti’s (2020) questionnaire in informal Italian. This favors the transparency in research and the comparability of the results. Due to the comparability, it will be possible to verify whether the tendencies found in Italian hold for this Italo-Romance variety as well.

The outcomes of this research show that:

• In Piacentine, the main four determiners presented in (3a–d) are available, but pure optionality in their choice is excluded, as there seems to be a divide between two pairs of determiners: ART and di+art vs. ZERO and bare di.
• ART and di+art are the dominant forms, found in all the investigated contexts. They are the only forms available in wide scope contexts. Bare di is the unmarked form for non-existential indefiniteness (in negative sentences), and together with ZERO specializes for narrow scope.
• The use of ZERO in Piacentine was strengthened by contact with Italian, preventing its loss (as happened in French).

This would pave the way for a more fine-grained investigation on the issue of indefiniteness and optionality in other varieties spoken alongside the peninsula. In fact, the present work shows that fine-grained research on local varieties may lead to relevant findings. In a comparative perspective, this analysis may provide some insight into the analysis of Italian and French indefinites, as the latter language shares with Piacentine the generalized use of di+art and the use of bare di (cf. fn.6).

2. Materials and Methods

The fieldwork was conducted by the author (a native speaker of Piacentine) in February 2018. The data were collected in Lugagnano Val d’Arda, about 35 km from Piacenza,13 on the northern slope of the Ligurian Apennine.

This section describes materials (Section 2.1), methods of submission (Section 2.2), and participants (Section 2.3).

2.1. Materials

The data were collected via a written questionnaire patterned after the one used by Cardinaletti and Giusti (2020) in their pilot study on informal Italian. This guarantees a maximal comparability of the results, facilitating the identification of possible overlapping tendencies in the use of indefinite determiners in Italian and in Piacentine. This also facilitates the individuation of influences due to the contact between the standard language and the local variety.

The questionnaire investigates the availability in Piacentine of the indefinite determiners listed in (3): ZERO, ART, bare di, di+art, and certo (used as a control item, as indefinite certo is not attested in northern Italo-Romance varieties).14 Moreover, these are combined with the relevant syntactic traits given in (5) partially explored in Cardinaletti and Giusti’s (2020) and fully discussed in Giusti (2021).

(5)

Traits investigated in the research on Piacentine15:

• Noun class: singular mass vs. plural count nouns.
• Sentence type: episodic sentences (featuring past tense) vs. generic sentences (featuring present tense).
• Polarity: negative vs. positive sentences.
• Aspect: telic vs. atelic predicates.
• Scope of the indefinite: narrow vs. wide.
• Semantic specialization: saliency vs. small interpretation.

The questionnaire contains 24 items, divided as follows:

• 13 items consisting of forced-multiple choice tasks.16 The choice is not limited to one variant, but the informants could select all the sentences they deem correct (including the selection of none of the variants). The items are structured as follows: a context sentence provides the participants with a background as a base for their judgment. For each introductory sentence, there are 5 possible alternatives. The 5 possible options consist of the same sentence, in which only the indefinite determiner is changed. An example is given in (6).17

(6)	In t’al to dialët, un astemi dirisal:
	“In your dialect, a teetotaler would say”:
	a.	A bev	mia	Ø	vein
		I-drink	not	ZERO	wine
	b.	A bev	mia	al	vein
		I-drink	not	ART	wine
	c.	A bev	mia	ad	vein
		I-drink	not	di	vein
	d.	A bev	mia	dal	vein
		I-drink	not	di+art	wine
	e.	A bev	mia	sèrt	vein
		I-drink	not	certo	wine
		“I don’t drink wine.”

• Two forced-multiple choice tasks, which require the informant to choose among four possible sentences (each containing a different indefinite determiner, excluding certo). These are pragmatically coherent variant sentences, structured with a causative subordinate clause or with a coordination. An example is given in (7).

(7)

Lesa ogni ragion fein in fonda e signa cu ch’è scrit ma ‘t diris.

“Read each sentence entirely and check those that are written as you would say them”:

a.	A disnè	incӧ	ho	mia	buì	Ø	acqua
	at-lunch	today	I-have	not	drank	ZERO	water
	parché	la sèva	ad	candegina
	because	it-tasted	of	chlorine
b.	A disnè	incӧ	ho	mia	buì	l’	acqua
	at-lunch	today	I-have	not	drank	ART	water
	parché	la sèva	ad	candegina
	because	it-tasted	of	chlorine
c.	A disnè	incӧ	ho	mia	buì	d’	acqua
	at-lunch	today	I-have	not	drank	di	water
	parché	la sèva	ad	candegina
	because	it-tasted	of	chlorine
d.	A disnè	incӧ	ho	mia	buì	dl’	acqua
	at-lunch	today	I-have	not	drank	di	water
	parché	la sèva	ad	candegina.
	because	it-tasted	of	chlorine
	“Today, at lunch, I didn’t drink water because it tasted like chlorine.”

• Six open comments referred to some of the multiple-choice tasks. The comments are relative to possible differences in the meaning and the interpretation of competing options in case the informant chose more than one. An example of this task is reported in (8).

(8)

Sa t’è sarnì püsè ‘d ‘na risposta in (X), at sa ‘d vis c’ag sia ‘na difareinsa ad cu ch’i vӧn dì tra vüna e l’ètra? Pӧt aspieghè quèl ela?

“If you chose more than one answer in (X), do you think there is a difference in meaning among them? Could you explain it?”

• Three concluding questions on the linguistic attitude of the participants. These ask about the confidence in their judgments, their linguistic attitude, and the personal appreciation of the task they had to fulfill. The first of these questions is reported here in (9) as an example.

(9)

A pinsè a la manera ca t’è cumpilè ‘l dumandi, cus dirisat?

“Thinking about the way you answered the questions, what would you say?”

• Ho sempar sarnì sicür/sicüra, sensa aveg di dübi,
  “I have always been sure, without having doubts”;
• G’ho avì di dübi, ma ad solit s’era sicür/sicüra ca, “l me risposti i fisan giüsti”
  “I had some doubts, but generally I was sure that my answers were correct”;
• Specialment par sèrti dmandi sum mia sicür/sicüra d’avé dat la risposta giüsta,
  “Especially for some questions I am not sure I gave the right answer”.

• The questionnaire concludes with the request of the consensus to use the data (cf. the statements in Supplementary Materials).

2.2. Method of Submission

The questionnaire was submitted orally to the native Italian-Piacentine speakers who agreed to participate in the research. The face-to-face submission of all the questionnaires was adopted to improve their accessibility to elder people who do not have familiarity with electronic devices. The accessibility of the questionnaire to all age groups is an important element, as it allows to verify the existence of possible changes and tendencies, which are developing in the speech of younger generations.

To allow for a more convenient and effective form of data collection, the questionnaire was printed on paper. The interview was conducted at the informant’s place to guarantee a comfortable, relaxed, and quiet setting. In this way, the potential stress from the completion of the task was counterbalanced by the familiar environment.

Before turning to the questionnaire, the interviewer had a brief conversation with the informant to collect some information about their sociolinguistic background (cf. Section 2.3.1). The interviewer then explained to the participant the task they had to fulfill, focusing on a few core points including:

• The request of talking in Piacentine during the entire task to avoid interferences from Italian.
• The fact that the questionnaire was not a test (pointing out that there were no wrong or right answers), but only a tool to gain linguistic data thanks to the native competence of the participant.
• The fact that participants could choose all and only the possible variants they deemed correct, but they could also reject all of them.
• The possibility of asking the interviewer to repeat a sentence if it was not understood, as well as looking at the printed version of the questionnaire if something was unclear.

This introduction was conducted entirely in Piacentine to avoid interferences from Italian, which may have biased the results. The introductory part was needed to enhance the speakers’ awareness of their own linguistic competence, leading them to think more deeply about their own ability of providing such grammaticality judgments. This aimed at preventing superficial answers (due to tiredness or boredom) and stimulating an active engagement in the task.

During the completion of the task, the interviewer read each context, followed by all the offered answers. In this case, the interviewees had to pronounce each possible variant they deemed grammatical in that particular context. The answers were immediately checked directly on the questionnaire sheet. In the case of the open questions, if the participants came out with some possible difference among competing forms (this happened quite rarely), the interviewer took notes directly on the back side of the questionnaire sheet.

Each submission was conducted individually, without posing any time limitation. On average, the task took about 30 min to be completed.

2.3. Participants

The participants were selected in order to represent a homogeneous linguistic background. A total of 16 native speakers of both Italian and Piacentine were recruited through snowballing sampling (cf. Buchstaller and Khattab 2013), i.e., asking the participants to recruit other participants among their acquaintances. All of them have grown up in a context in which they were exposed to both standard Italian and the Piacentine variety since birth. Moreover, 15 of them have spent the great majority of their lives in Lugagnano, the place in which the data were collected (one informant was born and raised in Piacenza). For the present study, the main sociolinguistic factor that was controlled for was age. Other factors, such as gender and level of education, were also considered, but could not be computed statistically as they were not balanced in the sample. Each of these factors was assigned a label. The division of the original sample with respect to the relevant sociolinguistic aspects was as follows:

• Gender:

  ○

  M (male): 6 subjects.

  ○

  F (female): 10 subjects.18

• Age (in number of years):

  ○

  A (range up to 30): 5 subjects.

  ○

  B (range 31–60): 6 subjects.

  ○

  C (range above 61): 5 subjects.

• Level of education:

  ○

  E (elementary school): 3 subjects.

  ○

  M (middle school): 1 subject.

  ○

  S (high school): 9 subjects.

  ○

  U (university): 3 subjects.

The informants’ identity was pseudo-anonymized, assigning each of them a number progressing from 1 to 16.

2.3.1. Use of Piacentine

As emerged during the pre-submission conversations, there is a tendency in the group of older people to prevalently use Piacentine as the dominant language in everyday life situations. These are not limited to the context of intimate relationships (mainly family and friends) but are found in every-day interaction, e.g., when doing shopping or in public services (at the post office or bank). The environment of the small town positively skews this tendency, favoring informal relations even in “formal situations” as people get to know each other more closely.

In the younger generation the tendency towards a dominant use of Piacentine is being lost, as regional (and standard) Italian is penetrating all aspects of life (family relations, educational contexts, and informal public relations). This goes hand in hand with a growing common perception that the local variety is used by uneducated people, as confirmed by younger informants. Respondents also stated that Piacentine is mainly used in the relations with the peers to express emotionally charged contents, e.g., to accentuate anger or highlight the irony of what is being told.

The generation that lies between these two opposite poles displays a sort of diglossia: in informal interactions (as often happens at work), standard Italian is preferred; in intimate relations, Piacentine is the dominant language.

2.3.2. Inter-Subject Agreement

Before proceeding to the analysis of the answers, a check of the participants’ reliability was conducted using Krippendorff’s alpha (α), defined as “a reliability coefficient developed to measure the agreement among observers, coders, judges, raters, or measuring instruments drawing distinctions among typically unstructured phenomena or assign computable values to them.” (Krippendorff 2011, p. 1).19 This test was run on the pool of participants. It was implemented in R (R Core Team 2020), a free software used for statistical computing.The result of Krippendorff’s α is reported in Figure 1. The threshold fixed in the study as indicator of low agreement is α < 0.30. Subjects displaying a lower α were then fended off the pool.

Figure 1 highlights that Subject 12 displays a very low agreement with all the other participants, as the relative values of α are lower than (or equal to) 0.30 in all the cells. For this reason, Subject 12 was excluded from the pool and his/her answers were not considered in the statistical computation of the data.

Subject 1 also displays a suspicious pattern, with α < 0.30 in relation to other six participants (considering the exclusion of Subject 12). Nevertheless, since this informant agrees with more than half of the remaining participants, Subject 1 was not excluded.

The remaining sample after the exclusion of Subject 12 is represented in

Table 1. Pool of informants after the exclusion of Subject 12.

Total Age			Total Gender		Total Education
A	B	C	M	F	E	M	S	U
5	5	5	6	9	3	1	8	3

.

2.4. Data Analysis

The collected data were reported and categorized in an Excel sheet used to feed R, which can easily operate on datasets built in files with the extension “.xlsx”. The Excel file was organized as follows:20

-

Each column contained a relevant variable (subject number, item question, relevant syntactic trait, answer, etc.).

-

Each row encoded all the relevant information concerning one single sentence among those that could be chosen by the participants (e.g., (6a–e)). The (un)acceptability of a given sentence could assume the values ”0” or “1”. “1” represented the case in which a particular sentence among the other options was chosen (i.e., that option is grammatical); the options which were not selected were instead considered ungrammatical and were assigned “0”.21

In the analysis presented below, the acceptability of each indefinite determiner was assumed as the dependent variable.

The aim was to find whether the acceptability of a given determiner varied with respect to the syntactic traits in (5). This was achieved by running Pearson’s chi-squared test (χ²).22 When a variable presented more than two levels (e.g., the variable “age” has three levels: A, B, and C, cf. (3.3)), the Pairwise comparison of proportion test was used. It allows to compare all the pairs of level of a given variable in order to highlight possible statistically significant difference between them.

Each statistical analysis inevitably implies some limitations. The limits are linked to the problem of multiple comparisons, which causes a higher rate of uncertainty (cf. Winter 2019). For this reason, the data need to be considered with caution.

3. Results

This section presents the results of the statistical computing applied to the collected data, considering the acceptability of the indefinite determiners in relation with each syntactic trait.

3.1. Overall Acceptability of the Indefinite Determiners

Before getting to the interaction between the dependent variable and the independent variables, an analysis of the overall acceptability of the determiners was carried out to verify the existence of significant differences which may have arisen among different indefinites with respect to the rate of their overall acceptability by the speakers.

The χ² test revealed some significant differences among the determiners under investigation (χ² = 337.43, df = 4, p < 0.01). Thus, the Pairwise comparison of proportion was applied to each pair of determiners to reveal where exactly the difference reached statistical significance. The results show that certo is significantly different from ZERO (p < 0.001), ART (p < 0.001), bare di (p < 0.001), and di+art (p < 0.001). Furthermore, another significant difference was found between ZERO and ART (p < 0.001) and ZERO and di+art (p < 0.001), but not between ZERO and bare di (p = 0.86). In turn, bare di significantly differs from ART (p < 0.001) and di+art (p < 0.001). The rate of acceptability for ART and di+art, instead, does not differ significantly (p = 0.11). The bar plot in Figure 2 graphically represents the overall (un)acceptability rate of all the considered indefinite determiners.

The results clearly indicate how the proportion of unacceptability of certo sharply outnumbers that of its acceptability. This is in line with the expectation that certo is not available as an indefinite determiner in the northern varieties. The remaining determiners seem to form two pairs: ZERO and bare di on the one hand, and ART and di+art on the other. The former pair seems to be restricted, while the latter scores the highest acceptability rates.

3.2. Acceptability in Age Groups

The subjects participating in the submission of the questionnaire were evenly distributed for age groups: after the elimination of Subject 12 (cf. Section 2.3.2), each group comprised five informants. The age group was used as a variable to reveal possible differences in the rate of acceptance of different determiners. The χ² test revealed that the difference between age group and acceptability for the indefinite determiners is not statistically significant (χ² = 4.8132, df = 2, p = 0.090), even though it suggests an interesting tendency23 (cf. Figure 3). Groups A and B have a slightly higher acceptance rate than group C.

The older generation tends to be more conservative, possibly preserving a stricter norm in the use of Piacentine as they use it as their prevalently dominant language. This is, however, just a tendency. The Pairwise comparison of proportion did not reveal any significant difference between age groups: A vs. B (p = 0.73), A vs. C (p = 0.22) and B vs. C (p = 0.14).

Considering the acceptability for each indefinite determiner in each age group, some significant differences arise (χ² = 350.5, df = 22, p < 0.001). This can be graphically represented by using a mosaic plot, as in Figure 4 below.

In the mosaic plot, the color palette plays an important role. The color of shading corresponds to the mathematical sign of the residual (blue for positive values, red for negative ones), while the intensity of the shading is directly proportional to the size of the deviation (the darker the shade, the greater the deviation). The mosaic also gives information about the distribution of the data with respect to the parameters taken into account: the bigger one box is, the more the data are falling into it (cf. Levshina 2015).

As can be inferred from Figure 4, certo is strongly rejected by all the groups, while ART and di+art are both significantly more accepted.

Interestingly, ZERO is significantly less accepted by groups B and C: this points to the fact that ZERO is more tolerated by the younger generation, the one which is more in contact with the standard language. This suggests that Italian is exerting some influence in the use of ZERO in Piacentine (cf. Section 4.5.2).

3.3. Acceptability with Noun Class

The variable “noun class” has two levels, “MASS” for mass and “PL” for plural nouns. It is known that singular count nouns are treated separately from plural count and singular mass nouns (cf. Alexiadou 2011).24

The interactions between each indefinite determiner and each noun class yielded some significant differences (χ² = 351.2, df = 13, p < 0.001), as shown in Figure 5.

All the determiners (except for certo, whose occurrences are very limited but preferred for plural nouns) are accepted with both noun classes, with bare di and ZERO being significantly less accepted than expected when co-occurring with mass nouns.

3.4. Acceptability with Different Polarity

“Polarity” is another binary variable, whose levels are “POS” for positive sentences, and “NEG” for negative ones. The presence or absence of the negation has a significant effect on the choice of the indefinite determiner (χ² = 14.94, df = 1, p < 0.001). The mosaic plot in Figure 6 shows how the distribution of the determiners changes significantly depending on the polarity of the sentence (χ² = 526, df = 13, p < 0.001).

The most noticeable behavior in this respect is that of bare di, which has a significant acceptability in negative sentences, correlated to a strong unacceptability in positive ones (in which its occurrence leads to ungrammaticality). This is one of the most evident Gallic features, which Piacentine shares with French, as the latter displays an obligatory insertion of partitive de with indefinite objects under the scope of negation (cf. Section 4.4.1).

ART almost equally occurs in both positive and negative polarity sentences. As for di+art, a significantly greater acceptability is found only when occurring in positive sentences, while in negative ones, no such correlation is found. ZERO, on the contrary, seems to be preferred in negative polarity sentences, even though its overall occurrences in the whole questionnaire are quite limited.

3.5. Acceptability with Different Clause Type

In the present study, two levels of the variable “clause type” are considered: “GEN” indicating generic sentences, and “EPIS” for episodic sentences. In the questionnaire, generic events are marked by a present tense verb. Episodic sentences instead contain a present perfect verb (passato prossimo), indicating an event that happened once in the past.

Comparing the number of occurrences of each indefinite determiner in relation to the clause type, some significant differences are found (χ² = 500, df = 13, p < 0.001). These are displayed in the mosaic plot in Figure 7.

The plot reveals a pervasive presence of ART and di+art, with the latter outnumbering the former in episodic sentences. The same pattern is found in Italian as well (cf. Section 1.4).

Bare di seems to be significantly less acceptable in episodic sentences, being judged unacceptable with a greater extent in this kind of clause. ZERO follows a similar pattern.

Certo is mostly ungrammatical. When occurring, it displays a strong preference for episodic contexts, i.e., those which more easily facilitate a wide scope reading. This is not surprising, since certo, as in Italian, always has a wide scope.

3.6. Acceptability with Different Aspect

The variable “aspect” refers to the kind of action which is expressed by the predicate. The levels of this variable in this study are “TEL” (telic actions) and “ATEL” (atelic actions). Telic aspect hinges on the presence of a “terminal point” in the denotation of the predicate (cf. Krifka 1989, p. 75), i.e., if the action expressed by the verb is directed to an aim or leads to a result. On the contrary, the atelic aspect does not involve such a “terminal point”. This dichotomy is not always clear cut. A sentence such as I don’t eat meat (which was one of the items on the questionnaire) cannot be unambiguously classified as being either telic or atelic. For this reason, for the sake of the present analysis only, non-ambiguous contexts were considered. These are disambiguated by using those adverbials proposed by Dowty (1979) (apud Krifka 1989, p. 75) as a diagnostics for (a)telicity (e.g., “in an hour” for telic contexts and “for an hour” for atelic ones).

The χ² test applied to the levels of the variable “aspect” yields a significant difference between telic and atelic sentences (χ² = 7.8632, df = 1, p = 0.005), as shown in Figure 8.

The bar plot shows that atelic sentences are more acceptable overall, displaying quite a great difference with respect to telic predicates. This is not totally surprising, as telicity more easily triggers a definite interpretation of the referent.

The χ² test computed on the acceptability for the different indefinite determiners in relation to the different aspect of the sentences led to some statistically significant differences (χ² = 354, df = 13, p < 0.001). These are graphically represented in the mosaic plot in Figure 9.

Figure 9 shows that ART and di+art roughly follow the same pattern: both are accepted in both telic and atelic sentences, with a slight preference for the latter ones.

On the contrary, ZERO and bare di are rarely accepted (if not rejected at all) in telic sentences. They can only occur in atelic predicates. Certo was not chosen in these sentences.

3.7. Acceptability with Different Scope

The variable “scope” has two levels, intuitively labeled “WIDE” and “NARROW”. The difference between these two levels in terms of total acceptability is not significant (χ² = 4.9015, df = 1, p = 0.027). The interesting comparison is the cross-category distribution of the acceptability in scope readings for each indefinite determiner. Indefinites can in fact have different scope properties. Some of them can only take either wide or narrow scope, while others can have both readings.

The mosaic plot in Figure 10 reveals which Piacentine determiners are compatible with narrow and wide scope. This comparison yields some significant differences (χ² = 236.46, df = 13, p < 0.001).

Figure 10 clearly reveals the specialization of di and ZERO for narrow scope interpretation. This is perfectly in line with their occurrence only in atelic sentences (cf. Section 3.5), as atelicity more easily correlates with narrow scope interpretation.

Both ART and di+art show a significant greater preference for narrow scope reading. The two can also occur with wide scope reading, with di+art being significantly more accepted than the chance level. The modest number of occurrences with wide scope interpretation is due to the quantity of sentences forcing a narrow scope reading, which outnumbers those triggering a wide scope reading. However, the comparison with the other parameters strongly suggests that ART and di+art have wide scope interpretation, as the high acceptability in telic predicates in episodic sentences. Bare di and ZERO instead display the opposite tendency.

As expected, certo is ungrammatical with a narrow scope interpretation.

3.8. Acceptability of the Indefinite Determiners with Different Contexts

The variable “context” has two levels, corresponding to two semantic values associated to different indefinite determiners: saliency (“SAL”) and small quantity interpretation (“SmallQ”).

The comparative analysis of the acceptability for each indefinite determiner in each semantic context yields some significant differences (χ² = 234.53, df = 13, p < 0.001), which are graphically shown in the mosaic plot in Figure 11.

Figure 11 highlights a pattern resembling (though weakly) the same semantic specialization which is found in regional Italian (cf. Cardinaletti and Giusti 2020). As in colloquial Italian, ART has a significantly higher rate of acceptability in saliency contexts, while with small quantity interpretation, no correlation was found. di+art displays instead a milder greater acceptability, both in saliency contexts and with small quantity interpretation. The relative proportions of ART and di+art are very similar, with a subtle preference for the latter small quantity interpretation but still displaying a higher number of occurrences within salient contexts overall.

Both bare di and ZERO have low rates of occurrences in the sentences marked as either salient or conveying small quantity interpretation. Both display a degree of unacceptability which significantly deviates from the expectation. Bare di (almost) never appears in sentences with small quantity interpretation, while ZERO is sporadically present in both contexts. Certo seems not to be available in these contexts.

The analysis of the data revealed several interesting trends, which answer the research questions posed at the beginning of the paper. These trends and the answers to the research questions will be addressed in Section 4.

4. Discussion

This section discusses the data, defining their relevance, and addressing potential issues which may affect the analysis.

The obtained results allow to answer the research questions posed at the beginning and have guided the whole study. For convenience, the questions are repeated in (10).

(10)

Research questions for the study on Piacentine:

• How many and which indefinite determiners are available in Piacentine?
• If more than one indefinite determiner is available (as expected), is there optionality in the choice of competing forms?
• If pure optionality is excluded, which are the features they specialize for?
• Are there any observable patterns which may be reconducted to the contact with Italian?

Each question will be answered in the following subsections, in order to allow for an easier and more fluid discussion and interpretation of the findings.

4.1. Available Indefinite Determiners

The questionnaire reveals the presence of multiple indefinite determiners available to the speakers of Piacentine. The repertoire of indefinite determiners in this variety is even broader than in Italian: Piacentine displays four indefinite determiners, namely (in decreasing order of acceptability): ART, di+art, bare di, and ZERO. Certo is not part of the determiner system of this variety, as its unacceptability rate is extremely high and largely outnumbers its grammatical occurrences. This is also confirmed by it being significantly different from the other four determiners (cf. Section 3.1). This result is however expected, as an indefinite use of certo is reported only in southern varieties (Rohlfs 1968, p. 119).

4.2. Optionality among Determiners?

As far as optionality is concerned, the statistical tests indicate that it is possible to reject the null hypothesis of optionality among all the determiners in Piacentine, at least among the two pairs of determiners for which a significant difference was found, that is ZERO/di vs. ART/di+art.

ART does not significantly differ from di+art: in such case, the null hypothesis cannot be safely rejected, and some optionality is to be admitted. The same holds for ZERO and bare di.

The questions in (11c–d) will be answered in the next subsections, also by comparing the behavior of the determiners in Piacentine with their counterparts in Italian and French, as the latter shares common traits with Piacentine for historical reasons (cf. fn.8).

4.3. ART and di+art

Piacentine shares with Italian an extensive use of ART and di+art. The partitive determiner is also widely used in French, which displays common features with Piacentine. However, there are some differences in the distribution of these determiners in the three languages.

4.3.1. ART and di+art in Italian

As far as plural count and singular mass nouns are concerned, ART is the most widespread indefinite determiner in Italian, together with ZERO (cf. Section 1.4). The partitive determiner has instead a slightly different behavior. Both ART and di+art can combine with mass and plural count nouns (11a–b), the former maintaining a narrow scope reading both in episodic (11) and generic (12a) sentences. The latter, instead, allows for a narrow scope reading only in generic contexts, giving rise to a sub-kind reading in episodic ones (as signaled by the # sign in 12b). In these instances, ZERO is also always admitted.

(11)

a.

Gianni

(non)

ha

mangiato

Ø /

i /

dei

biscotti

John

not

has

eaten

ZERO

ART

di+art

biscuits

“John ate biscuits.”

b.

(Non)

ho

messo

Ø /

il /

del

sale

nell’

acqua

not

[I] have

put

ZERO

ART

di+art

salt

in-the

water

“I put salt in the water”

(12)

a.

Non

mangio

Ø

/

la

pasta.

not

[I] eat

ZERO

ART

pasta

“I don’t eat pasta.”

b.

#Non

mangio

della

pasta.

not

[I] eat

di+ART

pasta

“I don’t eat some pasta.”

The partitive determiner in episodic negative sentences may be ambiguous between a wide (13a) and a narrow (13b) scope interpretation with plural count nouns.25 The ambiguity is not found with mass nouns (14), for which only narrow scope (14b) is available (cf. Cardinaletti and Giusti 2016).

(13)	Non	ho	visto	dei	ragazzi.
	not	[I] have	seen	di+art	boys
	“I didn’t see some boys/any boy.”
	Possible continuations:a. Ho visto Gianni e Maria, ma non ho visto Mario e Teresa.“I saw Gianni and Maria, but I didn’t see Mario and Teresa.”b. Ho visto solo (dei) bambini.“I only saw children.”
(14)	Non	ho	bevuto	del	vino.
	not	[I] have	drunk	di+art	wine
	“I didn’t drink wine.”
	Possible continuations:a. #Ho bevuto (del) Prosecco e (del) Cabernet, ma non ho bevuto (del) Ribolla o (del) Sauvignon.#”I drank (some) Prosecco and (some) Cabernet, but I didn’t drink Ribolla or Sauvignon.”b. Ho bevuto solo (dei) liquori e (dell’)acqua minerale.“I only drank (some) liqueurs and (some) mineral water.”
					(adapted from Cardinaletti and Giusti 2016, p. 60)

ART can be ambiguous between narrow (15a) and wide (15b) scope, but in the latter case, it yields a definite interpretation (cf. Cardinaletti and Giusti 2018).

(15)	Non	ho	invitato	i	ragazzi	alla	festa…
	not	[I] have	invited	ART	boys	at-the	party
	“I didn’t invite the boys at the party…”
	a. ma solo (delle/le) ragazze“but only (the) girls”b. #perché erano antipatici“because they were obnoxious.”
				(adapted from Cardinaletti and Giusti 2018, pp. 144–45)

As for aspect, Italian admits ZERO and ART in atelic contexts (16), and only ART in telic ones (17). As for di+art, it may occur both in telic and atelic sentences, crucially depending on the provenience of the speaker.26

(16)	Maria	ha	raccolto	Ø	/	le	fragole	per	un’	ora.
	Maria	has	picked	ZERO		ART	strawberries	for	an	hour
	“Maria picked strawberries for an hour.”
(17)	Maria	ha	raccolto	*(le)	fragole		in	un’	ora
	Maria	has	picked	ART	strawberries		in	an	hour
	“Maria picked the strawberries in an hour.”							(adapted from Cardinaletti and Giusti 2020, p. 282)

4.3.2. ART and di+art in French

French differs from Italian in that the partitive determiner may occur in a broader spectrum of contexts. Di+art can occur in episodic sentences with an indefinite, non-kind-referring meaning, and can introduce both noun classes (18).27 ART is instead definite in French, as visible in (19a) vs. (19b).

(18)	a.	Jean	a	mangé		des	biscuits.
		Jean	has	eaten		di+art	biscuits
		‘Jean ate (some of the) biscuits.’
	b.	Jean	a	bu	du	café.
		Jean	has	drunk	di+art	coffee
		‘Jean drank (some of the) coffee.’					(adapted from Ihsane 2008, p. 142)
(19)	a.	#J’ai	vu	les	lions.
		[I] have	seen	ART	lions
		“I have seen the lions.” (specific)
	b.	J’ai	vu	des	lions.
		[I] have	seen	di+art	lions
		“I have seen some lions.”					(adapted from Le Bruyn 2010, p. 116)

Only when ART introduces the object of a consumption verb (cf. (20a)) it is ambiguous between a definite and an indefinite reading. The same holds for the partitive determiner: it can convey either a specific or a non-specific reading (20b).

(20)	a.	Jeanne	mange	les	pommes.
		Jeanne	eats	ART	apples
		“Jeanne eats apples.“ (habitual)28/“Jeanne is eating the apples.” (non-habitual)
	b.	Jeanne	mange	des	pommes.
		Jeanne	eats	di+art	apples
		“Jeanne eats apples.“ (habitual)/“Jeanne is eating apples.” (non-habitual)
						(adapted from Behrens 2005, p. 285)

The partitive article in French may have ambiguous scope when combined with plural count nouns (21a), but it only features narrow scope with mass nouns (21b) (Bosveld-de Smet 1998 apud Ihsane 2008, p. 139).29

(21)	a.	Des	enfants	viennent	jouer.	ici	tous	les	jours.
		di+art	children	come	playing	here	all	the	days
		“Children/The children come playing here all the days.”
	b.	*De l’	étoffe	que	j’avais	achetée	hier	traînait	par	terre.
		di+art	material	that	I had	bought	yesterday	lay-about	on	floor
						(Bosveld-de Smet 1998, 33ff. apud Ihsane 2008, p. 139)

Moreover, di+art is compatible only with atelic sentences (22), as in French “noun phrases introduced by des/du do not delimit individual referents, as can be shown by the impossibility of their furnishing […] the delimitation required for telic interpretations” (Corblin et al. 2004, p. 19). The definite article instead occurs in telic sentences (23).

(22)	Marie	a cueilli	des	fraises	pendant	des heures	/*en	une	heure.
	Mary	picked	di+art	strawberries	for	hours	in	one	hour
	“Mary picked strawberries for hours/*in an hour.”
(23)	Marie	a cueilli	les	fraises	en	une	heure/	*pendant	des heures.
	Marie	picked	ART	strawberries	in	one	hour	for	hours
	“Marie picked the strawberries in an hour/*for hours.”
							(adapted from Ihsane 2008, p. 230)

4.3.3. ART and di+art in Piacentine

Piacentine displays a pattern which is somehow in between Italian and French. The data suggest that ART and di+art are in competition in all the contexts, i.e., with mass and plural nouns in generic (24)30 and episodic (25) sentences. In the latter case, di+art displays the same ambiguity of scope it displays in Italian with plural count nouns (cf. (13) vs. (25b’)).31

(24)

a.

A mangi

mia

al

/

dal

patèti.

I eat

not

ART

di+art

potatoes

“I don’t eat potatoes.”

b.

A bev

mia

al

/

dal

vein.

I drink

not

ART

di+art

wine

“I don’t drink wine.”

(25)

a.

Teresa

l’é andè

dal

maslein

a

cumprè

al /

dal

bistechi

Teresa

she-went

to-the

butcher

to

buy

ART

di+art

steaks

“Teresa went to the butcher to buy steaks.”

b.

A disnè

incӧ

ho

mia

buì

l’

acqua

ma

admé

al

vein

at lunch

today

[I]have

not

drank

ART

water

but

only

ART

wine

b’.

A disnè

incӧ

ho

mia

buì

dl’

acqua

ma

admé

dal

vein

at lunch

today

[I] have

not

drank

di+art

water

but

only

di+art

wine

“For lunch today I didn’t drink water but only wine.”

The ambiguity of di+art is derived by its possibility (shared with ART) of taking both narrow and wide scope in the investigated contexts (cf. the grammaticality of both (26a–b)). Its scope properties also account for its occurrence in both telic (27a) and atelic (27b) predicates. This property makes Piacentine di+art more similar to its French counterpart.

(26)	Ala	festa,	ho	mia	invidè	i	/	di	ragas,
	at-the	party	[I] have	not	invited	ART		di+art	boys
	a.	ma admé ragasi.				¬Ǝ
		“but only girls.”
	b.	parché i eran antipatic.				Ǝ¬
		“because they were obnoxious.”
(27)	a.	Ho	tajè	l’	erba /	dl’	erba	pr’	un’ura
		[I] have	cut	ART	grass	di+art	grass	for	one hour
		“I have mowed grass for an hour.”
	b.	Ho	tajè	l’	erba /	dl’	erba	in t’	un’ura
		[I] have	cut	ART	grass	di+art	grass	in	one hour
		“I mowed the grass in an hour.”

It is possible to conclude that ART in Piacentine features the same pattern found in Italian, with a pervasive occurrence in all the contexts. However, unlike Italian, the same holds for di+art.32 In fact, Piacentine di+art is half between Italian and French.

The results of this pilot study show that ART is significantly more accepted in saliency contexts, but no significance is reached with small quantity interpretation expected with di+art. Unlike in Italian, di+art is significantly more accepted in both saliency and small quantity interpretation contexts (cf. Section 3.7). Possibly, a quantitative study with a larger sample of informants and a larger pool of items may confirm (with more solid empirical bases) this tendency found in colloquial Italian (cf. Section 1.4). For the time being, a semantic specialization of the forms cannot be safely claimed (though a weak tendency in this direction may be spotted), and a certain degree of optionality between ART and di+art in Piacentine must be admitted in most contexts.

4.4. Bare di

ZERO and bare di display a similar distribution, but they will be discussed separately, as the use of ZERO is likely to have been reinforced by the contact with Italian (cf. Section 4.5.2), while bare di characterizes Piacentine as a Gallo-Romance variety, as is independent of the standard variety.

4.4.1. Bare di in French

French features a strong opposition between positive and negative polarity when indefiniteness is concerned:33 while positive sentences display the partitive determiner (28a–b), negative sentences display bare de (28a’–b’)–(29a), which is ungrammatical in positive polarity sentences (29b).

(28)	a.	Il	a	du	papier.
		he	has	di+art	paper
	a’.	Il	n’	a	pas	de	papier.
		he	NE	has	not	di	paper
		“He has paper/He doesn’t have paper.”
	b.	Il	a	des	papiers.
		He	has	di+art	papers
		“He has papers/He doesn’t have papers.”					(adapted from Ihsane 2005, p. 205)
	b’.	Il	n’	a	pas	de	papiers.
		he	NE	has	not	di	papers
		“He has papers/He doesn’t have papers.”					(adapted from Ihsane 2005, p. 205)
(29)	a.	Marie	n’	a	pas	vu	de	fantôme.
		Marie	NE	has	not	seen	di	ghost
		“Marie hasn’t seen a ghost.”
	b.	*Marie	a	vu	de	fantôme.
		Marie	has	seen	di	ghost	(adapted from Ihsane 2008, p. 79)

As for scope properties, French de is only licensed under the scope of the negation and lacks existence entailment (Ihsane 2008, p. 82). It thus only displays narrow scope interpretation.

4.4.2. Bare di in Piacentine

In this respect, Piacentine behaves exactly like French. The data clearly show that bare di can only occur in negative sentences and that its interpretation is always linked to a narrow scope interpretation, as shown in (30)–(31).

(30)	a.	A	mangi	mia	Ø/	ad	chèran.
		I	eat	not	ZERO	di	meat
		“I don’t eat meat.”
	b.	A	mangi	mia	Ø/	ad	patèti.
		I	eat	not	ZERO	di	potatoes
		“I don’t eat potatoes.”
(31)	Ala	festa,	ho	mia	invidè	ad	ragas,
	at-the	party	[I] have	not	invited	di	boys
	“At the party I didn’t invite boys.”
	a.	ma admé ragasi.			¬Ǝ
		“but only girls”
	b.	*parché i eran antipatic.			*Ǝ¬
		“because they were obnoxious”

In negative contexts with narrow scope interpretation, ART, and di+art (though to a lesser extent) are also admitted, although bare di is the primary choice.

Bare di in Piacentine can be claimed to be the unmarked form for expressing non-existential indefiniteness. In competition with ZERO, bare di is always preferred. This leads to the hypothesis that ZERO could have been lost (as in French) but is regaining force as a consequence of contact with Italian. This will be discussed in the next section.

4.5. ZERO

ZERO does not significantly differ from bare di (cf. Figure 2, Section 3.1). However, differently from bare di, which is not used as an indefinite determiner in argument position in Italian, ZERO is the unmarked form for core indefiniteness in Italian. This is likely to have influenced the use of ZERO in Piacentine as well.

4.5.1. ZERO in Italian

In Italian, the use of ZERO co-varies with ART in some contexts (cf. Section 1.4), as in (11)–(12) above. It always takes a narrow scope, as shown in (11)–(12) above and (32) here, and may only occur in atelic predicates, as in (16) above.

(32)	Non	ho	invitato	Ø	ragazzi	alla	festa…
	not	[I]	have invited	ZERO	boys	at-the	party
	“I didn’t invite boys at the party…”
	a.	ma solo ragazze.
		“but only girls”
	b.	*perché erano antipatici.
		“because they were obnoxious”
					(adapted from Cardinaletti and Giusti 2018, pp. 144𠄳45)

ZERO is the unmarked form to express core indefiniteness: it is widespread on the territory of the peninsula, in particular in the “lateral areas” in the extreme south and north/north-east (cf. Cardinaletti and Giusti 2018, 2020).

The younger generation is the most exposed to colloquial Italian, penetrating each aspect of youth’s lives (not only in the sphere of education, of public relations, and in the mass media, but also quite often in the family and with friends). This is likely to have influenced the grammaticalization of ZERO in the local variety, as illustrated in the next subsection.

4.5.2. ZERO in Piacentine

ZERO in Piacentine has roughly the same properties of bare di, i.e., it mainly occurs in negative sentences with narrow scope interpretation (cf. (30), (33)).

(33)	Ala	festa,	ho	mia	invidè	Ø	ragas,
	at-the	party	[I]	have not	invited	ZERO	boys
	“At the party I didn’t invite boys”
	a.	ma admé ragasi				¬Ǝ
		“but only girls”
	b.	*parché i eran antipatic				*Ǝ¬
		“because they were unpleasant”

The interesting fact about ZERO is that its acceptability differs in the age groups. As shown by Figure 4 above (cf. Section 3.2), this determiner is significantly less accepted by the middle and older groups. No significant interaction is instead found with the younger group. This difference is very telling, as it suggests that the use of ZERO was reinforced by contact with Italian, which is greater in the younger generation.

Cerruti (2021) shows how different varieties in contact (precisely referring to Italian and the dialects spoken on the Italian peninsula) may influence the pace of grammaticalization for some items in one variety. A telling example is represented by the particle mica, which in Italian is used as a non-canonical negation. In some northern popular varieties of regional Italian, mica can be used as the canonical negation due to the convergence of the popular varieties towards the substratum dialect. These uses are however losing ground, as the popular varieties converge towards “standard” Italian, in which mica is not grammaticalized as the canonical negation.

This is probably what is happening in Piacentine, which is converging towards the standard variety, i.e., Italian. It may be the case that, in different conditions, Piacentine would have undergone the same process of change that characterized the transition from Old to Middle French. Until early Middle French, ZERO was still alternating with the partitive article; the latter then replaced ZERO in late Middle French, and in Modern French, ZERO was lost (cf. Carlier 2007).

The contact with Italian hindered the completion of this process in Piacentine. The current convergence towards Italian is also strengthening the use of ZERO as suggested by the fact that it is most chosen by the younger generation.

4.6. Limitations and Further Research

As in all empirical works, the present pilot study has some limitations and raises further questions which could be addressed by future research.

There are mainly two limitations. One concerns the unbalancing of gender and education level in the sample, which does not allow us to make predictions about the relation between these two sociolinguistic factors and the use of the indefinite determiners.

The second limitation concerns a partial coverage of the relevant combination of traits: all the generic sentences are negative (e.g., I don’t eat meat), while most episodic sentences are positive (six out of nine). Moreover, the sentences with narrow scope interpretation slightly outnumber those with wide scope interpretation (10 vs. 7).

Further research with a more balanced questionnaire and a larger sample is needed to address these issues and map the variation across the four determiners with sociolinguistic features as proposed by Adger (2016).

Furthermore, the collection of a corpus of oral data would help in distinguishing between different determiners in spontaneous production, possibly revealing semantic, pragmatic, and sociolinguistic factors that may regulate the variation between bare di and ZERO, and between ART and di+art.

5. Conclusions

Despite the exploratory/pilot nature of the present research, the data lead to important results and interesting observations. Since the discussion was particularly articulated, the conclusions are briefly summarized here:

• Piacentine mainly has four determiners for expressing indefiniteness: ART, di+art, bare di, and ZERO.
• There is no pure optionality in the expression of indefiniteness. There is however a divide between two pairs of determiners: ART and di+art vs. ZERO and bare di.
• ART and di+art are the dominant forms in all the investigated contexts. They are the only forms which can have wide scope interpretation. In the investigated contexts, these two determiners are almost always in competition (with the possible exception of generic positive sentences), so a certain degree of optionality between them seems to exist. Di+art is much more widespread in Piacentine than in Italian and is half a way between the partitive determiner in Italian and in French.
• Bare di is the unmarked form for non-existential indefiniteness: it only occurs in negative sentences and only has a narrow scope. Its behavior perfectly reflects that of French de. This is not surprising, given the Gallic origin of this determiner.
• Since bare di corresponds to its French counterpart and ART behaves in the same way as in Italian, the features of Piacentine di+art (which behaves slightly differently both from Italian and French) may be the result of the “mixed” nature of its components.
• ZERO has roughly the same distribution and properties of bare di. However, its higher acceptability by Group A suggests that in Piacentine the use of this determiner was strengthened in contact with Italian, preventing its loss as has happened in Middle French.

The collected data could help in distinguishing among different theories of variability listed in Section 1.1. Considering for the time being that there is optionality between ART and di+art,34 Optimality Theory and Equally Costly Derivation seem inadequate in explaining this kind of variation. As mentioned in fn. 9, di+art is analyzed as the realization of both the specifier and the head of the DP.35 Following this line, ART is the spell-out of the head D with SpecDP being non-realized (Cardinaletti and Giusti 2018). In terms of Optimality Theory or Equally Costly Derivation, this would amount to saying that the option of realizing or not realizing SpecDP either involves the same amount of derivational steps or has the same computational cost, which would be unlikely. A more advantageous approach is Adger’s (2006, 2016) Combinatorial Variability (although more fine-grained research is still needed).

On the basis of data from a variety spoken in Buckie,36 Adger (2006) argues that the view of multiple grammars (Kroch 1989) and that of building probabilities inside the grammar (Labov 1969, 1972), fail to accurately account for the optionality found in that vernacular. The mechanism of Combinatorial Variability is instead able to capture the variation in a more fine-grained way.37

Applying Combinatorial Variability to the data, in Adger’s terms, ART and di+art are specified for the same interpretable feature g₁ but are endowed with two different uninterpretable features, uf₁ and uf₂, respectively. Therefore, both can combine with some item C bearing the interpretable features f₁ and f₂. They are graphically represented by this author in (34), following Adger’s notation.

(34)	C[f1,f2]	{	ART[g1,uf1]
			di+art[g1,uf2]

In (34), both forms may combine with C, which may be a lexical item, or a set of features present at sentential level (e.g., (a) telicity). Since uf₁ and uf₂ are uninterpretable, they do not affect the semantics of the nominal expression.

Needless to say, the suitability of Combinatorial Variability to the collected data needs further investigation. In particular, this model predicts diachronic stability of the optionality as its mechanism hinges upon the Agree operation between interpretable and uninterpretable features. This expectation could be verified through a thorough corpus analysis, which will be addressed by future research.38 However, this constitutes a piece of evidence to be taken as a guideline for further work.

This research paved the way for future investigations, showing that Italo-Romance varieties have much to offer to the study of the expression of indefiniteness and optionality in syntax. This work has just scratched the surface of a complex phenomenon whose further exploration may provide important insight into the study not only of Piacentine, but also of Italian and French.