On the Italian Molto and Tanto and the differences with the Slovenian Precej and Veliko

lecture at the 48. Incontro di Grammatica Generativa, IGG48, Dilef, University of Florence, 16. 2. 2023

Greta Mazzaggio (Author), Penka Stateva (Author)

Abstract

The present work is based on a previous study in which Stateva and Stepanov (2017) compare speakers’ comprehension of two Slovenian m(any)-words, veliko and precej. S&S argue for a degree analysis of the two quantifiers suggesting that they are semantically equivalent but subject to different mechanisms of pragmatic enrichment. We present the results of two experiments that use the S&S protocol in order to assess i) the comprehension of two Italian translational equivalents of these m-words, namely, molti and tanti, and ii) potential crosslinguistic influence in the context of Italian-Slovenian bilingualism. Our results suggest that Italian m-words have the same numerical bounds even in direct competition in contrast to their Slovenian counterparts. Italian L2 speakers of Slovenian fail to differentiate between the two m-words in Slovenian which suggests that this aspect of L2 acquisition is subject to negative transfer.

Keywords

amount quantifier;Italian;bilingualism;negative transfer;pragmatic enrichment;

Data

Language:	English
Year of publishing:	2023
Typology:	3.15 - Unpublished Conference Contribution
Organization:	UNG - University of Nova Gorica
UDC:	81
COBISS:	146629379
Views:	934
Downloads:	0
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