On different types of postverbal subjects in Italian

This paper discusses the properties of different types of subjects occurring in postverbal position in Italian: (i) in situ focused subjects, (ii) marginalized, topic subjects, (iii) heavy subjects. The data show that postverbal subjects convey different discourse-related values. We suggest that while left-peripheral positions syntactically encode different discourse-related features (see Rizzi’s 1997 cartography of the left-periphery), the VP-internal thematic positions are compatible with different discourse-related properties. In the postverbal space, no one-to-one correlation between interpretation and syntactic structure appears to be needed. Our conclusion differs from previous work (most notably, Belletti 2001, 2004) which assumes an IP-internal articulation of discourse-related positions immediately above VP and is in line with previous analyses of some of the constructions analyzed here (Cardinaletti 2001, 2002; Brunetti 2004; Bocci 2013; Samek-Lodovici 2015). The paper also discusses new-information preverbal subjects in some varieties of Italian.