Micro-variation in the Possessive Systems of Italian Dialects

The paper addresses the parametric variation found in the possessive systems of Italian dialects. Data come from AIS maps (Jaberg and Jud 1928–40; Tisato 2009) and the vast traditional and generative literature on the topic. We claim that variation mainly concerns lexical variation. Dialects differ from one another and from Italian with respect to the possessive forms available in their lexicon (clitic, weak, strong possessives; cf. Cardinaletti’s 1998 extension to possessives of the tripartition of pronouns proposed by Cardinaletti and Starke 1999) and to the different lexical properties of kinship terms and common nouns (Giusti 2015). Much micro-variation is indeed found with kinship terms. Variation concerns the status of the possessive, the position of the noun, the occurrence of the definite article, and the paradigm of possessives, whether complete in the 3 singular persons or limited to 1st and 2nd person singular.