Prepositional 'where' in Southern Italian dialects

In this article we investigate a curious phenomenon attested in some Southern Italian dialects, namely the prepositional usage of the wh-item 'where' to introduce locative PPs expressing different degrees of inalienable possession. We propose that P-where exploits a sort of reduced relative structure in which the null classifier-like element PLACE located in the internal structure of the wh-item is raised to the top of the structure and enters a small clause structure containing the actual lexical noun. We adopt the proposal that inalienable possession is actually to be interpreted as a small clause whose predicative head functions as the relator between the possessor and the possessee.

In this article we analyze an interesting phenomenon attested in some Southern Italian dialects, namely the prepositional usage of the wh-item ‘where’, whereby P-where is used to introduce locative PPs expressing different degrees of inalienable possession. In trying to account for a process which might look at first sight like the lexical re-categorization of a wh-element into a preposition, we argue for a structural analysis that sheds a new light on the way we structurally interpret the process of reanalysis; we claim that the process which changes the category of the wh-item 'where' and turns it into a preposition runs through the association of this element with different lexically realized and null items linked with the functional projections of the extended prepositional layer.