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This paper deals with auxiliary verb constructions in Romance, in particular with those that exhibit two auxiliary verbs ‘have’ and ‘be’ which alternate, in many Italo-Romance varieties, within one and the same paradigm. It is argued that such an intra-paradigmatic distribution represents a special kind of grammaticalization, traditionally referred to as morphologization. Two aspects are discussed. First, a morphological approach to such ‘mixed paradigms’ is advocated, the main claim being that in order to explain the distribution of the two auxiliaries within the paradigm, one has to make essential reference to paradigmatic structure rather than to the intrinsic featural composition of the auxiliaries (along the lines of paradigmatic approaches reviewed in Blevins 2016). Second, it is shown that these mixed systems, although they often represent “delicate transitional stages” (Loporcaro 2014: 56, n. 8), also display interesting diachronic convergence typical of various stem alternation patterns, famously referred to as morphomes (cf. Maiden 2018). The paper draws on a dataset that is currently being put together in order to become, in the future, a large database of mixed perfective auxiliation systems. Some space is thus devoted to the description of the main parameters of this project, called ‘MIXPAR’.

This paper deals with, in a diachronic perspective, the Italian verb-noun compounds of the type portalettere and covers the time span that goes from the Origins well into the beginnings of the Twentieth century. On the basis of a rich dataset drawn from diachronic corpora and lexicographic sources, the article presents the history of this word-formation process, emphasizing the semantic and categorial nature of these compounds. The main claim is that the current semantic variability (person, instrument, event, period of time etc.) has always been available in the linguistic history of Italian as well as, to a minor extent, the categorial ambiguity by which VN compounds also function as adjectival modifiers. It is shown that this last function is much of a diachronic innovation. This paper, which stems from the theoretical premises of Construction Morphology, reveals that the productivity of the Construction [V-N]A|N is due to both the semantic and formal flexibility shown from the earliest attestations of the language, and to the productivity of some semi-specified subschemas, which have served as models for the creation of new VN compounds, especially over the past few decades.

This paper investigates the Czech translation counterparts of the Spanish / Italian causative construction with the causative verb hacer / fare + verb. On the basis of two parallel corpora, a typology of Czech equivalents is proposed. In contrast to the general divide between analytic/synthetic translation constructions, the research uncovers a number of various recurrent patterns. The paper shows the quantitative distribution of the defined types of patterns. It demonstrates that between the two opposite poles of expressiving causativity, i.e. through morphological causativization and syntactic causative construction, there are languages, such as Czech, that display a wider range of structural possibilities. Although some types clearly dominate, the overall range of patterns is much larger.