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This paper describes the research project named MIXPAR, standing for "MIXed PARadigms", which was previously introduced in Štichauer (2022). The project aims to compile and investigate all published data to date about the phenomenon of mixed perfective auxiliation systems in Italo-Romance. The MIXPAR project represents a database developed following standardized principles currently implemented in a series of morphological lexicons. The article first explains the basic nature of these mixed paradigms, widely attested in a range of Italian dialects, where an intraparadigmatic alternation of two auxiliaries, avere/essere ('have/be'), is found, along with free variation and merged auxiliary forms such as jera, eva, and seva. The paper then introduces the individual parameters of the database, justifying their existence and discussing some of the associated issues. A long-format version of the database is presented, including variables for Cell, Verb/Construction, Class, Tense-aspect-mood paradigm, Auxiliary, Phonosyntactic doubling, Geographical information, Dialectal classification, Source, and Notes. It is concluded that the database will undoubtedly become a valuable tool despite the minor problems that will be resolved in due course.

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’.