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This chapter investigates the mechanisms of null subject licensing in direct interrogatives, an environment which is generally neglected in investigation into null subjects, using data from a range of early Romance and Germanic languages considered to be asymmetric pro-drop languages, i.e. languages in which null subjects are favoured in main clauses. We find that there is subtle variation between the languages in question, but that two factors in particular – interrogative type and person – are crucial in conditioning this variation, and we sketch analyses based on the differential availability of Agree relations with left-peripheral elements. Therefore, null subjects in main interrogative clauses are licensed in two slightly different manners in the two language families – a fact which we show follows from differences in the structure of their left periphery and in agreement morphology

Lexicological and lexicographical studies on multiword expressions in Romance languages have significantly increased in recent years. Even though some attention has been paid to Multiwords functioning as adjectives and adverbs, the structural and the functional relation between them has not been clarified yet. Employing both a qualitative and quantitative approach, this corpus-based investigation aims at exploring the diatopic distribution and the evolution of Romance multiword lexemes having the form of a prepositional phrase and the function of an adjective or/and an adverb (or both functions). According to data taken from corpora of Latin, Old Italian, Old Spanish and Middle French, this contribution investigates the relationship between the different degrees of schematicity and the productivity of this kind of multiword lexemes in order to highlight the evolutional path and the diachronic/diatopic principles engaged in the multiword modifying system across the different Romance languages taken into consideration.

Iacopone da Todi’s “laudario” is a fundamental text of Medieval Italian literature. Despite its importance, this text hasn’t been published on the basis of objective and systematic criteria so far. The critical edition by F. Ageno (1953) improved Bonaccorsi’s incunable of 1490 (which had been the reference text until then) by means of the so-called “Umbrian laudari” (mss. London, British Library, Additional 16567 = L; Chantilly, Musée Condé, XIV.G.2 = Ch). However, that edition is still too much in Bonaccorsi’s debt as for various "loci" and the Perugian linguistic surface. The lack of explanation of the editorial criteria and the absence of critical apparatus are other evident limits of that edition. G. Contini criticised Ageno’s idea, according to which the entire tradition of the “laudario” stemmed from the so-called “Umbrian archetype”. Contini discovered, in the “Laudario urbinate” (ms. Roma, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, V.E. 849 = Urb), a witness independent of the “Umbrian archetype”; afterwards, R. Bettarini’s researches confirmed Contini’s discovery. F. Mancini’s edition (1974) tried to exploit the non-Umbrian sectors of the tradition; it got significant results, but it has many faults. Firstly, as for the “constitutio textus”, there is no precise methodological criterion. Secondly, Mancini doesn’t propose any analysis of Iacopone’s metric. Furthermore, while he believes it’s possible to reconstruct the “original” linguistic surface, his justifications are not convincing. The necessity of a critical edition based upon strong philological criteria and a careful “recensio” is thus clear. L. Leonardi has emphasised that need several times and he has planned and refined a methodological and operational approach. This thesis provides the critical edition of a portion of the “laudario” (eight texts) according to those criteria. It is based on a selection of witnesses, which were transcribed by a team coordinated by Leonardi. That selection represents the four families of Iacopone’s “laudario”, that is the Umbrian, the Tuscan-umbrian, the Venetian and the Tuscan family. In the critical edition, the Umbrian group is taken as reference point, as it preserves a consistent and homogeneous text. Moreover, the text of the Umbrian family is preserved in ancient manuscrits and it is presumably close to the “original” as for the linguistic surface. Alongside that criterion, special attention has been paied to non-Umbrian readings. The thesis is divided into two main sections, in addition to a foreword and the bibliography. Within the first section, chapter I describes the state-of-the-art and defines the methodological approach. Chapter II, first of all, clarifies the goals of the edition; secondly, it offers some notes upon the corpus of edited texts, the manuscripts chart, and a paragraph devoted to the surface manuscript (L). Chapter III is dedicated to the editorial criteria and the critical apparatus. The first paragraph deepens the editorial criteria. The second one firstly contains a retrospective on critical apparatus in previous editions of Iacopone; secondly, it justifies the tripartite structure of the apparatus in the current edition. Chapter IV takes stock of the new discoveries of this edition. The first part underlines the data which allow us to confirm the four families of Iacopone’s “laudario”. The second part points out the textual improvements made by this edition. Chapter V offers some remarks upon Iacopone’s metric by relying on data provided by the edited texts. The second section of the thesis presents the critical edition of the texts with introduction, critical notes and philological commentaries., Le “laudario” de Iacopone da Todi est un texte fondamental de la littérature italienne du Moyen Âge. En dépit de son importance, il n’a pas encore fait l’objet d’une édition fondée sur critères philologiques objectifs et systématiques. En effet, si l’édition de F. Ageno (1953) dépasse l’incunable de Bonaccorsi de 1490 (jusqu’alors le texte de référence) en recourant aux “laudari” soi-disant “ombriens” (mss. London, British Library, Additional 16567 = L ; Chantilly, Musée Condé, XIV.G.2 = Ch), elle doit encore trop à la “princeps”, à laquelle elle se remet en ce qui concerne plusieurs “loci” et dont elle hérite la forte patine linguistique pérugine. Le manque de justification des choix éditoriaux et l’absence de tout apparat critique constituent d’autres limites évidentes de cette édition. L’idée d’Ageno selon laquelle le soi-disant “archétype ombrien” devait être à l’origine de toute la tradition du “laudario”, a été critiquée par G. Contini, qui identifie dans le “Laudario urbinate” (ms. Roma, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, V.E. 849 = Urb) un témoin indépendant de cet “archétype ombrien”; son intuition a ensuite été confirmée par R. Bettarini. L’édition de F. Mancini (1974) essaie d’exploiter les secteurs non-ombriens de la tradition et aboutit à des résultats significatifs, mais présente beaucoup de défauts. D’abord, il lui manque un critère méthodologique précis pour la “constitutio textus” ; ensuite, Mancini ne propose aucune analyse de la métrique de Iacopone; par ailleurs, l’éditeur croit pouvoir restituer la patine linguistique “originale”, mais ses arguments ne sont pas convaincants. La nécessité de fournir un texte critique fondé sur des critères philologiques solides et sur une “recensio” soignée est évidente et a été soulignée plusieurs fois par L. Leonardi, qui a aussi déterminé et affiné une ligne méthodologique et opérative dans cet objectif. La présente thèse fournit l’édition d’une partie du “laudario” (huit pièces) selon ces critères, à partir d’une vingtaine de témoins sélectionnés, transcrits par une équipe sous la direction de Leonardi et représentant les quatre familles de la tradition du “laudario” de Iacopone : ombrienne, toscane-ombrienne, vénitienne et toscane. Le critère d’édition suivi a été de prendre comme point de repère le groupe ombrien, porteur d’un texte cohérent, homogène, dont témoignent des manuscrits anciens et linguistiquement proches de l’original présumé. Ce critère a été pondéré grâce à la comparaison avec les variantes des manuscrits non ombriens. La thèse se compose de deux sections précédées d’un avant-propos et suivies de la bibliographie. Dans la première section, le chapitre I est dédié à l’établissement de l’état de la question et à la définition de la ligne méthodologique suivie. Le chapitre II, d’abord, propose les objectifs de l’édition ; ensuite, présente quelques notes sur le corpus des textes publiés, la table des manuscrits utilisés et un paragraphe dédié au manuscrit de surface (L). Le chapitre III est dédié aux critères éditoriaux et à la question de l’apparat critique. Le premier paragraphe approfondit les critères d’édition ; le second présente, d’abord, une rétrospective sur les apparats critiques établis dans les éditions précédentes de Iacopone ; il justifie, ensuite, la tripartition de l’apparat proposée dans cette édition. Le chapitre IV dresse un bilan des nouvelles découvertes qu’on peut déduire des données mises à disposition par l’édition critique. Sa première partie souligne les données qui permettent de confirmer la structure de la tradition ; sa deuxième partie détaille les améliorations apportées par cette édition au texte de Iacopone. Le chapitre V propose quelques remarques sur la métrique de Iacopone, à partir des données tirées des éditions. La deuxième section de la thèse, enfin, présente les textes critiques avec introduction, notes ecdotiques et commentaires philologiques.

It. ostare ‘obstruct, hinder’ is considered a borrowing from Lat. obstare. However, some Old Italian occurrences bear the meaning ‘take off, remove’, which is far from the Latin sense. After an introductory section (§1), in which methodological problems are discussed, the article analyses the occurrences of o(b)stare derived from the OVI databases (§2), containing Old Italian texts. A final section focusses on the origin of the verb and its meanings (§3).

In this article I will show that there is not a single diachronic path that leads to the loss of the verb second property so that different languages can have different ways towards a non V2 grammar. I will also show that the progressive loss of subject inversion contexts is not the only factor that played a role in the change, because there are V2 languages in which nominal subject inversion was never attested but they are still V2, i.e. they have I to C movement. I will identify various factors which may play a role and are related to the type of verb second found in different languages. I will consider various types of factors and show that they can play a role or not in the loss of V2 depending on the type of V2 that the language displays. I will also identify an additional factor that has not been considered in the literature namely the type of complementizer system: a change in this area can contribute to destabilizing the V2 grammar.