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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 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'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the phenomenon of mixed paradigms, i.e. mixed perfective auxiliation systems, attested in a wide range of Italo-Romance varieties (cf. Loporcaro 2001, 2007a, 2014; Manzini and Savoia 2005, among others). In these varieties, two auxiliary verbs, esse and habere, alternate within one and the same (sub)paradigm, displaying various patterns which can range from morphosyntactically motivated to apparently unmotivated distributions (here termed 'morphomic'). I propose that, in these varieties, auxiliary selection is no longer a syntactically driven phenomenon, but becomes morphologized. I draw on the notion of 'lexical split' (cf. Corbett 2013, 2015, 2016) and describe the attested splits induced by intraparadigmatic auxiliary alternation. Following Bonami (2015), I put forward a typology of such splits. It is shown that, apart from motivated distributions, some morphomic patterns can also be found. The typology becomes more complex insofar as patterns with free variation between both auxiliaries are taken into account, as well as patently morphomic patterns which also seem to display external syntactic relevance (cf. Corbett 2013: 174-176). The phenomena reviewed and discussed in this paper are of major interest because they demonstrate the existence of competing exponence strategies within periphrasis, thus enriching the notion of 'possible lexeme' (cf. Corbett 2015: 146). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]