New Insights on the Question Particle "a" in Sardinian

Abstract

One of the various syntactic strategies to form yes-no questions in Sardinian is a structure that in­volves the question particle a (probably < lat. aut, DES I,34), which has been described in previ­ous work (Jones 1993, Mensching 2008, Remberger 2010, Floricic 2010, among others). Among the known properties of this structure, which is found in the Logudorese and Nuorese va­rieties of Sardinian, are its incompatibility with negation and focus front­ing and the obligatory post-verbal position of the subject, if present. In addition, Jones (1993:25) observed that “this particle is used predominantly, but not exclusively, in questions which are to be interpreted as requests […], invitations, offers, etc.”. The aims of this article are (i) to assess the latter state­ment; (ii) to take into account another property that has not been considered until now, namely the frequent coexistence of clitic right dislocation (CLRD) as in (1b); (iii.) to offer an approach to a principled explanation of (i.) and (ii.) as well as to the other properties of a within a cartographic generative framework.The main working hypotheses are: