On the interpretation of proper temporal adverbs in Italian

Abstract

In this paper, we will provide a N-to-D analysis able to account for the punctual vs. habitual reading of proper temporal names in Italian, focusing on names of days, which clearly signal a difference in their possible aspectual encoding at the morphosyntactic level. When these items appear as adverbials modifying an event: i) such event is interpreted as a habitual one if the temporal name is preceded by a definite determiner or an adpositional item; ii) it is interpreted as a punctual one if the temporal name is ‘bare’.

Keywords

• adposition
• determiner
• time adverb
• proper name
• aspect