Functional structure and case in Italian absolute clauses

Abstract

Italian absolute clauses have been treated as small clauses under previous analyses (Belletti, 1990; Bruno, 2011), meaning they have been claimed to feature reduced functional structure. Additionally, the way in case assignment within absolute clauses has been analyzed has not been uniform, featuring a range of case assignment mechanisms which are not independently motivated such as case assignment via C (Belletti, 1990) or AspP (Bruno, 2011) In the present study, we develop an non-small clause analysis of Italian absolute clauses, based on adverb and clitic placement, the presence of negation, and certain facts about the C-domain of these clauses. Crucially, under our account, these clauses project both CP and TP. Finally, we account for case assignment within these clauses via a default case mechanism (Egerland 2022; Caha, 2024), thus eschewing ad hoc case assignment mechanisms.