Scientific article
OA Policy
English

Francoprovençal : a spatial analysis of ‘partitive articles’ and potential correlates in Swiss and Italian varieties

Published inIsogloss, vol. 9, no. 1, p. 1-30
First online date2023-03-23
Abstract

In this paper, we focus on partitive articles (PAs), i.e., determiners which, generally, have an indefinite interpretation, and on one of their potential correlates, i.e., invariable de, in Francoprovençal, a non-standardized, highly endangered Gallo-Romance language (cf. Zulato, Kasstan & Nagy 2018), and show the fine-grained spatial distribution of these elements in the Swiss and Aosta Valley (Italy) varieties. Presenting several maps based on fieldwork data from Valais (Switzerland) and the Aosta Valley (Italy), we demonstrate that the spatial distribution of PAs and de is more complex than reported in the literature: we complement the basic subdivision of Francoprovençal into two types, Francoprovençal A and B (cf. Kristol 2014, 2016), with a more nuanced picture, in which the morphosyntactic features of PAs play a crucial role: in Francoprovençal A, the presence of PAs depends on the syntactic context whereas, in Francoprovençal B, their presence is limited mainly to two areas, in which singular and plural PAs do not occur together (one area only has singular PAs whereas the other one only has plural PAs). We also show that there is no correlation between phonologically overt plural marking on nouns and absence of PAs; however, we found a correlation between overt sigmatic number marking on nouns and absence of PAs.

Keywords
  • Francoprovençal
  • Partitive article
  • Spatial distribution
  • Overt number marking on nouns
  • Quantifier
  • Negation
Citation (ISO format)
IHSANE, Tabea, WINISTÖRFER, Olivier, STARK, Elisabeth. Francoprovençal : a spatial analysis of ‘partitive articles’ and potential correlates in Swiss and Italian varieties. In: Isogloss, 2023, vol. 9, n° 1, p. 1–30. doi: 10.5565/rev/isogloss.257
Main files (1)
Article (Published version)
Identifiers
Journal ISSN2385-4138
7views
52downloads

Technical informations

Creation07/02/2026 13:04:50
First validation10/02/2026 08:29:47
Update17/02/2026 10:00:30
Status update17/02/2026 10:00:30
Last indexation17/02/2026 10:00:31
All rights reserved by Archive ouverte UNIGE and the University of GenevaunigeBlack