On the Use of Pronominal Subjects in German Linguistic Islands in Northern Italy

Abstract

We focus on the use of subject clitics and subject pronouns in speakers of linguistic islands in northern Italy, with an Upper German dialect as L1 and Italian as the surrounding majority language and L2. German requires an explicit subject pronoun or clitic, while in Italian the explicit subject is typically omitted. Further contact varieties such as Friulian, Piedmontese, and Francoprovençal display subject clitics. In contrast to previous studies, which were limited to one or two speech communities (of the same idiom) (see e.g. Zürrer 1999, Dal Negro 2004, Kolmer 2012, Bidese & Tomaselli 2018), we compare three speech communities with two different idioms: Alemannic Walser varieties spoken in Gressoney and Issime and Zahre German, a Bavarian idiom spoken in Sauris. Our findings show that linguistic islands in northern Italy of both Bavarian as well as Alemannic origin develop in the same direction. Moreover, Issime and Gressoney differ notably from each other: Gressoney German indeed in some respects displays greater similarities to Zahre German, probably due to its different language contact situation as compared to Issime German. Finally, the grammaticalization status of the clitic is more advanced in Zahre German than in Walser German (at least than in Issime German).*