Nominal Semantics in the Left Periphery in German and Italian

In this paper, we will see if it is possible for bare plurals to appear in the topic positions in German and Italian. Moreover, we will compare bare plurals with definite plurals in the topic position in different constructions creating and sustaining the left periphery (together with possibly different types of movements): Topicalization (including Italian " Left Dislocation " , ILD hereafter), Hanging Topic Left Dislocation or correlative types of Left Dislocation (CLLD in Italian is usually included in this category besides GLD in German). Based on this comparison, we make a descriptive generalization that definite and bare plurals are distributed differently in Italian and German topic positions: In German, the bare plural is used for the kind reading, whereas the definite plural prevailingly refers to individuals (anaphorically or situation bound) (1). By contrast, in Italian definite plurals can be a kind expression as shown in (2a). In addition, (2b), which is the data extracted from an Italian written corpus, suggests that bare plurals can also denote kinds as discourse topics when they are left-dislocated with a clitic, ne, even though they cannot do so in argument positions as pointed out by Chierchia (1998). (1) (Die) Opern des 17. Jahrhunderts, die habe ich alle gesehen. '(The) operas of 17th century, I saw them all.' (2) a. Le formiche bianche, le ho viste nel mio giardino. ' White ants, I saw in the garden.' b. Bambini, ne volete? Sono in programma. Abbiamo cominciato a provarci un paio di mesi fa.. 'Children, do you want? I am planning. We began to try to do it a few months ago.' These data are problematic for the neo-Carsonian approaches: If the down-operator were not blocked, definite plurals in the kind reading would be also expected in (1) for German. But in reality, it is difficult to get this reading. By contrast, in Italian, it is necessary to explain what licenses bare plurals to denote kinds. We claim that this obvious difference between German and Italian in the naturalness of bare plural topics is also construction-dependent. For example in German, bare plurals as well as definite plurals are compatible with the kind-reading when it comes to the normal prefield topicalization (3). (3) (Die) Pandabären sind vom Aussterben bedroht. (Dayal 2004) '(The) pandas are facing extinction.' To the contrary, there is an obvious contrast between pronominal CLLD (4) and ne-CLLD (5) in Italian wrt. the permission …