a-Topics in Italian/Romance and the Cartography of Children’s Inventions

Abstract The paper has a specific and focused aim: to unveil possible route DOM, the crosslinguistically widely attested phenomenon whereby direct objects are introduced by preposition, with interpretive constraints. prepositional marker is ‘a’ in Italian (the majority of) Romance. investigation based on both comparative data from Romance some relevant experimental results acquisition of involving a-Topics. insights that syntactic cartography may provide characterization such leading note investigation: a-marking starts out topics, only occurring when (animate) object preposed left periphery clause; then involves clause internal topics vP-periphery; finally Case related small ‘v’ spine; latter, also implicated causatives constructions benefactive arguments. reviewed indicate use peripheral a-Topics children’s elicited productions Italian, which not target language, thus illustrating cartographically defined space grammatical creativity.