Fortune and Decay of Lexical Expletives in Germanic and Romance along the Adige River

Lexical expletives can be divided into two main classes: (i) CP required by the V2 constraint and, hence, necessity to lexicalize position on left of inflected verb and (ii) TP connected with negative value pro-drop parameter therefore, ’structural‘ subject position, specifically, [Spec, TP]. The latter can, in turn, subclasses: impersonal subjects positional expletives, which occur postverbal/low extraposed clauses. While only appear Germanic varieties that maintain V2, subclassification yields interesting results when comparing Cimbrian Venetan Nord-East Italy, where gradual disappearance expletive free inversion structures residual maintenance from North South along Adige River confirms distinction between classes expletives; furthermore, resilience their distribution northwestern part area under consideration sheds light role language contact is confirmed same axis—but crucially opposite direction—by increasing employment cleft constructions WH-clauses replacing enclisis (i.e.,: pronominal finite verb).