Cenetering Theory And The Italian Pronominal System

In this paper, I give an account, in terms of centering theory [GJW86], of some phenomena of pronominalization in Italian, in particular the use of the null or the overt pronoun in subject position. After a general introduction to the Italian pronominal system, I will review centering, and then show how the original rules given in [GJW86] have to be extended or modified. Finally, I will show that centering does not account for two phenomena: first, the functional role of an u t terance may override the predictions of centering; second, a null subject can be used to refer to a whole discourse segment. This latter phenomenon should ideally be explained in the same terms that the other phenomena involving null subject are. 1 T h e I t a l i a n p r o n o m i n a l sys t e m In Italian, there are two pronominM systems, characterized by a different syntactic distribution: weak pronouns, that must always be cliffcized to the verb (e.g. ]a, ]o, li, le respectively her, accusative; him, accusative; them, masculine, accusative; them, feminine, accusative or her, dative), and strong pronouns (lui, lei, Ioro respectively he or him; she or her; they or them). The null subject can be considered as belonging to the system of weak pronouns. Notice that in Italian there is no neuter gender: nouns referring to inanimate objects are masculine or feminine. The weak pronouns used in this case are those of the corresponding gender, while, when a strong pronoun has to be used, paraphrase or deictics *This research was suppor ted by D A R P A grant no. N0014-85--K0018. are preferred. A strong pronoun for inanimate objects does exist esso for masculine, essa for feminine, but it is not much used in current Italian. Weak and strong pronouns are often in complementary distribution, as the following example shows the contrast is between the use of the null or overt pronoun in subject position 1: