Testing the Interclausal Relations Hierarchy: Modal and Aspectual Constructions in Sardinian

This book examines the Interclausal Relations Hierarchy within the Role and Reference Grammar theory, with primary data on eight complex verbal Sardinian constructions. The hierarchy ranks them from the most cohesive to the least cohesive, both syntactically and semantically. There is a meaningful prediction of the hierarchy, that is, the tightest syntactic linkage realising a particular semantic relation should be tighter than the tightest syntactic linkage realising looser semantic relations. Almost all the constructions respect this prediction, but two of them. The data also manifest diatopic variation. The author is using a phonetic map to analyse the morphosyntactic data. He presents a number of maps that show that morphosyntactic phenomena are, in general, more widespread than phonetic isoglosses. They are common to the three main varieties of Sardinian: Campidanese, Logudorese and Nuorese.

Francesco Casti has graduated in Foreign Languages and Literatures (English and German – BA and MA) from the University of Cagliari (Italy). He has then obtained his MA and PhD in Linguistics from the University of Manchester (UK). His research interests include Role and Reference Grammar, Typology, the Sardinian language, morphosyntax, complex predicates and semantics. At the moment, he is carrying on with his studies independently.