Long-distance gender agreement in mixed Italian/English ergative clauses

Abstract

In this work on code-switching we will discuss agreement relations which take place outside DP. In particular, we will tackle mixed Italian/English sentences containing an Italian compound ergative-type verb, where typically the past participle must agree in gender with the DP-syntactic subject. Specifically, we aim to test what gender the past participle preferably takes when the subject is an English monolingual DP or a mixed DP and, crucially, if the N-gender remains active and able to enter an agreement relation with the past participle. Data are obtained through an Acceptability Judgment Task administered to some adult Italian/English bilingual speakers. The results obtained and discussed will contribute to the debate on code-switching vs. borrowing, as well as on the architecture of the bilingual competence.