Italian pronouns in a CALL setting

Abstract

This paper introduces an Italian LFG grammar in the context of Computer-
Assisted Language Learning (CALL). Specifically, the grammar focuses on
Italian pronouns and is capable of detecting and correcting errors in pro-
noun structures. In addition, we propose a new analysis into the ongoing
discussion surrounding Italian pronouns and their grammatical status (e.g.
Monachesi 1996, 1999, Russi 2008, Schwarze 2001, Alsina Forthcoming).
We develop a straightforward analysis that makes use of LFG’s projection
architecture and gives a clear answer to the ongoing question of their sta-
tus as affixes or independent syntactic units. We illustrate the differences
between preverbal and postverbal pronouns and classify the former as true
clitics and the latter as inflectional affixes and account for their properties in terms of c- and f-structure representations.