We are happy to announce a joint session of the Semantics and Syntax Colloquia, featuring a talk by Chiara Marchetiello (Dublin).
The talk will take place on campus in IG 411.
If you wish to participate virtually via Zoom, please contact Lennart Fritzsche for the link.
Date: July 9, 2026
Time: 4 pm – 6 pm c.t.
Title: To be or not to be integrated: A formal account on [PDO] in Campania
Abstract:
In this talk, I discuss some initial observations on the syntactic integration of gesture found in the rich gestural inventories of the local languages spoken in Campania region (Italy). Specifically, I present two case studies on the gesture called [PALM-DOWN-OPEN-HAND-PRONE] ([PDO]). Based on new data collected from primary fieldwork I conducted in Campania, I show that [PDO] can be syntactically integrated into the grammar of the languages of Campania in two different ways. When [PDO] accompanies speech, it can be interpreted as an epistemic marker which indicates the speaker’s certainty towards the truth-value conditions of the content of the spoken utterance it accompanies. Conversely, when [PDO] is used in place of speech, it can be considered as a negative response marker like English ‘no’. Crucially, this study provides evidence in support of the Grammatical Integration Hypothesis (Colasanti 2023a,b), which hypothesis that (at least) some gestures can be integrated into the grammar as morphemes externalised at the Phonological Form (PF) in the visual-gestural modality as gesture, rather than in the auditory-spoken modality as speech.