Existential constructions in early Italo-Romance vernaculars

In this paper I claim that not all existential pro-forms are locative by definition. I examined a corpus of early Italo-Romance texts from the 13th to the 16th century and noticed that in Tuscan the pro-form ci (or vi) cannot co-occur with a locative phrase within the clause; this would corroborate Freeze’s (1992) view that existentials are locative. However, in other Italo-Romance varieties (Sicilian, Campanian and Roman), the pro-form and the locative phrase can co-occur. It can therefore be said that whereas in Tuscan the pro-form appears to be the spell-out of a locative argument, in Sicilian, Campanian and Roman, as well as in Modern Italian, it can be said to be a marker of existentiality which joins with the copula to spell out an existential predicate (Bentley 2006).