Osservazioni sul soggetto espletivo tra fiorentino del Due-Trecento, antico francese e volgari dell’Italia Settentrionale

The expletive subject characterizes both the syntax of ancient Italian and of Old French; moreover, it is a syntactic feature of Old Occitan and old Northern Italian varieties. Starting from the consideration that romance languages are the continuation of a pro-drop language as Latin was, it is not surprising to find pro-drop stages in the oldest testimonies of the Romance languages too. However, the non-compulsory nature of the non-pro-drop syntax appears as a complex rule, i.e. with an asymmetric pro-drop syntax: main clauses are organized in a typically pro-drop syntax, on the other hand subordinate clauses show a strong tendency to express subject pronouns. The history of expletive pronouns in Old Italian, Old French, Old Occitan and old Northern Italian varieties combines with this complex syntactic feature.