Micro-Variation in Nominal Plural in NorthLombard and Neighbouring Rhaeto-Romance Varieties. A Phasal Treatment

In Romance languages, two fundamental types of plural inflection are attested: (i) -i (and -e, -a) in Italian and Romanian varieties; (ii) -s in West Romania, including, in addition to French, Occitan and Ibero-Romance, also Sardinian, Friulian and Rhaeto-Romance varieties, spoken in peripheral areas with respect to Italian-type varieties. In these latter languages, the inflection -i is not totally eradicated but competes with -s. In some North-Lombard dialects of Grisons, spoken in Mesolcina and Bregaglia Valleys (see (1)), feminine plural is lexicalized by the morpheme -ŋ. In neighbouring dialects, feminine and masculine nouns are devoid of plural inflection. Moreover, these varieties are in contact with Rhaeto-Romance languages with -s in the plural. The coexistence of these different inflections gives rise to a micro-variation involving a pervasive asymmetric distribution of plural inflection: - between -s/-ŋ and vocalic plurals - between determiners (/modifiers) and nouns - between masculine and feminine plural In the article, we will present the relevant data from the varieties we investigate. Next, the theoretical framework will be discussed and the observative generalizations will be related to the Phases model proposed in Chomsky (2001)