Vowel length and colour as inflectional exponents of verbal categories in Shkodër Gheg

This article addresses a special type of morphological mapping of interpretive properties of the verb in the Shkodër Gheg. In this Northern Albanian variety both vocalic and consonantal verbal stems present a reduced form, devoid of inflectional affixes, characterized by different vocalic lengths and vocalic colors depending on whether they occur as the invariable participle or as the 3rd singular of the non-active perfect and the singular imperative. As is known, in this variety the reduced participle preceded by the preposition mɛ ‘with’ realizes the verb in control contexts, substantially parallel to the infinitive in Romance and Germanic languages (cf. Manzini and Savoia1). The reduced forms show different morpho-phonological properties according to the verbal class, which we can divide, at least in the first instance, in vowel stems, including a thematic vocalic element, and consonant stems, ending in the root consonant. Moreover, bare stems distinguish two alternants depending on the length of the stressed nucleus. We propose an analysis of these alternants within the framework of the minimal approach to syntax discussed in Chomsky