Morphological splits: Constructions with GO + infinitive in Romance

As part of the enterprise of canonical typology, Corbett (2015, 2022, 2023) develops the concept of a morphological split, distinguishing between ‘internal’ or ‘lexical’ splits and ‘external’ or ‘morphosyntactic’ splits. In the present paper we explore the consequences of these ideas with respect to both the synchrony and the diachrony of Romance periphrases involving the go verb. In particular, we examine go combined with an infinitive as a future marker in French and modern Occitan, where the split is internal, in contrast to the past tense go plus infinitive in Catalan and old Occitan, which exhibits an externally motivated split. Key evidence here comes from the patterns attested in Guardiolo, the variety of Occitan which has survived in the southern Italian village of Guardia Piemontese (Micali 2022).