On (in)definite ART in Italian and Italo-Romance varieties

Abstract This paper addresses the challenging nature of definiteness and indefiniteness, focusing on several non-canonical interpretations of the definite article (ART) in Italian. The core objective is to demonstrate that so-called “indefinite definites” should be unified with canonical indefinites, rather than being grouped with other non-canonical uses like “weak definites” (WDs) or “reference to kind”. Using cross-Romance diagnostics, the paper shows that ART-indefinites—which are exclusive to Italian—are fundamentally different from WDs, which are attested cross-linguistically. Unlike WDs, which often involve singular count nouns, are lexically marked, and sensitive to modification restrictions, ART-indefinites are restricted to mass and plural count nouns and appear broadly in verb-object combinations without modification restrictions. Structurally, ART-indefinites are unified with bare nouns and partitive determiners (di+ART), forming four possible indefinite nominal expressions in Italian. This variation is analysed as resulting from the overt or covert realisation of the indefinite operator (di/ de) in SpecDP and nominal features (ART) in D. Analysis of informal Italian and Italo-Romance varieties confirms that ART-indefinites correlate with weak indefinites and compete with bare nouns. Ultimately, the study supports the hypothesis that the so-called “definite article” in Italian realises nominal features (gender, number, and abstract Case) at the morphosyntactic level, implying that its semantic interpretations are often independent of it.