An investigation into Caused Motion constructions with configurational motion verbs in southeastern Basilicata

Abstract

This paper focuses on Italian Caused Motion constructions with the configurational motion verbs salire, scendere, entrare, and uscire which, although not part of the standard language, are widely used in some varieties of regional Italian. In detail, we investigate the ongoing standardisation of these constructions in regional Italian spoken in two towns of Basilicata, in southern Italy, and explore the effect of object animacy and sociolinguistic variables on their acceptability. Our findings show that acceptability is influenced by the semantic properties of the object noun, albeit with variations depending on individual verb. Additionally, a sociolinguistic analysis of the data suggests that fluent dialect speakers play a crucial role in the spread of these constructions.