A bisentential syntax for a/bare finite complements in South Italian varieties: Motion verbs and the progressive

In South Italian varieties of Apulia, Calabria and Sicily a restricted number of control/raising verbs, including stay/be, go, come and want embed finite complements, either bare or introduced by a. These are not necessarily languages with so-called subjunctive particles; in any event, the latter have a different form. Under monoclausal analyses, verbs like stay/be, go etc. are functional heads embedding an inflected predicate. Here we adopt a biclausal analysis under which embedding under stay/be, go etc. is a normal clausal embedding. We argue that the biclausal analysis is not only feasible, but also advantageous, from a morphosyntactic point of view. Focusing on the progressive, we also consider whether the bisentential analysis is compatible with semantic interpretation and how it fares in a typological perspective.