Coming and going in Calabrian: The syntax of pseudo-coordination

The present paper examines the syntax of the verbs of motion GO and COME in the dialects of northern Calabria. In these dialects both verbs of motion exceptionally license a case of pseudo-coordination, a monoclausal complementation structure in which two finite verbs occur in succession. In contrast to similar structures found in neighbouring southern dialects, it is argued that, despite their ‘special’ monoclausal syntax, GO and COME in the northern Calabrian pseudo-construction are not grammaticalized in that they have not undergone any process of grammaticalization. Rather, GO and COME indicate pure deictic motion and lack any of the typical functional (e.g. temporal) uses of their counterparts in other languages, Romance or otherwise. To capture their behaviour, it is proposed that GO and COME in northern Calabrian lexicalize a low functional head marking the aspectual deictic categories of andative and venitive viewpoint, but do not raise to higher positions within the functional domain to lexicalize grammaticalized categories such as future tense, as often happens in other Romance varieties where GO and COME are now also first-merged in such positions and therefore show the concomitant effects of grammaticalization. This leads to the claim that, in contrast to their equivalents in many other Romance varieties, GO and COME in northern Calabrian are grammatical, inasmuch as they are first-merged in a low aspectual head of the clausal functional domain, but they are not grammaticalized, in that they fail to raise to higher functional heads within the higher functional domain.