The argument structure of verbs of communication in Italian

The aim of this paper is to analyze the argument structure of a class of semantically and syntactically interrelated Italian verbs according to a usage-based approach and in a syntax-semantics-pragmatics interface perspective. The verbs we consider are dire ‘say’, parlare ‘speak’, discutere ‘discuss’, raccontare ‘tell’. The theoretical model we adopt is Cognitive Construction Grammar (Goldberg 1995, 2006) in a usage-based perspective (Bybee 2006, 2010; Perek 2015). We will therefore conduct the analysis on corpora containing authentic uses of these verbs in Italian. The ultimate goal of the paper is (i) to show the broad range of constructions that the Italian verbs of saying we analyze present and (ii) to identify the existing correlations between the semantic nature of the verbs and their syntactic and pragmatic features.