The morphosyntax of adverbs of the carpone/i type in (Old and Modern) Italian

In this paper, we will present a morpho-syntactic analysis of the class of Italian adverbs signalling bodily movements and postures ending with the suffix -one/i. The present work will investigate the significant differences between the uses of this type of adverbs in Old Italian vs. Contemporary Italian. Whereas it seems reasonable (following e.g. Cinque 1999, 2006a) to argue that they are merged in the Specifier of a low Manner Projection above the VP, there are many puzzling facts about them that we will try to account for in this paper. We will propose that, akin to CP adverbials, adverbs in -one/i have an inner prepositional value in their 'bare' form and we will show the consequences of this proposal.