Object omission and the semantics of predicates in Italian

This paper investigates the semantic constraints on object omission in Italian in a comparative perspective. Adopting an event structure perspective on objecthood and transitivity (Levin 1999), it is shown that variability in the omissibility of the object reflects both the event structure template of verbs (e.g., the low degree of aspectual specification of verbs) and the elements of meaning lexicalized in the verb, interacting, in different but principled ways, with non-event structure notions such as animacy, control, definiteness, referentiality as well as discourse factors. Whereas the constraints on Indefinite Null Instantiation appear to be similar to those at work in other languages (e.g., English and French), those applying to Definite Null Instantiation display more variability.