Morphosyntax and Lexical Transfer in the Italian L2 of Romanian Speakers

This thesis investigates the Italian spoken by Romanian–Italian bilinguals, focusing on the interaction between morphosyntactic structure and lexical organization in a context of long-term language contact. The study examines how Romanian as a first language influences Italian as a second language, considering both the structure of nominal expressions and patterns of lexical and semantic transfer. The analysis is based on a corpus of semi-structured interviews with adult Romanian and Moldovan speakers living in the Veneto region. The data show recurring patterns of cross-linguistic influence affecting both morphosyntax and the lexicon. At the morphosyntactic level, the study examines the structure of nominal expressions, including the use and omission of articles, the distribution of possessives, and the interaction between determiners, adjectives and quantifiers. At the lexical level, the analysis identifies calques, hybrid formations and collocational patterns influenced by Romanian. The results show that Romanian influences Italian production in systematic ways and that morphosyntactic and lexical transfer are closely connected. The Italian described in this study can be seen as a structured system shaped by the interaction between the two languages.