Demonstratives and word order within the DP. A crosslinguistic inspection.

The contribution discusses some instances of internal word order variation in nominal structures (DPs) with specific attention to the position of demonstrative elements with respect to other constituents, and will propose an attempt of a crosslinguistic analysis in a parametric perspective. I will show relevant empirical data collected on purpose, and I will explore the hypothesis that both cross- and intra-linguistic surface differences in the position of the demonstrative depend in fact on a cluster of interacting abstract parametric properties. I adopt the universal structure of the nominal domain sketched within the framework of the ‘DP hypothesis’ (e.g. Bernstein 2001, Longobardi 2001, Longobardi and Guardiano 2009).