Short replies in Italian: Sì / no and other markers between polarity and agreement

On the background of the well-known distinction between polarity and agreement particles (Moravsik, 1971; Pope, 1973), the Italian particles sì /no have been described both as polarity markers (cf. Bernini, 1995) and agreement markers (cf. Bazzanella, 1995). While these two values are often combined in actual speech (sì = positive polarity, agreement; no = negative polarity, disagreement), they conflict when speakers have to reply to negative utterances. For instance, in replying to a negative question (e.g. ‘‘Didn’t you read this book?’’), the particle no would either assign a negative polarity for the content under discussion (‘‘I didn’t’’) or reject the negative polarity proposed by the question (‘‘That’s not true’’ = ‘‘I did’’). Replies to negative utterances are therefore a crucial context to investigate for a deeper understanding of the use of particles in short replies. The study investigates the use of Italian sì /no and other possible replying options at work in short replies to negative questions and assertions, in data collected ad hoc with two dialogic tasks (Interviews, Map Tasks). The analysis compares positive and negative short replies to both assertions and questions. Results show that sì /no are mainly used as polarity markers, but the possibility of using no as a marker of disagreement arises when conversationally marked (dispreferred, according to Pomerantz, 1984) moves are at play: in replies rejectingtheprevious turnassumptions(vs. confirming replies) and in replies toassertions(vs. replies toquestions). In thesamecontexts, the use ofmore explicit markers increasesonboth the (dis)agreement and the polarity axes respectively, through the use of further particles and frequent recourse to echo replies, especially in the formof verbal echoes. In providing a data-based description of the use of Italian particles, results offer support to the markedness hypotheses proposed for a typology of short-reply systems (Farkas and Bruce, 2010).