Abstract

I argue that impersonal se is bound by empty pronouns in Catalan, Spanish and Italian. The impersonal pronouns always receive nominative case since they trigger Differential Object Marking, allow bare DP objects, and are incompatible with dative experiencer psychological verbs. In the second part of the paper I examine the interpretative properties of the empty pronominals. On the one hand, these constructions allow generic and existential interpretations, and I attribute them to an empty pronoun ϕ as in Holmberg and Mendikoetxea. However, I argue that Italian has an additional interpretation of impersonal se as first person plural WE. Thus, I assume that Italian has a WE/ϕ pronoun, but Catalan and Spanish only have a ϕ pronoun. This double nature of impersonal se in Italian is parallel to what is found in other languages such as French on. Finally, I show that certain unexamined differences between se in Catalan and Spanish on the one hand, versus Italian, on the other, can be explained under this new approach.