Promiser, Promisee, Theme, propositional complement · Italian marking · working claim, revisable
promettere. The commitment sense. Sabatini Coletti, on Corriere, gives the commissive the schema [sogg-v-arg-prep.arg], “Garantire, assicurare qlco. a qlcu.,” and prints p. aiuto all'amico. The same bullet adds the clause as another shape of the direct argument: ti prometto di essere buono, che arriverò in orario. Treccani, sense 1a, prints the Theme as a bare object, p. un premio, un regalo, una ricompensa, and the Promisee as a dative clitic, gli ho promesso il mio appoggio, m'ha promesso aiuto, non ti posso p. nulla. De Mauro prints gli ho promesso un gelato and ti prometto che verrò. Hoepli prints ti prometto un premio, il mio aiuto and te lo prometto. The Promiser is the subject: io in ti prometto, the imperative promettimi, gli ho. The Promisee is a dative clitic, gli, mi, ti, m', te, or a plus a DP. Treccani’s Sinonimi e Contrari names that preposition: “con la prep. a del secondo arg.,” and prints p. un premio al figlio. Hoepli prints the full noun in the betrothal line, l'avevano promessa a un giovane del luogo.
a or a dative clitic, and one accusative. The person stands under a or in a dative clitic. all'amico, al figlio, and a un giovane are that preposition. gli in gli ho promesso un gelato, ti in ti prometto un premio, and mi in promettimi are dative. A bare person before the thing, the shape of English promise him a bike, is unprinted. It is not filed. The entries opened here spell the clitic or the a-phrase, not both on one line. A doubled gli … a Luca is unprinted. The feminine dative le is unprinted on these lines. The printed third-person dative is gli. The Theme, when it is a noun, is one accusative DP: un gelato, un premio, il mio appoggio, aiuto, una ricompensa. lo in te lo prometto and in lo prometto is that Theme. te precedes lo. A third-person fusion glielo is unprinted. Glielo prometto reuses gli and lo. It is constructed.
di+infinitive, subject control, when the line is the pledge. Sabatini prints ti prometto di essere buono inside the commissive schema, beside the che-clause. The one who is to be good is the Promiser, io. ti is not the one who is good. Treccani prints promettimi di star buono and mi ha promesso di mettersi a studiare. The imperative subject is the one who is to behave. mettersi agrees with the subject of ha promesso, not with mi. Hoepli prints promettimi di stare buono and ti prometto di ubbidire. Treccani also prints ti prometto di tornare presto. The one who returns is io. di is the infinitive marker. It is not the mark of the Promisee.
che-clause. The mood of the pledge, in the lines printed here, is future indicative. De Mauro prints ti prometto che verrò. Treccani prints promettimi che mi condurrai con te and mi prometti che non lo farai più? Hoepli prints promettimi che starai tranquillo. Sabatini prints che arriverò in orario. The Italian Wiktionary prints Ti prometto che non lo dirò mai a nessuno. verrò, condurrai, farai, starai, arriverò, and dirò are future. non lo farai negates the act inside the clause. The matrix pledge stays affirmative in form, and the mood stays future indicative. No entry opened here prints a subjunctive in a che-clause of promettere. No subjunctive complement is filed. No conditional is printed in these che-clauses either. A separate, labelled assurance uses the present indicative. Treccani, sense 5, “Ant. o region., assicurare,” prints vi prometto che la cosa sta proprio così come dico io. Hoepli, sense 4, “ant.,” prints ti prometto che è la pura verità. sta and è are present. That sense is not the pledge of a later act.
A separate sense, to give reason to expect. No Promisee. Sabatini puts it under a different schema, [sogg-v-arg], “Fare sperare qlco.,” and prints i vigneti promettono una buona vendemmia, then p. bene, male. There is no prep.arg. Treccani, sense 2, “Far sperare,” prints è un ragazzo, un giovane che promette bene, “anche assol. che promette,” and il tempo promette bene oggi, also promette male and promette tempesta. The other construction on that sense is oggi promette d'essere una bellissima, una brutta, una pessima giornata. De Mauro, sense 4a, prints oggi il tempo promette sereno, la stagione promette un raccolto abbondante, and la situazione non promette nulla di buono. Sense 4b prints questo ragazzo promette bene and promette di diventare una grande ballerina. Hoepli prints il cielo promette pioggia, quel ragazzo promette bene nella pittura, and the absolute quel pittore promette. Olivetti glosses promettere bene as “far prevedere un buon esito” and prints la campagna promette bene. The Italian Wiktionary prints Oggi promette pioggia... under “sembrare che succederà.” sereno is a predicative on the weather. It is not a Promisee. bene and male are adverbs of that prospect. They are not Themes given to a person.
Control and the giornata line. Working claim, revisable. In the commitment di-infinitive, the understood subject is the Promiser. A dative Promisee can be there, and that Promisee is not the one who acts. ti prometto di essere buono is that pledge: io is to be good. In oggi promette d'essere una bellissima giornata, Treccani sense 2, there is no Promisee, and the giornata is what is beautiful. Nobody is pledged to. promette di diventare una grande ballerina is De Mauro sense 4b, not sense 1a. The subject of diventare is the matrix subject, and no dative is printed. The working claim is that these no-Promisee infinitives are a raising, prospect use: the matrix subject is the subject of the infinitive, and the verb does not report a pledge to a dative. The dictionaries do not use the word raising. They split the sense. Sabatini’s commissive schema keeps the prepositional argument; the prospect schema does not. A human subject does not by itself make promette di diventare or promette bene the commitment frame. De Mauro files both under the prospect senses.
promettersi. Two pronominal frames, and they are not a second-person Promisee of a gift. Sabatini gives promettersi the schema [sogg-v-prep.arg], “Impegnarsi, offrire la propria persona a qlcu.,” and prints p. (in sposa) a un uomo. Hoepli prints si era promesso a Dio and glosses Promettersi a qualcuno as “impegnarsi a sposarlo.” Olivetti enters promettersi as “fidanzarsi, impegnarsi.” Treccani, sense 1b, prints promettersi in sposa, in moglie, or simply promettersi, for the girl’s own engagement, beside the active p. una ragazza in moglie, in matrimonio, where the parents are the subject and the girl is the object. The same paragraph prints the reciprocal promettersi amore eterno. Treccani’s Sinonimi gloss promettersi as “mettere la propria persona al servizio di qualcuno, con la prep. a,” example p. a Dio, and mark promettersi in sposa (a qualcuno) as disused, equivalent to fidanzarsi (con). a on this reflexive is the person one binds oneself to. It is not the Promisee of gli ho promesso un gelato. The other si is expectation. Treccani, sense 4, “Non com. per ripromettere,” prints non mi prometto molto da lui and s'era promesso grandi guadagni da quell'impresa. The thing hoped for is the object. da is the source. A resolve promettersi di plus an infinitive is unprinted in the entries opened here.
The past participle sits on the Theme. Treccani’s entry promesso is “part. pass. di promettere,” and prints ricevere la ricompensa promessa, il dono promesso, and il promesso sposo, la promessa sposa. The reward, the gift, and the betrothed person are what promesso modifies. Hoepli’s l'avevano promessa a un giovane del luogo is active: avevano is avere, the girl is the direct object, the participle agrees with her, and a un giovane is the Promisee. A finite passive that makes the Theme the subject is unprinted. A passive that makes the Promisee the subject, the shape of English she was promised a new car, is unprinted. The active auxiliary of promettere is avere, as the English Wiktionary conjugation states, and as Hoepli’s avevano shows. si era promesso uses essere as the auxiliary of the pronominal. That era is not a copula rebuilding the pledge.
Copular coercion. Working claim, revisable. The commitment sense is verb-built. The head is promettere. No entry opened here rebuilds that pledge as essere plus an adjective of the Promiser. essere impegnato a is unprinted. The Italian Wiktionary’s synonym list prints impegnarsi, a verb, beside garantire and assicurare. Hoepli’s gloss of the engagement is the verb impegnarsi a sposarlo: a marks the infinitive of sposare, and lo is the object of that infinitive. essere inside di essere buono, and inside d'essere una bellissima giornata, belongs to the infinitive. The matrix head is still promettere. Treccani’s proverb ogni promesso è debito puts essere on the substantivized participle, the thing that was promised. That is a state of the Theme. It is not the Promiser as essere impegnato a.
Where this frame diverges from the English gloss, and from Spanish prometer, German versprechen, and French promettre. English promise him a bike is a bare double object. Cambridge’s printed line of that order, opened for this page, is Her parents promised her a new car. Italian gli ho promesso un gelato puts the person in a dative clitic and the thing in one accusative. A full noun Promisee is a+DP, as in aiuto all'amico and un premio al figlio. Sabatini’s commissive schema writes that second argument as prep.arg. The bare person is unprinted. English also prints promised it to Sara. Italian does not add a second bare object beside that to. English learner lines print the to-infinitive. Italian prints di+infinitive. The same di+essere is the pledge when a dative is there, ti prometto di essere buono, and the prospect when Treccani prints oggi promette d'essere una bellissima giornata with no Promisee. Spanish Me prometió un regalo also uses a dative, and the Spanish page records doubling with a+DP. The Italian lines cited here spell the clitic or the a-phrase, not both. The Spanish page’s negated pledge takes the subjunctive, No te prometo que el trabajo esté. Italian mi prometti che non lo farai più keeps the future indicative, and the non is inside the clause. The French page’s pledge clause is future or conditional. No conditional che-clause is printed in these Italian entries. French de and Italian di are the two infinitive marks against English to and German zu. German das Wetter verspricht schön zu werden is the no-Promisee weather line on the German page. Italian prints that prospect as il tempo promette bene, as il tempo promette sereno, and as promette d'essere. The French séance line can sit beside a dative of the hearer on the French page, Ces nuages nous promettent de la pluie. The Italian prospect lines opened here print no such dative. il cielo promette pioggia has a Theme and no Promisee.