Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics 57(4), 2021, pp. 519–572 © Faculty of English, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland doi: 10.1515/psicl-2021-0020 SOME NOTES ON CENTRAL CAUSAL CLAUSES IN VENETIAN NICHOLAS CATASSO catasso@uni-wuppertal.de University of Wuppertal ABSTRACT The goal of this paper is to provide novel evidence in favor of an integration of Haege- man’s (2002) taxonomy of adverbial clause subordination by discussing some data from C-introduced causal constructs in Venetian, the Italo-Romance dialect spoken in the city of Venice. Haegeman’s model is based on a two-class categorization of adverbial struc- tures into central clauses, in which matrix-clause phenomena (such as the licensing of some sentence-initial or sentence-final discourse particle-like items, XP-fronting) are excluded, and peripheral clauses, in which these phenomena are licit. The external- syntactic distinction predicted by this model, namely a semantic differentiation resulting from TP/VP-adjunction for central vs. CP-adjunction for peripheral adverbial clauses, has severe consequences for the internal syntax of the a/m constructions, the most strik- ing being the absence of the upper projections of the Split CP of central constructs. The data presented in this paper, however, suggest that (at least) in Venetian, (some) main- clause phenomena may also be licensed in central adverbial clauses under specific cir- cumstances. Additionally, it will be shown that the conclusions drawn from the observa- tion of the Venetian data match the behavior of the same constructions in Standard Ital- ian, as well as in other languages, under the very same conditions. KEYWORDS: adverbial clauses; causality; Venetian; Italo-Romance; assertivity; presup- posedness. 1. Introduction A long-debated issue in the syntactic literature is the formal differentiation of matrix and embedded clauses by means of diagnostic evidence based on repli- cable tests, as well as on data with cross-linguistic relevance. Authors such as Townsend and Beaver (1977: 1 and 4–5) claim that: “clauses often differ in the