Iconicity and analogy in language change : the development of double object clitic clusters from medieval Florentine to Modern Italian / Janice M. Aski, Cinzia Russi.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Aski, Janice M., author.

Russi, Cinzia, 1966- author.

Series:

Studies in language change ; volume 13.

Studies in Language Change ; volume 13

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Italian language--Clitics.

Italian language.

Italian language--Pronoun.

Iconicity (Linguistics).

Italian language--Grammar, Historical.

Italian language--Dialects--Italy--Tuscany--Grammar.

Italian language--Dialects--Italy--Tuscany--Grammar, Historical.

Linguistic change.

Italian language--Dialects--Grammar.

Italian language--Dialects--Grammar, Historical.

Italian language--Dialects.

Grammar.

Italy--Tuscany.

Physical Description:

xiii, 192 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Boston : De Gruyter Mouton, [2015]

Summary:

This book examines the alternation between accusative-dative and dative-accusative order in Old Florentine clitic clusters and its decline in favor of the latter. Based on an exhaustive analysis of data from medieval Florentine and Tuscan texts, this volume offers a novel analysis of the rise of the variable order, the transition from one order to the other, and the demise of the alternation that relies primarily on iconicity and analogy. This series presents empirically based research that extends knowledge about historical relations among the world's languages without restriction to any particular language family or region. While not devoted explicitly to theoretical explanations, the series hopes to contribute to the advancement in understandings of language change as well as adding to the store of well-analysed historical-comparative data on the world's languages. Book jacket.

Contents:

Chapter 1 Introduction 1

1.1 Objectives of the study 4

1.2 Texts and tokens in our Florentine corpus 9

1.3 Organization of the book 15

Chapter 2 Origins, earliest attestations and forms of the Romance personal clitic pronouns 17

2.1 Origins 17

2.2 Earliest attestations 20

2.2.1 Outside Italy 20

2.2.2 Italy: non-Tuscan vernaculars 22

2.2.3 Tuscan vernaculars 24

2.3 Forms 25

2.3.1 Third person acc forms 26

2.3.2 First and second person DAT forms 32

2.3.2.1 First person plural no and ne 34

2.3.2.2 Second person plural vo 44

2.3.2.3 Forms found in clusters 46

2.4 Double object clitic clusters in Old Romance 50

2.4.1 Outside Italy 51

2.4.2 Italy: non-Tuscan vernaculars 53

2.5 Double object clitic clusters in thirteenth-century Tuscan vernaculars 55

2.5.1 Previous accounts 55

2.5.2 OVI data for thirteenth-century Tuscan vernaculars 57

2.6 Double object clitic clusters in fourteenth-century Tuscan vernaculars 60

2.7 Summary 62

Chapter 3 The theoretical approach 64

3.1 The cognitive/functional aspects of variation and change 64

3.2 Analogy vs. Iconicity 68

3.3 Cognitive/functional features of clitic order alternation and change 74

3.3.1 Iconicity 74

3.3.2 Analogy 82

3.4 Grammaticalization of the DAT-ACC order 83

3.5 Explanation of language variation and change in a cognitive/functionalist approach 85

Chapter 4 Pragmatic functionality of clitic order in fourteenth-century Florentine 91

4.1 Previous approaches 91

4.2 The methodology of the present study 96

4.3 Significant structural features 100

4.4 Exophoric pragmatic iconicity: Empathy vs. Urgency 102

4.4.1 Empathy 104

4.4.2 Urgency 106

4.5 Empathy and urgency: Token analysis by text 109

4.5.1 II Filocolo (Giovanni Boccaccio, 1338) 109

4.5.2 Elegia di Madonna Fiammetta (Giovanni Boccaccio, 1344) 112

4.5.3 II Corbaccio (Giovanni Boccaccio, 1355) 117

4.5.4 Decameron (Giovanni Boccaccio, 1370) 118

4.5.5 Lettera di Gherardino di Niccold Gherardini Giani a Tommaso di Piero di messer Rodolfo de' Bardi (1375) 121

4.5.6 Frammenti del libra segreto di Simone di Rinieri (1380) 122

4.6 Clusters with dire 'to tell, to say', dird 'I will tell you' and credere 'to believe' 124

4.7 Formulaic and/or idiomatic expressions 136

4.8 Summary of results and other considerations 139

Chapter 5 The demise of the ACC-DAT order and the fixation of the DAT-ACC cluster 143

5.3 Introduction 143

5.2 Endophoric structural iconicity: Causatives, convert ire 'to suit; to be advisable', parere 'to seem' 144

5.3 Morphological constellations and analogy: The relationship with the masculine singular definite article 155

5.4 Other analogical pressures: Phonotactics, morphological structure, and clusters with reflexives 162

5.5 Language external factors: Borrowing from Tuscan vernaculars 168

5.6 Summary and conclusions 171

Chapter 6 Conclusions 173

6.1 Summary of the analysis and issues for further research 173

6.2 Implications of this analysis: Language change, iconicity, and analogy 177.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 178-189) and index.

ISBN:

9781614517528

1614517525

OCLC:

915774697

Publisher Number:

40025658702