Italian clitics : an empirical study / by Cinzia Russi.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Russi, Cinzia, 1966-

Series:

Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs [TiLSM]

Trends in linguistics studies and monographs, 1861-4302 ; 193

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Italian language--Clitics.

Italian language.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (316 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New York : Mouton de Gruyter, 2008.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

After reviewing, from a grammaticalization perspective, the main stages in the evolution of Italian object clitic pronouns, the book discusses the distinctive morphosyntactic, semantic, and pragmatic features of Italian clitics. In particular, the book offers an original study of the most common examples of so-called verbi procomplementari, verbs which are characterized by the incorporation of clitics that no longer function as pronouns, and which are widely used in present-day Italian. Their emergence involves both grammaticalization of the clitic pronoun into an obligatory element, and lexicalization of the verb+clitic sequence. This study is essentially descriptive and maximally data-driven. The discussion of grammaticalization and lexicalization is reduced to the essentials and aims primarily at defining how these terms, which have received different and at times divergent interpretations, are employed in the book. The book is accessible to a wide and varied readership, which includes Italian and Romance linguists of functional and formal orientation, Italian language scholars, grammaticalization scholars interested in new case studies, as well as students of language change and variation.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction

Chapter 2 Grammaticalization, lexicalization, and language change

Chapter 3 The Italian clitic system: a brief introduction

Chapter 4 Grammaticalization of the clitic pronouns

Chapter 5 Verbs in ne

Chapter 6 Verbs in ci

Chapter 7 Verbs in la

Chapter 8 Clitics or affixes?

Chapter 9 Conclusion

Backmatter

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [261]-289) and index.

ISBN:

9786612196706

9781282196704

1282196707

9783110206975

3110206978

OCLC:

476197158