STUDI ITALIANI DI LINGUISTICA TEORICA E APPLICATA

Università per Stranieri di Siena, Il miele della lingua. Le metafore nelle grammatiche di italiano (XVI-XVIII secolo)

2025-07-23T13:02:10+00:00

This paper deals with the metaphors found in a corpus of grammars and language essays built from the GeoStoGrammIt database and covering the period between the 15th and 18th centuries. The inventory and analysis of the most recurrent semantic fields allow us to understand what image grammarians project of themselves and their role, as well as what conception they have of language teaching and learning.

Origin and diffusion of the negative prefix anti- in Romance Languages

2025-07-23T10:49:53+00:00

The aim of the present work is to trace the origin and diffusion of the negative prefix anti- in French, Italian and Spanish, with particular attention to the analogical models and the (potential) lexical borrowings which contributed to the convergent emergence of the semantic patterns ‘opposed to/ against N’ (i.e. FR. antifasciste); and ‘contrast/cure of N’ (i.e. IT. antitumorale).
Our analysis shows that the leader words of both patterns are some Neo-Latin coinages formed respectively in ecclesiastic and medical Latin, which were transmitted to these languages between the 16th and the 18th century. A massive circulation of interromance lexical borrowings coined in the field of politics between the 18th and the 19th century contributed to the establishment and to a significant expansion in the use of the pattern ‘opposed to/ against N’; as far as the pattern ‘contrast/cure of N’ is concerned, interromance borrowings did not play a main role in its diffusion, which had already occurred with the many Latin borrowings and especially strengthened by the role of 20th century media. The French language played an important role in the mediation of both patterns to the other languages.
In wider terms, the present contribution provides a framework on the history of the use of anti- in the main Romance languages.

Un problema di morfologia romaní: la diacronia dei derivati astratti

2025-07-23T10:53:52+00:00

This article addresses several aspects of the development of Romani abstract nouns in -ipen, -iben and -imo. The first section shows that, despite the agreement on the etymology of the three suffixes, Romani abstract nouns are the outcome of complex diachronic pathways: their derivational markers exhibit a high degree of internal and interdialectal variation in their inflection, but they are always followed by an oblique case marker -as-, spread throughout Romani and specific to these derivatives. The second section examines Proto Romani forms of the Indian markers -ipen and -iben, proposing a diachronic analysis for some of their oblique variants attested in Romani and discussing the accountability of the oblique marker -as- as an Indo-Aryan marker. The third section proposes a source for the oblique marker -as- involving the contact with Greek and Romani derivatives in -imo. The last section finally provides a path for the development of abstract nouns’ variation in Romani, with some remarks on the relative chronology of the discussed phenomena.

Le aperture conversazionali in italiano e portoghese brasiliano: uno studio contrastivo su due corpora di richieste

2025-07-23T10:55:59+00:00

Conversational openings play a crucial role in daily interactions as they represent the moment when speakers first need to translate their interpretation of the context into linguistic choices and select between conventional pragmatic routines or more creative expressions. This exploratory study focuses on comparing openings that introduce 2,696 requests in Italian and Brazilian Portuguese collected through an online WDCT (Written Discourse Completion Task). The openings were identified, categorized into 7 different types and analyzed comparing the prevalent categories found in each language. Our findings reveal that both groups consistently employ opening strategies, but Italian speakers seem to rely on conventional routines that prioritize preserving individual space, while Brazilians exhibit more varied strategies that tend to reinforce solidarity. Examining the interplay of linguistic and contextual variables across diverse languages and cultures uncovered nuanced variations in social norms, suggesting paths for further exploration in oral data studies.

Tra soggettività e intersoggettività nel linguaggio: Una riflessione a partire daI predicati di stato interno in giapponese

2025-07-23T10:58:54+00:00

The article begins with a comparison of conceptions concerning the linguistic expression of subjectivity in Western and Eastern (more specifically Japanese) contexts and continues with a description of the form and structure of internal state predicates from a crosslinguistic perspective. For their analysis, it proposes to overcome a Eurocentric approach and use the approach of emancipatory pragmatics.

Catene referenziali nel testo narrativo: un’indagine esplorativa sulla scrittura di alunni monolingui e plurilingui

2025-07-23T12:23:51+00:00

This paper investigates a specific aspect of reference, namely informativeness, in a corpus of narrative texts written by monolingual and plurilingual students, in secondary school.
The competence of adolescent students in managing reference in a written narrative task is worth investigating since, according to previous studies, the acquisition of cohesion strategies takes time and the pace at which they develop may differ according to linguistic background. Additionally, little is known about the age range from the end of primary school to adulthood, as few studies on Italian focus on adolescence.
In more general terms, this study will shed light on students’ competence, at around 13 years of age, in managing reference, which is crucial to build narrative texts; therefore, it aims to offer valuable insights to those interested in teaching narrative competences and writing skills.

Le espressioni della casualità tra universale e particolare. considerazioni sull’italiano toccare in sorte a

2025-07-23T12:55:37+00:00

This paper aims to investigate the Italian construction toccare in sorte a, which roughly means ‘to befall (someone)’. The research will try to identify the metaphorical extensions and the other semantic processes underlying the specific meaning of the verb toccare, the prepositional phrase in sorte (sorte roughly meaning ‘chance’), and the construction as a whole, following the Conceptual Metaphor theory (cf. Lakoff and Johnson, 1980; Lakoff, 1993; Kövecses, 2005). More specifically, this construction consists of (a) something that tocca in sorte (the syntactic subject of toccare), (b) a human being encoded with the dative of a pronoun or with the prepositional phrase “a ‘to’ + a noun”, (c) the prepositional phrase in sorte.

Niente niente non negativo nell’italiano contemporaneo

2025-07-23T12:57:44+00:00

The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the non-negative uses of niente niente in present-day Italian. The lack of a comprehensive description in lexicography and grammars has prompted an investigation of a set of data collected from the Italian corpus ItTenTen20. Furthermore, niente niente has faced very important developments over the past century, which need to be reported.

A Sociophonetic Analysis of Diphthongs and Hiatus in Schoolchildren

2025-07-23T12:59:27+00:00

This paper investigates the production of Italian stressed vowels and vowel clusters (diphthongs and hiatus) in 40 schoolchildren (8-10 years old) from the Biella area in northwest Italy. Given the high degree of variation in vowel clusters and the limited research on Italian children, the primary aim of this study is to explore the acoustic differences between off-glides, on-glides, hiatus, and stressed vowels. Additionally, we examine the sociophonetic effects of internal migration in the Biellese area post-World War II. In our analysis, we considered the migratory background of the children’s families. Results revealed partial linguistic accommodation and a homogeneous phonetic vowel system among different immigrant groups. Notably, differences were observed in the production of vowels between female and male children, particularly in the F1 values. This finding suggests that sociolinguistic differences between sexes emerge at a young age. Consistent with previous literature, we found differences in the production of diphthongs, hiatus, and stressed vowels. Specifically, on-glides and off-glides were realized with a greater degree of constriction, and the production of hiatus exhibited characteristics of hyper-articulated speech.