0000000001325651
AUTHOR
E. Mocciaro
Discontinuity as defocusing. A cognitive interpretation of the so-called discontinuous reciprocal constructions
I intend to analyze a peculiar kind of reciprocal construction, in which the natural symmetry of the complex event is split due both to the defocusing of one participant (O), coded as a comitative, and the foregrounding of the other one (A), coded as a subject controlling the agreement with the verb. This construction (“discontinuous reciprocal construction”, Dimitriadis 2004), involves a “natural reciprocity” (Kemmer 1993) or “mutual configuration” (Haspelmath 2007) of the event (kissing, marring, meeting). Found in many languages, it is well attested in Italian too, both at standard level and at the informal one (1), alongside the prototypical reciprocal one (2): 1. Gianni si sposa/incont…
Un’idea di lingua: modelli, teorie e prospettive acquisizionali
La questione del dialogo e della concreta cooperazione tra didattica della L2 e linguistica acquisizionale resta – nella pratica delle classi più che nell’ambito della riflessione teorica – aperta. E resta aperta, se non addirittura problematica, tanto sul piano metodologico (che cosa deve fare un docente per migliorare le capacita naturali di acquisizione?), quanto su quello dei contenuti linguistici che dovrebbero essere parte attiva della competenza del docente (che cosa deve sapere un docente d’italiano come lingua non materna?). L’articolo focalizza l’attenzione sul profilo delle competenze teorico-linguistiche del docente d’italiano come lingua non materna, così come esso è delineato …
Polisemia e convergenze nel dominio dei modali in siciliano: una lettura funzional-cognitivista di ‘vuliri’ e‘aviri a’
We intend to analyze a few constructions, in Sicilian (S) and in the variety of Italian spoken in Sicily (IS), involving the modals voliri (S)/volere (IS) “want” and aviri a (S)/dovere (IS) “have to”. They are used to express both modal values, along a deontic→epistemic continuum, and futurity (Sicilian, but not Italian, lacks a synthetic future). Modality has been traditionally defined as the linguistic manifestation of the speaker’s attitude towards his utterance. However, modality does not have an unambiguous treatment and there is no agreement on number and kind of semantic categories that can be completely defined as modals (cf. Bybee et al. 1994; Palmer 2001; Nuyts 2005). From a cogni…
Paths of grammaticalization of Early Latin per/per-: A cognitive hypothesis
The paper describes the semantic network of the Early Latin preverb per- and its relation with the corresponding preposition per ‘through’. Making use of the Cognitive Grammar framework, we argue that the basic spatial semantics of both preverb and preposition (here called the “PER relation”) can account for the whole set of concrete and abstract meanings per and per- express. In spite of this common semantic nucleus, however, per- and per differ as to the mechanisms at work in the development and organization of their semantic continua, thus imposing a differentiated analysis at the semantic as well as the morphosyntactic level. In this respect, the notions of grammaticalization and lexica…
A Cognitive Grammar account of the Latin preverb per-: A path towards abstractness.
The present paper is concerned with investigating the relationship between prepositions and preverbs in Early Latin. More specifically we aim at analysing the polysemic network of the Early Latin preverb per- and the relationship linking it with the corresponding preposition. For this purpose we have investigated the entire electronic corpus (PHI5) of comedies by Plautus and a technical work (i.e. Cato’s De Agri Cultura, ), which represent a substantial sample of the oldest Latin attestations in an extensive and non- fragmentary form. This choice allows a broad survey of the formerly grammaticalised usages of the preverb, which constitutes a firm platform to gain a perspective on its subseq…
The semantic network of the Latin preposition per: a diachronic investigation.
This paper explores the semantic network of the Latin preposition per (“through”) in a diachronic perspective derived from the analysis of two electronic corpora of 3rd century BCE – 4th century CE (PHI5; Intratext Digital Library). Drawing upon the insights of Cognitive Grammar (e.g. Langacker 1991), we analyze the role of the schematic import of per in the spread from basic to abstract meanings, thus accounting for the interconnections among the various senses of the polysemous entity. This theoretical position is integrated with Croft’s (1991) model of causal structure of events, as well as the results of an extensive analysis of Early Latin (Brucale & Mocciaro fc.), in order to address …