Search results for "linguistica"

Pragmatic markers resulting from language contact. The case of sañani in Aymara

2020

This paper explores the pragmatic functions of a previously unattested pragmatic marker (Fraser, 1996, 2006) found in Aymara, i.e. sanani ‘let’s say’. The uses of sanani suggest that this marker is the result of the influence of Spanish on Aymara due to sustained language contact. Sanani seems to be the “replication” (Heine and Kuteva, 2005) of the Spanish pragmatic marker digamos ‘let’s say’. Like digamos (Grande Alija, 2010; Quartararo, 2017a), sanani functions as a pragmatic marker by signaling either an inferential process or the semantic relation between two discourse segments. The original data used for this analysis was gathered through the Family Problems Picture task (San Roque et …

Hjelmslev et la "fonction sémiotique", du modèle structural au modèle cognitif

2008

The article discusses the concept of semiotics function in Hjelmslev, finding sources of the theory of language’s stratification. The semiotic function, which is in Hjelmslev the principle underlying the dynamic layering, is identified here as both an attraction of two heterogeneous spaces and as a set of operations of sense’s establishment. At historiographic level, this article presents a new hypothesis of interpretation, that the hjelmslevian structuralism has not built a static theory of language, disinterested to the cognitive dimension, but a careful theory to operational aspects of semiosis.

Deus ex machina: una frana

2020

Sull'uso odierno della locuzione "deus ex machina": estensioni semantiche

Multi-factorial sicilian modals: a case of continuity in discourse

2008

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…

À propos du 'son desviat' de Marcabru (BdT 293.5)

2010

Si propone una nuova interpretazione del problematico incipit del trovatore Marcabru (ca. 1125-50) sulla base di una rubrica presente nel canzoniere provenzale W.

Searching for syntax in the history of medieval linguistic thought

2021

The present volume contains selected papers from the international conference on “The submerged syntax between Late Antiquity and the Modern Age. Sources, models, and interpretative strategies”, that took place in Palermo, 28-29 November 2019, hosted by the Department of Humanities at the University of Palermo. The conference was organized under the umbrella of a project of national relevance funded by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research, named “Parts of speech meet rhetorics: searching for syntax in the continuity between the Middle Ages and the Modern Age” (PRIN 20172F2FEZ, funded from January 2020). The approach that unifies this volume is mostly related to the rec…

Das zweifache Komplementierersystem im Zimbrischen: Romanische Entlehnung und Eigenentwicklung

2018

Cimbrian is a German(ic) minority language which has long been in contact with Romance varieties in the Northeast of Italy and represents an ideal object of analysis for investigating some specific issues in language contact, such as the borrowing of functional words. In this article, we first provide a detailed description of the Cimbrian subordination system putting forward an analysis of both the Romance loanword ke and the native complementizer az; secondly, we try to generalize the concept of ‘functional loanword’ comparing Cimbrian with typologically different languages. In a nutshell, we propose a common grammaticalization path, by which functional words borrowed from a model languag…

On the metalanguage of the first Grammar of Aymara (1603)

This paper investigates the linguistic categories adopted by the Jesuit missionary Ludovico Bertonio in his early modern European description of the Andean language of Aymara. Like other missionary grammars in the Spanish colonial world, Bertonio’s linguistic work tends to impose traditional terms and classifications, familiar to Latin and Romance languages, to an indigenous language that is completely different in its typological structure from the IndoEuropean model and exhibits morphological and syntactic strategies that were entirely new at that time. Thus, in his description of noun declension, the missionary grammarian reduces the rich Aymara case system to only six case endings (caso…

The Homeric compound Ὑπερίων and the sun in the Indo-European culture

2017

This paper aims at reconstructing the semantic meaning of Homeric Ὑπερίων, the epithet of the sun, whose etymology is still not clear. After presenting the modern interpretations, which describe it as an adjective in the comparative form derived from the adverbial particle ὑπέρ ‘up, above’, the ancient grammarians’ hypothesis on Ὑπερίων as a compound is tested, taking into consideration the textual analysis of those discourse contexts in which the terms for sun are used in archaic Greek and Vedic Sanskrit in comparative perspective. In particular, the co-occurrence with the motion verb go, i.e. εἶμι and i from the same IE root *h1ey-, in the Homeric poems and in the Rigveda respectively, mi…

Perspectives on Language and Linguistics

2021

The scientific interests of Lucio Melazzo have been addressed to diverse research fields, from ancient to modern Indo-European languages, from etymology to formal syntax, from history of linguistics to studies on ancient Greek philosophers. On occasion of his retirement from his university activities, we have decided to offer him this volume, which gathers the contributions of many distinguished scholars who have accepted to participate in this project. We appreciate that the variety of the book contents reflects the variety of Lucio Melazzo’s own interests.