Contact-Induced Change in Sicilian Gallo-Italic

Abstract

In this paper we focus on an aspect of the change in the syntax of the Gallo-Italic variety of Nicosia (Enna), which is presumably fostered by prolonged contact with Sicilian: the use of the Aviri a + Infinitive Construction (AICo). This periphrasis can cover different functions (deontic, epistemic, futural, and optative) and, in Nicosiano, can surface in different configurations (usually featuring a [d] element). We considered a written corpus containing works (poetry, short stories, novels, theatre plays) by the two major authors in Nicosiano: La Giglia (1862-1922) and Castrogiovanni (1933-2007). We compared the occurrences of the AICo in the corpus with those of modal dövë̀ ‘must’ and synthetic future forms. The functions of the latter two, which are not productive in Sicilian anymore, generally overlap with those of the AICo. The data collected confirm the effects of Sicilian on Nicosiano: the AICo has almost completely taken over dövë̀ and synthetic forms for all the functions considered, the latter constructions generally occurring in crystallised expressions in the corpus.

Keywords

• Gallo-italic. Sicilian. contact phenomena. functional HAVE. multipurpose periphrases