I soggetti clitici in fiorentino: un’analisi diacronica corpus based

Abstract

The article analyzes the supposed loss of subject clitics in vernacular Florentine through a corpus-based study. Works about this theme (GALLI DE’ PARATESI, 1984; SOBRERO, 1997; BERRUTO, 1997, 2005; BINAZZI, 1997, 1998, 2007; CARDINALETTI & MUNARO, 2009) claim that the pressure of standard Italian, from the years after the Second World War, contributed to the loss of many of the characteristics of vernacular florentine. However, until now, there was no quantitative nor qualitative data-based investigation on the pronominal system. The occasion for this kind of work was possible thanks to the remastered publication of Corpus Stammerjohann (1970) and of Corpus per il Confronto Diacronico (SCARANO, 2005), both of them spontaneous spoken corpora taped in Florence with approximately forty years of time distance. The investigation that we present analyzed the expression of the third person singular subject clitics gl’, l’, la, e with the present indicative tense of the verb essere (to be). Results obtained in this first stage of the research indicate that there was a reduction in the use of subject clitics over time, but also suggest that the beginning of that loss must be dated back, due to the generation of the informants. Researches should proceed in the future with a larger amount of data to better understand this phenomenon

Keywords

• vernacolo fiorentino
• clitici soggetto
• corpus
• parlato spontaneo