Morphosyntactic variation: Individual grammar and group grammar in the ‘de-dialectalization’ of Italian

Authors

  • Massimo Cerruti Università di Torino Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/sols.32807

Keywords:

REGIONAL ITALIAN, DE-DIALECTALIZATION OF ITALIAN, MORPHOSYNTAX, SOCIAL AND INDIVIDUAL VARIATION

Abstract

This paper draws upon the results of recent sociolinguistic studies on regional varieties of Italian and aims to provide a general overview of the differences between and within socially defined groups with respect to the use of regional morphosyntactic features. In this respect, a distinction is made between the following cases: (i) similar sociolects, similar idiolects; (ii) different sociolects, similar idiolects; and (iii) same sociolect, different idiolects. These three cases are discussed against the backdrop of the progressive loss of regional morphosyntactic features of Italian across generations, a process which is referred to here as the ‘de-dialectalization’ of Italian. Various phenomena are considered; among others, the use of personal pronouns conveying a reflexive meaning, the distribution of simple past and compound past, the lack of subject-verb agreement in existential plural constructions, the so-called doubly filled complementizer, and the presence of direct object marking.

Author Biography

  • Massimo Cerruti, Università di Torino
    Università di Torino, Italy

References

Acquaviva, P. (2000) La grammatica italiana: il lavoro comincia adesso. Lingua e stile 35(2): 249–272.

Alfonzetti, G. (1997) ‘Ora la luna si nascose, ma prima era bellissima’. Passato prossimo e passato remoto nell’italiano di Sicilia. In M. D’Agostino (ed.) Aspetti della variabilità 11–48. Palermo: Centro di Studi Filologici e Linguistici Siciliani.

Amenta, L. and Castiglione, M. (2003) Convergenza linguistica fra conoscenza, uso e percezione. L’italiano regionale in Sicilia. In N. Maraschio and T. Poggi Salani (eds) Italia linguistica anno Mille. Italia linguistica anno Duemila 287–301. Roma: Bulzoni.

Amenta, L. and Castiglione, M. (2007) Nuove categorie per la de?nizione di italiano regionale. Bollettino dell’Atlante Linguistico Italiano 31: 59–81.

Ammon, U. (2004) On the social forces that determine what is standard in a language and on conditions of successful implementation. Sociolinguistica 17: 1–10. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110245226.1.

Bailey, C.-J. (1973) Variation and linguistic theory. Arlington, VA: Center for Applied Linguistics.

Ballarè, S. (2015) La negazione di frase nell’italiano contemporaneo: un’analisi sociolinguistica. Rivista italiana di dialettologia 39: 37–61.

Benincà, P. and Penello, N. (2009) L’uso di le al di là dei suoi con?ni. In A. Cardinaletti and N. Munaro (eds) Italiano, italiani regionali e dialetti 13–27. Milano: FrancoAngeli.

Benincà, P. and Tortora, C. (2011) Grammatica generativa e variazione. Studi italiani di linguistica teorica e applicata 40(2): 233–258.

Berretta, M. (1989) Sulla presenza dell’accusativo preposizionale in italiano settentrionale: note tipologiche. Vox Romanica 48: 13–37.

Berruto, G. (1987) Sociolinguistica dell’italiano contemporaneo. Roma: La Nuova Italia Scienti?ca.

Berruto, G. (1989) On the typology of linguistic repertories. In U. Ammon (ed.) Status and function of languages and language varieties 552–569. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Berruto, G. (2003) Sul parlante nativo (di italiano). In H. I. Radatz and R. Schlösser (eds) Donum grammaticorum. Festschrift für Harro Stammerjohann 1–14. Tübingen: Niemeyer.

Berruto, G. (2005) Dialect/standard convergence, mixing, and models of language contact: The case of Italy. In P. Auer, F. Hinskens and P. Kerswill (eds) Dialect change. Convergence and divergence in European languages 81–97. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Berruto, G. (2009) ???? ?????????. Sintassi e variazione. In A. Ferrari (ed.) Sintassi storica e sincronica dell’italiano. Subordinazione, coordinazione, giustapposizione. Vol. I 21–58. Firenze: Cesati.

Berruto, G. (2011) Una parola: ‘che’. In Gruppo di ricerca dell’ALS (ed.) Per i linguisti del nuovo millennio. Scritti in onore di Giovanni Ruf?no 190–194. Palermo: Sellerio.

Berruto, G. (2012) Sociolinguistica dell’italiano contemporaneo. (2nd edition; 1st ed. 1987). Roma: Carocci.

Berruto, G. (2014) Punti d’incontro fra sociolinguistica e linguistica formale nello studio della variazione. Considerazioni dal punto di vista italo-romanzo. In I. Tempesta and M. Vedovelli (eds) Di linguistica e di sociolinguistica. Studi offerti a Norbert Dittmar 29–47. Roma: Bulzoni.

Bertinetto, P. M. and Magno Caldonetto, E. (1993) Ritmo e intonazione. In A. A. Sobrero (ed.) Introduzione all’italiano contemporaneo. Vol. I 141–192. Roma-Bari: Laterza.

Bickerton, D. (1971) Inherent variability and variable rules. Foundations of language 7: 457–492.

Bonato, M. (2006) Quand ch’it ven-e? Il doppio introduttore nelle frasi interrogative del piemontese parlato contemporaneo. Lingue e idiomi d’Italia 1(2): 36–66.

Brero, C. and Bertodatti, R. (1988) Grammatica della lingua piemontese. Torino: Editrice Artistica Piemontese.

Cardinaletti, A. and Munaro, N. (eds) (2009) Italiano, italiani regionali e dialetti. Milano: FrancoAngeli.

Cerruti, M. (2009) Strutture dell’italiano regionale. Morfosintassi di una varietà diatopica in prospettiva sociolinguistica. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.

Cerruti, M. (2011a) Regional varieties of Italian in the linguistic repertoire. The Inter­national Journal of the Sociology of Language 210: 9–28. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl.2011.028.

Cerruti, M. (2011b) Un fenomeno al con?ne tra morfosintassi e prosodia in una situazione di contatto verticale: le congiunzioni subordinanti ben che, ?n che, per che. In R. Bombi, M. D’Agostino and S. Dal Negro (eds) Lingue e culture in contatto. Atti del X Congresso AItLA 173–191. Perugia: Guerra.

Cerruti, M. (2014) From language contact to language variation: A case of contact-induced grammaticalization in Italo-Romance. Journal of Language Contact 7(2): 288–308. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/19552629-00702003.

Cerruti, M. (2015) Co-occurring features in a dialect-standard continuum: Regional standards (and other varieties) in Italo-Romance. ICLaVE 8: 8th International Conference on Language Variation in Europe, Leipzig, May 27–29, 2015.

Cerruti, M. (2016a) Changes from below, changes from above. Relative constructions in contemporary Italian. In M. Cerruti, C. Crocco and S. Marzo (eds) Towards a new standard: Theoretical and empirical studies on the restandardization of Italian 62–88. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Cerruti, M. (2016b) Costruzioni relative in italiano popolare. In F. Guerini (ed.) Italiano e dialetto bresciano in racconti di partigiani 79-118. Roma: Aracne.

Cerruti, M. and Regis, R. (2014) Standardization patterns and dialect/standard conver­gence: A North-Western Italian perspective. Language in Society 43(1): 83–111.

Cerruti, M., Crocco, C. and Marzo, S. (eds) (2016) Towards a new standard: Theoretical and empirical studies on the restandardization of Italian. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Chomsky, N. (1986) Knowledge of language: Its nature, origin and use. New York: Praeger.

Cordin, P. (2001) I pronomi ri?essivi. In L. Renzi (ed.) Grande grammatica italiana di consultazione. Volume I 607–617. Bologna: Il Mulino.

Cornips, L. and Corrigan K. P. (eds) (2005) Syntax and variation: Reconciling the biological and the social. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.265.

Cortelazzo, M. A. (2001) L’italiano e le sue varietà: una situazione in movimento. Lingua e stile 34(3): 417–430.

Cravens, T. D. and Giannelli, L. (1995) Relative salience of gender and class in a situation of multiple competing norms. Language Variation and Change 7: 261–285. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954394500001010.

Crocco, C. (2016) Everyone has an accent: Standard Italian and regional pronunciation. In M. Cerruti, C. Crocco and S. Marzo (eds) Towards a new standard: Theoretical and empirical studies on the restandardization of Italian 89–117. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Cuzzolin, P. (2002) ‘Frammenti di grammatica viva’. Nota su un uso anomalo del pronome atono le nell’italiano contemporaneo. Linguistica e Filologia 14: 69–79.

D’Achille, P. (2008) Le varietà diastratiche e diafasiche delle lingue romanze dal punto di vista storico: italiano. In G. Ernst, M.-D. Gle?gen, C. Schmitt and W. Schweickard (eds) Romanische Sprachgeschichte. Ein internationales Handbuch zur Geschichte der romanischen Sprachen. Vol. III 2334–2355. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Dorian, N. (1994) Varieties of variation in a very small place: Social homogeneity, prestige norms and linguistic variation. Language 70: 631–696. Doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/416324.

Ferguson, C. A. (1959) Diglossia. Word 15: 325–340. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/00437956.1959.11659702.

Foresti, F., Morisi, P. and Resca, M. (eds) (1983) Era come a mietere. Testimonianze orali e scritte di soldati sulla Grande guerra con immagini inedite. Bologna: Comune di San Giovanni in Persiceto.

Gregersen, F. (1995) Some problems with the Labovian paradigm. In Proceedings of the International Congress of Dialectologists IV 35–48. Stuttgart: Steiner.

Guardiano, C. (2010) L’oggetto diretto preposizionale in siciliano. Una breve rassegna e qualche domanda. Quaderni di lavoro ASIt 11: 83–101.

Guerini, F. (2015) Being a former Second World War partisan: Reported speech and the expression of local identity. Open Linguistics 1(1): 191–210. Doi: https://doi.org/10.2478/opli-2014-0010.

Gumperz, J. J. (1964) Linguistic and social interaction in two communities. American Anthropologist 66: 137–153. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1964.66.suppl_3.02a00100.

Guy, G. R. (1980) Variation in the group and the individual: The case of ?nal stop deletion. In W. Labov (ed.) Locating language in time and space 1–36. New York: Academic Press.

Guy, G. R. (2013) The cognitive coherence of sociolects: How do speakers handle multiple sociolinguistic variables? Journal of Pragmatics 52: 63–71. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2012.12.019.

Johnstone, B. (2001) The individual. In A. Duranti (ed.) Key terms in language and culture 122–125. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Keenan, E. L. and Comrie, B. (1977) Noun phrase accessibility and Universal Grammar. Linguistic Inquiry 8: 63–99.

King, R. (2013) Morphosyntactic variation. In R. Bayley, R. Cameron and C. Lucas (eds) The Oxford handbook of sociolinguistics 445–463. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199744084.013.0022.

Kortmann, B. (2010) Areal variation in syntax. In P. Auer and J. E. Schmidt (eds) Language and space: An international handbook of linguistic variation. Vol. I 837–864. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Kroch, A. (1989) Re?exes of grammar in patterns of language change. Language variation and change 1: 199–244. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954394500000168.

Labov, W. (1966) The social strati?cation of English in New York City. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.

Labov, W. (1969) The study of Nonstandard English. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.

Labov, W. (1972) Sociolinguistic patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Labov, W. (1994) The study of change in progress: Observations in real time. In W. Labov, Principles of linguistic change: Internal factors 73–112. Oxford: Blackwell.

Le Page, R. B. and Tabouret-Keller, A. (1985) Acts of identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Léglise, I. and Chamoreau, C. (eds) (2013) The interplay of variation and change in contact settings. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1075/silv.12.

Loporcaro, M. (2009) Pro?lo linguistico dei dialetti italiani. Roma-Bari: Laterza.

Mendoza-Denton, N. (2010) Individuals and communities. In R. Wodak, B. Johnstone and P. Kerswill (eds) The Sage handbook of sociolinguistics 181–192. London: Sage.

Meyerhoff, M. (2013) Syntactic variation and change: The variationist framework and language contact. In I. Léglise and C. Chamoreau (eds) The interplay of variation and change in contact settings 23–51. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Meyerhoff, M. and Walker, J. A. (2007) The persistence of variation in individual grammars: Copula absence in ‘urban sojourners’ and their stay-at-home peers, Bequia (St Vincent and the Grenadines). Journal of Sociolinguistics 11(3): 346–366.

Mufwene, S. (2014) Language ecology, language evolution, and the actuation question. In T. Åfarli and B. Maelhum (eds) The sociolinguistics of grammar 13–35. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.154.02muf.

Nespor, M. and Vogel, I. (2007) Prosodic phonology. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110977790.

Poletto, C. (2009) I costrutti verbo + preposizione: l’interferenza tra veneto e italiano regionale. In A. Cardinaletti and N. Munaro (eds) Italiano, italiani regionali e dialetti 155–172. Milano: FrancoAngeli.

Regis, R. (2016) How regional standards set in: The case of standard Piedmontese Italian. In M. Cerruti, C. Crocco and S. Marzo (eds) Towards a new standard: Theoretical and empirical studies on the restandardization of Italian 145–175. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Rickford, J. R. (2002) Implicational Scales. In J. K. Chambers, P. Trudgill and N. Schilling-Estes (eds) The handbook of language variation and change 142–167. Oxford: Blackwell.

Sankoff, G. (2006) Age: Apparent time and real time. In K. Brown (ed.) The Encyclopedia of Languages and Linguistics. Vol. I 110–116. Cambridge: Elsevier. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/B0-08-044854-2/01479-6.

Squartini, M. and Bertinetto, P. M. (2000) The simple and compound past in Romance languages. In Ö. Dahl (ed.) Tense and aspect in the languages of Europe 403–440. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Tagliamonte, S. and Baayen, R. H. (2012) Models, forests and trees of York English: Was/were variation as a case study for statistical practice. Language Variation and Change 24(2): 135–178. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954394512000129.

Tekav?i?, P. (1980) Grammatica storica dell’italiano. Bologna: Il Mulino.

Telmon, T. (1993) Varietà regionali. In A. A. Sobrero (ed.) Introduzione all’italiano contemporaneo. Vol. II 93–149. Roma-Bari: Laterza.

van Coetsem, F. (2000) A general and uni?ed theory of the transmission process in language contact. Heidelberg: Winter.

Walker, J. A. and Meyerhoff, M. (2013) Studies of the community and the individual. In R. Bayley R. Cameron and C. Lucas (eds) The Oxford handbook of sociolinguistics 175–194. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199744084.013.0009.

Wolfram, W. (2006) Variation and Language, an overview. In K. Brown (ed.) The Encyclopedia of Languages and Linguistics. Vol. II 333–341. Cambridge: Elsevier. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/B0-08-044854-2/04256-5.

Wolfram, W. and Beckett, D. (2000) The role of the individual and group in earlier African American English. American Speech 75(1): 3–33. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/00031283-75-1-3.

Published

2018-03-26

How to Cite

Cerruti, M. (2018). Morphosyntactic variation: Individual grammar and group grammar in the ‘de-dialectalization’ of Italian. Sociolinguistic Studies, 11(2-3-4), 313-340. https://doi.org/10.1558/sols.32807