AS A NEAPOLTAN, I AM FASCINATED BY THE DISCUSSION ON THE UNSTRESSED
ENCLITICS, BUT CAN SOMEONE VENTURE A REASON WHY, AT LEAST IN NAPLES, THE
FORM IS LIMITED TO CLOSE RELATIVES. TO THE BEST OF MY KNOWLEDGE THERE IS
NO: NONNETO, NEITHER CUGINETO, OR EVEN NIPOTEMO, BUT I HAVE HEARD CAINATEMO
(I.E. BROTHER IN LAW)
SERGIO VIGGIANI
----- Original Message -----
From: Thomas D. Cravens <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2000 2:08 AM
Subject: mammata, etc.
> Professor Cervigni is correct to call into question the suggestions of an
> external linguistic source for the enclitic possessives. There appears to
> be is no evidence for origins outside of Italy, but a rather lengthy list
> of circumstantial evidence to place hypotheses of external influence in
> very serious doubt.
>
> I won't bore everyone with such a list. But I will note that it is
> implausible that a borrowing so syntactically constrained (enclitic to the
> noun, unstressed) could occur, even if the linguistic and socio-historical
> facts could provide a scenario of sufficiently intense contact with a
> language containing enclitic possessives to be able to support the
> hypothesis of borrowing. The major glitch in the borrowing hypothesis,
> however, is that it's unnecessary.
>
> A good source for a quick overview of the historical development of
> enclitic possessives is chapter 4 of Pavao Tekavcic's 1972 Grammatica
> storica dell'italiano. Vol 2: Morfosintassi, in particular pp. 186-188.
> There we find, as Professor Cervigni suggested, that the construction goes
> back to Latin, thus there is no need to posit an external source.
>
> Latin syntax permitted many freedoms, of course, but normal position for
> the full, bisyllabic forms in Latin seems to have been postposition. It's
a
> short step phonologically for these to develop unstressed alternative
> forms. It's a much longer -- or better, linguistically more complex --
step
> for these to grammaticalize as highly constrained syntactic clitics, but
> it's fairly unremarkable in historical perspective once the monosyllabic
> unstressed variant exists. Tekavcic points out that (presumably
unstressed)
> monosyllabic possessives are attested along with the expected full forms
in
> popular Latin as early as at least 2nd Century (MATER MA, PATER TUS), and
> that both the old Tuscan and the modern Central-Southern dialect enclitic
> forms are the direct continuation of these.
>
> Although once common at least as far north as Lucca, they may appear
> striking or mysterious today because their use is highly restricted in
> geographical terms, i.e. they are typologically or statistically somewhat
odd,
> especially if viewed in pan-Romance perspective. Their historical loss in
> northern areas of Central Italy, though, and the modern restriction in at
> least some dialects to a few terms of family relationship and only first
> and second person is just the sort of narrowing of scope to be expected of
> an archaism.
>
> As an historical linguist by trade, I find that if there's a interesting
> mystery to be solved here, it's not so much their origin, but why and/or
> how they have receded.
>
> Tom Cravens
> University of Wisconsin-Madison
> [log in to unmask]
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