Verbs and Modifiers in Old Italo-Romance Texts

Abstract

This paper introduces a research on the verbal structures composed with locative particles in the old Italo-Romance texts (XI-XIV centuries) analysing either the verbparticle constructions (where the particles are basically adverbs used also as prepositions) or the prefixed verbs. The items are selected from the textual data-base and the lexicographic resources developed by the Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (http://tlio.ovi.cnr.it/TLIO/). The aim of the paper is to contribute with new data and searching approaches to the diachronic investigation in the study of the Italian verbal structures with particles. At present the Italian research is focused particularly on the phrasal verbs, verb-particle structures occurring in the current Italian language and in the Italo-Romance dialects, analysed according to the typological classification of motion events drawn up by Talmy (2000). Recently the research has been extended to the study of the diachronic dimension with the aim of explaining the syncronic evidences as an internal development of ancient antecedents. I would like to introduce the study of the old Italian preverbal and postverbal particles as elements of a complex system that has to be analysed firstly in relation to and in contrast with Latin and old Gallo-Romance models. Particularly I will analyse the significant use of the local particles in the class of the prefixed verbs and the phrasal verbs partly as the product of the diachronic evolution of Latin structures, partly as the cultural product of the influence of Latin and Gallo-Romance texts in the development of the ancient Italian lexicon. In this respect I will compare some of the forms documented in the old Italo-Romance vernacular translations with the items occurring in the original texts and more widely I will try to examinate all the data I have selected with reference to the textual context and the intertextual intercultural net they belong to.