A linguistic history of Italian

Author(s)

• Maiden, Martin

Bibliographic Information

A linguistic history of Italian

Martin Maiden

（Longman linguistics library）

Longman, 1995

• : hbk
• : pbk

Note

Bibliography: p. [276]-287

Includes index

Description and Table of Contents

Volume

: pbk ISBN 9780582059283

Description

A Linguistic History of Italian offers a clear and concise explanation of why modern Italian grammar has become the way it is. It focuses on the effects of historical changes on the modern structure of Italian, revealing patterns and structures which are not always apparent to those who are only familiar with modern Italian. Although the book concentrates on the internal history of the language, the emergence of Italian is considered against the wider background of the history of italian dialects, and other external factors such as cultural and social influences are also examined.

Table of Contents

Preface Abbreviations and symbols 1. Introduction 2. History of the sound system 3. Structural evolution of nouns, adjectives and verbs 4 History of sentence structure 5. Variation in modern Bibliography Index

Volume

: hbk ISBN 9780582059290

Description

A view of the major elements in the structural evolution of the Italian language, this study aims to be accessible to those who know the modern language and seek the historical rationale behind some of its features, and to those who are interested in the history of the Romance languages.

Table of Contents

• Part 1 Introduction: perspectives and aims
• the emergence of Italian
• chronology and historical sources
• a note on phonetic transcription
• some concepts in linguistic change. Part 2 History of the sound system: the prosodic system
• vowels
• consonants
• major vowel changes
• the glides [j] and [w], and their effects
• palatalizing effects of the front vowels
• consonantal weakening
• consonant lengthening, and syllable structure
• syllable-final weakening
• the word-final consonants
• dissimilation and metathesis
• the phonetic sources of inflectional -e and -i
• a note on "learned" phonology. Part 3 Structural evolution of nouns, adjectives and verbs: structure of words
• infectional morphology of the noun and adjective
• invariance and inflectionalessness
• number in the noun and adjective
• gender
• adjectives
• the demonstratives
• the articles
• the verb
• the pronouns
• the prepositions
• derivational word formation. Part 4 History of sentence structure: verb - subject agreement
• interrogation
• negation
• conjunctions
• comparison
• verb complementation
• aspect and tense
• mood. Part 5 Variation in modern Italian: types of variation
• the dialects
• structural influences of the dialects on popular Italian
• emergence of "neostandard" Italian?
• Italian abroad.

by "Nielsen BookData"

Details

• NCID: BA24268533
• ISBN:
  • 0582059291
  • 0582059283
• LCCN: 93046832
• Country Code: uk
• Title Language Code: eng
• Text Language Code: eng
• Place of Publication: London ; New York
• Pages/Volumes: xviii, 300 p.
• Size: 23 cm
• Classification:
  • LCC : PC1075
  • DC20 : 450/.9
• Subject Headings:
  • LCSH : Italian language -- History
• Parent Bibliography ID:
  • BA00267274