Journal | Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie occidentale
Journal issue | 58 | 2024
Research Article | Contact-Induced Change in Sicilian Gallo-Italic
Contact-Induced Change in Sicilian Gallo-Italic
The Multipurpose Aviri a + Infinitive Construction in the Dialect of Nicosia
Abstract
In this paper we focus on an aspect of the change in the syntax of the Gallo-Italic variety of Nicosia (Enna), which is presumably fostered by prolonged contact with Sicilian: the use of the Aviri a + Infinitive Construction (AICo). This periphrasis can cover different functions (deontic, epistemic, futural, and optative) and, in Nicosiano, can surface in different configurations (usually featuring a [d] element). We considered a written corpus containing works (poetry, short stories, novels, theatre plays) by the two major authors in Nicosiano: La Giglia (1862-1922) and Castrogiovanni (1933-2007). We compared the occurrences of the AICo in the corpus with those of modal dövë̀ ‘must’ and synthetic future forms. The functions of the latter two, which are not productive in Sicilian anymore, generally overlap with those of the AICo. The data collected confirm the effects of Sicilian on Nicosiano: the AICo has almost completely taken over dövë̀ and synthetic forms for all the functions considered, the latter constructions generally occurring in crystallised expressions in the corpus.
Submitted: July 30, 2024 | Published Oct. 29, 2024 | Language: en
Keywords Gallo-italic • multipurpose periphrases • functional HAVE • Sicilian • contact phenomena
Copyright © 2024 Vincenzo Nicolò Di Caro. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/AnnOc/2499-1562/2024/12/016
