Isolation and Complexification: some Evidence from Northern Italian Dialects Lorenzo Ferrarotti, Università degli Studi di Torino Keywords: Northern Italian Dialects, Isolation, Complexification, , Gallo-italic In his seminal work on the interaction between sociolinguistic factors and typological change, Trudgill (2011) showed that isolated communities can develop some sort of complexification in their local varieties. Instances of this phenomenon have yet to be described for Northern Italian dialects, even if Andersen (1988) has described several cases for some Swiss Romansh varieties. This contribution aims to show that peculiar cases of complexification occur in the Gallo-Italic dialects of a few towns in the easternmost part of Piedmont, namely , , , Cameri and Quarna Sotto. These varieties display a substantial array of phonological, and morphosyntactic innovations, which are in large part idiosyncratic and somehow unique compared not only to the neighboring dialects, but also to the Gallo-Italic group as a whole. A good example of that is a peculiar type of unetymological nasal reinforcement, attested in Borgomanero, Cameri and Trecate (Tuttle 1992, 1993), so that Latin CANE(M) ‘dog’ > [køŋ] > [køk] in a prepausal context, while in sandhi contexts the nasal quality can be preserved. Another example of morphological complexification leading to morphophonological opacity is the generalized enclysis of object clitics to the Verbal Phrase in Galliate (Belletti et al. 1978), Trecate (Leone et al. 2000), Borgomanero (Tortora 2014: 92), that occurs with a few structural differences. This leads to the formation of heavy and often fused clitic strings, as in (1); clitic elements can also be postponed to a noun, a preposition or a negation if it makes part of the VP (2).

(1a) Galliate darotra (*darò=ta=la give-FUT-1S=you.CL.DAT.2SG=it.CL.ACC.3SG.FEM) ‘I’ll give it to you’

(1b) Trecate i vöttu (with metathesis vödatu < *vödu=ta see.3PL=you.CL.ACC.2SG) ‘they see you’

(2a) Galliate sta mismi (*sta amisu=mi stay.IMP.2S friend.SG=me.CL.DAT.SG) ‘be friend to me’

(2b) Borgomanero i vangumma gianni (*vangumma già=ni see-1PL already=us.CL.ACC.1PL) ‘we have already seen each other’; [i ˈt͡ ʃami ˈmilːu] (*[͡tʃami ˈmia=lu] call.1SG NEG=him.CL.ACC.3SG.MASC) ‘I don’t call him’ In the isolated variety of Quarna Sotto (3) the indirect object clitic can even be postponed to the object NP (Manzini, Savoia 2005: II 520), at an even higher level of the syntactic structure. (3) Quarna Sotto [iɐ=dai̯ əu̯ ˈlibər=ɐt] (give.1SG DET.MASC.SG book.SG=you.CL.DAT.2SG) ‘I give you the book’ These and other uncommon morphological features, often paired with the retention of phonetic and morphological archaisms, increase the overall linguistic complexity of these dialects in various degrees, as well as their morphophonological opacity. Some of these features have been already described per se (Tuttle 1992, 1993, Tortora 2014), but they can be put in a larger picture. Even if only Quarna Sotto is an isolated community in the strict geographic sense, the other towns can be considered, following Tuttle (1993), “closed” or “endocentric” communities that possibly developed such novel varieties as a result of low adult language contact, small community size, and stable social networks. The contribution, drawing data from studies and linguistic atlases, will show with synchronic, diachronic and areal evidence combined with the analysis of socio-historical factors, that different kinds of social isolation can lead to linguistic complexification, sometimes in unexpected ways.

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