XI. Rheto-Romance Studies Paul Videsott, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano
1. General 2010 was marked by the publication of four important collected volumes with a focus on Rheto- Romance: CILPR 25, vii, Desinan Vol., Marcato, Ascoli, and Vicario, Lessico. Topics under discussion include the history of the discipline and above all toponymy, which remains one of the most popular areas of Rheto-Romance studies, as is also demonstrated in the eighth issue of the Forschungsbericht by G. Holtus and J. Kramer, ‘Bündnerromanische, dolomitenladinische und friaulische Forschungen 2004–2007/2008’, Ladinia, 34:149–85. Pertaining to the history of the discipline are two articles by G. Frau, ‘Ascoli e la Società Filologica Friulana’, Marcato, Ascoli, 125–30, and H. Goebl, ‘La concezione ascoliana del ladino e del franco-provenzale’, ib., 147–75. The Austrian scholar confirms once again that Ascoli classified languages and dialects based on a method that he had adapted from the natural sciences, in particular from geographical and biological studies, a method which consisted in the identification of ‘units’ that had in common the same ‘particular combination’ of linguistic traits. For Ascoli, ‘unit’ did not signify ‘uniformity’ (as it has been misunderstood by those scholars who take an opposing view), but rather ‘group, class’. Furthermore, the method of ‘particular combination’ has been used to identify many other geotypes (the various Italian dialects, for example), without this ever eliciting such discussions or critiques. The results of the application of Ascoli’s method to the Rheto-Romance geotype can be compared with the results achieved through dialectometrics, as demonstrated by R. Bauer, ‘Verifica dialettometrica della Ladinia di Graziadio Isaia Ascoli (a 100 anni dalla sua morte)’, CILPR 25, vii, 3–10: the areas that reach the highest levels of ‘ladinity’ according to Ascoli’s criteria are also connected to one another by bonds of dialectometric similarity that are very high. One of the most vocal critics of Ascoli’s method was the Italo-Swiss linguist Carlo Salvioni. His position was typically ‘typophobic’, as shown in A. Zamboni, ‘Carlo Salvioni e la questione ladina’, pp. 59–78 of Carlo Salvioni e la dialettologia in Svizzera e in Italia. Atti del convegno organizzato a centocinquant’anni dalla nascita di Carlo Salvioni e a cent’anni dalla fondazione del ‘Vocabolario della Svizzera italiana’ (Bellinzona, 5.-6.12.2008) (Gli innesti, 3), ed. Michele Loporcaro, Franco Lurà, and Max Pfister, Bellinzona, Centro di Dialettologia e di Etnografia, 315 pp. A complete overview of the linguistic history of the Grisons region is provided by G. Hilty, ‘La storia del Romancio e la questione ladina’, CILPR 25, vi, 3–18. Finally we should also mention Claudi Meneghin, Rhaeto-Cisalpine at a Glance. Vol.1: Phonology, Orthography, Morphology (Lincom Studies in Romance Linguistics, 65), Munich, Lincom, 76 pp., which collects into a single volume the various articles that the author has published in recent years in the journal Ianua (7, 2007; 8, 2008; 9, 2009; cf. YWMLS 71:532), although we confess that even on re-reading them we cannot agree with the author’s ultimate aim of creating a new ‘rheto-Cisalpine’ koinè.
2. Friulan Bibliographical and General. The first appearance of philological studies on Friulan is retraced by S. Del Magno, ‘I primi studi di filologia friulana. Dai Testi inediti di Joppi ai registri 344 Rheto-Romance Studies gemonesi di Marchetti’, Vicario, Lessico, 31–48. F. Vicario, ‘Presenze friulane. Sonetti sanvitesi e la “Gramàtiche” di Achille Tellini’, SFF 87, 929–36, considers firstly various Friulan sonnets composed in the early 19th c., and then more centrally the Esperanto grammar published in 1935 by the Friulan scholar Achille Tellini, expressly composed ‘pa-i ladìns furlàns’ (for the Friulan Ladins). R. Fontanot, ‘L’Italia settentrionale fra veneto e friulano’, CILPR 25, VII, 31–40, is concerned with the ‘Friulan’ traces historically identifiable (and to some extent still seen today) in the northern Istrian dialects and above all in their toponymies, but defers to a future study the demonstration that such traces can be attributed to the concrete presence of Friulan in Istria before it was absorbed into the Veneto, or else resulted from Friulan migration towards Istria in the 17th century. L. Vanelli, ‘Ipotesi tipologiche sul friulano (e sul ladino dolomitico) su base morfologica: la formazione del plurale’, CILPR 25, VII, 123–34, starts from the basis that Dolomitic Ladin and Friulan allow plural formations both with -s and (for certain consonants of masculine nouns) with -i, and then goes on to explain the action of this -i by way of an explanatory model drawn from autosegmental phonology. The conclusion is that Dolomitic and Friulan varieties, from a typological perspective as far as the formation of the plural is concerned, are on the margins of western Romania and act as a kind of bridge into central and eastern Romania. Phonetics and Prosody. In the wake of the backdating to the first millenium of the palatalization of the nexuses ca and ga, accepted by the majority of scholars following the article by P. Videsott, ‘La palatalizzazione di ca e ga nell’arco alpino orientale. Un contributo alla delimitazione dei confini dell’Italia linguistica dell’anno 1000’, VR, 60, 2001:25–50, F. Finco, ‘Per una retrodatazione della palatalizzazione di ca e ga in friulano’, CILPR 25, vii, 21–30, presents similar arguments for the Friulan area. In particular the author shows that the method used previously (dating such palatalization on the basis of borrowings from Friulan to Slovenian, whether palatalized or not) is not adequate, while instead what are of significance are the dates of the oldest toponyms with Slavic etymons in Friuli: since these date from around the 10th c., and since they were not palatalized, we must conclude that the process of palatalization must have ended much earlier. S. Heinemann, ‘Consonantizzazione e protesi in friulano’, CILPR 25, vii, 51–60, analyses the co-existence of two contradictory tendencies, or rather processes of reinforcement (the substitution V > KV, Udin > Vudin for example) and of consonantal weakening (K > Ø, volgere > ože), present in a large range of north-eastern Italian idioms. We cannot understand, however, how the author can define the vocalic phonological length and consonantal epithesis as ‘caratteristiche […] che lo [i.e. il friulano] differenziano nettamente dagli altri idiomi retoromanzi’ (51), since both traits can be found in Dolomitic Ladin as well as the Grisons. R. Miotti, ‘L’abbassamento vocalico in friulano, antico alto tedesco e spagnolo e il continuum