A DIACHRONIC STUDY INTO THE DISTRIBUTIONS OF TWO ITALO-ROMANCE SYNTHETIC CONDITIONAL FORMS Jennie Parkinson A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of St. Andrews 2009 Full metadata for this item is available in the St Andrews Digital Research Repository at: https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/ Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/10023/737 This item is protected by original copyright A Diachronic Study into the Distributions of Two Italo-Romance Synthetic Conditional Forms Jennie Parkinson January 2009 Thesis Declaration I, Jennie Parkinson, hereby certify that this thesis, which is approximately 70,000 words in length, excluding appendices and bibliography, has been written by me, that it is the record of work carried out by me and that it has not been submitted in any previous application for a higher degree. I was admitted as a research student in September 2003 and as a candidate for the degree of PhD in May 2004, the higher study for which this is a record was carried out in the University of St Andrews between 2003 and 2009. 22 January 2009 ……… I hereby certify that the candidate has fulfilled the conditions of the Resolution and Regulations appropriate for the degree of PhD in the University of St Andrews and that the candidate is qualified to submit this thesis in application for that degree. 22 January 2009 ……… In submitting this thesis to the University of St Andrews we understand that we are giving permission for it to be made available for use in accordance with the regulations of the University Library for the time being in force, subject to any copyright vested in the work not being affected thereby. We also understand that the title and the abstract will be published, and that a copy of the work may be made and supplied to any bona fide library or research worker, that my thesis will be electronically accessible for personal or research use unless exempt by award of an embargo as requested below, and that the library has the right to migrate my thesis into new electronic forms as required to ensure continued access to the thesis. We have obtained any third-party copyright permissions that may be required in order to allow such access and migration, or have requested the appropriate embargo below. The following is an agreed request by candidate and supervisor regarding the electronic publication of this thesis: Access to Printed copy and electronic publication of thesis through the University of St Andrews. 22 January 2009 ………… ……… 2 Abstract Two distinct conditional paradigms are available to speakers of Italian, derived from the Latin periphrases CANTARE HABUI/CANTARE HABEBAM. The aim of this thesis is to describe and explain their patterns of attestation in the earliest northern Italian and Tuscan texts, which date from between 1200 and 1400. Textual analysis showed that while the CANTARE HABUI periphrasis was native to both areas, the use of the CANTARE HABEBAM periphrasis differed in the northern and central dialects. In the northern dialects, the CANTARE HABEBAM periphrasis was attested in all genres over the whole time period, whereas in the Tuscan dialects it only appeared in literary genres. Moreover, although the northern texts attested both periphrases consistently over time in every genre, only Tuscan poetry followed this pattern. Other genres attested reflexes of the CANTARE HABEBAM periphrasis for short periods in the fourteenth century. These results suggest that different influences resulted in different patterns of conditional use in the two areas. This thesis postulates that in the northern Italo-Romance dialects, other than those of the extreme north-west, the CANTARE HABEBAM periphrasis was introduced through the proximity to, and influence of, Provençal. Although the use of reflexes of CANTARE HABEBAM was reinforced in the north by the Sicilian school of poets, the dual nature of the sources meant that it was also retained in prose, and thence into modern dialect use. In contrast, reflexes of the CANTARE HABEBAM periphrasis were introduced into central Italy through the Sicilian school alone. Although it appeared in prose texts, this was a sporadic phenomenon, resulting from imitation of the influential poetic texts. Because there was no prose source for reflexes of the CANTARE HABEBAM periphrasis, it did not enter non-literary genres and quickly disappeared from literary prose genres. The CANTARE HABEBAM periphrasis eventually disappeared entirely from Tuscan poetry as well, and is not attested at all in the modern central dialects. 3 Acknowledgements My thanks go to everyone who had helped in various ways to make this thesis possible, particularly to my parents and to Alyson. Thanks are also due to Moira and to Bridget for help with last minute proof-reading And, of course, I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Ronnie Ferguson, without whose guidance and encouragement this thesis would never have seen the light of day. I‘m glad to say that his fears about my return and eventual finishing have been proven unfounded, and we’ve even had fun along the way. Well, I have – he may disagree! A. M. D. G. 4 Index List of figures 6 Chapter 1 Introduction 7 Chapter 2 Hypotheticality and the Source of the Romance 22 Conditional Chapter 3 Functions of the Modern Conditional 54 Chapter 4 Methodology 80 Chapter 5 Data Analysis 115 Chapter 6 Summary and Conclusions 187 Appendix 1 Genre Classifications 202 Appendix 2 Area Classifications 203 Appendix 3 Texts Discarded on Ground of Joint Area 207 Classification Appendix 4 Sicilian school, Siculo-Tuscan and Stilnovisti 214 Texts Appendix 5 Texts reallocated from EP OR to RET 222 Appendix 6 B-Tables 224 Appendix 7 C-Tables 227 Appendix 8 Charts 232 Bibliography 263 OVI Bibliography 284 5 List of Figures Table A Search parameters used to retrieve attestations from the OVI 94 Graph 1 Correlation between two measures of conditional use for the 118 variable genre. Graph 2 Correlation between two measures of conditional use for the 119 variable date. Graph 3 Correlation between two measures of conditional use for the 120 variable area. Graph 4 Rates of conditional attestations (both paradigms) over time. 122 Graph 5 Correlation between the rate of attestation of both paradigms and the HABUI reflex. 128 Graph 6 Correlation between the rate of attestation of both paradigms and the HABEBAM reflex. 129 Graph 7 Correlation between the number of attestations of each reflex per 1,000 words. 134 Graph 8 Attestations of the HABEBAM reflex proportional to the attestations of the HABUI reflex. 135 Graph 9 Correlation between the percentage of texts in a variant containing each reflex. 136 Graph 10 Percentage of texts in each variant attesting the HABEBAM reflex proportional to the percentage of texts attesting the HABUI reflex. 136 6 Chapter 1 - Introduction 1.1 Introduction Alone among the Romance languages, Standard Italian, based on Tuscan, derives the conditional paradigm from the Latin periphrasis CANTARE HABUI, rather than from a 1 reflex of CANTARE HABEBAM, as is the case elsewhere in Romania. The situation in Italy is also unusual in that in certain areas of the peninsula reflexes of both periphrases co-exist in the modern dialects, whereas in other areas there is no native form of the conditional at all. Attestations of both periphrases appear in the earliest texts across the different regions of Italy, with little or no apparent order to their use. The primary aim of this thesis is to describe the distributions of the two conditional periphrases at the earliest possible point for which concrete data exists. The secondary aim of this study is to explain any patterns that appear in the distributions of the two periphrases in the light of the historical context. It is reasonable to assume that current variation between standard and dialect forms must have its roots in the past, and it is hoped that the historical variation described here will shed light on the current distributions of the two paradigms. While the chapters of background theory will trace the roots and development of the modern conditional from the syntax and semantics of the infinitive + HABUI/HABEBAM periphrasis, this chapter will focus on the semantic and distributional differences between the two variants, infinitive + HABUI and infinitive + HABEBAM in Latin and 1 While Elcock regards the CANTARE HABEBAM reflexes as having had a continuing existence in the northern Italian dialects, stating that “North Italian dialects still have flexions deriving from the imperfect”, Ferguson, in a close linguistic study of Venetian and the Veneto, asserts that CANTARE HABUI was also the native type in Venice, the Veneto and most of northern Italy, as well as in the central dialects, although the reflex of CANTARE HABEBAM has prevailed in contemporary Venetian. Additional evidence for this analysis is presented by Rohlfs, who notes that “soltanto nell’estremo Mezzogiorno, dove tēla > tila, la desinenza –ia potrebbe direttamente resalire al latino habebam”. This analysis will, therefore, be presumed correct in the discussion of the distributions of the two reflexes in this chapter, but it will be considered in more detail in the Conclusions to this thesis. W. D. Elcock, The Romance Languages (London: Faber and Faber, 1960), p. 107. Ronnie Ferguson, A Linguistic History of Venice (Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2007), p. 156. Gerhard Rohlfs, Grammatica storica della lingua italiana e dei suoi dialetti: Morfologia (Turin: Einaudi, 1968), p. 339. 7 their modern reflexes, the canterei and cantaria types in the modern Italo-Romance dialects. With the two paradigms set in their past and present contexts, the possible loci of variation exemplified in the earliest texts will be isolated, and hypotheses set up to form a framework in which to describe this variation.