Syntactic Peculiarities of Piedmontese (Dialectology, Romance, Italian Linguistics).

Syntactic peculiarities of Piedmontese presents three different syntactic formulas particular to dialects in the north Italian province of Piedmont. These features, word order in simple negation, l in the auxiliary verbs, and enclitic pronoun objects in compound tenses, are explained in terms of their historical development and modern occurrence. The diachronic analysis is supported by texts drawn from Piedmontese writings documented from the 12th century on, while the contemporary situation is determined primarily from the results of the author's field research in 1979. The explanation of each of the three features posits the adaptation of an underlying syntactic sequence from French. Maps using the AIS numbering system are included, showing isoglosses of the features under consideration, as well as others. Since the syntactic formulas studied are attributed to French, one chapter is devoted to the background history of Piedmont to the beginning of the 17th century. Simple negation in Piedmontese is formed by means of a post-verbal morpheme nen. The simple negative in most Romance idioms is characterized by a pre-verbal derivative of non, as was the case in Piedmontese until the 16th century. The nature of the ensuing change in word order and a proposed explanation thereof are the subject of the longest chapter. In forms of 'to be' and 'to have' in Piedmontese dialects there appears an intrusive initial l not attested in these verbs in general Romance and lacking in early Piedmontese. While the etymon of l is undoubtedly Latin ille, arguments are presented to support as the Romance source either a direct object pronoun or a subject pronoun, which became agglutinated to forms of the auxiliaries. Perhaps, of the three, the most serious deviation from expected Romance word order is found in the pronoun objects, which, in compound tenses, are appended to the past participle in Piedmontese. This phenomenon can be explained in terms of the intrusion of l into 'to be' and 'to have', which appears to have been responsible for the shift from proclitic to enclitic pronoun object placement.PhDLinguisticsUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/159878/1/8412082.pd