Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics
Language belonging to the Romance language family of the Indo-European language family, spoken as a native language by about 55 million speakers in Italy, Switzerland, Corsica, Istria, and Monaco. Its numerous dialects can be divided into three major groups: (a) the north Italian dialects in Piedmont, Lombardy, Emilia Romagna, Liguria, and Venice; (b) the south Italian dialects (south of Pescara-Rome); and (c) the central Italian dialects (including Corsican and Toscan) whose rich literary tradition (Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarch) has formed the basis for the standard Italian written language since the sixteenth century. The issue of regional expressions of the standard language (‘la questione della lingua’) is still debated. In general, Italian varies little from Vulgar Latin, as can be seen in the well-preserved inflectional system, only slightly reduced by the loss of final syllables. The loss of final consonants (Lat. dormis>dormi ‘you sleep’) and the preservation of intervocalic voiceless stops (Lat./Ital. vita ‘life’) in standard Italian show it to belong to the eastern Romance languages.
References
Holtus, G., M.Metzeltin, and C.Schmitt (eds) 1988. Lexikon der romanistischen Linguistik. Tübingen. Vol. 4, 1–798.
Jaberg, K. and J.Jud. 1928–40. Sprach- und Sachatlas Italiens und der Südschweiz, 8 vols. Zofingen.
Lepschy, A.L. and G.C.Lepschy. 1977. The Italian language today. London. (2nd edn 1988.)
History and dialectology
Cortelazzo, M. 1969–72. Avviamento critico allo studio della dialettologia italiana, vols 1 and 3. Pisa.
Maiden, M. 1994. A linguistic history of Italian. London.
Migliorini, B. 1988. Storia della lingua italiana, 2 vols. Milan.
Migliorini, B. and T.G.Griffith. 1984. The Italian language, 2nd edn. London.
Rizzi, L. 1982. Issues in Italian syntax. Dordrecht.
Rohlfs, G. 1949–54. Historische Grammatik der italienischen Sprache und ihrer Mundarten, 3 vols. Bern.
(Grammatica storica della lingua italiana e dei suoi dialetti. Turin, 1966–9.)
Tekavčić, P. 1972. Grammatica storica della lingua italiana, 3 vols. (2nd edn Bologna, 1980.)
Grammars
Dardano, M. and P.Trifone. 1985. La lingua italiana. Bologna.
——1990. Grammatica italiana con nozioni di linguistica, 2nd edn. Florence.
Regula, M. and J.Jernei. 1965. Grammatica italiana descrittiva su basi storiche e psicologiche, 2nd edn. Bern.
Renzi, L. and G.Salvi (eds) 1988–93. Grande grammatica italiana di consultazione, 3 vols. Bologna.
Serianni, L. and A.Castelvecchi. 1988. Grammatica italiana: italiano commune e lingua letteraria. Turin.
Dictionaries
Battaglia, S. 1961. Grande dizionario della lingua italiana. 3 vols. Turin.
Nuovissimo Dardano: dizionario della lingua italiana. 1986. Rome.
Vocabolario della lingua italiana. 1986. Istituto della enciclopedia italiana edn. Rome.
Etymological dictionaries
Battisti, C. and G.Alesso. 1950–7. Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols. Florence.
Cortelazzo, M. and P.Zolli. 1990. Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana. Bologna.
Pfister, M. 1979–. Lessico etimologico italiano. (Vol. V 1995.) Wiesbaden.
Bibliographies
Hall, R.A., Jr 1958–69. Bibliografia della linguistica italiana. Florence.
——1973. Bibliografia essenziale della linguistica italiana e romanza. Florence.
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