Il ‘genitivo’ di esclamazione: note su un grecismo sintattico nel romanzo della Calabria meridionale

Abstract

This paper investigates a syntactic construction typical of the southernmost Italo‑Romance varieties spoken in Calabria, plausibly originating from Greek through long‑term contact. The focus is on nominal expressions encoding surprise, pain, fear, anger, or disappointment, introduced by an interjection and formed by a prepositional phrase headed by di/’i “of”. Although this pattern has not been addressed in previous research on Greek-Romance contact in southern Italy, it appears to continue a specific function of the Greek genitive. The study examines its historical development and documents its distribution in the Romance varieties of southern Calabria, showing how this construction contributes to our understanding of contact-induced syntactic convergence in the area.