Rivista accademica edita dall'Associazione laureate/i in lingue e letterature straniere (ALL) dell'Università di Udine La rivista Lingue antiche e moderne intende creare uno spazio privilegiato d’incontro e riflessione per linguisti e filologi classici e moderni, nello spirito di collaborazione e partnership tra realtà culturali diverse che caratterizza l’Associazione laureate/i in Lingue e letterature straniere e il Centro Internazionale sul Plurilinguismo dell'Università di Udine. La ricezione dei classici è un settore di ricerca interdisciplinare che si è trovato al centro di un crescente interesse nel dibattito accademico internazionale degli ultimi decenni. La rivista si presenta come un'iniziativa scientifica unica e originale perché pone il nucleo del proprio interesse sulla dimensione propriamente linguistica. I contributi accolti dalla rivista contribuiscono a indagare, in modo approfondito e aggiornato, le innumerevoli forme in cui le lingue classiche sono tuttora essenziali e sono state estremamente vitali e influenti nel mondo moderno, dall'umanesimo al classicismo, diventando anch’esse pienamente lingue dei moderni. Un’attenzione particolare è dedicata inoltre all'insegnamento e all'apprendimento delle lingue, classiche e contemporanee, poiché in Europa il latino è sempre stato la lingua di cultura per eccellenza nelle scuole e nelle università. Più specificamente, la rivista si concentra su come le teorie linguistiche odierne influenzano l'analisi delle lingue classiche e ne sono influenzate. Grazie alle sue finalità, alla sua portata e al suo libero accesso on-line, la rivista rappresenta un anello di congiunzione tra il mondo accademico e quello dell'istruzione scolastica e promuove attivamente il collegamento tra analisi scientifica e insegnamento delle lingue, ricerca teorica e applicata. Direttore responsabile Renato Oniga Codirettrici Antonella Duso e Fabiana Fusco ISSN 2281-4841 La rivista è inclusa nelle banche dati DOAJ e Web of Science. Ha ricevuto il riconoscimento di classe A dall’ANVUR. Autorizzazione del Tribunale di Udine n. 14/2012 del 13 novembre 2012 Questa rivista è pubblicata sotto una licenza Creative Commons 4.0 License.
Morphological constraints and diachrony: the Latin -men suffix
In this paper we discuss the long history of the Latin affix men, paying attention to its uncommon increase in productivity from the first attes- tations (a bunch of archaic words that demonstrate the Indo-European legacy of men) to its outcomes in the Romance varieties. Our claim is that in the long diachronic path from Pre-Latin to Late Latin, two rele- vant morphological processes interested men, leading to both its formal and semantic evolution: (i) the rise of the thematic pattern, that is related to the success of men in the classical stage; (ii) a reanalysis process, that isolated it from other nominalization affixes, and made it possible to apply it also to nouns and adjectives. Both changes resulted in the acquisition of more complex semantic values, still observed in dialectal data. An interesting point of our hypothesis is that the structural options we outlined were already active in the most ancient phases but developed as morphological tendencies only in later stages of Latin. DOI: 10.4424/lam142025-2
A graph database about Latin nominal compounds
After collecting over the past years a substantial number of nominal compounds from Latin authors spanning from the archaic age to the late antiquity, a graph database has been created. This database is capable of classifying the types of compounds, showing the members they are composed of, and specifying in which works and by which authors they are used. The database can be interrogated through a series of queries that return structured data. The analysis of these data makes it possible to draw interesting insights not only about the specific occurrences of certain compounds within the examined corpus, but also to verify whether there are relationships linking literary genres to specific types of compounds. DOI: 10.4424/lam142025-1
Proposta didattica per una lettura quantitativa senza ictus dell’esametro latino
The traditional ‘metrical reading’ of classical poetry, based on vocal ictus, although still widely practised in schools and universities as a way of conveying the specificity of verse texts, is philologically untenable and entails further pedagogical drawbacks. This paper proposes a method for teaching and learning a practice of reciting the Latin hexameter, that respects both quantitative distinctions and word accent. The approach builds on the recognition of differences in syllabic weight and vowel length that exist in Italian, and thus also provides an opportunity to explore the linguistic comparison between Latin and the national language, centred on the crucial distinction between ‘phonetics’ and ‘phonology’. DOI: 10.4424/lam142025-5
Acquisizione e utilizzo della lingua còrsa: il supporto della descrizione linguistica
The Corsican language faces challenges in its intergenerational transmission, and recent studies show positive trends toward linguistic normalization and standardization. The decline in the use of dialects could bring with it the loss of several linguistic features, which linguistic descriptions aim to address. The concept of ‘polynomic language’, integrating a plural norm, is promoted in teaching. Therefore, linguistic documentation can play an important role in supporting the dissemination of the Corsican language. Standardization efforts, including orthographic codification, aim to provide a unified but diverse approach to the language, balancing the richness of dialectal variation with a common framework for speakers and learners. DOI: 10.4424/lam142025-7
Elementi di purismo linguistico nel sardo scritto dei nuovi contesti d’uso: un confronto con il parlato (semi)spontaneo
Phenomena of linguistic purism may concern minority languages, as they gain public visibility and attract new speakers, even while their everyday use declines. These dynamics have been studied in relation to the Sardinian language, which has recently been increasing its presence on the Internet and social media. The written Sardinian used in such new contexts has been compared with the informal, semi-spontaneous Sardinian spoken by ‘traditional’ native speakers living both on the island and on the Italian mainland. Results show that a new variety of Sardinian, characteristic of formal and public contexts, is emerging with puristic and conservative features, as it tends to avoid linguistic solutions perceived as too close to the Italian model. The distance from informal Sardinian has been highlighted, with possible consequences on the perception of authenticity and naturalness of this new formal variety. DOI: 10.4424/lam142025-9
I ‘nuovi parlanti’ nella trasmissione della lingua di minoranza alle nuove generazioni. Un confronto tra esperienze
The article introduces the topic addressed by the study seminar on the theme of new speakers and semi-speakers in relation to the prospects for the transmission of minority languages to new generations. Following a brief theoretical framework and an overview of the state of research concerning the four minority languages under consideration (Corsican, Friulian, Ladin, and Sardinian), the article outlines the features shared by these linguistic contexts, the common challenges they face, and the research questions that have emerged from the comparison of different experiences. Special attention is devoted to types of language acquisition and learning, to sociolinguistic issues, to the motivations driving language learning, to the attitudes of “traditional” speakers, to the linguistic characteristics of the productions of different speaker types, and to the relationship between “norm” and “variety.” DOI: 10.4424/lam142025-6
Che sardo si parla nei media televisivi? Appunti sulla lingua di neo-parlanti al microfono
This paper examines lexical and phonological features found in the Sardinian language as spoken by television workers. Based on a corpus of television broadcasts of approximately 15 hours, I will show how the L1 of the speakers leads to significant simplifications in the stressed vowel system and notable inconsistencies in the consonant system. These features differentiate this type of speaker from those with native or near-native competence. DOI: 10.4424/lam142025-10
New speaker di ladino? Un’analisi sociolinguistica e morfosintattica
The following study explores the phenomenon of new speakers within the Ladin-speaking area of Val Badia in South Tyrol, Italy. The region’s historical multilingualism has recently been reshaped by sociolinguistic changes, notably due to immigration. Drawing on qualitative data from a series of interviews, the analysis proceeds along two parts. The first section investigates sociolinguistic dynamics and the motivational factors behind learning Ladin. The second analyzes spontaneous spoken language, with particular attention to the use of subject pronouns – a morphosyntactically complex and distinctive feature of Ladin. By addressing an area of inquiry that remains largely underexplored, this study offers new perspectives on the contribution of new speakers to the maintenance and revitalization of minority languages. DOI: 10.4424/lam142025-11
Chi sono i ‘nuovi parlanti’ di lingua friulana? Alcune considerazioni di politica linguistica
Minority language communities are often the most engaged in revitalisation efforts and in advocating for stronger language policies. They are, therefore, especially interested in understanding the attitudes and practices of ‘new speakers’ – individuals who acquire the language outside traditional contexts of primary socialisation. Examining these speakers provides insight into their motivations and the opportunities language learning presents. Building on this premise, the present study investigates the characteristics of ‘new speakers’ in the Friulian context. It draws on research carried out in educational settings involving both adults and children with migratory backgrounds, focusing on their attitudes towards Friulian, a local minority language that is also taught in schools. The contribution aims to propose methodological insights and recommend future research directions about the application of the ‘new speaker’ category in the Friulian area. These insights may contribute to shaping language policy that acknowledges both the practical use of the language and the conscious choices made by all its speakers. DOI: 10.4424/lam142025-12
CorefLat. Annotazione e modellizzazione per la risoluzione di coreferenze in latino
This study is part of a broader research project on coreference phenomena in the Latin language, entitled CorefLat. This paper focuses specifically on the publication as Linked Open Data of a set of coreference annotations performed on a selection of Latin texts. The annotations are applied to texts already available as Linked Open Data within the LiLa Knowledge Base, a collection of interoperable linguistic resources for Latin. CorefLat systematically identifies and tags entities and mentions, establishing relational links between them. The annotated corpus covers various historical periods and literary genres, including Augustine’s Confessiones, Plautus’ Curculio, Caesar’s De Bello Gallico, and Seneca’s Medea, offering a balanced dataset suitable for broad linguistic analysis. In this paper we also provide quantitative data on the annotations carried out so far, by showing some patterns and distributions of the linguistic phenomena within the dataset. Building on this, the paper describes how coreference phenomena are encoded as Linked Open Data using standard classes and object properties from the POWLA framework. DOI: 10.4424/lam142025-3
Viktor Šklovskij, Rozanov. Dal libro l’intreccio come fenomeno di stile, traduzione e postfazione di Maria Zalambani, a cura di Federica Arnoldi, Luca Mignola e Alfredo Zucchi
Il latino in Brasile nel XVI secolo: una prospettiva storiografica sull’insegnamento dei gesuiti nel progetto missionario durante la colonizzazione portoghese
This paper aims to reflect on how Jesuit missionaries practiced Latin language teaching, based on the Ratio Studiorum educational method, to shape Brazilian colonial identity. Latin in 16th-century Brazil was used for various purposes, but primarily as a tool for integrating European ecclesiastical and academic culture into Portuguese overseas colonization. In Jesuit colleges, the Divinae Litterae (Theology) and the Humanae Litterae (Classics) were studied, with Greek being taught instead of Tupi. After reflecting on the use of Latin in Renaissance Humanism in 16th-century Brazil, we hope to demonstrate that, although Latin was used in various discursive genres, didactic discourse in the teaching of various scientific disciplines is what characterizes the practice of Latin in 16th-century Brazil. Specifically, this study contextualizes José de Anchieta’s work in Jesuit education and highlights the complex linguistic and cultural dynamics of colonial Brazil, as it sheds light on the enduring legacy of Jesuit education, revealing the intricate interplay between language and culture in the formation of Portuguese-Brazilian society. 10.4424/lam142025-4
I neoparlanti del corso: una realtà (quasi) impensata
Since the 1970s, the Corsican language has undergone a process of linguistic revitalisation. While the use of the language has declined in the private sphere, it has gained ground in the public sphere, particularly through schools, the media, arts and culture, and political discourse. Today, the language claim is largely consensual and transpartisan: social bilingualism is clearly identified as a goal and manifests itself concretely with the emergence of new speakers. Despite being at the centre of language policies and action-research, new speakers are nevertheless a largely taboo or even unthought-of category. This article examines language planning documents, sociolinguistic surveys, school discourses and scholarly publications to analyse how the issue of new speakers has been addressed in recent decades. DOI: 10.4424/lam142025-8
Extra-grammaticality and neoformations in Petronius’ linguistic exaggeration: from nesapius to gaudimonium
Although the literature on the language of Petronius is manifold and highly detailed, it emphasizes rather the socio-cultural uses of the author’s language, intending to present an articulated picture of that society. Our analysis, on the other hand, has attempted to combine both particular word formations with the so-called vis comica in Petronius; for this purpose, the Cena Trimalchionis offers one of the best opportunities. Under the premise that nominal word formation follows clear morphological rules, even in ancient languages, it is possible to highlight some cases of so-called extra-grammatical formation. Previous research in a similar direction was carried out by Fruyt (2000), using, however, different terminology and a slightly differing framework. 10.4424/lam132024-2
Heidegger’s approach to etymology concentrates on Greek and German, and mainly on the ‘echoes’ of Greek in German. However, a true ‘hören’ to language cannot be limited to one language. This research shows that a history of the broad idea of ‘conversion’, followed from Greek onwards, through etymologies and translations, reveals an unexpected wealth of semantic features and of views on world and life. 10.4424/lam132024-3
Latin grammars traditionally divide verbs into four conjugations, identifiable (more or less readily) by their theme vowel. The identification of each theme vowel has been the object of several phonological analyses (Allen – Greenough 1903; Lieber 1981; Oniga 2014; Embick 2015; Halle 2019). This paper takes departure from Van der Spuy (2020), who has proposed that the theme vowels of Latin verbs can be analysed in terms of cophonologies. After elaborating on Van der Spuy’s idea, this work concludes there is no need to postulate such cophonologies. Indeed, it is argued that the overall behaviour of Latin theme vowels is much less complicated: the deletion of the theme vowel in conjugations I and III can be explained through a single rule of Latin phonology, namely Back Vowel Deletion, by assuming, as in Halle (2019), that the theme vowel of the III conjugation is underlyingly /ɪ/. As for the mixed conjugation, although it can be argued that it represents a proper subset of the IV conjugation (Van Der Spuy 2020), it is shown here that postulating an underlying /iː/ for it is not beneficial to an analysis of Latin theme vowels in terms of cophonologies. While the section on Van Der Spuy’s cophonologies relies on Optimality Theory, it is intended in the conclusion that the behaviour of Latin theme vowels can be better understood and formalized within the rule-based framework of Distributed Morphology. 10.4424/lam132024-1
Da il capo a la capa: un nuovo femminile?
The article deals with the feminine form of the Italian word capo, in the meaning of “chief”, namely a person in a senior position with directive functions, which is a metaphorical extension of the original meaning of the term referred to an inanimate entity (i.e., the head, as a body part). In light of the evidence collected and examined herein, the preferred use seems to be the masculine as an invariable form, in combination with the feminine determiners such as la/le, etc. However, more recently a growing number of documents also hints at the use of the feminine form (la, etc.) capa. The initially sporadic usage of these occurrences is becoming ever more widespread and continuous as a result if the contemporary debate on linguistic sexism. 10.4424/lam132024-9
Causal relations in Classical Greek tragedy. An analysis of ἐπεί
The paper deals with causal relations in a corpus of Classical Greek tragedy, focusing on the usage of the conjunction ἐπεί. It accounts for different uses of ἐπεί-clauses on the basis of a typological description of adverbial clauses and a cognitive linguistic analysis of conjunctions. The analysis is based on the data annotation of ἐπεί occurrences in the corpus when signaling causal relations. According to my annotation, four different functions are identified for the ἐπεί-clauses. By means of examples, the analysis shows that in the majority of the cases ἐπεί-clauses cover functions beyond the coordination/subordination dichotomy, operating not at the sentence level of syntax but rather at the discourse level. Furthermore, the analysis is supported by information on the frequency of ἐπεί-clauses according to the function they fulfill and their occurrence in bi-clausal constructions or in freestanding units. 10.4424/lam132024-4
She hath been reading late. Re-reading Ovid through Shakespeare’s Cymbeline
Cymbeline is a retrospective drama, brilliantly re-elaborating motifs and themes from Shakespeare’s previous work. Most of its poignant scenes actually look back at classical sources. As this essay discusses, the character of Princess Innogen highlights the rich Ovidianism of the play, as well as its ‘valedictory’ nature: as both Philomel and Lucrece, Innogen offered the dramatist the opportunity to revise the original material in order to reverse expectations, create amazement, and discuss femininity and gender roles. Focusing on Shakespeare’s re-reading of the stories of Philomel and Tereus and of Lucrece and Tarquin, the present essay considers how, at the end of his career, the playwright managed to replace the tragic effects of these myths with images of rebirth, reconciliation and repentance, genre being central in the dramatist’s re-working of the Ovidian sources. 10.4424/lam132024-7
La grammatica latina come modello di educazione linguistica nel Rinascimento inglese
This article discusses the role and importance of the teaching of Latin in the modern educational system, with a particular focus on the grammatical tradition in England. It explores how Latin has influenced intellectual and cultural formation through the centuries, and its relationship with other languages and disciplines, especially English. In particular, an in-depth analysis is devoted to three key figures of English Renaissance: Thomas Linacre, William Lily, and Pierre de la Ramée. 10.4424/lam132024-6
Formen der Mehrsprachigkeit in den Liedern Oswalds von Wolkenstein
This paper discusses the different forms of plurilingualism in Oswald von Wolkenstein’s Lieder. If Oswald himself attests his knowledge of 9 languages (plus German) in a famous passage in Kl. 18, fourteen different languages may be recognized in the 126 poems preserved in the two authorized manuscripts. If two of them, Kl. 69 and 119, have almost monopolized the scholarly debate, 47 other plurilingual Lieder have been often overlooked. After a short resumé of the results of the research on the whole corpus, all the different attested languages will be displayed and debated. The status quaestionis on Oswald’s plurilingual poems still offers interesting points of departure for research, not only under a linguistic and philological perspective, but also in fields like theology, nautical science, and musicology. 10.4424/lam132024-5
Alcune apparizioni dell’Ebreo errante in Argentina
Between the 40s and 60s of the 20th century, some Argentine authors gravitating in the orbit of the magazine «Sur» rewrote the history of the wandering Jew. They are Jorge Luis Borges in El Inmortal, Manuel Mujica Lainez in El Vagamundo, 1839 and Enrique Anderson Imbert in El Grimorio. In Argentina, however, there is a writer who perfectly embodies the figure of the eternal wanderer punished by Christ and men: she is Alejandra Pizarnik, whose life and works are full of references to wandering. A worthy heir of Kafka, the Jewish-Argentine writer is convinced, like the Bohemian writer, that she deserves condemnation and punishment – human and divine – for having chosen to dedicate her entire life to literature. 10.4424/lam132024-8
The aspectual distribution of gerunds in Apulian varieties
In this paper we describe and analyze the distribution of embedded gerunds in the Apulian varieties, namely the Romance varieties spoken in the area of Bari. In these varieties gerunds are not found embedded under the be/stay auxiliary to express the progressive aspect as in the Italian/English periphrases for progressives (sto scrivendo/I am writing). Gerunds are only found embedded under the verb go in periphrases to express a reiterative meaning or embedded under the negated forms of be to express prohibition (the negative imperative). The different distribution of gerunds between standard Italian and Apulian varieties is then analyzed as a difference of the aspectual entailment encoded through the gerund morphology: while standard Italian encodes a general imperfective reading, Apulian varieties encode a more specific aspectual entailment, namely continuative aspect. Since Gerunds imply the syntactic embedding of the verb under a preposition, we propose that standard Italian and Apulian varieties differ on the covert preposition incorporated in the gerund inflectional morphology that imply a different aspectual reading. 10.4424/lam132024-10
Intelligenza artificiale e latino: sondaggi e riflessioni
This paper examines the impact that ChatGPT3 may have on Latin teaching, highlighting opportunities and shortcomings through a critical examination of a range of responses to linguistic and literary stimuli, highlighting what challenges teaching may face in the coming years. 10.4424/lam132024-12
L’esperienza della grammatica valenziale nella prospettiva del gioco
This paper presents a training to improve language skills, based on the dependency grammar model theorised by Tesnière in Elements of Structural Syntax, translated into Italian by Proverbio and Cerrina and disseminated in the Italian academic environment by Proverbio and Sabatini. The training, tested in primary and secondary schools with 167 participants, trains students’ syntactic and metalinguistic skills through a series of sentence generation and reformulation games. In the light of the experimental results, the model of dependency grammar applied in this way has demonstrated significant effectiveness in pursuing the goal of improving text writing in an academic environment. 10.4424/lam132024-11
Olivia C. Cockburn, Los verbos latinos en -izare (-issare, -idiare). Adaptación, uso y desarrollo del morfema griego -ίζειν en el latín antiguo
Il contributo di Proverbio al rinnovamento della riflessione grammaticale in Italia
The article focuses on the importance of Germano Proverbio for the renewal of language didactics in Italy: both through his commitment to the dissemination of Tesnière’s ideas to an audience of scholars and teachers, and his research on dependency grammar applied to Latin and Italian language. 10.4424/lam122023-2
Presentation of the collection, in the present volume, of some contributions dedicated to the memory of Germano Proverbio (Palanzano 1924 – Turin 2020), a multifaceted character of teacher, researcher and priest. His work, with its link between classical philology and modern linguistics and between university and school, and its attention to the human dimension of teaching, still can stimulate readers, scholars, and teachers, and to call them to civil commitment. The collection intends to contribute to reviving the debate on the role of Proverbio in the history of education and to encourage teachers and scholars to take up his proposals again, applying and valorising them. 10.4424/lam122023-1
The article traces the rationale of Tesnière’s work, focusing on his proposal of graphic representations and giving two examples of formal analyses tested in school. They concern very relevant texts from a cultural point of view: although they are highly different from each other, both show how Tesnière’s stemmas are able to improve a powerful visualisation of authors’ message. 10.4424/lam122023-3
Il lessico del solecismo nei grammatici latini
After a brief analysis of the marginal role of syntax in Latin grammarians, the paper addresses the issue of solecism (an error in the concatenation of the parts of speech) with a special focus on terminology. The goal is to identify the main terms that ancient Latin linguistics employs to describe syntactic links between words. 10.4424/lam122023-7