ITALIAN LINGUISTICS AND HISTORY OF ITALIAN

Università degli Studi
"G. d'Annunzio"

Chieti - Pescara

Single discipline educational activity

Course Sheet

Course code:

FLT008

Academic Year of enrolment:

2021

Year of supply:

2021/2022

Degree:

Course of 2nd Cycle Degree in PHILOLOGY, LINGUISTICS AND LITERARY TRADITIONS

Moduls:

ITALIAN LINGUISTICS - 6 credits
HISTORY OF THE ITALIAN LANGUAGE - 6 credits

Location:

CHIETI

Credits:

Programme Year:

Cycle:

Second semester

Hours of classroom activity:

Prerequisites:

Knowledge of the main issues of the Italian language history and of the fundamental elements of linguistic analysis.

Objectives

The course contributes to achieving the learning objectives of the MA in
Philology, linguistics and literary traditions, in particular:
Knowledge and Understanding
In-depth knowledge of the main features of the Italian language (as
expected by the learning objectives of the degree Course); knowledge of
the main typologies of written texts and their features in ancient Italian;
familiarity with the scholarly debate on continuity or discontinuity of the
structures of the Italian languages (even compared to other Romance
varieties) over the centuries.
Ability to apply knowledge and understanding
Ability to examine a text and describe its phonological, morphological,
syntactical and lexical features; ability to recognise a text (written or
spoken) also in relation to its textual typology; ability to use specialist
consultation tools (grammars, dictionaries, archives) for the purposes of
linguistic analysis; ability to collect firsthand linguistic data and organise
them for the purposes of in-depth analysis (as expected by the learning
objectives of the degree Course).
Critical thinking skills
Ability to evaluate the accuracy and coherence of a linguistic analysis
autonomously, on the basis of available data and of the methods of
investigation employed; ability to assess the communicational adequacy
of a text with reference to its context and purposes.
Communication skills
Ability to present the learnt content, with full mastery of the written and
spoken language, with reference to both specialised and non-specialised
communication (as expected by the learning objectives of the degree
Course).
Learning Capacity
Complete mastery of research and analysis methodologies in the
linguistic field, thus gaining access to further education courses such as
doctoral degrees or master’s or to a teaching qualification, anda and
secondary-school teaching qualifications. Such skills may be applied
professionally in publishing houses, public/private research and cultural
institutes and cultural and academic foundations (as expected by the
learning objectives of the degree Course).

Contents

I. Italian Linguistics: Linguistic profile of ancient Italian
The course puts forward an overview of the differences between ancient
Italian and modern Italian. After a reflection on the difficulty of
circumscribing the notion itself of "ancient Italian", we will highlight the
main orthographic, phonological, morphological, syntactic, textual and
lexical features of the language before grammatical coding, also through
the direct analysis of Tuscan and other geographical areas texts
belonging to the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

II. History of Italian language. What is grammar? The course offers reflections on Italian grammar. Starting from the etymology of the word and a study on Luca Serianni’s book, it deals with the main issues of contemporary grammar, its norms and usage, in the written and spoken language. A study of Marcello Aprile’s manual will enable students to sort out any doubts or gaps of a grammatical nature, to progress in their knowledge of Italian structures, both spoken and written, and to think about the language both in its synchronic and its historical-diachronic dimension.

Extended Syllabus

Topics dealt with in the lessons: I. Topics dealt with in the lessons: definition of ancient Italian; continuity
and discontinuity tra italiano antico e italiano moderno; orthographic and
phonomorphological features of the ancient Florentine and evolutionary
traits in the fifteenth and fifteenth centuries; syntactic and lexical
features of the ancient Florentine; phonological, morphological and
syntactic features of other languages in medieval Italy; text typologies of
ancient Italian; the vernacular translations; reading and analysis of texts
of the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
II. History of Italian language: Italian as the language to process thought.
The origin of everything: catastrophe.
How a language implodes (and another arises).
When was the Italian language born?
The second issue: sixteenth-century codification. The question of the language in the sixteenth century. The invention of the dictionary.
The third issue: setting Italian as the national language.
The question of the language.
Having made Italy, now we must make Italian. How to write Italian.
Writing, from Latin to Italian.
The accent mark and apostrophes. Punctuation. Capitals and small letters. Phonetics. Morphology. Syntax. Lexicon and semantics. Social aspects of the Italian language. History and geography of the Italian language. Grammar. Where the territory of mistakes starts.

Recommended Bibliography

I. Italian Linguistics
1) Lorenzo Renzi, Italiano antico, in Enciclopedia dell’italiano, a cura di R. Simone, Roma, Treccani, 2010, pp. 713-16.
2) Paola Manni, Toscana, in Storia della lingua italiana, a cura di L.
Serianni e P. Trifone, Torino, Einaudi, 1994, vol. 3, pp. 294-329.
3) Maurizio Dardano, Italiano antico e italiano moderno a confronto: dieci
caratteri divergenti, in Id., Manualetto di Linguistica italiana, Bologna, Zanichelli, 1996, pp. 162-69.
4) Emiliano Picchiorri, Il sintagma nominale, in Sintassi dell'italiano antico
II. La frase semplice, a cura di M. Dardano, Roma, Carocci, 2020, pp. 288-311.
5) Giuseppe Patota, Le lingue d’Italia nel Medioevo, in Nuovi lineamenti di
grammatica storica dell’italiano, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2007, pp. 185-206.
6) Giovanna Frosini, Volgarizzamenti, in Storia dell’italiano scritto, a cura
di G. Antonelli, M. Motolese, L. Tomasin, Roma, Carocci, 2014, vol. 2, pp. 17-72.
7) Texts read and commented in class. Non-attending students will
replace texts read in class with Maurizio Dardano, L'ordine dei costituenti
in Sintassi dell'italiano antico II. La frase semplice, Roma, Carocci, 2020, pp. 16-49. All the students from the course LM-38 will add the essay of
Riccardo Gualdo, Il linguaggio dell’economia, in Riccardo Gualdo, Stefano
Telve, Linguaggi specialistici dell’italiano, Roma, Carocci, 2011, pp. 357-410.
All essays will be available in pdf among teaching materials.

II. History of Italian Language
6 CFU:
1) Luca Serianni, Prima lezione di grammatica, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2006.
2) Marcello Aprile, Manuale di base di linguistica e grammatica italiana, Bologna, il Mulino, 2021.
3) Luca Serianni, Giusto e sbagliato: dove comincia il territorio dell'errore?, in Lezioni di italiano.
Riflessioni sulla lingua del nuovo millennio, a cura di Sergio Lubello, Bologna, il Mulino, 2014, pp. 235-246.
4) G. Berruto, Per una caratterizzazione del parlato: l’italiano parlato ha un' “altra” grammatica? in G. Holtus, E. Radtke (a c. di), Gesprochenes Italienisch in Geschichte und Gegenwart, Narr, Tübingen 1985, pp. 120-153.

9 CFU:
1) Luca Serianni, Prima lezione di grammatica, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2006.
2) Marcello Aprile, Manuale di base di linguistica e grammatica italiana, Bologna, il Mulino, 2021.
3) Luca Serianni, Giusto e sbagliato: dove comincia il territorio dell'errore?, in Lezioni di italiano.
Riflessioni sulla lingua del nuovo millennio, a cura di Sergio Lubello, Bologna, il Mulino, 2014, pp. 235-246.
4) G. Berruto, Per una caratterizzazione del parlato: l’italiano parlato ha un' “altra” grammatica? in G. Holtus, E. Radtke (a c. di), Gesprochenes Italienisch in Geschichte und Gegenwart, Narr, Tübingen 1985, pp. 120-153.
5) Vittorio Coletti, Grammatica dell'italiano adulto, Bologna, il Mulino, 2015.

Non-attending students will integrate the program with: Giuliana Fiorentino, Perché la grammatica, Roma, Carocci, 2018.

Teaching Methods

Lectures, Power points, seminars.

Evaluation methods

Verification of learning:

Oral exam with marks out of 30, aimed at verifying the ability to presents
the contents discussed in class in a clear and critical way. The grading
scale ranges from 1 to 30 with honours (cum laude): 1-17 fail, 18-21
sufficient, 22-24 fair, 25-27 good, 28-29 very good, 30-30 with honours
(cum laude) excellent.

Contacts/More Information

For any information you can contact the teachers at the email address:
emiliano.picchiorri@unich.it; pierluigi.ortolano@unich.it

Università degli Studi
"G. d'Annunzio"

Chieti - Pescara

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