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Programme: accepted abstracts

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Abstract ID: 642

Part of General Paper Session (Other abstracts in this session)

Variation in the use of the complementizer che in two different areas of Italy

Authors: Golovko, Ekaterina
Submitted by: Golovko, Ekaterina (università degli studi di bologna, Italy)

In this presentation I will show findings on regional Italian (RI) and in particular one of the most common features: general complementizer che ‘that’ and differences in its use in two distinct areas of Italy. I analyze RI as an intermediate variety in the linguistic repertoire on both theoretical and practical level.

The theoretical part is based on the generalization of linguistic repertoires in Europe done by Auer (2005), findings on the formation and development of regional varieties in Italy (Cerruti 2011, Golovko, 2012) and theoretical framework of contact linguistics. On practical level I analyze the variable typical for regional and neo-standard Italian: uses of general complementizer che in non-standard ways.

The data comes from the fieldwork done in Salento in 2007-2010, 18 interviewed speakers (10 hours of registration). The research was carried out in several small villages in Salento, in extreme south of Italy, where traditional pottery is produced. I studied special language of traditional pottery craftsmen. Interviews on work sites with craftsmen were analyzed in quantitative and qualitative way in order to discover variation patterns in lexical choices and verbal usages. In Bologna the corpus was collected during informal observation of speakers coming from this area of Italy and the attention was concentrated on the use of the complementizer che.

Data presents different uses of che as an adverbial complementizer:

- locative meaning

Il ristorante che siamo stati – locative – substitutes in cui, dove ‘where’

ART-def restaurant that be-AUX-3PL be-PTCP-PL

‘The restaurant where we have been’

- temporal meaning

Giorni che non lavora- temporal – substitutes in cui, quando ‘when’

Day-PL that not work-3SG

‘Day  when he does not work’

As well che acquires functions that are new and that were observed in the corpus from Bologna. It does not mark anymore clearly the subordinating relations:

Sono sull’autobus che arrivo

Be-1SG on the bus that arrive

‘I’m on the bus and I’m arriving’

This research aims to observe non-standard uses of the complementizer and compare uses done in Salento and in Bologna. I am interested to analyze if these uses are socially or geographically dependent and to discuss the possible directions of change.

References:

Auer, Peter. 2005. Europe's Sociolinguistic Unity, or: A Typology of European Dialect / Standard Constellations. In: Nicole Delbecque et al. (eds.): Perspectives on Variation (Trends in Linguistics; 163),7–42. Berlin.

Cerruti, Massimo. 2011. Regional Varieties of Italian in the Linguistic Repertoire, in Italian Sociolinguistics: Twenty years on (a cura di Silvia Dal Negro e Federica Guerini), International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 210 (2011), pp. 9-28.

Golovko, Ekaterina. 2012. The Formation of Regional Italian as a consequence of Language contact. The salentino case. In Journal of Language Contact, 5.1, pp. 1-27.