Cover not available
Part of
Focus on Additivity: Adverbial modifiers in Romance, Germanic and Slavic languages
Edited by Anna-Maria De Cesare and Cecilia Andorno
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 278] 2017
► pp. 45–76

Chapter 2
Meaning both ‘also’ and ‘only’?

The intriguing polysemy of Old Italian pur(e)

| Università di Torino
Italian pur(e) seems to be quite peculiar among focus markers, since diachronically it displays the whole span of functions, from non-scalar exclusive to non-scalar additive. It is still an open question as to whether or not at some stage of its history pure enjoyed such an extended (nearly self-contradictory) polysemy synchronically too (while it is surely not the case for the contemporary language). The present investigation, based on the large corpus of the Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, casts some doubts on this possibility for Old Italian (approximately until the end of 14th century). Moreover, it surveys the very wide polysemy of pure beyond the functions of focus marker proper, and proposes several different evolutionary paths, among which some involve also non-focus marker uses as intermediate steps.
Keywords: Old Italian, focus markers, additive, exclusive, scalarity, concessive, diachronic corpus linguistics, bridging contexts, polysemy
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The wide polyfunctionality of old Italian pur(e) as a focus marker
    • 2.1General remarks
    • 2.2 Exclusive and additive pur(e) in Old Italian
    • 2.3A good bridging context within FM meanings
  • 3.Adding further connections: pur(e)beyond the contrast exclusive vs. additive
    • 3.1 Old Italian pur(e) as identifier
    • 3.2From identifier to additive focus marker
  • 4.Another possible source for additivity outside the focus marker domain
    • 4.1 Old Italian pur(e) as adversative connective
    • 4.2From adversative connective to additive focus marker
    • 4.3From adversative to concessive conditional
  • 5. Pur(e) as an aspectual marker of continuity
  • 6.Later stages of Italian: Some directions for future research
  • 7.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 24 August 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.278.02ric
References (30)
References
Ambrosini, Riccardo. 1970. “ Pure ”, in Enciclopedia dantesca, vol. IV, 743–745. Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana.Google Scholar
Andorno, Cecilia. 2000. Focalizzatori fra connessione e messa a fuoco. Il punto di vista delle varietà di apprendimento. Milano: Angeli.Google Scholar
Auzzas, Ginetta (ed.). 2014. Iacopo Passavanti, Lo specchio della vera penitenzia. Firenze: Accademia della Crusca.Google Scholar
Barbato, Marcello (ed.). 2012. Cronache volgari del Vespro. Roma: Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo.Google Scholar
Beltrami, Pietro G., and Andrea Boccellari. 2006. “Banche dati e dizionari on-line. Il Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini e la banca dati dell’italiano antico dell’Opera del Vocabolario Italiano”. In Nuovi media e lessicografia storica. Atti del colloquio in occasione del settantesimo compleanno di Max Pfister, ed. by Wolfgang Schweickard, 3–14. Tübingen: Niemeyer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bertinetto, Pier Marco. 1991. “Il verbo”. In Grande grammatica italiana di consultazione, Vol. II, ed. by Lorenzo Renzi, and Giampaolo Salvi, 13–161. Bologna: il Mulino.Google Scholar
Brinton, Laurel J. 1998. “ The flowers are lovely; only, they have no scent: The evolution of a pragmatic marker”. In Anglistentag 1997 Giessen: Proceedings, ed. by Raimund Borgmeier, Herbert Grabes, and Andreas H. Jucker, 9–33. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag.Google Scholar
Brinton, Laurel. 2006. “Pathways in the development of pragmatic markers in English”. In The Handbook of the History of English, ed. by Ans van Kemenade, and Bettelou Los, 307–334. Oxford: Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Consales, Ilde. 2005. La concessività nella lingua italiana (secoli XIV–XVIII). Roma: Aracne.Google Scholar
D’Achille, Paolo, and Domenico Proietti. 2016. “Per la storia di pure: dall’avverbio latino alla congiunzione italiana, fino al pur di + infinito con valore finale”. Studi di Grammatica Italiana 34, 2015, 21–47.Google Scholar
Dardano, Maurizio. 2002. “Anche, anco, nella Cronica di Anonimo romano”. In Roma et Romania. Festschrift für Gerhard Ernst zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. by Sabine Heinemann, Gerald Bernhard, and Dieter Kattenbusch, 63–77. Tübingen: Niemeyer.Google Scholar
Davidse, Kristin, Lieven Vandelanotte, and Hubert Cuyckens (eds.). 2010. Subjectification, Intersubjectification and Grammaticalization. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
De Cesare, Anna-Maria. 2002. Intensification, modalisation et focalisation. Les différents effets des adverbes proprio, davvero et veramente. Bern: Lang.Google Scholar
. 2010. “On the focusing function of focusing adverbs: a discussion based on Italian data”. Linguistik Online 44/4, 99–115.Google Scholar
. 2017. “Per un altro tassello dell’italiano come lingua (debolmente) bicentrica l’uso di pure e neppure nell’italiano giornalistico d’Italia e della Svizzera italiana”. In Linguisti in contatto 2. Ricerche di linguistica italiana in Svizzera e sulla Svizzera. Atti del Convegno (Bellinzona, 19–21 novembre 2015), ed. by Bruno Moretti, Elena M. Pandolfi, Sabine Christopher, and Matteo Casoni146–159. Bellinzona: Osservatorio linguistico della Svizzera italiana.Google Scholar
Gast, Volker, and Johan van der Auwera. 2011. “Scalar additive operators in the languages of Europe”. Language 87/1, 2–54. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
König, Ekkehard. 1991. The Meaning of Focus Particles: A Comparative Perspective. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lehmann, Christian. 1995. Thoughts on Grammaticalization. München: LINCOM Europa.Google Scholar
Manzotti, Emilio. 1984. “Costrutti esclusivi e restrittivi in italiano”. Vox Romanica 43: 50–80.Google Scholar
Mazzoleni, Marco. 2010. “I costrutti condizionali concessivi”. In Giampaolo Salvi, and Lorenzo Renzi (eds.), 1065–1077.Google Scholar
Molinelli, Piera. 2010. “Le strutture coordinate”. In Giampaolo Salvi, and Lorenzo Renzi (eds.), 241–271.Google Scholar
Ricca, Davide. 1999. “Osservazioni preliminari sui focalizzatori in italiano”. In Grammatik und Diskurs: Studien zum Erwerb des Deutschen und des Italienischen, ed. by Norbert Dittmar, and Anna Giacalone Ramat, 145–163. Tübingen: Stauffenburg.Google Scholar
. 2010. “Il sintagma avverbiale”. In Giampaolo Salvi, and Lorenzo Renzi (eds.), 715–754.Google Scholar
Rohlfs, Gerhard. 1966–1969. Grammatica storica della lingua italiana e dei suoi dialetti. Torino: Einaudi.Google Scholar
Salvi, Giampaolo, and Lorenzo Renzi (eds.). 2010. Grammatica dell’italiano antico. Bologna: il Mulino.Google Scholar
Stotz, Peter. 2000. Handbuch zur lateinischen Sprache des Mittelalters, Vol. II. München: Beck.Google Scholar
Tabor, Whitney, and Elizabeth Closs Traugott. 1998. “Structural scope expansion and grammaticalization”. In The Limits of Grammaticalization, ed. by Anna Giacalone Ramat, and Paul J. Hopper, 229–72. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth Closs. 2006. “The semantic development of scalar focus modifiers”. In The Handbook of the History of English, ed. by Ans van Kemenade, and Bettelou Los, 335–359. Oxford: Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth Closs, and Richard B. Dasher. 2002. Regularity in Semantic Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Visconti, Jacqueline. 2005. “On the origin of scalar particles in Italian”. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 6: 237–261. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Barotto, Alessandra & Caterina Mauri
2022. Non-exhaustive connectives. STUF - Language Typology and Universals 75:2 ► pp. 317 ff. DOI logo
Jasionytė-Mikučionienė, Erika
2021. Chapter 7. The Lithuanian focus particles net ‘even’ and tik ‘only’ and clause peripheries. In Pragmatic Markers and Peripheries [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 325], ► pp. 199 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 15 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.