The Substance and Value of Italian Si

Editor

Joseph Davis

Hardbound – Available

ISBN 9789027215840 | EUR 105.00 | USD 158.00

e-Book –

ISBN 9789027265272 | EUR 105.00 | USD 158.00

This book offers an original treatment of the Italian clitic si. Sharply separating encoded grammar from inference in discourse, it proposes a unitary meaning for si, including impersonals, passives, and reflexives. Si signals third-person participancy but makes no distinctions of number, gender, or case role. The analysis advances the Columbia School framework by relying on just these straightforward oppositions, attributing variety of interpretation largely to language use rather than to grammar. The analysis places si within a network of oppositions involving all the other clitics. Data come primarily from twentieth-century and more recent published and on-line literature. The book will be of interest to functional linguists, students of reflexivity, and scholars of the Italian language.

[Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics, 74] 2017. xiii, 257 pp.

Publishing status: Available

https://doi.org/10.1075/sfsl.74

Table of Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgements | pp. xiii–13

Chapter 1. What is si? | pp. 1–21

Chapter 2. Opting out of sex and number: Si vs. other impersonals | pp. 23–37

Chapter 3. The system of Focus on Participants | pp. 39–59

Chapter 4. The system of Degree of Control | pp. 61–87

Chapter 5. Scale of Degree of Control: The view from the bottom | pp. 89–109

Chapter 6. Scale of Degree of Control: The view from the top | pp. 111–137

Chapter 7. Grammatical constancy and lexical idiosyncrasy | pp. 139–163

Chapter 8. Grammar constrained by lexicon: The “inherently reflexive” verbs | pp. 165–177

Chapter 9. Number and gender with si used impersonally | pp. 179–199

Chapter 10. Other related matters | pp. 201–219

Chapter 11. Background and theory | pp. 221–242

Index of names | pp. 251–252

Subject index | pp. 253–257

“This book provides an original and innovative analysis of the entire Italian pronoun system, as well as enlightening critiques of such traditional linguistic concepts as transitive/intransitive, reflexive, impersonal, passive, and subject. A special strength is the close attention to examples drawn from actual language use, together with quantitative data in support of the author’s analysis.”

Ellen Contini-Morava, University of Virginia

“A richly compelling and highly innovative study of one of the most intractable problems in the syntax of Italian, and of Romance more generally. Davis offers a rigorous semantic analysis demonstrating that the received categories of traditional and formal syntax and semantics represent a blind alley, and that an analysis based on contextualized evidence transcending the boundaries of the sentence produces a much deeper understanding of the underlying principles that actually guide the use of language.”

Ricardo Otheguy, Research Institute for the Study of Language in Urban Society

“Do not be fooled by the title! Davis’s exquisite, well-written book deserves to be read by anyone and everyone interested in the semantic and pragmatic analysis of grammatical systems (no matter their own theoretical background).”

Robert S. Kirsner, University of California, Los Angeles

Cited by (5)

Cited by five other publications

Order by:

Whitty, Lauren

2022. Repositioning Can: Modifications to the English “Modal” System. <i>WORD</i> 68:4 ► pp. 439 ff.

Hesseltine, Kelli & Joseph Davis

2020. The communicative function of adjective-noun order in English. <i>WORD</i> 66:3 ► pp. 166 ff.

Reid, Wallis

2019. The object of explanation for linguistics. In Columbia School Linguistics in the 21st Century [Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics, 77], ► pp. 103 ff.

Stern, Nancy

2019. Introduction. In Columbia School Linguistics in the 21st Century [Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics, 77], ► pp. 1 ff.

Davis, Joseph

2018. Spooky grammatical effects. In Questioning Theoretical Primitives in Linguistic Inquiry [Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics, 76], ► pp. 133 ff.

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 16 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.

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