Orientamenti Della Linguistica Italiana del Primo Ottocento
Summary
This study does not intend to be an exhaustive survey of Italian linguistic research in the first half of the XIXth century, before the appearance on the linguistic scene of G. I. Ascoli, the greatest Italian linguist of the period and one of the major comparative philologists in Europe. Its aim is rather to focus on some aspects of the pre-Ascolian approach, generally neglected by scholars. In particular, questions of Romance philology, with special reference to Italian dialectology, and of IE Philology are taken into consideration.
In the field of dialectology we can distinguish two stages which present differences in methodology and aims. The first stage consists of the publication of a number of dialectal dictionaries (IDV) of practical nature, its main purpose being to spread the knowledge of the standard language among many groups of dialect speakers. On the basis of the compiling criteria implied by the IDV, one can distinguish three different types of dictionaries (IDV1, IDV2, IDV3): IDV1 includes those of Cherubini, Boerio, Morri and Spano; IDV2 those of Nannini, Toni, De Santis, and Paganini; IDV3 those of Melchiori, Cherubini (1827) and Peri.
The second stage begins in 1840, when Cattaneo, Monti, Biondelli, Rosa and others conceived new ideas on dialect studies. These authors adopted a methodology quite different from that of IDV: research assumed a more scientific character, addressing itself no longer to native speakers but to scholars in the field of dialectal studies. Dialectology was also seen as a means of obtaining information about the cultural history of ancient Italy. The main object of this study did not concern itself with urban dialects but rather the dialects spoken in isolated areas, which were shown to be more conservative. These authors noticed particularly the important differences, both phonetic and of lexicological, that they found in the various dialectal areas. One of the major contributions of the pre-Ascolian period in this field was to furnish Ascoli with a great amount of data and some methodological suggestions for his research.
In the field of IE Philology, C. O. Castiglioni’s contribution to Germanic linguistics and philology is noteworthy. He is a wholly new figure on the Italian linguistic scene, and he differs from all the scholars of his age for his marked orientation towards the more technical aspects of comparative methods. He is the first serious student of Germanic Philology in Italy, and quite an isolated figure in the cultural framework of that time. Though not slavishly dependent on ideas and methods coming from abroad, he received vast acclaim in Europe for his works, which were reviewed by the greatest expert in Germanic linguistic studies of that period, Jacob Grimm.
To Cattaneo we owe an important model of linguistic analysis, based on a fundamentally ‘historical’ approach. His interest centered on the problem of language change and on factors determining both resemblances and differences among IE languages. He stressed the importance of social and cultural factors in the diffusion process of IE languages from Asia to Europe. This model differed from the comparative research methods of his contemporaries in the following points: (1) the central rôle that he gave to social and cultural dimensions in language study, (2) the focus he placed on linguistic differences rather than resemblances, (3) the importance he gave to living and spoken languages rather than to written and literary languages.
Basing their work on this sort of ‘historical’ method, some pre-Ascolian linguists, like Biondelli, Vegezzi-Ruscalla and Rosa, became sharply critical of certain results of important comparative linguists, from Grimm to Schleicher.
Later, Cattaneo reconsidered his former theory, maintaining that language is not only a typically human and historical product, but the creation of the human intellect. Hence, language study should not only strive toward comparison of linguistic forms but also toward explaining the universal psychological processes that cause languages to develop and change. In effect, he re-interpreted his rationalistic and ‘Erklärung’-oriented approach within an historical framework.
In conclusion, if the pre-Ascolian school’s results are examined only in the light of comparative principles, they appear to be sometimes rather naïve and lacking in penetration, but they are undoubtedly important from other points of view. These scholars tried to establish a method of investigation quite independent from contemporary linguistic thought and fashion. The specific contribution of Cattaneo is, mutatis mutandis, to have presented a model capable of improving Italian linguistic studies. And, in particular, it is worth mentioning the interest in theoretical linguistics in so far as this aspect was then to take on a secondary rôle in the studies of Ascoli and his followers.