A Linguistic History of Venice 882225645X, 9788822256454

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BIBLIOTECA DELL’ «ARCHIVUM ROMANICUM» Serz'e II: Linguistica

57

RONNIE FERGUSON

A LINGUISTIC HISTORY OF VENICE

V

LEO S. OLSCHKI EDITORE MMVII

Published with the support of the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation of New York and of the Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Edinburgh ISBN 978 88 222 5645 4

Dedicated to my mother Iole Ferguson (1919-2006). Without her this book would not have been written.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface .....................................

p.

13

Abbreviations and symbols ........................

»

17

STRIBUTION ...............................

»

1. Venetian today ...........................

»

2. Venice: population and language ...............

»

3. Status of Contemporary Venetian ..............

»

4. Venetian: language or dialect? .................

»

5. Venice and Venetian: a historical overview ........

»

6. Functional distribution of Contemporary Venetian . . .

»

21 21 23 28 33 35 39‘

CATION ..................................

>>

45

1. Periodisation ............................

»

45

2. Sources ............................... 2.1. Works of reference ...................... 2.2. Speech data ........................... 2.3. Written ‘speech’ sources ................... 2.4. Scholarship ...........................

» » » >> »

48 48 49 5O 51

3. Classification ............................

>>

3.1. Classification aims .......................

»

3.2. Italo-Romance classification ................. 3.3. The Veneto in linguistic and historic context ....... 3.4. Modern Venetian within its immediate Italo-Romance

» >>

52 52 53 54

environment ..........................

>>

57

I. CONTEMPOMRY VENETIAN: BACKGROUND, STATUS AND DI-

11.

MODERN VENETIAN: PERIODISATION, SOURCES AND CLASSIFI-

_7_

TABLE OF CONTENTS

3.4.1. Structural features demarcating Gallo-Italian from Modern Venetian ................... 3.4.2. Structural features demarcating Friulan from Modern Venetian ................... 3.4.3. Structural features demarcating Italian from Modern Venetian ...................... 3.4.4. Structural features shared by Modern Venetian and Gallo-Italian/Friulan ............... 3.4.5. Structural features shared by Modern Venetian and Italian ........................ 3.5. Venetian intermediacy between Gallo-Italian/Friulan

57 >>

59

>>

60

»

62

>>

63

and Italian ........................... 3.6. Venetian within the Veneto dialect environment . . . .

>>

63

III. VENETIAN PROSODY AND ORTHOGRAPHY ............

)>

69

1. Prosody

»

69

2. Orthography ............................

>>

74

3. Phonetic transcription ......................

»

79

IV. VENETIAN PHONOLOGY .......................

»

81

1. Preliminaries ............................ 1.1. Phoneme inventory of Modern Venetian ......... 1.2. Phonemes and allophones .................. 1.3. Methodological approach ..................

»

»

81 81 82 83

2. Vowels . 2.1. The Venetian and Classical Latin vowel systems compared ............................... 2.2. The Venetian and Italian vowel systems compared . . . 2.2.1. Distribution of tonic mid vowels .......... 2.2.2. Diphthongisation of tonic mid vowels ....... 2.2.3. Tonic vowel raising .................. 2.2.4. Atonic vowels ..................... 2.2.4.1. General .................... 2.2.4.2. Apocope and syncope ........... 2.2.4.3. Pretonic vowels ...............

»

84

3. Consonants .............................

>>

3.1. General .............................

>>

—8—

>>

» »

» » » » » » » » »

86 86 87 90 90 90 91 92 93 93

TABLE OF CONTENTS

3.2. The Venetian, Classical Latin and Italian consonant inventories compared ......................

p.

3.3. Lenition .............................

»

3.3.1. Intervocalic lenition .................. 3.3.1.1. Principal patterns of intervocalic lenition in Modern Venetian ............. 3.3.2. Word-initial lenition ................. 3.4. Palatalisation .......................... 3.4.1. General ......................... 3.4.2. Palatal allomorphs of /l/ ............... 3.4.3. Principal patterns of palatalisation in Modern Ve-

>>

93 95 95

» » » » »

96 98 98 98 100

netian ..........................

»

102

4. Miscellaneous ...........................

»

4.1. Germanic W ..........................

»

4.2. Metathesis ........................... 4.3. Dissirnilation ..........................

4.4. Reinforcing /s/ .........................

104 104 » 105 » 105 » 105

V. VENETIAN MORPHOSYNTAX .....................

»

107

1. Nouns ................................ 1.1. Endings ............................. 1.2. Word order ........................... 1.3. Inflectional categories .....................

» » » »

1.3.1. Nominative-derived nouns ..............

»

1.3.2. Category 1 nouns. Sg. -a, pl. -6, gender feminine 1.3.3. Category 2 nouns. Sg. -0, pl. -z', gender masculine 1.3.4. Category 3 (a) nouns. Sg. -e, pl. -z', gender masculine ............................ 1.3.4.1. Category 3 (b) nouns. Sg. -e, pl. -e, gender feminine ................. 1.3.5. Other invariable nouns ................ 1.3.6. Suffixes .........................

» »

107 107 108‘ 109 111 111 113

»

115

» » >>

116 116 117

2. Adjectives .............................. 2.1. 2.2. 2.3. 2.4. 2.5.

Inflectional endings ...................... Metaplasms ........................... Agreement and position ................... Invariables ........................... Comparison ..........................

3. Demonstratives, Indefinites and Numerals ........ _9_

» 118 >> » >> » >>

118 119 119 120 121

» 122

TABLE OF CONTENTS

4. Adverbs ...............................

p. 125

5. Articles ................................

»

126

5.1. Definite articles ........................ 5.2. Indefinite articles .......................

» »

126 128

6. Prepositions ............................

»

128

7. Relative c/Je .............................

» 130

8. Possessives .............................

» 131

8.1. Forms .............................. 8.2. Position .............................

9. Personal pronouns ........................

» »

131 132

» 133

9.1. Forms and functions ..................... 9.2. Position and agreement ................... 9.3. Unstressed pronoun order ..................

» » »

134 139 140

10. Verbs ................................ 10.1. General ............................ 10.2. Modern Venetian verb paradigms ............ (a) Present indicative of regular verbs .......... (b) Irregular present indicative paradigms ....... (c) Present indicative paradigm of esser ‘to be’ ..... (d) Origins of present indicative sg./pl. 3 xe of esser ‘to be’ ........................... (e) Imperfect indicative ................... (f) Perfect indicative ..................... (g) Future indicative ..................... (h) Conditional ........................ (i) Present subjunctive ................... (j) Imperfect subjunctive .................. (k) Imperative ........................

» » » » » »

142 142 147 147 149 150

» » » » » » » »

151 152 153 154 155 156 158 158

VI. EARLY VENETIAN: FROM LAGUNAR KOINE TO PROTO LANGUAGE OF STATE ...........................

»

161

1. Origins ................................

»

161

Problems and approach ................... Hypotheses ........................... Lagoon varieties in historical perspective ......... Settlement of the Venice lagoon ..............

» >> » »

161 162 162 171

1.5. Settlement, urbanisation and linguistic consequences . .

»

174

1.1. 1.2. 1.3. 1.4.

_10_

TABLE OF CONTENTS

2. From structural variability to stability in Early Venetian 2.1. The early mainland Veneto types compared ....... 2.2. Extreme variability in the Early Venetian scrzpta up to

»

177 177

c. 1300 .............................

>>

178

2.3. Levelling tendencies and evidence of reallocation in Early Venetian c. 1300-c. 1400 ...............

>>

183

3. Vernacular choices in Venice .................

»

186

4. Early Venetian texts .......................

>>

192

. MIDDLE VENETIAN: FROM LANGUAGE TO DIALECT ......

>>

209

1. The status of Venetian 1500-1800 ..............

»

209

2. The transition period 1500-1600 ...............

»

213

3. Structural transitions 1500-1600 ...............

»

223

3.1. From Early Venetian to Middle Venetian: superseded structures ............................ 3.2. Spoken and written Venetian: convergence trends . . .

>> )>

223 225

4. Middle Venetian 1600-1800: towards a flexible norm .

>>

230

5. Middle Venetian texts ......................

»

235

VIII. THE VENETIAN LEXICON .......................

»

253

»

253 253 253

1. The Latin lexical inheritance: commonality and distinctiveness ................................ 1.1. General ............................. 1.2. The routes of Latin lexical inheritance .......... 1.3. The inherited Venetian word-stock shared by (Italo) Romance .............................. 1.4. Individuality of the Venetian lexicon ............ (i) Examples of Modern Venetian lexical reflexes of Latin with a wide northern Italian distribution . . (ii)

» >>

»

255 257

>>

263

>>

263

>>

265

»

Examples of Modern Venetian lexical reflexes of

V Latin restricted essentially to Venice and to part or all of the Veneto ................... (iii) Examples of Modern Venetian lexical reflexes of Latin historically restricted to Venice ........

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

(iv) Examples of Modern Venetian Latin-derived verbs restricted to Venice or localised in their Italo-Ro-

mance distribution ...................

2. Lexical imports into Venice .................. 2.1. 2.2. 2.3. 2.4.

p. 267

>> 268

Germanisms .......................... Byzantine Hellenisms ..................... Arabisms ............................ Gallicisms ............................

» 268 >> 272 » 275 » 277

3. Lexical exports from Venice .................

» 280

3.1. Lexical exports to Italian ................... 3.2. Venetian lexical exports to English .............

>> »

280 283

IX. ITALIAN CONTACT INFLUENCE ON VENETIAN ..........

» 287

1. Premise ...............................

» 287

2. Diachronic data on convergence, resistance and divergence ................................. 2.1. Early contact influence: examples of morphonological convergence .......................... 2.2. The role of Italian in internally-driven Venetian morphonological change ........................ 2.3. Creeping phonological convergence by lexical diffusion: the case of /dz/ ~ /z/ —> /d3/ ............... 2.4. Lexical resistance, convergence or replacement: contrasting case-studies ..................... 2.5. Divergent phonological change reinforced by contactpressure: the vanishing /l/ and the flapped /r/ ......

» 287

BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................

» 301

_12_

» 287 »

289

»

292

>>

293

>>

299

PREFACE

The present study is the first monograph that attempts to trace the linguistic history of Venice from the origins of the city to the present. That an overall assessment of Venetian should have had to wait so long is, at first glance, surprising. Venice is one of Europe’s great cities with a complex and seductive culture ranking among the continent’s most important. Historically, Venetian stands out as arguably the most significant of all Italy’s ‘dialects’, with a textual tradition going back 800 years. It remains the most Vital and prestigious among Italy’s rapidly disappearing spoken vernaculars. In addition, the linguistic and philological scholarship devoted to Venice and the Veneto, both past and present, is one of the richest in the ‘Italo-Romance’ area, in terms of quality and quantity. Outstanding individual scholars have shed light on structural, lexical, textual and contextual as-

pects of Venetian itself. These include some of the foremost linguists of their generation, such as Manlio Cortelazzo, Giulio Lepschy, Zarko Mul» jacié, Giovan Battista Pellegrini, Alfredo Stussi, Edward Tuttle, Alberto

Zamboni and Paolo Zolli. Upon closer inspection, the obstacles in the way of an overarching study become clear. This exceptional idiom was never codified or standardised, maintaining an ambiguous status that for many centuries hovered between ‘language’ and ‘dialect’. Stating the facts about Venetian in the modern period therefore raises a stubborn nexus of problems. Which Venetian should be the object of such a description? The contemporary Venetian spoken in the city, heavily Italianised in its lexis, and involved in constant codemixing and codeswitching with Italian? If not, what criteria should be used for establishing the boundaries of ‘Modern Venetian’ within an overall periodisation of a dialect/language that never fully achieved the status of exclusive language of state but which has nevertheless enjoyed exceptional prestige? Throughout the later Middle Ages Venetian was, after all, the spoken and written vernacular of an independent and powerful city-state and empire. From Renaissance to Enlightenment it occupied all spoken niches in the far—flung Stato Veneto. Between Italian unification _13__

PREFACE

and the mid twentieth century it remained the normal means of oral ingroup communication in Venice. Even in the past fifty years of population shrinkage, of conversion from well-rounded society to iconic city of globalised tourism, and of the Italianisation of all public spheres, Venetians have

clung tenaciously to veuexz'au as an unstigmatised identity marker. How should one transcribe an idiom that evolved spelling conventions of its own but never systematised them? Such informal orthographic practice was steadily eroded by increasing familiarity with Italian, as well as by the retreat of Venetian from the written sphere, and was eventually thrown into disarray in the twentieth century. The important issue of the origins of Venetian has also to be faced, especially against the backdrop of the disconcerting variability displayed by its earliest documents. This necessarily involves a painstaking evaluation of early textual and historical evidence interpreted through a sociolinguistic prism. The evolving position of Venetian vis-a-vis the mainland Veneto dialects, contiguous Friulan, the Gallo-Italian dialects of northern Italy and Italian itself needs to be established. Delicate judgements about the interaction of historical and social factors with structural evolution have constantly to be made when dealing with an unstandardised idiom that has undergone long-term contact impact from a contiguous literary, then standard, national language. Con‘ sequently, a precise description of Modern Venetian phonology, grammar and lexis has to factor in the diachronic linguistic dimension if it is to be fully meaningful and explicative. This, in turn, demands a broad and deep familiarity with the textual tradition from the twelfth to the twentieth centuries.

In order to incorporate and tackle these issues, I bring to bear the insights of historical linguistics, dialectology, sociolinguistics and contact-linguistics. I also adopt a simultaneously ‘external’ and ‘internal’ approach to the history of Venetian, positioning the study between the more traditional external type of language history exemplified by Walther von Wartburg’s Evolution et Structure de la Lungue Fraugaz'se (Bern, Francke, 1946) and the more recent internal type adopted by Martin Maiden’s Storz'a [zuguz'stz'ca dell’z'talz'auo (Bologna, Il Mulino, 1998). My broad aim has thus been to embed synchronic and diachronic linguistic analysis in historical and cultural context, combining grammutz'ca storz'ca and storia lz'nguz'stz'ca. The structure of the volume reflects this, marrying a chronological frame that is partly linear and partly circular with a discursive narrative that is punctuated by detailed analytical and textual inserts. Chapter I provides an introduction to Venetian today, contextualising it historically and socially, investigating its long-term status as language or dialect, and mapping out a _14_

PREFACE

schema of its functional distribution since unification with Italy. Chapter II establishes an overall periodisation for Venetian. In particular, it defines Modern Venetian and locates it within its Italo-Romance environment. Chapters III, IV and V are dedicated to an extensive structural analysis of Venetian, using Modern Venetian as its primary reference point. The first of these central chapters investigates the prosody and orthography of Venetian, making explicit the criteria used for transcribing it throughout the book. The second is devoted to a thorough exposé of the phonology of Venetian and the third, and longest, to a study of its morphosyntax. Chapters VI and VII are more linear and historical. The former locates the origins of Venetian in the complex koineisation processes generated by the settlement and early urbanisation patterns of the lagoon city. It examines the internal sedimenting out of Early Venetian norms in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries as well as the external linguistic pressure on these norms. It also outlines the textual typology of vernacular emergence in Venice in the late medieval period and offers a commented selection of early vernacular texts with translations. The latter looks at the transition of Venetian from language to dialect between 1500 and 1800, in other words from the affirmation of Italian as Italy’s language of unmarked writing until the fall of the Venetian Republic. Both status- and structure-shifts in this Middle Venetian period are explored, and a representative selection of commented texts, with translations, is provided. Chapter VIII surveys the Venetian lexicon in terms of the Latin-derived elements shared with‘ the wider (Italo) Romance environment and in terms of its distinctiveness. The nature and extent of lexical borrowing into Venetian from Germanic, Greek, Arabic and French are considered, as is the pattern of lexical exports from Venetian to Italian and English. Chapter IX concludes the study by tracing the contact impact of Italian on Venetian from the Middle Ages to the present. Detailed evidence from this exceptionally well-documented ItaloRomance idiom is provided to demonstrate the complex dynamics of convergence, divergence and resistance at play in a long—term contact situation. The book contains a list of abbreviations and symbols employed and a detailed bibliography linking up with internal references in the body of the text. The nature of the volume makes both name and thematic indices impractical. I have instead provided a detailed table of contents where the specifics of each .chapter can be readily located. In addition, I have facilitated the tracking down of words in Chapter VIII by alphabetising lexical lists and highlighting headwords in bold. My grateful thanks go to Giulio Lepschy for generously supporting this project. I also wish to express my thanks to the Research Leave Committee _15_

PREFACE

of the University of St Andrews and to the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council for together granting me the year’s sabbatical that enabled the book to be written. I am indebted to Tony Lodge for helping me to clarify my ideas about the formation of urban koinés, and to my doctoral student Jennie Parkinson for her assistance with the Opera del Vocabolarz'o Italz'cmo. My family has been unfailingly patient and supportive throughout this period. In particular my wife, Annie, has provided me with both her sound advice and her sharp proof-reading skills. It goes without saying that any errors and omissions are my own.

—16—

ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS

AIS

= Atlante z'talo—svz'zzero

adj.

= adjective

adv. Ar. ASLEF

= adverb = Arabic = Atlanta storz'co-linguistz'co-emografi'co friulano

Bol.

= Bolognese

C

= consonant

cf.

= consult

CL

= Classical Latin

conj.

= conjugation

C-type CV

= Conservative-type. = Contemporary Venetian

dim. Emil. Eng.

= diminutive = Emilian = English

etym.

= etymology

f. Fr. Frank.

= feminine = French = Frankish

Friul. Gallo-It.

= Friulan = Gallo-Italian

Ger.

= German

Germ.

= Germanic

imp. inv. Ital. EV

= = = =

imperfect invariable Italian Early Venetian

_17_

ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS

Gk.

= Greek

Lig.

= Ligurian

lit.

= literally

Lomb.

= Lombard

Longob.

= Longobardic

m.

= masculine

Mant.

= Mantuan

MidV

= Middle Venetian

ModV

= Modern Venetian

Mid. Eng. = Middle English Mil.

= Milanese

n.

= noun

NLF

= Northern Italian written lingua franca

North. It. = Northern Italian O.Fr. O. It.

= Old French = Old Italian

OVI

= Opera del Vocabolarz'o Italz'ano

Piac.

= pz'acentz'no

Piern.

= Piedmontese

prep.

= preposition

prob.

= probably

REW = Romanzkcbes etymologzltc/yes Wb'rterbuc/a Romagn. = Romagnol Sp.

= Spanish

Tur.

= Turinese

Tusc.

= Tuscan

V

= vowel

vb

= verb

vs

= versus

~

= alongside

* x

= unattested form of a word = crossed with

[is], e.g. frutarz'ol -— frutarol ‘greengrocer’ < FRUCTAREOLUM.

_27_

CHAPTER ONE

3. STATUS OF CONTEMPORARY VENETIAN

3.1. Whether one measures it by interview, self-evaluation survey, or in-the-field observation one is struck by the unusually positive ‘internal’ perception of Venetian by its own speakers. The Italian national statistical organisation ISTAT has been carrying out nationwide surveys of language and dialect use since the 19805. In conjunction with the investigations car— ried out since the 19703 by the polling organisation Doxa, these provide interesting regular snapshots of linguistic trends in Italy. The ISTAT figures for the year 2000 confirm the known tendencies.16 Beside the general increase in the use of Italian in all contexts, with family, friends and outsiders, dialect decline continues. Its employment is correlated increasingly with advanced age, rurality and low educational attainment, although figures for alternating use of Italian and dialect are holding up or even in-

creasing slightly.l7 Nationally, the figures for exclusive or prevalent use of dialect stand at: 19.1% in the home, 16% with friends and 6.8% with outsiders. In this context the Veneto (and the Venetianised Trentino subregion) stand out for their high levels of dialect maintenance both within and outside the family. In the home 42.6% of Veneto speakers claim to employ dialect principally or exclusively, with a further 29.8% switching between dialect and Italian. 38.2% speak mainly in dialect to their friends, with a further 34.4% alternating it with Italian. Even with outsiders a surprising 14.2% use dialect while a further 32% employ dialect and Italian. The statistics for the Veneto are not broken down by city, but the figures from a questionnaire survey carried out in Venice itself in the late 19905 (GAMBERINI 1999) are in line with the ISTAT findings. However one views the reliability of such self-assessment data and the subjective definitions held by respondents about what constitutes Italian, what constitutes dialect and where the divide between them lies, the main dynamics are clear. Overall, no other region surpasses the Veneto for dialect maintenance in the home and with friends, and only Campania registers a slightly higher use with strangers. Other regions with high dialect retention tend to be located in the less highly educated and less economically advanced South. Comparisons with the wealthy northern regions, Lombardy, Piedmont, Liguria and Emilia-Romagna, are most instructive. Exclusive or prevalent

15 See Notz'zz'arz'o ISTAT, 12.03.2000, available on the organisation’s website at http:// www.istat.it/.

17 For the implications of the recent figures see PARRY (2002).

_23_

CONTEMPORARY VENETIAN: BACKGROUND, STATUS AND DISTRIBUTION

'

MR 0.L ILL HIPEDDJ H. IL—-tuI-)rmninm

onifonm n; V E N EZ I A —u ' mm“: 25am» bu::mfi;wiz=u:r=-im.

Wr- 4:2, mac

mum-2x

Fig. 2. RONNIE FERGUSON, A Linguistic History of Venice. Venice and its lagoon.

dialect use correlates closely across all four regions but is three to four times lower, in all domains, than in the Veneto.

3.2. Although such a value-judgement may be difficult to quantify, it seems safe to say that the ‘external’ perception of Venice is also positive, if in different ways and from a necessarily different perspective. Globally, Venice enjoys exceptional status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and as one of the most appreciated and cherished urban and cultural locations in the world. It is also fair to point out that, except among specialists, Venice’s linguistic specificity is irrelevant to this positive image. In fact the impact on Venetian of the city’s popularity is, paradoxically, positive. In spite, or perhaps because of, Venice’s overwhelming but superficial cosmopoli-

_29_

CHAPTER ONE

tanism, Venetian has, as we noted, increasingly configured itself as an ex-

clusive differential badge among a diminishing resident population: a population which in part lives off, but which sees itself increasingly under threat from, mass tourism. A positive image of Venice prevails among Italians, too, but actually extends in a vague way to Venetian itself. The city’s glamour is at play here, as is its culturally outstanding past, but this time language comes marginally into the equation. Relatively familiar to a national audience through, for example, the theatre of Italy’s major playwright Carlo Goldoni and through its use in cinematic comedy cameo roles (GHIGI 1991; BRUNETTA — FACCIOLI 2004), Venetian’s former prestige and

structural closeness to Standard Italian have also contributed to a certain benevolence among Italians in general. 3.2.1. The above goodwill does not extend to legal protection for Venetian. The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages,18 although professing to safeguard endangered idioms, is actually of no help whatsoever in this respect. Article 1 of the Charter establishes a crucial distinction: «“regional or minority languages” means languages that are: i. traditionally used within a given territory of a State by nationals of that State who form a group numerically smaller than the rest of the State’s population; and ii. different from the official language(s) of that State; it does not include [...] dialects of the official language(s) of the State». By overlooking the scientific reality that the dialects of Italy do not descend from Italian (see below § 4), this definition defacto excludes from tutelage Italy’s ancestral or hereditary idioms, of which Venetian is only one. Given the provisos with which the document is hedged, all designed ultimately to protect national sovereignty and official languages, the Charter is in fact a backward step for dialects. Its retrograde position is reflected in Italy’s recent legisla-

tion on the matter. Law 482 of December 15th 199919 is directed at safeguarding what are called, in its terms, «1e minoranze linguistiche storiche». The law goes on to clarify what is meant by this designation. Alongside the national language, Italian, the State now claims to protect the languages and cultures of minorities historically resident within Italy’s boundaries: Albanian, Catalan, German(ic), Greek, Slovenian, Croatian, French, Fran-

co-Provencal and Occitan. While Italian dialects appear to be excluded,

13 Strasbourg, 5.11.1992. Available in full on the website of the Council of Europe at http://www.coe.int/. 19 Gazzetta Uflz'cinle della Repubblica Italiana, 297 of December 20th 1999.

_30_

CONTEMPORARY VENETIAN: BACKGROUND, STATUS AND DISTRIBUTION

the Law muddies the water by including in the above list" Friulan, Ladin and Sardinian whose cultural and linguistic status is far from clearcut or uncontroversial. Their inclusion makes the omission of, for the sake of ar-

gument, Neapolitan or Venetian perplexing. 3.3. Culture and language in the Veneto also have a political dimension. There is no doubt that the continuing high levels of dialect use reflect a strong sense of historic and cultural identity within the region. This, rather surprisingly, receives an almost ethnic colouring in the constitution of the Veneto region (Statuto regz'omle del Veneto)20 which talks of the «popolo veneto» and whose second article states that «La regione concorre alla valorizzazione del patrirnonio culturale e linguistico delle singole comunita». A more radically political slant to such a declaration has been given in the last twenty-five years by a variety of organisations such as the Congresso de la Nazion Veneta which aspires to a return of the Venetian Republic, and most notably by the right-wing political party the Liga Veneta. The first of Italy’s ‘Leagues’ seeking independence from Rome, the Liga, whose initial goal was self-determination for the «nazione veneta», threw in its lot in the early 19908 with Umberto Bossi’s Lega Lombarda in neighbouring Lombardy to form the electorally-influential Northern League (Lega Nord). Although at the start of the third Millenium the Lega Nord was part of Silvio Berlusconi’s centralising national coalition government, it continued to seek to establish by democratic means an indepen» dent northern—Italian state called Padania (of which the Veneto would be a constituent part). However, it is interesting to note that although the Liga Veneta vociferously encourages the Veneto people to use their language, this championing has rarely gone beyond lip-service: abortive attempts to introduce language legislation in parliament, sporadic use of Veneto in posters — employing a spelling-system which seeks as far as possible to distance the dialect from Italian — and folkloristic links on its website. Indeed, under the influence of the more pragmatic Lega Lombarda, the Liga has concentrated increasingly on politics rather than on language, perhaps accepting the inevitable: that while dialect in the Veneto is a potent fact of life, it is a spoken rather than written reality (BONSAVER 1996). 3.4. Venice is the capital of one of Italy’s most prosperous regions. Apart from some‘ older and less well-educated speakers all Venetians,

20 Available in full on the website of the Consiglio Regionale del Veneto at http://www. consiglioveneto.it/crvportal/index.jsp.

_31_

CHAPTER ONE

therefore, are now completely proficient in Italian. They do not, it should be noted, perceive it as in any way an alien code. On the other hand, this competence has only partially undermined their implicit and often explicit group loyalty to, and intense pride and affection for, venexz'cm — despite its lack of formal status and their no longer being literate in it. It is clear that the city’s historical heritage is not only an underlying prestige factor. It continues to play an important part in maintaining .positive linguistic consciousness. Venetians are surrounded by the outstanding physical and cultural remains of their civilisation, daily reminders of the former political greatness of the city. Street signs in Venetian link language to this legacy, as do the vernacular names of restaurants and the numerous publications in and on Venetian which fill the city’s bookshops. Indeed, Venice’s very special morphology has shaped and continues to shape linguistic identity. A community rendered tightly-knit by a layout and intricate patterning of streets, canals, bridges and campz' that remain essentially medieval and mi generz's, as well as by its unique and isolated lagoon site, Venice has to a large extent remained immune both from the depersonalisation and homogenisation of modernity and from the large-scale internal migrations from the south of Italy which have hastened the decline of dialect speaking in other great northern cities of culture like Milan, Turin and Genoa. In the Venetian urban context face-to-face speaker contact was and is of high frequency and of exceptional importance. It is not a coincidence that Venice’s greatest contribution to Italian literature has been in the spoken medium of theatre: most notably in its multilingual Renaissance comedies, in its fundamental role in the development of Commedia dell’Arte and European stage professionalism, and through the Enlightenment theatre of Goldoni and Gozzi. The city itself is the most inherently scenographic in the world. Venetian governments early realised the propaganda potential of selling its image, internally and externally, as is clear from their orchestration of civic ritual (MUIR 1981), by the awed reaction of a fifteenth-

century political tourist like Commynes (BRAUNSTEIN — DELORT 1971, p. 195), and by their careful cultivation and monopoly of the pilgrim trade to the Levant from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries. Venice was the earliest of cities to have cartographical representations of itself, the most outstanding being Jacopo De’ Barbari’s stupendous woodcut dated 1500 in the Museo Correr,21 and to generate guidebooks, notably by Marin Sanudo

21 The most detailed study of Venice in 1500 as revealed by De’ Barbari’s map is BALISTRERI-TRINCANATO (2000).

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CONTEMPORARY VENETIAN: BACKGROUND, STATUS AND DISTRIBUTION

and Francesco Sansovino in the Renaissance. It is also the most pictorially represented: from Gentile Bellini’s and Carpaccio’s ceremonial teleri, via

the high-quality tourist vednte of Canaletto and Guardi, to the stylised theatre-backdrop-like contemporary canvases of Annamaria Rispoli Fabris. The city of carnival and its trappings, it has remained the quintessential urban backcloth for interaction on a human scale, evident as much in the de-

lightful eighteenth-century genre oils by Gabriel Bella at the Fondazione Querini Stampalia as in the experience of any modern Visitor to the city.

4. VENETIAN: LANGUAGE OR DIALECT?

4.1. The answer would appear to be obvious: Venice is a dialect within a state whose language is Italian. It is only a short step from this to saying that Venetian is an Italian dialect. The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages and the recent Italian law on linguistic minorities go further still. By excluding from protective legislation «dialects of the official language(s) of the State», they actually imply that Venetian is a dialect of Italian. While acceptable in a pragmatic and socio-political way, the first two assumptions are scientifically questionable. The third one is simply wrong. 4.2. In a strictly linguistic and synchronic perspective all idioms are languages: Italian is a language, as is Venetian. In a strictly linguistic and diachronic perspective all languages are dialects: Italian and Venetian are two of the many Italo—Romance dialects descended from Latin. Latin itself was a dialect of the Italic group of languages which were dialects of the putative and reconstructed proto-Indo European language believed to underpin all modern European tongues apart from Basque, Finnish and Hungarian. However, in a perspective which is more political, cultural and broadly sociolinguistic, language and dialect have in the past 500 years come to be linked in a judgmental relationship of superiority-inferiority which has impacted on both the status of the former and the status and structures of the latter.22 It is in this sense that Venetian is a dialect. It is worth observing also that, contrary to commonsense expectations, structural distance and

mutual intelligibility are not diagnostic features giving solidity to the lan-

22 See LEPSCHY (1996) for the historical evolution of the concept of dialect, and MULJACIC

(1997) for the relationship between dialects and standard languages. Also instructive for the development of the term are the entries in BATTAGLIA (1961-) and CORTELAZZO — ZOLLI (1979-88), s.v. dialetto.

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CHAPTER ONE

guage-dialect distinction. The structural distance between many Italian dialects and Italian is undoubtedly greater than that between Spanish and Ita— lian; Norwegian, Danish and Swedish are languages, yet in terms of structure and intelligibility they are far closer to each other than Venetian is to Abruzzese or Bolognese. 4.3. The terminological and relationary evolution of language and dialect is detectable in Italy from the sixteenth century. The unusually early codification of her literary language in this period coincided with the appearance of the term Italian to describe what had previously been ‘Florentine’ or ‘Tuscan’, and with the first use of ‘dialect’, although not in its pe-

jorative modern sense. The subsequent standardisation of Italian, not only as an elite consensus norm for literature but as the written and spoken language of a national community, was exceptionally retarded by the peninsula’s long-standing fragmentation and deeply entrenched cultural and linguistic particularities. As elsewhere, the standardising impulse was intimately connected with the processes of nation building which culminated in nation-state formation in the nineteenth century and in the exclusivity of national languages (MILROY — MILROY 1991). These latter processes, which ignored or were hostile to the awkward reality of an ethnically and linguistically mixed Europe, engendered a mythology of homogeneous national space — quintessentially expressed in the Revolutionary French concept of langue une, nation zme — which consigned ‘dialects’ to decline while restrictively redefining and upgrading one ‘language’. The retreat of dialect, typically towards the rural and the proletarian, that is towards speakers of lower educational attainment, engendered social stigmatisation. With the inevitable register restriction and structural dilution provoked by contact with the more prestigious national language via military service, emigration, social mobility, schooling and the media, the loop of the self-fulfilling prophecy was closed. The end result of these develop— ments is that lingering or dying regional idioms are mostly (self) labelled as dialects or patoz's and in the minds of speakers in the national community tend strongly to be considered as no more than incorrect, bastardised local forms of the national language. Only a very few non-State languages in western Europe have avoided this fate, Catalan and Swiss German being the most conspicuous. The former even seems to be reversing the process of dialectalisation to become a fully-fledged ‘language’ again in parallel to the national—regional reassertion of Catalonia. The latter, like contemporary Venetian and like Létzebuergerc/a, the Germanic dialect of the Duchy of Luxembourg, is a spoken rather than written medium of group solidarity. _34_

CONTEMPORARY VENETIAN: BACKGROUND, STATUS AND DISTRIBUTION

Historically, Venetian’s status as an ‘official’ language even'”within the Venetian state was, as we shall see, ambiguous. It remains a special case within Italy. Lacking the political, nationalist, territorial and population base of Catald and Swyzertiiiitsc/a, without a linguistic educational policy to consolidate it, a standard writing system to objectify it or a legal framework to protect it, an increasingly Italianised Venetian23 survives precariously but relatively unstigmatised.

5. VENICE AND VENETIAN: A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

5.1. It is self-evident, then, that historical and cultural factors have

played a major part in sustaining the positive image of Venetian ‘dialect’ among native-speakers in the city and its region. Its continuing ability to thrive without statutory protection since Italian unification in 1860-70, within a unitary nation-state with a prescriptive national standard, is the enduring legacy of its former prestige as the everyday idiom of the Venetian Republic. Venice was the capital and Venetian was the spoken language, and for a time a written language, of the Stato Veneto: an independent, thousand-year—old polity, centered on the Serenissima itself, which became a major power from the eleventh century in the eastern Mediterranean and, from 1404, on the Italian mainland, and which endured until 1797. The present position and status of Venetian and its relationship with Italian cannot be understood outside the historical-cultural parabola of the city. 5.2. Historically, the areal spread and high status of Venetian were pre— dicated on Venice’s remarkable mercantile growth, maritime then territor— ial expansion, and consequent cultural prestige between c. 900 AD and c. 1500 AD. However, Venetian’s subsequent functional contraction — first in the written sphere then, much more slowly and recently, in the spoken domain — cannot be so straightforwardly linked to economic and political decline. For one thing it is far from unproblematic to label Venice’s gradual imperial retrenchment and economic reconversion post 1500 as ‘decline’, and certainly not in relation to Florence. For another it is clear that the im— pact of Italian (or,"rnore accurately, Florentine/Tuscan) on Venetian began

23 On the phenomenon of the Italianisation of the dialects see BERRUTO (1997b) and SOBRERO (1997).

CHAPTER ONE

well before 1500, when Venetian was still in part a language of state, and that it predated by centuries the demise of the Serenissima and the absorption of the Veneto region into the new Italian state in 1866. In fact, the influence of Italian on Venetian was initially literary then, more broadly textual and cultural. While it did have a limited effect on Venetian morphonology, its main outcome was to progressively exclude venexzkm from the field of unmarked writing, establishing after c. 1500 a rather clearcut writing-speech bilingualism. This stable functional distribution only broke down in the city and its hinterland in the twentieth century. At that point the classic sociolinguistic factors associated with nation states and codified standards (DE MAURO 1963; SERIANNI 2003) finally made inroads into the dominance of all speech registers by what had become an urban dialect, albeit a very special one, installing a complex, fluid system of speech diglossia. 5 .3. By 1350-1400, following an intense period of urbanisation and expansion, Venice was a major power, with merchants and outposts ubiquitous from Egypt to the Black Sea. After 1100 she achieved dominance in the Adriatic and extensive influence in the eastern Mediterranean. Between 1200 and 1500 she acquired, partially or entirely, Istria, Dalmatia, Corfu, Zakinthos, Cephalonia, Methoni, Euboea, the Cyclades, Crete, Cy-

prus and Constantinople (LANE 1973). Her vernacular overwhelmed the earlier native neo—Latin dialects along the Istrian and Dalmatian coasts and was, with French, the prestige Romance idiom throughout the eastern Mediterranean. From the early fifteenth century Venice acquired a land empire that stretched across northern Italy from Istria and Friuli almost to Milan, and from the Dolomites to the P0. The modern status of Vene-

tian in the Veneto developed from that period until the present. The splendid Venice of Gentile Bellini’s Procession in Saint Mark’s Square of 1496 and of De’ Barbari’s map of 1500 was the wealthiest and most powerful state in Renaissance Italy. Widely admired for her stable, oligarchical form of government, her internal political cohesion and her unique cityscape, she was the great commercial and cultural mediator between East and West.

5.4. What precisely was the status of Venetian in Venice during the period that extends from its emergence in written form, c. 1200, until the fifteenth century, when the city’s political and commercial power and prestige were at their height and venexzkm had achieved structural sta— bility in writing? Venetian was undoubtedly the spoken language in all contexts — from family and street to law court, debating chamber and diplo-

—36—

CONTEMPORARY VENETIAN: BACKGROUND, STATUS AND DISTRIBUTION

macy — both within Venice and throughout its empire, and remained so until the fall of the Republic. Nevertheless, the affirmation of its written

form in this period was both more hesitant and less complete. Until the fifteenth century Venetian was a, rather than the, written language of the Venetian state. A considerable number of documents, legal, diplomatic and even legislative appeared, with increasing frequency over time, in Ve— netian. However, unlike in the states of central Italy, especially Florence, where the vernacular tended to emerge more precociously and more clearly demarcated from Latin, the conservatism of the Venetian Chancery and the clerical monopoly of notorial functions in the city until the fifteenth century meant that Latin persisted substantially until 1500 and even beyond. The writing—speech bilingualism later to characterise Venetian’s relationship with Italian was prefigured in the Venetian state bureaucracy in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries: Latin tendentially for writing, Venetian for speech. Although quantitatively very much in the minority compared to Latin, by 1400 Venetian was appearing in a wide range of written contexts: not only in private wills, contracts, merchants’ correspondence and mercantile handbooks, and in devotional, moralising and escapist literature,

but also in serious historical works and even legislative documents. Indeed in its higher prose registers it was achieving a stability and sophistication that gave every indication of being the prelude to codification and even, given Venice’s exceptionally enduring statehood, to standardisation. 5.5. Three obvious questions arise concerning the potential next steps in the linguistic affirmation of Venetian. Was it codified and standardised? Was it ever Venice’s fully-fledged language of state? Could Venetian, the language of Italy’s richest and most powerful polity, have actually become the basis of Italian itself? The negative answer to all three questions re— quires some explanation. A number of general cumulative factors are worth bearing in mind. The first, as we noted, is that the vernacular achieved autonomy from Latin relatively late in Venice. Secondly, there is the lack of Venetian literary vitality in the late Medieval period to be taken into account. This creative deficit is awkward to explain. The pragmatic, commercial nature of the city could and has been invoked, but Florence was both pragmatic and creative. Venice’s very unusual constitution and political and civic stability may have played a part, as may the absence of court patronage. The highly unusual nature and enduring self-conception of the Venetian state were undoubtedly factors, as we shall see in

Chapter VII. To this one could also plausibly add that the fact that the vernacular, and literature in it, were viewed as essentially private matters by _37_

CHAPTER ONE

the Signoria, and as irrelevant to public policy (TOMASIN 2001, p. 108). Whatever the reasons, Venice did not generate between 1300 and 1500 a Dante, a Petrarch, a Boccaccio or even a St Francis or a Iacopone da

Todi: products of the more turbulant Republican communes of central Italy. Nor did she ever consciously affirm a vernacular language policy for herself. In other words, Venice did not punch her weight linguistically in the Italian Renaissance, nor was she preoccupied by this. From shortly after 13 00 the Venetian state was, in fact, probably the most receptive in Italy to Florentine/Tuscan cultural and linguistic influence, mainly but not exclusively in literature, and particularly in verse (MEDIN 1922-23). So much so that by the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries uncontaminated high-register texts in Venetian were in rapid contraction or in greater or lesser symbiosis with Tuscan. The latter phenomenon is most strikingly manifest in the hybrid prose used by Venice’s most important chronicler and historian of the period, Marin Sanudo, in his 58-volume diaries (FULIN et 21. 1879—1902). When, therefore, Venice opted de facto for

the vernacular as her main written medium in the early Cinquecento she adopted, although never legally, the fundamentally Florentine volgare which was becoming Italy’s prestige written lingua franca and which was increasingly disseminated by the printing industry of which Venice was the European hub. This form of the vernacular was favoured by an intel— lectual elite attracted to its prestige and familiarity, to its relative closeness to Latin and, doubtless, to its rather intermediate linguistic character with-

in the myriad Romance varieties of the peninsula. Venetian had come close to being Venice’s exclusive language of state. It is unlikely that she was in the running to be Italy’s, although the great linguist Giacomo Devoto believed that had Venice prevailed against the European powers of the League of Cambrai between 1509 and 1515 (GILBERT 1973), Italy might have had a codified language based on contemporary Venetian Chancery norms rather than on old Florentine literary usage (DEVOTO 1984, pp. 271-272). Be that as it may, by the end of the sixteenth century only a rapidly-decreasing patina of venexz'cm was detectable in Venetian high-register Italian writing. 5.6. The Italian written vernacular was grammatically codified early in the sixteenth century by Giovan Francesco Fortunio in his Regole grammatz'azlz' della volgar lingua (1516) and, most influentially, by the Venetian patrician, cardinal and man of letters Pietro Bembo in his Prose dellcz volgar lingua (1525). Based essentially on fourteenth-century Tuscan and conceived originally for use in poetry and literary prose, Bembo’s conservative —38—

CONTEMPORARY VENETIAN: BACKGROUND, STATUS AND DISTRIBUTION

norm was lexically elaborated and extended in 1612 by the Accademia della Crusca in its Vocabolarz'o, the first of Europe’s great vernacular dictionaries, and still forms the basis of the modern Italian written standard. One

of its most wide-reaching effects was, Virtually overnight, to relegate Venetian and all other vernaculars in Italy to the effective status of dialects in the modern sense of the word, that is subordinate to a national norm. The lat-

ter, while not yet an institutionalised standard in all domains, would from that time forward be adopted for unmarked writing by the Italian elites and act as a ‘roofing’ language: a prestigious point of reference for all the vernaculars of Italy. Indeed, as we saw, it was in the early Cinquecento that the term ‘italiano’ began to be used by some writers to refer to Florentine or Tuscan. It was also in sixteenth century Italy that the term ‘dialect’ first made its appearance in modern European languages, although the strength of local vernacular traditions in the peninsula impeded its use in the modern pejorative sense until considerably later.24 It is significant that as late as the mid eighteenth century, against the background of Venice’s exceptionally mature statehood in the Italian and European context, Goldoni could deploy spoken Venetian and spoken Italian alongside one another in his theatre on an equal footing, continuing to call them quite unpolemically «lingua Veneziana» and «lingua Toscana».25

6. FUNCTIONAL DISTRIBUTION OF CONTEMPORARY VENETIAN

6.1. When Venice joining the Kingdom of Italy in 1866 following a plebiscite, a long-standing bilingualism, where dialect occupied most spoken registers and Italian most written ones, was the rule throughout the peninsula, apart perhaps from Tuscany and Rome, and was more clearcut and solidly-established in Venice than elsewhere. This de facto functional linguistic divide was inevitably problematised by incorporation into a centralising nation-state.26 From uncontroversial and almost imperceptible, Italian contact influence on dialects became dynamic and, potentially at

24 On the appearance of the term dz'aletto in the Italian Renaissance see ALINEI (1981) and TROVATO (1984).

-.

25 From Goldoni’s preface to I Rustegbz' of 1762 (DAVICO BONINO 1970, p. 17). 26 For a consideration of the Italian linguistic situation after Unification, within its historical context, see DE MAURO (1963) and RICHARDSON (2001). For the nexus between language and Italian national identity see MOSS (2000). On the position of language and dialect in Italian schools in the post-Unification period see RAICICH (1966).

_39_

CHAPTER ONE

least, ideological. In Venice an official national standard, the mother tongue of next to nobody in the city but familiar to the social elite, was now in effect in competition across the usage spectrum with a typologically close prestige local spoken norm, in a characteristic late-nineteenth-century situation of political democratisation, economic development and centralised nation building. Throughout the country Italian was encouraged and spread through schooling, the mass media and national service. It was also diffused through internal and external migration, and subtly but powerftu by the sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic processes involved in the desire for conformity and social betterment in a modern society. The extension of a writing versus speech bilingualism to bilingualism in speech itself inevitably involved the encroachment of Italian into formal then informal discourse as familiarity with, and spoken competence in, the national language became universal in the twentieth century. The consequent realignment of functional distributions in favour of Italian gradually set up strongly delineated systems of diglossia across Italy, in other words a bilingualism of unequals in speech. The statistics for dialect speaking in 2000 quoted above (§ 3.1) reflect situations where dialect has over time become equated with ignorance and low educational attainment, ending up effectively confined to lower socio-economic categories, to older agegroups and to niches within the family. The resilience of Venetian has meant, on the other hand, that diglossia in Venice stands out for its resistance to stigma and for its consequent maintenance across wider social and age categories and functional situations. Confidence in both codes and high educational attainment have also fostered an exceptional distribu— tional complexity in Venice involving frequent and hard-to-analyse codeswitching and codemixing.27 6.2. Italy’s political fragmentation before the mid nineteenth century, in the context of exceptionally strong regional cultures, meant that there was no single urban centre to irradiate a spoken version of the standard after Unification. While the universally accepted written norm for Italian was based on Florentine, it was essentially fz'oremz'no of the fourteenth century. Living Florentine had itself evolved, especially but not exclusively in phonology, and the Tuscan capital was no longer the powerful political and cultural centre it had been in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. Con— sequently, the attempt at the end of the nineteenth century, promoted by

27 On codeswitching and codemixing in the Italian context see BERRUTO (1997a).

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CONTEMPORARY VENETIAN: BACKGROUND, STATUS AND DISTRIBUTION

Italy’s greatest novelist Alessandro Manzoni and supported" by the government, to encourage the spread of contemporary educated Florentine usage through schools and through a new national dictionary was bound, in a socially and culturally disunited country with a prestigious written standard, to fail.23 Graziadio Isaia Ascoli, Italy’s outstanding linguist of the period, had foreseen that such dz'rz'gzrme was premature and that cultural unification had to precede its linguistic counterpart. He also deplored the attempt to denigrate and eradicate Italy’s rich dialect heritage that accompanied it (ASCOLI 1873). It was inevitable, therefore, that people learned to pronounce Italian as it was written. Phonologically this had important consequences in de-Florentinising the standard. Florentine distribution of the stressed mid vowels /0 ~ 3/ and /e ~ 8/, represented graphically simply as and , tended to be replaced by the distribution pattern (or lack of it) in the underlying dialect; the graphemes and followed by front vowels were perceived as the affricates /tf/ and /d3/ not as the fricatives /f/ and /3/; intervocalic , pronounced [s] in some words and [z]

in others in Florentine, became uniformly [s] in the south and [z] in the north; the typically modern Florentine aspiration in certain environments of /k/, unrepresented in writing, was ignored. The proposed de-diphthon— gisation of reflexes of Latin tonic O in a free syllable (e.g. 710220 for 71740120), in line with contemporary Florentine, was also rejected since the written standard enshrined the [WD] outcome. Prosodically, the key Florentine feature of syllable-initial syntactic doubling or maloppz'amento (fonokmtatlz'co; was only internalised in speech when conventionalised in traditional spelling by the unification of the two words involved, e.g. dapprz'ma, dammz' (MAIDEN 1998, pp. 88-92). Where gemination at word boundaries was not formalised orthographically, local prosodic patterns inevitably pre~ vailed: absence of syntactic doubling in the Italian spoken in Venice and the rest of the North, differently distributed consonant lengthening in the Centre and South. 6.2.1. In the absence of a spoken norm, therefore, underlying dialect structures strongly coloured the post-Unification national spoken lan— guage, first in a phase described as z'tczlz'cmo popolare, undoubtedly characteristic of the less educated and typified by dialect-intrusion mistakes, and later through a diastratically-wide z'z‘alz'cmo regionale (SOBRERO 1988). In a country where the spoken standard based on modern Florentine tends only

23 On the affirmation of norm and standard in Italian see MULJACIC (1998).

_41_

CHAPTER ONE

to be fully-realised by some actors and newsreaders, z'talzkmo regz'omle, amorphous though the concept is, can legitimately be Viewed as the spoken Italian both aspired to and used within the regions of Italy. In terms of syntax and morphology z'talz'cmo regz'onale is strongly grounded in the written standard. However, it has developed speech-based patterns of morphosyntax common across the whole country and typical of what could be called a national colloquial standard or, to use the German term, Umgangspmcbe. Such commonality has led to this Umgangspmc/oe being described as an Italian neo-standard (BERRUTO 1987) or as «l’italiano dell’uso medio» (SABATINI 1985). This is legitimate but leaves aside the distinctive regional colourings conferred by lexis, phonology and prosody. The lexis of 22411an regz'onale displays the kind of minor regional variations which speakers of English are used to. Similarly, its phonology and especially its prosody are more-or-less heavily influenced by dialect, producing the characteristic ‘accent’ which allows one to rapidly place the region or city of origin of most Italians. Other dynamics appear to impinge on this complex interplay of the common and the distinctive. Urban poles exerting supra-regional unifying influence on regional Italian usage are the great cities of Milan in the North, Rome in the Centre and Naples in the South. While Italians seem broadly tolerant of accent its use is not value-free. As Nora Galli de’ ‘ Paratesi demonstrated in her pioneering study, the northern accent, associated with economic success, is increasingly perceived as the most prestigious (GALLI DE’ PARATESI 1984). Venice has its own, distinctive type of z'talz'cmo regz'omle common to, but not identical for, all speakers. Condi— tioned by a Venetian’s background and individual biography, the Italian spoken in Venice typically reflects, to a greater or lesser degree, character— istic features derived from underlying venexzkm. Most conspicuous among these are: the lilting prosodic cadences of the dialect; a divergent distribution of /e ~ 3/ and /0 ~ 3/, with insecurity sometimes triggering hypercorrection in certain speakers; non-labial, sometimes lax pronunciation of the palato-aveolar affricates /tf/ and /d3/; palato—alveolar colouring of sibilants

/s/ and /z/; /r/ as a tap rather than a trill; /p/ ~ /pp/ as [mi] and /7t/ ~ /7\.7L/ as [lj]/; [is] —> [je]; word-initial grapheme pronounced [dz], never [ts]; and an incomplete realisation of geminates.29 6.2.2. Depending on the region and its linguistic history, z'talz'cmo regiomzle stands at the top of a more-or-less layered speech spectrum. This can

29 For a full consideration of the Italian spoken in Venice and elsewhere in the Veneto see CANEPARI (1986).

_42_

CONTEMPORARY VENETIAN: BACKGROUND, STATUS AND DISTRIBUTION

theoretically involve speakers sliding up and down a continuum consisting of, in hierarchical order, z'talz'cmo regz'onale, a more dialectalised regional Italian, a supra-regional dialect koiné or a more Italianised dialect, and lo-

cal dialect (PELLEGRINI 1975). John Trumpet has described the Veneto as the paradigmatic region of so-called macrodiglossia, with local dialect and Italian mediated by Venetian-based Common Veneto. He contrasts it with areas such as Emilia-Romagna where there exists a Starker microdiglossia that juxtaposes very local, functionally restricted dialect, the resolutely ‘Low’ language (L), with z'talz'cmo regz'onale the ‘High’ language (H) (TRUMPER 1977). Venetian’s enduring prestige and increasing osmosis with Italian have shielded it from a survival linked solely to education and class. Its functional retreat has, therefore, been of a more complex order, with a

subtler differentiation of H and L. In spite of the partial retreat of venexz'cm and increasing structural pressure on it from Italian, Venice displayed in 2006 a highly idiosyncratic diglossia in which Venetian and regional Italian alternated or interpenetrated on a flexible continuum. 6.3. A plausible schema to describe the functional distribution of Venetian now and since Italian unification is the following: 1866: Italian (unmarked writing) ~ Venetian (speech and genre writing) 1950: Italian (unmarked writing and formal speech, both out-group and in-group) ~ Venetian (genre writing and informal in—group speech) ‘ 2006: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Unmarked writing: Italian Genre writing: Venetian Out-group speech: Italian Formal in-group speech: Italian Informal in-group speech: (a) Italian H1 Venetian H2 or (b) Italian H Venetian L or (c) Italian H1 ~ Venetian H1/H2

6.3.1. By the time of the distribution postulated for 1950 Italian was massively installed in Venice as the language of education, government, civil service and media. Knowledge of written Italian was widespread and necessary and confidence in speaking the national language was growing, especially among mid and high socio-economic groups. Venetian was the mother tongue of all Venetians but, increasingly, upwardly-mobile parents _43_

CHAPTER ONE

were codeswitching in the home: using Venetian among themselves, Italian with their children. Face-to-face interaction with Italians from other regions was ever more common but not on the scale of the northern cities which attracted immigration from the Mezzogz'omo. Venetian was still the almost exclusive in-group language of home, street, market, gondola, vaporetto, staff-room and office. However, Italian now predominated in

formal exchanges. 6.3 .2. In the complex configuration postulated for 2006, it is understood that the Italian spoken is more-or-less coloured by Venetian, especially in terms of prosody and phonology. The schema excludes some younger speakers who are now monolingual in Italian. The continuum represented by pattern 5 (a), where both Italian and Venetian can be classified as High spoken languages, albeit hierarchically arranged, is particularly common. Distribution within this continuum is complex and complementary, with constant codeswitching and codemixing operating on a sliding scale determined by pragmatic discourse factors, although it should be understood that large tracts of discourse are entirely in Venetian. It may be conditioned by status of interlocutor or functional context, but often seems to be triggered by apparently subconscious cues provided by subject-matter or register. Abstraction and delocalisation undoubtedly attract Italian, but with constant Venetian intrusions. Pattern 5 (b), where

Venetian is relegated to Low language status yet the Italian is strongly regional, tends to characterise the practice and attitude of some individuals from lower socio-econornic groups or of lower educational attainment, with linguistic insecurity and poorer competence in Italian. Pattern 5 (c), where both codes have prestige but are kept separate, reflects the careful speech of a restricted number of educated speakers, with strong linguistic (self-) awareness, who may consider themselves to be bilingual rather than diglossic.

_44_

CHAPTER Two

MODERN VENETIAN: PERIODISATION, SOURCES AND CLASSIFICATION

1. PERIODISATION

1.1. In Chapter I we considered the status, distribution and contextual background of Contemporary Venetian. In Chapter IX the contact impact that Italian is having on its structures will be evaluated. The present chapter is devoted to circumscribing what I call Modern Venetian, while Chapters III, IV and V, devoted to Venetian prosody, orthography, phonology and morphosyntax, have Modern Venetian as their point of reference. It is therefore necessary to clarify briefly why and how I have come to this terminological distinction and indeed how the wider historical periodisation of venexz'an which underlies the study as a whole has been established. 1.2. Periodisation within Romance linguistics shifted in the course of the twentieth century from an essentially external, historical type based on categorisation by century, towards a more language-focused type where linguistic criteria conditioned, at least in part, chronological divisions (BAUM 2003). The latter methodology sought to divide up the history of a language into coherent tranches that intersected with literary, cultural and historical dynamics and timescales.1 Its advantages are obvious. The apparent coherence obtained allows one to examine the diachronic evolution of a language via what is, ideally, a series of synchronic slices each providing rich comparative data. In practice its linguistic treatment tends towards the ‘external’, limiting detailed structural analysis. Its cut-off points, too, while aimed at embracing significant linguistic commonalities, risk imposing arbitrary divisions on a language. More recently, progressive 1 Fine examples are, for the history of Italian, MIGLIORINI — GRIFFITH (1966) and, for the

history of French, WARTBURG (1946).

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CHAPTER TWO

chronological periodisation has given way to a structure-based, languageinternal approach that privileges linguistic history over history of the language (VARVARO 1972-73; MORPURGO DAVIES 1993, pp. 309-376). The outstanding example for Italian is MAIDEN (1998). This approach implicitly recognises that the changing patterns of a language do not, except in catastrophic or exceptional circumstances, have neatly defined boundaries. I have tried to combine the best of both approaches in the present study. Neither, on its own, is ideally suited to handling data from an uncodified and unstandardised idiom like Venetian which has undergone significant contact-pressure over time from a contiguous standard language, and whose origins, evolution and present position have not hitherto been organically studied. In such circumstances, history of the language and linguistic history must go hand in hand, structured by a periodisation that is sensitive to sociolinguistic pressures. This compromise is reflected in the title of the study. I have therefore adopted the following categories for Venetian: Early Venetian (EV) c. 1200 - c. 1500 Middle Venetian (MidV) c. 1500 - c. 1800 Modern Venetian (ModV) c. 1800 - c. 1950 Contemporary Venetian (CV) c. 1950 - the present

1.3. My rationale has been to establish convenient approximate dates which represent paradigm shifts. In other words, each boundary is meant to mark a watershed where societal or cultural events with linguistic repercussions have altered the status and/or structure of Venetian. 1200 conventionally represents the appearance of venexz'cm in written texts. In spite of the quite fundamental internal processes which restructured Early Venetian in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries (and which could, by lin-

guistic criteria alone, have justified a perfectly valid demarcation between Old Venetian and Early Venetian at around 1350) I establish c. 1500 as the next division. This date, for the start of what I call Middle Venetian, stands for the moment when Tuscan was achieving consensus status among Italy’s elite and interfering with unmarked written Venetian of all registers. The grammatical codification of Italian that would introduce writing-speech bilingualism to Venice was also imminent at that point. I might, quite coherently, have opted for 1866 as the starting point for Modern Venetian, but I preferred c. 1800. This date coincides approximately with a fundamental political and linguistic turning point in the fortunes of Venice and Venetian, consolidated and accelerated half a century later by Unification with

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MODERN VENETIAN: PERIODISATION, SOURCES AND CLASSIFICATION

Italy. 1800 roughly marks the end of Venetian political and'institutional independence, the Napoleonic and Austrian interludes with the awakening of Italian patriotism in the elites, and the removal of even spoken 06116961sz from the official public sphere.2 Emblematic of the shift in the status of Venetian after this date is the figure of Daniele Manin (1804-1857), the linguist, scholar and great Venetian and Italian patriot who led the Venetian revolutionary insurrection against Austria in 1848. His diaries written between 1819 and 1842 (BRUNETTI — ORSI — SALATA 1936) are in Italian, as are his recorded speeches. However, he made his emotional appeal for calm to the Venetian people in St Mark’s Square in 1849 in Venetian (COVINO 2000). Manin’s active support for the publication of Boerio’s monumental dictionary of Venetian was conceived within a framework in which Italian was now the national language and Venetian was a dialect which could contribute to enriching it.3 From c. 1800 Venetian was, even lexicographically, a dialect, as the title of Boerio’s dictionary makes explicit (see below § 2.1). It is also significant that Boerio found it difficult to interest publishers in his dictionary. This reluctance is explained in astute historical and sociolinguistic terms that neatly summarise the status-shift of Venetian in this period by the contemporary Milanese lexicographer Francesco Cherubini: «Una lingua detronizzata non fa fortuna» (CARACCIOLO ARICC)

2000,p.203) 1.4. It was particularly difficult, but nonetheless vital, to settle on a‘ meaningful chronological distinction between Modern and Contemporary Venetian. There is indisputably a great deal of overlap between ModV and CV. However, the contact impact of Italian has so significantly affected Venetian in the past few decades, not only in the most obvious area of vocabulary, that to attempt a systematic structural description of the language in its present form, within the context of codeswitching and codemixing, would have been problematic. Instead I approach Contemporary Venetian in Chapter IX precisely in terms of contact impact. A number of factors

2 On the Venetian political, cultural and linguistic context in the nineteenth century see CORTELAZZO (1986). On schooling in Venice in the first half of the nineteenth century see AGOSTINI (2000).

3 In his unpublished preface to Boerio’s dictionary Manin wrote: «Questa Italia, la cui lingua dee servire a spiegare 1e idee di tutti i suoi abitanti, chiude in seno molte province, le quali tutte sia per diversita di origine, sia per varieta di politiche vicende hanno un dialetto particolare. Sara dunque onesto e profittevole che queste province, siccome parti della comune patria, rechino in tributo quelle voci e quelle frasi di cui abbisogna la comune lingua» (CARACCIOLO ARICC)

1984, p. 215). _47_

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pointed to the significance of c. 1950 as a watershed. Before the mid twentieth century Venetian remained fully characterised in speech, in spite of Italian influence. At that point the modern population of the city was at its apogee. It was only after 1950 that noticeable numbers of Venetian parents began speaking to their children in Italian. In spite, then, of a certain unavoidable artificiality my description of Modern Venetian focuses on venexz'cm of the period c. 1800-c. 1950. In my unified treatment of it I do not, of course, neglect the most significant structural changes taking place within an extended period that brought political and social modernity to Venice.

2. SOURCES

2.1. Works of reference Modern Venetian was not standardised. It was not structurally or lexically codified and although it inherited a traditional spelling system this was not applied systematically by all authors, even in the nineteenth century. In other words, it has no authoritative written norm which one can turn to as a point of reference when attempting to state the facts. It has one authoritative dictionary from the early nineteenth century, Giuseppe Boerio’s great Dizz'onarz'o del Dz'aletto Venezz'cmo (BOERIO 18291, 18652), whose criteria probably reflect, at least in part, late eighteenth-century spoken usage.4 Boerio’s work was exploited by Pietro Contarini in his shorter Dizz'omrz'o tascabz'le delle 0062' e fmsz’ partz'colarz' del dz’aletz‘o venezz'cmo (CONTARINI 1844). It was supplemented in the later nineteenth century by the lexical notes of Alessandro Pericle Ninni (NINNI 1964—65), particularly va-

luable in the zoological field, and by Giulio Nazari’s dictionary and phrase book for schools (NAZARI 1876), aimed at teaching Italian to Venetian mother-tongue children. Comprehensive grammar books of nineteenthcentury Venetian do not exist. I make do with Manin’s tantalising but all-too-brief Grammatical del dz'aletto w'm'zz'cmo5 from c. 1826-1829 and with the regole dz' grammatical which precede the lexical part of Nazari’s volume. In the case of all the above sources, measuring their assertions 4 In the preface to his dictionary Boerio states explicitly that it is «diretta a conservare la storia del dialetto, che qui parlavasi al finire del governo repubblicano o sia del secolo XVIII», but also reflects the usage of the first half of the nineteenth century: «comprende, oltre a tutte le voci e le frasi familiari, che si usano presentemente, quelle ancora che appartenevano al Governo e al Foro repubblicano» (BOERIO 1856, p. 10). 5 Published for the first time in CARACCIOLO And) (1986).

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MODERN VENETIAN: PERIODISATION, SOURCES AND CLASSIFICATION

against actual usage is problematic given the genre and timescale disjunctions. Since they do not provide transparent transcription criteria one has to be particularly cautious in drawing phonological conclusions. Although necessarily fragmentary, the AIS, the Italian and Swiss linguistic atlas (IABERG — JUD 1928-40), is a valuable resource for twentieth—century ModV, while useful information can be gleaned from the Romam'scbes etymologz'sc/Jes Wc'irterbucb (MEYER-LUBKE 1911). There is no reliable dictionary, etymological or otherwise, devoted specifically to twentieth-century venex12m. However, Angelico Prati’s etymological dictionary of the Veneto dialects (PRATI 1968), which contains much precious comparative information, is important for evaluating the lexical basis of ModV in the last century. It has been supplemented by the etymological notes in MARCATO (1982). I have also consulted Gianna Marcato and Flavia Ursini’s recent Dz'alettz' venetz’: grammatz'ca 6 storm (MARCATO — URSINI 1998), an admirable attempt to provide a comparative overview of the Veneto dialects, past and

present.6 2.2. Speech data My direct speech data for ModV has been acquired first hand in the field, as a fluent speaker of venexz'an, in decades of talking to, listening to and questioning older Venetians of different social and educatiOnal backgrounds. My own mother was an invaluable source of informa- ‘ tion. Born Jole Messina in 1919 in Calle de le Chiovere in the parish of San Rocco (sestz'er of San Polo), she was brought up and educated in Ve— nice to secondary leaving-certificate level. She subsequently worked as a secretary in the city for a variety of organisations. Her mother, Corinna Slaviero (1884-1971), a nurse by training, was from Tambre d’Alpago (in Belluno province) but spent most of her adult life in Venice. She spoke local Bellunese dialect and the koz'né venem in her youth and Venetian as an adult. My grandfather Alfredo Messina (1886-1942), a Tuscan, was a monolingual Italian speaker from Portoferraio on the island of Elba. He worked in Venice as an administrator for the Ferrovie dello stato. He exposed his children to Italian from early childhood. This background made my mother an ideal source for ModV. Born into a socially intermediate family, she was raised .in the pre-war period in Venice as a bilingual in Venetian and Italian. From visits and stays on the mainland she was also

6 The sources I have used for EV and MidV are cited in Chapters VI and VII respectively.

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familiar with Veneto dialects, from the Bellunese and Trentino especially. In addition, she had strong general linguistic awareness and pride in her Venetian. She was conscious of differences between the venexzkm of her own generation and that of older speakers whom she came into contact with in her childhood and youth, and she could reproduce obsolete or obsolescent structural and lexical forms as well as traditional expressions and sayings.

I

2.3. Written ‘speecb’ sources I have consulted a number of literary ‘speech’ sources in prose for ModV, while bearing in mind the dangers of expressionistic distortion which are almost inherent in genre texts. In particular I have drawn information from the works of the two major Venetian playwrights of the nineteenth century, Giacinto Gallina (1852-1897) (VESCOVO 2000—02) and Riccardo Selvatico (1849-1901) (FRADELETTO 1922), and from the theatre of

the most important twentieth-century Venetian dialect playwright Gino Rocca (1891-1941) (MANFIO 1997—98). While there is some bias in their plays towards the popular, there is no evidence of linguistic exaggeration for effect, and indeed their characters are socially varied.7 A third important theatrical source that I have used is the little-known and little-studied play La rz'voluzz'one dz' Venezz'a by Antonio Simone Sografi (1759-1818) (MONTANILE 1984, pp. 97-121). Although it dates from 1797 it is undoubtedly a significant source of information for the beginning of the ModV period. It is politically serious and, as a democratic piece of propaganda, its principal aim is to communicate ideas. There is therefore little danger of puristic or archaising tendencies in Sografi’s Venetian. Indeed, in its ‘realism’ it represents the speech of an exceptional range of Venetian social types, from gondolier to progressive female aristocrat, and provides valuable evidence of diastratic differentiation in the dialect. Also important are the spoken versions of the parable of the Prodigal Son which Giovanni

7 Selvatico’s editor noted: «11 lettore avvertira facilmente una sensibile differenza di sfumature nel dialetto della tre commedie. Ne La bozeta de l’ogz'o s’incontra qualche forma goldoniana ormai scomparsa, qualche grafia corrispondente alla pronuncia della plebe; me I rea'm' da ferta il dialetto si deterge da ogni traccia di arcaismi e d’ogni ruvidezza; ne I mortz' s’accosta maggiormente alla lingua. Questa differenza si spiega non solo col tempo diverse in cui le commedie furono scritte, ma ancora e piu col grado morale e sociale dei personaggi che viene assumendo 6 con la natura piu fine dei sentimenti e i concetti che essi esprirnono» (FRADELETTO 1922, p. XXVIII).

On the faithfulness of Gallina and Selvatico to the Venetian spoken in the second half of the ModV period see FIDO (2004, pp. 143-147).

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MODERN VENETIAN: PERIODISATION, SOURCES AND CLASSIFICATION

Papanti collected across Italy in the second half of the nineteenth century and which, more than any other text from the period, illustrate the penin-

sula’s exceptional linguistic richness at the time of Unification (PAPANTI 1876). Papanti obtained and published no fewer than five separate versions of the parable from the city of Venice itself, and thereby supplied further key evidence for diastratic variation within ModV. I have also extracted significant Venetian oral material from the Veneto proverbs collected by Cristoforo Pasqualigo in the nineteenth century (PASQUALIGO 1882), from the Venetian fairy tales published by Giuseppe Nalin in the mid eighteen hundreds in his Almanacco dez' poverz' (NALIN 1995), from the proverbs and saying collected in Venice in the twentieth century by Espedita Grandesso (GRANDESSO 2002) and by Giuseppe Calo (CALO 1986 and 1999), and from Attilio Carminati’s El vangelo 2'72 venexz'cm (CARMINATI 1978). 2.4. Scholarship The scholarship dedicated to Venetian/Veneto linguistics, both diachronic and synchronic, is unparalleled in quality among Italo-Romance dialects, and in terms of quantity is only surpassed by that devoted to Tuscan. Some of the finest of recent generations of linguists and philologists, in Italy and elsewhere, have devoted important studies to Venetian and Venetan. These include ManIio Cortelazzo, Giulio Lepschy, Gianna Marcato, Michael Metzeltin, Zarko Muljacié, Ivano Paccagnella, Giovan Battista Pel- ‘

legrini, Alfredo Stussi, Lorenzo Tomasin, John Trumper, Edward Tuttle, Alberto Zamboni and Paolo Zolli.8 We have authoritative descriptions of both the early and modern Venetian phonemic inventories (STUSSI 1985; LEPSCHY 1962). The phonetics and phonotactics of Veneto speech have been investigated (CANEPARI 1984). The lexis ,of Venetian has been thor— oughly researched for the sixteenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,9 and the range of Veneto etymological dictionaries published since the nine-

teenth century is exceptional.10 Teams of linguists from the Universities of Venice, Padua and Udine and from the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa are collaborating on a large-scale, long-term project to compile a Vocabo-

larz'o storz'co dez' dz'alettz' venetz'.“ As far as descriptions of ModV and of

3 For bibliographies‘see HOLTUS — METZELTIN (1983), ZAMBONI (1988, pp. 535-538) and CORTELAZZO — PACCAGNELLA (1992, pp. 272-281). 9 See SALLACH (1993a), FOLENA (1993) and BOERIO (1829/1865).

10 For a bibliography of Veneto dialect dictionaries see FERGUSON (2002, p. 11, note 20). 11 For details see STUSSI (2004).

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the modern dialect situation in the Veneto and the former territories of the Venetian state are concerned, the results of recent detailed research have been disseminated in the fifteen volumes of the Gaia'a ai a’ialez‘ti veneti

(CORTELAZZO 1979-93) and in the Lexikon der romanisz‘isclaen Lingiiistik (ZAMBONI 1988), as well as through a series of high-quality syntheses published in Italy.12

3. CLASSIFICATION

3 . 1. Classification ainis

Although the classification of neo-Latin idioms has exercised Romanists since the nineteenth century,” I am reluctant to try and situate Venetian within broad schematisations such as Western/Eastern or Northern/ Southern Romance, Romania continua or innovative versus conservative

Romania. I am similarly wary of categorising Venetian (which Venetian?) more narrowly in terms of ‘relatedness’ to other neo-Latin idioms (at which stage in their recorded history?) After all, we now appreciate the varying validity but also the limitations of each successive classificatory model: genealogical-historical, wave, areal, politico-geographic, substrate, typological, innovativeness, dialectometric, stereometric and geo-genetic. We understand the skewing effects of selection criteria, whether lexical, phonological, phonetic, prosodic, morphological or even the allegedly ‘deeper’ syntactic ones.14 Sociolinguistic and relativistic studies have sensitised us to the problematic nature, now and in the past, of dialect/language status and designations. We are conscious of diatopic, diastratic and diamesic layering, and of speaker consciousness in the self-definition of speech communities. We are also aware of the complex diachronic contact effects of national standards and urban/regional koinés on what may have been an underlying Romance continuum, of cross-influences between the Romance languages, of the risk of misinterpreting polygenetic developments, and of the more-or-less mixed nature of all idioms. Indeed our realisation that languages can shift over time along synthetic and analytic typological conti-

12 ZAMBONI (1980), CORTELAZZO — PACCAGNELLA (1992), TUTTLE (1997) and MARCATO (2002).

13 For overviews of the history of Romance classification sec MALKIEL (1978), POSNER (1996), HOINKES (2003) and JACOB (2003). 14 See RENZI (1985, pp. 183-185).

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MODERN VENETIAN: PERIODISATION, SOURCES AND CLASSIFICATION

nua, and therefore from one fundamental taxonomic group to another,15 may make us sceptical of neo-Latin subgrouping and lead us back to the conclusion reached over a century ago by Hugo Schuchardt in his Uber dz'e Klassz'fi'kdtzbn der romam'scben Mundarten (SCHUCHARDT 1900): that a truly scientific classification of Romance idioms is impossible. My limited aim here is, instead, to survey where Venetian stood within its immediate

‘Italo—Romance’ environment in the ModV period, and to consider whether its relative standing may have evolved over time. That environment means: the Gallo-Italian dialects of Northern Italy, Italian itse ,16 Friulan17 and, closest to home, the mainland dialects of the Veneto.

3.2. halo-Romance classification Even within so-called Italo-Romance — essentially a political-cum-geographic label of convenience — there is no full consensus on taxonomy.18 This is hardly surprising, given that Italy is the most linguistically diversified territory within Romania, containing neo-Latin varieties whose struc— tural distance is sometimes arguably greater than that between Italian and other Romance languages. Nowhere else in Romania is sub-grouping more abstract and arbitrary in strictly linguistic terms and more dependant on the historical reality of the roofing influence of a literary language. Even leaving aside the vexed status of Sardinian, Friulan, Dolomitic Ladin and ‘ Istro-Romance, and ill-defined transitional zones, mainstream classifica-

tions are far from self-evident. Using the data from the AIS, ROHLFS (1972) divided Italy into three linguistic areas (north, centre, south) based

on the two principal isoglossic clusters in the peninsula: the Rimini-La Spe-

zia (or Massa Carrara-Sinigallia) line, an exceptionally compact ‘barrier’,19 and the much more fuzzy Roma-Ancona line. Such a broad—brush division of course ignores other significant isoglosses and begs a number of impor-

15 On typological classification in general see RAMAT (1984). 16 For purposes of comparison between Italian and ModV I cite, here and elsewhere, the normative pronunciations employed in the excellent UTET Dz'zz'onarzb italz'zmo dell’mo (DE

MAURO 2000) and explained in vol. 1 of the dictionary (Introduzz'one, pp. XVIII-XIX). I do not cite as VItalian modern Tuscan phonological features such as de-diphthongisation of reflexes of Latin 0 or aspiration/fricatifisation of intervocalic plosives. 17 I use the spellingl‘Friulan’ in preference to the ‘Friulian’ usually adopted by English-language scholars.

“3 On the history of Italo-Romance dialect classification see BENINCA (1996). 19 It is particularly compact along part of the Tuscan-Emilian Appenine ridge. In the Adria-

tic plain it is much more diffuse.

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tant questions (SAVOIA 1997). Is Tuscan ‘separable’? Is it part of, or does it shade into, Central Italian? Do all the traditional idioms below the funda-

mental Rimini-La Spezia line actually form a classifiable Central-Southern group opposed to the Northern Italian dialects on the other side? Should southern varieties be further subdivided? Closer to our particular con— cerns, should we consider Veneto dialects as resolutely Northern because of a selective bundle of (admittedly important)- structural features shared with the Gallo-Italian dialects? Do other significant convergencies with Tuscan justify, instead, an intermediate position between Gallo-Italian and Tuscan? 20 Such doubts are reflected in the fluctuating Italo-Romance schemata proposed, from D’OVIDIO — MEYER-LUBKE (1919, p. 172), via TAGLIAVINI (1972, pp. 393-417), PELLEGRINI (1975) and LEPSCHY — LEPSCHY

(1977, pp. 41-42), to MAIDEN (1998, pp. 238-240) and DARDANO (2000, pp. 174—177). In the case of Venetian, some historical generalisations and structural contrasts will be helpful in defining and situating a Veneto dialect area which displayed in the ModV period an unusual homogeneity and identity. I will go on to suggest a synchronic positioning of ModV within the Veneto dialect environment: a localisation that is filled out diachronically in Chapter VI where we investigate the linguistic origins of venexim.

3.3. The Veneto in linguistic and historic context 3 3.1. Within the strongly diversified and fragmented Italian context, where the notion of dialect frontier, itself conceptually problematic, is particularly relative and diachronically fluctuating, the Veneto entity stands out as remarkably well defined, both linguistically and within speaker consciousness. As we saw in Chapter I this cohesion is in part a product of the unifying effect of Venetian political and cultural prestige and expansion on the mainland. The roofing effect of venexicm, extending over half a millenium, on the underlying dialect subtypes of the Veneto region, and indeed on the overall dialect diversity of the former Venetian state, has been fundamental. It is anchored, however, in deeper historic, linguistic and possibly ethnic commonalities.21 The continuity

2° Goldoni observed that: «La Veneta nostra lingua non e la piu difficile da capirsi, anzi é quella di tant’altre che si scosta meno della Toscana, meno cioé della Genovese, della Lombarda, della Piemontese, della Friulana» (DAVICO BONINO 1970, p. 11).

21 On the concept of Veneto unity from a geographical, historical, ethnic and cultural perspective see MAZZARINO (1976).

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MODERN VENETIAN: PERIODISATION, SOURCES AND CLASSIFICATION

suggested by the often ethnically-based nomenclature of some of the present Italian regions (for instance Umbria: Umbri, Sicilia: Siculi, Liguria: Liguri, Veneto: Veneti) is nowhere more historically and geographically consistent that in the Veneto. Pre-Roman northern Italy was settled by Indo—European invasion later than central-southern parts of the peninsula. However, by at least 800 BC an Indo-European people known as the Veneti had settled part of the north east, establishing their capital at Ateste (modern Este). The heartland of the Venetic region, later called Venet‘z’cz22 by the Romans, lay between the rivers Adige and Piave in the modern central-southern Veneto. Substantial settlement also occurred in the northern part of the present region as far as the Cadore, and in the east up to the river Livenza (MALNATI et a1. 1996). We know

from written sources and from the archaeological evidence which has emerged since the late nineteenth century that the key ancient towns of the region — Este, Vicenza, Padua, Asolo, Belluno and Oderzo — were Ve-

netic in origin. We have learned from a reasonable number of typologically-limited inscriptions in an Etruscan-type alphabet dateable from between circa the fifth and second centuries BC, that the Venetic language was Indo-European and relatively close structurally to the Italic dialects of central Italy, particularly to Latin (PELLEGRINI — PROSDOCIMI 1967). We are also selectively informed about Venetic art and customs from nu-

merous funerary and votive artefacts.23

I

3.3 .2. The invasion of the Veneti was followed in the fourth and third centuries BC by the diaspora influx of various Celtic peoples. They occupied most of the remainder of northern Italy, infiltrating the northern edge of the Venetic area and even attempting to push down, in the early fourth century, as far as Rome itself. On the eve of the gradual Roman absorption of northern Italy, between the third and first centuries BC, the Venetic area

of settlement therefore found itself bounded in the west by the Cenomani Celts whose capital was Brixia (Brescia) and who founded Verona, in the south mainly by the Celtic Boi people, and in the East by the Carnic Celts (FORLATI TAMARO et al. 1980, pp. 505-563; CRACCO RUGGINI 1992). While the Celts were to be militarily subjugated by the Romans, the Veneti were long-standing friends and allies of Rome who were absorbed gradually and

22 On the linguistic history of the ancient terms Venetia and Veneti and their medieval and modern reflexes see PELLEGRINI (1992, pp. 104-109) and DORIGO (1983, pp. 181-186). 23 On the culture of the Veneti see FOGOLARI — PROSDOCLMI (1988).

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it appears voluntarily, as is suggested by the historical record and by the seamless linguistic transition evident in the inscriptions from the period. This human topography of north-eastern Italy was consolidated by the administrative divisions subsequently imposed by the Romans. Venetia, the future Veneto, was the heart of the imperial region established in the Augustan era as the X regio Venetia et Histria. The decz'ma regio extended from the Brescia and Cremona areas settled by. the Cenomani in the east to Istria (with its ethnically-Illyrian Histri) in the west, and from the Alps to the Adriatic:24 a remarkable mirror image of what would become the Stato Veneto from the fifteenth century onwards. Such long-term ethnoadrninistrative divisions appear to form the bedrock of the regional groupings that have persisted into the modern period. The different modalities of Romanisation in north-eastern Italy, along with these ethnic-regional subdivisons and substrates, plausibly account for the gradual differentiation of Latin here.25 The subsequent ‘barbarian’ invasions and medieval political and ecclesiastical realignments of territory which, for example, isolated Friuli and led to the populating of the Venetian lagoon, plausibly explain the distinct configuration of Romance in this area. The Veneto clearly constituted and constitutes a linguistic wedge between Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna to west and south, with their Gallo-Italian dialects, and Friuli

( /tf/, G + front vowel/yod > /d3/, I (yod) > /d3/, L + yod > /&/, and CL > [kj], e.g. cervello vs ModV gervelo ‘brain’ < CEREBELLUM; genie vs ModV zem‘e ‘people’ < GENTEM; gz'ci vs ModV 25? ‘already’ < IAM; meglz'o vs ModV megz'o ‘better’ < MELIUM; c/az'czve vs ModV c/az'ave [tfave] ‘key’ < CLAVEM.

(h) Latin R + /j/ > /j/, e.g. fomaz'o vs ModV fomer ‘baker’ < FURNARIUM; muoz'o vs ModV mom ‘I die’ < MORIOR. (i) Conservation, as a relic class, of Latin second declension neuter

nouns, masculine in singular, feminine in plural, e.g. uovo : uova, gz'nocc/az'o : gz'nocclaz'a, bmccz'o : [araccz'a vs ModV vovo : vovz', zenoc/az'o : zenoc/oz', brago : bragz’ ‘egg(s)’, ‘knee(s)’, ‘arm(s)’ < OVUM : OVA, GENUCULUM : GENUCULA, BRACHIUM : BRACHIA. (j) Retention of distinction between sg. 3 and pl. 3 verb endings, e.g. mangz'a : mangz'cmo vs ModV el magma 2 z' magm ‘he/they eat’. (k) As a so-called ‘pronoun drop’ language, no obligatory use of subject pronouns, e.g. 1m fame : bcmm fame vs ModV el ga fame : 2' go fame ‘he is hungry/they (m.) are hungry’. (1) Differential masculine and feminine singular oblique (indirect object) clitic pronouns, e.g. gli/[e do i! lz'bro vs ModV g/oe dago el lz'bro ‘I give him/her the book’. (In) Presence of past historic (passato remoto) alongside present perfect (passato prossz'mo),23 e.g. lo vz'dz' due anm'fa ~ [790 vz'sto z'erz' vs ModV [0 go ' vz'sto do cmz' fa/gz'erz' ‘I saw it two years ago/yesterday’. (n) Conditional tense derived from Latin infinitive + HEBUI*/HEBUIT*, e.g. porterez/porterebbe vs ModV portarz'a/portarzkz ‘I would carry/he would carry . (0) Use of essere ‘to be’ with compound tenses of reflexive verbs, e.g. sz'

é [award vs ModV [a 36 ga law? ‘she washed herself’. (p) Use of essere ‘to be’ with compound tenses in the impersonal 52' construction, e.g. quando sz’ sono z'mpczmz‘e due lz'ngue vs ModV quando 56 ga impairs? do [engue ‘when one has learned two languages’. (q) Second place positioning of impersonal 32' pronoun in combination with a direct object pronoun, e.g. lo 32' vede bene vs ModV se lo vede ben ‘one sees it well’.

23 The distinction is, by and large, only present in writing in Northern Italy.

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3.4.4. Structural features shared by Modern Venetian and Gallo-Italian/ Friulan (a) Apocope of final vowels except /a ,29 although only applicable in ModV to /e/ and /o/ (sg.) after /n l r/, e.g. Lomb. ['otf], Bol. ['sszl], Tur. ['pejl], Piem. ['om], Lomb. ['paz], Lig. ['karj], Bol. ['fjawr], Lornb. ['vuzs], Bol. ['ozs], Piem. [’lajt], Gallo-It. ['gat], 'Friul. ['klafl ~ ModV acbza, ml, pela, ama, pcm, am, fz'ar, vase, assa, late, gotta, c/Jz'ave ‘eye’, ‘salt’, ‘hair’, ‘man’, ‘bread’, ‘dog’, ‘flower’, ‘Voice’, ‘bone’, ‘milk’, ‘cat’, ‘key’
dental affricate -—> sibilant, of D +

yod —> sibilant, of C + L > /tf/ and of G + L > /d3/, e.g. Romagn. ['tsena] ~ ModV gem: (= ['sena] /2/ as occurs, for example, in INDUTIARE > z'ndusz‘ar ‘to delay’. The spelling Venezz'a became normal in MidV, possibly under learned and/or Italian influence, so that the present vernacular pronunciation of the name of the city and of its dialect may well be an adaptation of it. 12 Boerio records, under the entry Caxa, «Cosi scrivevasi qui anticamente, per Cam» (BOERIO 1856, s.v. Caxa). '3 One does find the occasional use of intervocalic for in Muazzo.

14 On Gallina’s spellings in his manuscripts and printed editions see VESCOVO (2002, IV, pp. 386—389).

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VENETIAN PROSODY AND ORTHOGRAPHY

pronunciation. The same is not always true of affricate representation. When Boerio raised the Venetian spelling issue in the preface to his dictionary15 he essentially located the problem area in affricate orthography, defining it in terms of a clash with Italian conventions or with contemporary pronunciation habits or with both. He noted, first of all, that although ModV words such as cam and certo were graphically identical to their Italian equivalents, the pronunciation of /c/ +front vowel was /ts/ in Venetian, not /tf/ as in Italian. He later pointed out, and deplored, the additional difficulty that a considerable proportion of the Venetian population had reduced the affricate to the sibilant /s/, apparently pronouncing gz'nquegemo ‘five hundred’ as something like /sinkwe'sento/. Boerio did not propose any solution to this difficulty and simply left the spelling as it was, following eighteenth—century practice enshrined in Goldoni. Manin, on the other hand, felt the need to discriminate between Italian

and Venetian and went back to the Venetian tradition of using the grapheme for (/ts/—)) /s/ derived from word-initial C + front vowe .16 Like Rocca and Carminati most recently, I too follow this tradition and write gem and germ. Boerio further noted that on the page ModV and Italian c/oz'odo, c/az'ave, claz'esa were identical but that in Venetian , when

followed by a glide, represented /tf/ not, as in Italian, /kj/, so that ModV vecbz’o = ['vstfo] ‘old’. His solution was to point to the divergence and remain faithful to a Venetian tradition going back to EV. Gallina, Selvatico, Nazari and Rocca, however, felt the pressure of Italian and generally‘ spelled cz'odo, cz'cwe, cz'esa. I have followed Boerio, Nalin and Venetian street-sign conventions.

2.3.2. In all other areas of affricate and sibilant representation the major ModV writers, excluding Manin, Nazari and Rocca, remain broadly within the conventions which evolved organically via EV and MidV. I have therefore adopted them for my transcriptions. As these ModV graphemic equivalences often governed by etymological provenance are not always obvious, especially in relation to Italian, or understood, it is worth making them explicit.

15 «L’Ortografia del dialetto ha non meno impegnato le mie sollecitudini» (BOERIO 1956,

p. 11). 16 The employment of for both unvoiced and voiced alveolar affricates was normal in

EV. Its use as a grapheme for /ts/ (—)/s/?) persisted well into the MidV period, e.g. in Calmo, in the anonymous author of La Veniexz'ana, in Negro and in Maffio Venier. See 8 2.3 .2.

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CHAPTER THREE

— Word-initial /z/ < /j/, G +front vowel, D+/j/, or from some Arabic

words: , e.g. za ‘already’, Zogar ‘to play’, zem‘e ‘people’, zz'rar ‘to turn’, zago ‘deacon, alterboy’, zero ‘zero’. — Post-consonantal /z/: , e.g. pz'aazer ‘to cry’, fraaza ‘fringe’, mama

‘beef’. — Intervocalic /z/ < inherited intervocalic S or S + yod: , e.g. casa ‘house’, vaso ‘jar, pot’, sposar ‘to marry’, baso ‘kiss’, camz'sa ‘shirt’. — Intervocalic /z/ < /j/, and D + yod: , e.g. pezo ‘worse’, mezo ‘middle’,

oaa’z'zar ‘to undulate’. — Intervocalic /z/ < C+front vowel: , e.g. vose ‘Voice’, erase ‘cross’,

pase ‘peace’, taser ‘to be silent’. — Intervocalic /z/ < T+yod: , e.g. rasoa ‘reason/right’, z'aa’asz'ar ‘to delay’. — Word-initial /s/ < inherited S: . e.g. saato ‘saint’, saver ‘to know’, saor ‘flavour’. — Word-initial, post-consonantal and intervocalic /s/ < C +front vowel: , e.g. geaa ‘dinner/supper’, geola ‘onion’, gz'aque ‘five’, z'ngerto ‘uncertain’, z'avege ‘instead’, vz'gz'n ‘near’, prz'agz'pz'o ‘beginning’. — Word-initial /s/ < miscellaneous Latin, Arabic, Germanic and onomato~ poeic sources: , e.g. zapa ‘hoe’, zaca ‘marrow’, zacaro ‘sugar’, zeca ‘the mint’, zafa ‘brawl’, zz'to ‘hush’, zoto ‘lame’, zaaze ‘idle gossip’.

— Word-initial /s/ < SC: , e.g. sz'mz'a ‘monkey’, sz'eaza ‘science’.17 — Intervocalic /s/ < SC: , e.g. capz'sse ‘he understands’, compatz'sso ‘I sympathise’. — Intervocalic /s/ < inherited SS or secondary /s/: , e.g. passar ‘to pass’, cassa ‘chest’, [assar ‘to leave’, cossa ‘thing’.

— Word-medial or post-consonantal /s/ < T or C + /j/ or C + front vowel: or else when preceded by a consonant or followed by a glide, e.g. piazza, fazza (sg./pl. 3 present subjunctive offar ‘to do’), brazzo ‘arm’, stramazzo ‘mattress’, calza ‘stocking’, marzo ‘March’, Praaza ‘France’, vizz'o ‘bad habit’, azz'oa ‘action’, conversazz'oa ‘conversation’, veazer ‘to win’,

scomeazar ‘to begin’, reaoazz'ar ‘to give up’. — Word-initial or word-medial [stf] < SCL+yod or from loanwords: , e.g. sc/az'am‘a ‘sliver’, sc/az'eto ‘pure, straighforward’, rz'sc/Jz'ar ‘to risk’. — Word-initial or intervocalic /(13/ from various etymological provenances: , e.g. gz'ara ‘gravel’, gz'usto ‘right/correct’, vogz'a ‘desire’, megz'o ‘better’.

17 Graphemes and for SC reflexes were part of the tradition from EV. Boerio and other nineteenth-century writers generally opted for .

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VENETIAN PROSODY AND ORTHOGRAPHY

— Word-initial and word medial /tf/ < CL: , e.g. c/oz'dmar ‘to call’, c/yz'aro ‘clear’, claz'esa ‘church’, bum/92b ‘barge’.

2.3.3. In other important respects ModV orthographic conventions are identical to those of Italian, so that and before a front vowel represent /k/ and /g/ respectively, e.g. 6192' ‘who’, c/az'c/az'rz'c/az’ ‘cockadoodledoo’, c/aebd ‘cage’ and gbebo ‘small channel in the Venetian lagoon’.18 Similarly, before a front vowel = [sk], e.g. sc/Jz'to ‘bird dropping’ and fz'asc/Jz' ‘flasks’. I adopt the present, imperfect, future and conditional of aver ‘to have’ in , e.g. g0, gavevo rather than g/y’ 190, gb’ avevo ‘I have/had’. The latter were used by Goldoni but eighteenth-century written usage generally preferred the former convention (MATARRESE 1993, p. 116). It was widely employed by Nalin, Nazari, Marlin, Boerio, Gallina, Selvatico

and Rocca, reflecting the effective grammaticalisation in late MidV/ModV of the locative particle g/ae on simple tenses of aver. Following Venetian practice from EV to ModV I use for /l/ and its various allomorphs, except for plural reflexes of -ELLI, where its elision in spelling was common from later MidV. I have retained the traditional spelling calla = ['kae] ‘street’ found at all times on the city’s road-sign system. The Italianising spellings of the ubiquitous Venetian exclamation cz'é ['tfo] and greeting ciao ['tfao] are now so well-known that I have retained them. I restrict accents to stressed vowel-final oxytones (e.g. café ‘coffee’, zc) ‘already’) and to distinguishing homographs (e.g. dd ‘from’ vs dd ‘he gives’), using the grave' throughout except with where I distinguish -é [a] from -é [e], as in ca]? ‘coffee’ vs savé ‘you (pl.) know’. Where uncertainty might arise I have used an underdot to signal the tonic vowel.

3. PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION

There follows a representative sample of Modern Venetian prose, with my broad phonetic transcription and English translation, taken from Act II, Sc. 8 of Selvatico’s unfinished play I mom (1888-1901) written in the middle of the ModV period (FRADELETTO 1922, p. 227). The character,

Emma, is a young middle-class woman.

13 In EV and early MidV the velar /g/ was usually represented simply by , e.g. botege

‘shops’ (ModV boteg/ae).

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CHAPTER THREE

Emma: Dopo tuto anca i dotori parla, ma senza pensarghe su tanto! Lori fa presto a dir: condusélo via! Ma no i pensa miga che a sto mondo tuti no xe compagni, che no tuti ga l’istessa maniera de sentir, che ghe ne xe de quei che una scossa cussi forte, invece de farghe ben, ghe faria mal. Ma la se pensa, mama, che quando che xe morto el povero papa, i gavesse dito anca a ela: adesso bisogna che ti vadi via subito, che ti lassi tuto impianta, che in sta camera dove ch’el xe morto no ti torni piu; che vegna dentro el murér a darghe una man de bianco, perché piu tardi vegna a starghe Dio sa chi... ma mi digo, mama, che la s’avaria ribela co’ tute le so

forze. Emma: ['dopo 'tuto 'anka i do'tori 'parla l I ma 'sensa pen'sarge 'su 'tanto l H "ori fa 'presto a 'dir l | condu'zeo 'via —> H ma 'no i se 'pensa 'miga ke a sto 'mondo 'tuti no 'ze com'papi l l ke ’no 'tuti ga l i'stesa ma 'pera de sen'tir l, | ke ge ne ze de 'kwei ke (u)na 'skosa ku'si 'forte —->| in'vese de 'farge 'belj T | ge fa'ria 'mal 1 || ma "a se 'pensa l, | 'mama l, | ke 'kwando ke ze 'marto el 'povero pa'pa l | i gia'vese 'dito 'aIJka a 'ea T | a'deso bi'zapa ke ti 'vadi 'via 'subito —> | ke ti ”asi tuto impjan'ta —> | ke in 'sta 'kamera 'dove k e1 ze 'marto no ti 'tomi 'pju —> | ke 'vepa 'dentro el mu'rer a 'darge (u)na 'mat) de 'bjarjko —> |_per'ke 'pju 'tardi 'vepa a 'starge 'dio 'sa 'ki i ll ma 'mi 'digo —> ‘ | 'mama T | ke ]a s ava'ria ribe'a co 'tute e so 'farse i ll] [Emmaz After all, even doctors talk, but without really thinking about what they’re saying! They’re quick to say: take him away! But they don’t stop to think that not everybody is the same in this world, that not everybody feels in the same way, that there are those that a shock like that would harm rather than do good. Just consider, Mum, if when poor Dad died they’d told you: you’ve got to leave right now, you’ve got to drop every— thing and you mustn’t ever go back to the room where he died; that the builder should come right away and give it a lick of paint so that God knows who can come and live in it later...I tell you, Mum, you would have fought against it with all your might]

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CHAPTER FOUR

VENETIAN PHONOLOGY

1. PRELIMINARIES

1.1. P/aoneme inventory of Modem Venetian In two groundbreaking studies of the early 1960s Giulio Lepschy applied the Structuralist ‘minimal pairs’ method to data from his own idiolect in order to isolate a Venetian phoneme inventory for the late ModV period of7vowels/ieeaoou/and 17 consonants/pbtdkgtfdgfvszmnp lr/.1 To these Alberto Zamboni added the approximants /j/ and /w/, after initially hesitating about their status.2 Lepschy and Zamboni extensively il— lustrated and discussed their phoneme choices, supplementing this inventory with considerations of its most significant allomorphs, in particular ‘ those encompassed in /n/ and /l/. I set out this unquestionably coherent scheme below. It will serve as an authoritative, documented baseline for a historically contextualised analysis of Venetian phonology using ModV as its reference point. Significantly, all the evidence indicates it as equally plausible for the phonemes of EV (STUSSI 1965) and MidV, with the sole additions of the alveolar affricates /ts/ and /dz/. Vowel: and approxz'mants

HIGH MID-HIGH MID-LOW LOW

FRONT /i/ /i/

BACK /u/ /w/ /e/

/o/ /e/

/:>/ /a/

1 LEPSCHY (1962 and 1963b). 2 ZAMBONI (1980, pp. 14-15, and 1988).

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CHAPTER FOUR

Consonant:

Bilabial Labiodental Dental Alveolar Palatoalveolar Palatal Velar St_op /p/ /b/ /t/ /d/ /k/ /g/ Affricate /tf/ /d3/ Fricative

/f/ /v/

m /m/ Lateral Vibrant

/s/ /z/

/n/ /l/ /r/

/p/

1.2. P/aonemes and allophones The economy, abstraction and contrastiveness achieved by phoneme inventories are a precious tool, if applied with caution. In particular, decisions about phonemic versus allophonic status within them can in certain circumstances appear to rely for their validity on unacknowledged diachronic data and/or on assumed speaker knowledge of, and sound judgment about, their own phonological system. The status of /11/ in ModV is a case in point. /p/ was undoubtedly a contrastively distinct sound in Venetian, ab initio, with many incontrovertible EV examples such as cognosser ‘to know’, vegm'r ‘to come’ and montagna ‘mountain’ which were still present in ModV. At first glance the citing for ModV of a high-frequency example of word-initial /p/ such as gnente ['pente] ‘nothing’ seems unexceptionable. However, it does prompt some interesting considerations. In a number of its common ModV manifestations such as gnem‘e and gnmmz ['JiaI] ka] ‘not even’ one could conceivably argue for /p/ as a conditioned variant of /n/ before yod,3 which of course is what it was historically in Venetian. Occurrence statistics from the OVI for EV indicate the spellings m'em‘e (117) vs gnente (0). Indeed the former, presumably representing [nj], pre~ dominated in MidV until the eighteenth century when it was gradually superseded by gnem‘e involving, one assumes, [nj] —> /p/. The picture is similar for nicmc/ae —> gmmca. Can we be sure, however, that the initial

sound in such words did not continue to be perceived by some ModV speakers as [nj], either because of diasystemic residues of this pronunciation and/or through the influence of Ital. m'eme and meme/9e? Emblematic of such potential uncertainties is m'om ['njara] ~ ['pora] ‘daughter-in-law’, where the sound is represented in Venetian (including ModV) orthography by the grapheme .4 As a word-medial example one might cite maniem 3 CANEPARI (1986, p. 51) pointed out that «nei dialetti veneti la sequenza /nj/ generalmente si realizza come /p/». 4 Similar graphemic uncertainty has since MidV affected nova ~ m'ovo ~ gnovo ‘new’ < NOVUM.

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VENETIAN PHONOLOGY

‘manner’ whose current pronunciation seems to hover between [ma'njera] and [ma'pera], a hesitation already evidently present in EV where the spellings mam'em and magnem coexisted in roughly equal proportions. Are we faced here with incomplete lexically—diffused sound change (WRIGHT 2003, pp. 59-60)? May ['njara] ~ ['para] have actually been contrastive in a diatopic or diastratic sense within ModV? If so, it would seem to problematise a straightforward phoneme/allophone allocation on a level above the idiolect. That most characteristic and historically-related cluster of ModV/CV phonetic realisations — encompassing, under /l/, an apico—alveolar lateral and. its conditioned variants, the laxed spirant palatal which I represent as [l], and [0] — raises issues of speaker perception, diasystemic stratification and also concealed historical judgement. Not all native speakers have Boerio and the Venetian written tradition at their fingertips. Some are currently unaware that in putelo, puteZa = [pu'teo pu'tea] ‘boy, girl’, there was an /l/ historically present and now reduced to [g]. Indeed, although the 1/ allophonic subsystems still appear to be productive in Contemporary Venetian, a degree of uncertainty is also revealed by a potentially erroneous :eanalysis of ModV/CV monea [mo'nea] ‘coin, change’ as phonemically ’ monsla/, when it is in fact derived from MONETAM Via moneda (CANEPARI :979, p. 56).

1.3. Met/aodologz'cal approach The overall approach of the present study takes as a given that languages are not closed, self-regulating systems whose contours can be unproblematically delimited, and that language change and maintenance are the conscious or subconscious business of speakers.5 My assumption 3 that variation is inherent in natural languages, within broad structural :onstraints of probability. However, the surfacing of variation as actuated :hange within the fluctuating multirepertoires of a speech community is so:Lolinguistically conditioned. The implications of such fluctuation tend to be masked by the tidying-up processes of standard-language prescription, :ith their selective consensus bases. They have constantly to be confronted when attempting to state the facts about an uncodified variety like ModV :‘here variation in the system is further complicated by the structural effe~ts of centuries-long contact with a standard language. In such cases

5 On the debate about internal versus external change in historical linguistics see MILROY .- 103 ).

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CHAPTER FOUR

homogeneity is illusory, and phoneme inventories can only be rigorously objective if, like Lepschy’s, they are derived from an idiolect. Within ModV one need only consider the status of the alveolar affricates /ts/ and /dz/, of the ‘/l/ evanescente’, of the two or three types of /r/, of the apparently ‘free’ variation of intervocalic /j/ ~ /d3/ < L + yod,6 and the presence of the lexically-diffused Italian phoneme /d3/ alongside Venetian-internal /z/ 7 to be wary of neat distributional certainties.8 A final proviso: the already unsteady notion of synchronicity in inventorial mapping is compounded in the present case by the necessarily broad chronological slice under consideration. 1.3.1. In Chapter II we contrasted key features of ModV phonology with those of its immediate Italo-Romance environment: Italian, Gallo-Ita-

lian, Friulan and mainland Veneto. In order to bring our ModV phoneme inventory into contextual focus it is useful to compare its vocalic and consonantal configurations with those of Classical Latin (CL) and Italian.

2. VOWELS

2.1. Tlae Venetian and Classical Latin vowel system: compared The Venetian heptavocalic system is typical of the majority of Romance languages and dialects, including Italian, and shows apparent descent from the underlying pattern known as Proto-Western-Romance (PWR).9 The CL vowel system was, of course, based ondistinctions both of_quality (I E, A, O, U) and of phonemic quantity (I I, E E, A A, O O, U U), with entirely predictable allocation of word stress determined by syllabic structure: if the penultimate syllable was long it took the accent, if it was short then the accent fell on the preceding syllable.10 However, by the time Ve-

6 See Chapter I, note 15 and Chapter VII, S 3.2.3 (1).

7 See Chapter IX, S 2.3. 3 It is precisely the interplay of local and Italian phonemes and morphemes in the present Venetian environment of constant codeswitching and codemixing described in Chapter 1 that makes a systematic description of CV problematic. 9 On the Romance vowel systems see ROHLFS (1966, pp. 5-15) and VINCENT (1990a, pp. 3136). On the ModV system see LEPSCHY (1962 and 1963b), ZAMBONI (1979, pp. 20-24; 1980, pp. 10-11; and 1988, pp. 527-530) and MADDALON — MIOTTO (1986).

10 For a reconstruction of the Latin vocalic diasystem involving at least twelve phonemes see VINEIS (1997, pp. 310-311).

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VENETIAN PHONOLOGY

netian and the other Romance idioms emerged historically,”l they had lost the subtle inherited Indo-European oppositions of vowel length and had evolved systems based solely on qualitative distinction. The breakdown was caused initially by the increasingly open articulation of short vowels alongside maintenance of the closed articulation of long vowels and, at a subsequent stage, by the loss of phonological quantity first in atonic then in tonic position (ZAMBONI 2000, pp. 153-161; SEIDL 2003). As a conse— quence, vowels became allophonically long in stressed open syllables but short elsewhere, and word stress was ‘free’. The fundamental PWR vowel restructuring which underlies the vowel systems of Gallo-, Hibero-, ‘Rae—

to’- and Italo-Romance idioms (apart from the ‘Sardinian’ type and, perhaps, the relic ‘Lausberg’-area dialects in southern Italy) involved complex lateLatin speech processes of neutralisation and, especially, fusion or separation where original length distinctions were reanalysed as aperture ones. Neutralisation led to A/A > /a/. Fusion produced E/I > /e/, O/U > /o/. Separation generated E > /e/, I > /i/, O > /:)/ and U > /u/. This tri-

ple evolution is exemplified in ModV as follows. Neutralisation: mare ‘mother’ < MATREM ~ pare ‘father’ < PATREM. Fusion: gem ‘wax’ < CERAM ~ neve ‘snow’ < NiVEM; vase ‘voice’ < VOCEM ~ nose ‘nut’ < NUCEM. Separation: sem ['sera] ‘evening’< SERAM vs tem ['tera] ‘earth’ < TERRAM; filo ‘thread’ < FILUM vs pelo ‘hair’ < PiLUM; frame ['fronte] ‘forehead’ < FRONTEM vs porta ['parta] ‘door’ < PORTAM; and fumo ‘smoke’ < FUMUM vs fomo ‘oven’ < FURNUM. The emerging seven-vowel system also absorbed the Latin diphthongs, with (E and PE > /e/ in Venetian, e.g. pend, gz'elo ‘sorrow’, ‘sky’ < PCENAM, C/ELUM.” The third Latin diphthong, AU, survived into EV alongside /:)/, e.g. EV auro ~ 070 —> MidV/ModV 070 ‘gold’ < AURUM. Secondary /aw/ already appeared as monophthongised in the EV scrz'pta, with oaz ‘goose’ < AVICAM and 15014 ~ taula —> MidV/ModV told ‘table’ < TABULAM, as did Germanic /aw/, e.g. robar ‘to rob’ < Germ. *mub-. On the other hand, the Romance languages were enriched by a series of new diphthongisations, conditioned and/or unconditioned. ModV and Italian only exhibit onglides, derived from Latin mid-low vowels E and Om a free syllable,13 whose origins remain a matter of debate, e.g. ModV mzel~ Ital.

11 For contrastingviews on the crucial and unresolved question of the chronology of R0-

mance emergence see BANNIARD (2003) and WRIGHT (2003). 12 Secondary /ae/ may occasionally show resolution to [s], e.g. ModV grela ~ graela ‘grill’ < CRATICULAM and tresro ~ traverso ‘beam’ < TRAVERSUM. 13 On the vexed question of whether these diphthongs were originally conditioned or un-

conditioned see VINCENT (1990a, pp. 34-36) and MAIDEN (1998, pp. 50-56).

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CHAPTER FOUR

mz'ele ‘honey’ < MEL(EM); ModV en0t ~ Ital. caore ‘heart’ < COR(EM). In the case of Venetian the documented history of these rising diphthongs is par— ticularly fluctuating and is examined below. 2.2. The Venetian and Italian vowel systems compared 2.2.1. Distribution of tonic mid vowels

The shape of the ModV/CV and Italian tonic vowel systems is identical. The actual values realised by the equivalent tonic phonemes are substantially the same for /i/, /e/, /a/, /o/ and /u/, whereas the low mid vowels

tend to be articulated slightly lower in Venetian than in Italian. Like Italian, ModV is conservative in its retention of the inherited distributions

of the tonic mid vowels, with a consequently high degree of equivalence between the two systems. Thus for /e/ we find ModV tela, vela, vetde, geta, veto, neto, tee/92a, stesso, vea'oa, vescovo ~ Ital. tela, vela, veta'e, ceta, veto, neto, 0teecbz'a, stesso, vedova, veseovo ‘canvas’, ‘sail’, ‘green’, ‘wax’, ‘true’, ‘black’, ‘ear’, ‘same’, ‘widow’, ‘bishop’. For /8/ (in an originally closed syllable): ModV belo, capelo, vea’elo, leto, peto, feto, teta, petsego, testa, festa ~

Ital. hello, cappello, vz'tello, letto, petto, fetto, tetta, pesca, testa, festa ‘beau’ tiful’, ‘hat’, ‘calf, veal’, ‘bed’, ‘chest’, ‘iron’, ‘earth’, ‘peach’, ‘head’ ‘feast, holiday’. For /o/: ModV 0ta, seoa, tosso, come, sol, coa, tosse, nose, crose,

saon ~ Ital. 0ta, scopa, tosso, come, sole, eoa'a, tosse, noce, etoce, sapone ‘time’, ‘brush’, ‘red’, ‘how’, ‘sun’, ‘tail’, ‘cough’, ‘nut’, ‘cross’, ‘soap’. For

/3/ (in an originally Closed syllable): ModV porta, dona, oto, fogz'a, matte, catno, 60tpo, note ~ Ital. porta, a’onna, otto, foglz'a, matte, e0tno, eatpo, notte ‘door’, ‘woman’, ‘eight’, ‘leaf’, ‘death’, ‘horn’, ‘body’, ‘night’. In both ModV and Italian the presence of nasal + consonant has tended to close tonic /£/, as in ModV/Ital. mente ['mente] ‘mind’ < MENTEM. However, this trend is

stronger in Venetian: compare ModV vento [’vento], a’ente ['dente], sempte ['sempre], zente ['zente], senza ['sensa] with Ital. vento ['vento], dente ['dente], sempte ['sempre], gente ['dgente], senza ['sentsa] ‘wind’,

‘tooth’, ‘always’, ‘people’, ‘without’. A following nasal also produces this effect in ModV, most notably in ben ['beIJ] vs Ital. bene ['bene] ‘well’ < BENE. Similarly, inherited C) followed by nasal + consonant leads in both languages to closure, e.g. ModV/Ital. ponte, monte ‘bridge, mount’, but in Venetian closure is also triggered once more by a following /n/, e.g. ModV bon, bona ['bon] ['bona] vs Ital. bnono, baona ['bwano] ['bwana]

‘good’ < BONUM, BoNAM.

VENETIAN PHONOLOGY

2.2.1.1. The principal sociolinguistic disturbance of the inherited distri— bution pattern of mid vowels in ModV and Italian is their realisation in learned or semi-learned words, known as parole (semz')dotte or caltz'smz' in Italian. These labels refer to higher-register lexemes that have not undergone their uninterrupted ‘natural’ development in the mouths of native speakers. The influence of Latin and/or the church may be involved or their evolution may have been halted or reversed in the past by conserva-' tive speech habits of the educated. They may also be literary borrowings. I will henceforth refer to these as conservative-type (C-type) words. Lexemes which speakers perceive as non-native or as higher-register may also have their pronunciation altered accordingly.14 The realisation of mid vowels within such words in Italy is tendentially open even when, etymologically, r’e/ or /0/ would be expected, but discrepancies between ModV and Italian occur on this point. Thus we find /e/ [wo], as in pz'ea’e ‘foot’ < PEDEM and baoao ‘good’ < BONUM, although there are numerous exceptions with allegedly C-type words, e.g. regola, epoca, popolo, moa’o, opera ‘rule’, ‘epoch’, ‘people’, ‘way’, ‘work’ or again with words habitually appearing in pretonic position within a syntagm, notably beae not *laz'eae ‘well’ < BENE. It is, of course, the case that this apparent regularity in Italian, sanctioned by codification, hides profound disjunctions with the historical reality on the ground in Tuscany regarding the sta— tus and distribution- of diphthongisation (ROHLFS 1966, pp. 102-112 and

14 This mechanism is sometimes obvious in Venetian regional Italian. An example is the pronunciation ['posto] of Ital. posto ‘place’ where both ModV and Italian have ['posto].

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133-139). What is concealed in Italian is disclosed in Venetian by the irre— gularity of outcomes in the modern period and by the centuries-long dia— systemic variation within the historical record. It constitutes a paradigmatic examplar of sound-change fluctuation in a non-standardised language. 2.2.2.1. The ModV situation is as follows. There are, first of all, extremely few C-type outcomes: seleno ‘celery’ and z'mperz'o ‘authority’ seem to be genuine examples. Others such as secolo ‘century’ and regola ‘rule’, which superseded EV segolo and rzegol(l)oz, are borrowings from Italian. Reflexes of E appear as mostly, but not always, diphthongised. On the one hand we find: diese‘ten’ < DECEM; mzel ‘honey’ < MEL(EM); szeve

‘hedge’ < SAEPEM; pz’egom (vs Ital. pecom) ‘sheep’ < PECORAM; pz'em ‘stone’ < PETRAM; mz'eder ‘to reap’ < METERE; lz'evro ‘hare’ < LEPOREM; gem [ /i/ and /wo/ —* /u/ (e.g. Zenzulz' ‘sheets’). When ‘spoken’

venexz'cm was recorded in the Venetian theatre of the first half of the sixteenth century a second diphthongised type in /jo/ (perhaps present, but unrecorded, previously) made its appearance with, e.g., nuovo ~ m'ovo/ gnovo ‘new’ and mom ~ rz'osa ‘rosc’. This situation of flux, with a strong and multiple diphthongised presence, was the norm in the sixteenth and _39_

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seventeenth centuries, and surprising couplets such as puol ~ pul ‘he can’ and vuol ~ vul ‘he wants’ surfaced in early MidV. In later MidV diphthongised forms began to retreat towards the ModV situation, often contrary to any roofing influence exercised by Italian, but variability was still considerable in Goldoni and sometimes, but not always, appeared diastratically motivated. The lumpiness of the ModV and CV situations, both within and between E/O reflexes, represents the residue of this chequered and unresolved history. 2.2.3. Tonic vowel raising Unlike Italian, ModV is largely unaffected by the raising of inherited tonic /o/ —> /u/ and /e/ —> /i/ in a series of following environments, notably nasal + velar consonant, /p/ or /?»/. Compare ModV longo, fongo, ponm, donca, ongz'a, sponzd, zom‘o, onzer, spenzer, famegz'a, megz'o, comegz'o,

[engua with Ital. Imago, fungo, puma, dunque, zmg/az'a, spugmz, gz'um‘o, zmgere, spz'ngere, famz'glz'a, mz'glz'o, comz'glz'o, lingual ‘long’, ‘mushroom’, ‘point’, ‘therefore’, ‘nail’, ‘sponge’, ‘reached’, ‘to grease’, ‘to push’, ‘family’, ‘millet’, ‘advice’, ‘language’. Notable exceptions are curto (vs Ital. corto) ‘short’ < CURTUM and nutmeg: (vs Ital. momzca) ‘nun’ < MONACHAM, although EV ‘ also had monega. 2.2.4. Atonic vowels 2.2.4.1. General Atonically, the ModV seven-vowel system is reduced to five, /i e a o u/,

with neutralisation of the mid—vowel oppositions in favour of realisations roughly equidistant between [e e] and [o 3] but conventionally designated as /e 0/, e.g. Venexia ‘Venice’ [ve'nesja] vs venexz'om [venes'jarj] ‘Venetian’, and morte ['marte] ‘death’ vs morz'r [mo'rir] ‘to die’. This neutralisation assumes contrastive expression in ModV verb paradigms, exemplified by the present tense of verzer ‘to open’: verzo ['vsrzo], verzz' ['verzi], verze [’verze], verzemo [ver'zemo], verzé [ver'ze], verze ['verze], and of portar ‘to carry’:

porto ['porto], portz' ['parti], porta ['parta], portemo [por'temo], porté [por'te], portal ['parta]. Only four post-tonic vowels are used, /i e a o/, with /u/ only appearing in enclitic interrogatives, e.g. 543m? ‘do you know?’, and in a few onomatopoeic words or proper names, e.g. San Francesco de Paula ‘St Francis of Paula’. The absence of /u/ largely reflects, as in Italian, the crucial word final post-tonic evolution U > /o/, e.g. ModV/Ital. lz'bro ‘book’ < LIBRUM. _90__

VENETIAN PHONOLOGY

2.2.4.2. Apocope and syncope We noted in Chaper II the limited conditions of final vowel apocope in Venetian and the relative lack of vowel syncope in ModV and Italian compared to Gallo-Italian and Friulan. Inherited cases of syncope of post-tonic vowels in proparoxytones, a phenomenon already apparent in the Imperial Latin of the Appendix Probz', appear across Venetian in par— allel to Italian, e.g. ModV/Ital. merlo ‘blackbird’ < MERULUM; ModV dona ~ Ital. domaa ‘woman’ < DOMINAM; ModV/Ital. caldo ‘hot’ < CALIDUM;

ModV frea'o ~ Ital. freddo ‘cold’ < FRIGIDUM. Similar ancient syncope patterns are found with pretonic word-medial vowels in paroxytones, e.g. ModV pita ~ Ital. cz'tz‘a ‘city’ < CIVITATEM; ModV/Ital. board ‘goodness’ < BONITATEM; ModV gervelo ~ Ital. cervello ‘brain’ < CEREBELLUM. Other inherited atonic vowels immediately before primary stress have historically shown more variable patterns of retention or elimination. Compare ModV dz'mar vs Ital. a’esz'nare ‘to dine’ < DISIEIUNARE (Via O. Fr. dimer); ModV

cargar vs Ital. carz'care ‘to load’ < CARICARE; ModV comprar ~ crompar vs Ital. comperare/comprare ‘to buy’ < COMPARARE; and EV regovrar ~ rec(/9)012rar ‘to recover, to reclaim’ < RECUPERARE. On other occasions it is

Italian which syncopates, especially in the future and conditional tenses of common verbs: ModV vea’arb, podaré, savaro‘, gavaro‘, vea’arz'a, poa'arz'a, dovarz'a, savarz'a, gavarz'a vs Ital. vedro, patro, saprb, amt}, vea’rez', potrez', d0-

vrez', saprez', avrez' ‘I will see/be able/know/have’, ‘I would see/be able/ ‘ know/have’. Post tonic vowels are largely retained in both systems, but with sometimes contrasting exceptions: ModV [z'evro ~ Ital. Zepre ‘hare’ < LEPOREM; ModV folpo vs Ital. polz’po ‘squid’ < POLYPUM; ModV persego ‘peach’ < PERSICUM vs Ital. perca ‘peach’< PERSICAM; ModV palese vs Ital. pulce ‘flea’ < PULICEM; and ModV polesz'n ~ palzz'n vs Ital. palcz'no ‘chick’ < PULLICENUM; ModV cargo vs Ital. carz'co ‘load’ < CARICUM; and ModV faregar vs Ital. fragare ‘to rummage’ < FURICARE. Occasionally ModV even introduces an epenthetic vowel, as in alega vs Ital. alga ‘seaweed’ < ALGAM, and cavara ~ cavra vs Ital. capra ‘goat’ < CAPRAM. Examples of post-tonic deletion are rather more common in EV where one finds, e.g., povrz‘ ~ p0-

verz' ~ puoverz' ‘poor’ or rendre ~ rendere ‘to render’, although such syncopated forms are very much a minority. Where retention of inherited post tonic I does occur, the expected outcome, from EV to ModV, is /e/. Italian, on the other hand, tends to raise to /i/ or replace with /a/: ModV aseno, femeaa, anema, ora'ene, zoveae, omem', ostrega, salese vs Ital. asz'no, femmma, am’ma, ordz'ne, gz'ovaae, aomz'm', ostrz'ca, salz'ce ‘ass’, ‘female’, ‘soul’, ‘order’, ‘young’, ‘men’, ‘oyster’, ‘willow’.

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2.2.4.3. Pretonic vowels

2.2.4.3.1. There are particularly important differences between Venetian and Italian in the treatment of pretonic vowels /e/ and /o/. In Ita— lian the raising of pretonic /e/ —> /i/ is more widespread than in ModV: Ital. finestra vs ModV feaestra ‘window’ < FENESTRAM; Ital. gz'nocc/az'o vs ModV zeaoc/az'o ‘knee’ < GENUCULUM; Ital. sz'caro vs ModV regaro ~ 52'caro ‘sure’ < SECURUM; Ital. m'pote vs ModV aevoa’o ‘nephew, grandson’ < NEPOTEM; Ital. fz'm're vs ModV fem'r ~ flair ‘to finish’ < FINIRE; ModV meaao vs Ital. mz'aato ‘tiny’ < MINUTUM; and ModV crestal vs Ital. crz'stal— [0 ‘crystal’ < CRYSTALLUM. This phenomenon also affects pretonic particles, prefixes and pronouns in Italian, leaving Venetian untouched: Ital. a’z' vs ModV a’e ‘of’ < DE; Ital. dz'spz'acere vs ModV despz'azer ‘to be sorry’ < DISPLACERE; and Ital. sz' lava vs ModV 56 lava ‘he washes himself’ < SE

LAVAT. Surprisingly, however, there are notable examples of the change affecting Venetian alone: ModV [z'zz’on ~ lezz'on vs Ital. lezz'one ‘lesson’ < LECTIONEM; ModV Zz'car vs Ital. Zeccare ‘to lick’ < LECARE; ModV lion vs

Ital. [eone ‘lion’ < LEONEM; ModV ligar vs Ital. legare ‘to tie’ < LIGARE; ModV vz'ssz'ga vs Ital. vescz'ca ‘blister’ < VESICAM; ModV sibea vs Ital. seb‘ beae ‘although’ < SI BENE; ModV ma vs Ital. estate ‘summer’ < AESTATEM; and ModV qaaZc/aea’aa ~ qualc/az’a’an vs Ital. qaalc/aea’aao ‘somebody’. In EV/MidV/early ModV one finds m's(s)zm ~ nes(s)zm vs Ital. nessaao ‘nobody’ < NE IPSE UNUM, while the phenomenon is particularly widespread in EV in the environment of a following palatal: OVI tz'gm'r (60) vs tem’r (5) ‘to hold’ < TENERE, and vz'gm'r (136) ~ vem’r (4) ‘to come’

< VENIRE, with such parallel forms persisting into ModV. Venetian has always shared with Italian the tendency for inherited pretonic /e/ -> /o/ to anticipate a following labial consonant: ModV domaa (~ a’z'maa) ~ Italian domam' ‘tomorrow’ < DE MANE; ModV domana’ar ~ Ital. a’omaa-

dare ‘to ask’ < DEMANDARE; ModV pz'ovan vs Ital. pz’evano ‘parish priest’ < PLEBANUM; ModV somegz'ar ~ Ital. somz’glz'are ‘to ressemble’ < SIMILIARE. Not infrequently, though, one even finds Venetian lowering pretonic /e/ to /a/: ModV paruca ‘wig’ < Fr. perraqae; ModV mareaa’a vs Ital. mereaa’a ‘snack’ < MERENDAM; ModV maravegz'a vs Ital. meravz'glz'a ‘marvel’ < MIRABILIAM; ModV saagz'oto ‘hiccup’ vs Ital. sz'agbz'ozzo < SINGULTUM; ModV samer ~ semer vs Ital. semale ‘agent, go-between’ < Ar. sz'msa’r; EV/early MidV faaestra ‘window’ < FENESTRAM; ModV gar(z')esa

~ ger(z)esa ‘cherry’ < CERASIUM; ModV sargeate vs Ital. sergente ‘sergeant’ < Fr. sergem‘; and ModV salvaa’ego vs Ital. selvatz'co ‘wild’ < SILVATICUM. _92_

VENETIAN PHONOLOGY

2.2.4.3 .2. The EV tendency to raise inherited pretonic /o/ > /u/ is stronger still in ModV. The process may in some, but not all cases, be explained by the effect of a following tonic /i/: ModV mnger ~ EV miner/mnger/moier ‘wife’ < MULIEREM; ModV rnvina vs Ital. rovina ‘ruin’ < RUINAM; ModV sntil vs Ital. sottile ‘slender’ < SUBTILEM; ModV cnsina ~ Ital. cncina

‘kitchen’ < COCINAM; mnsina ‘money box’ < éksuoofivn; ModV momento ~ mnmento vs Ital. momenta ‘moment’ < MOMENTUM; ModV pnlito ‘polite, well-done, properly’ < POLITUM; ModV pnsar vs Ital. posare ‘to place’ < PAUSARE; cnssz‘ ~ cossi vs Ital cosi ‘thus’ < ECCUM SIC; ModV fursi ~ forse vs Ital. forse ‘maybe’ < FORSIT; ModV bntiro ~ diastratically lower botiro ‘butter’ < BUTYRUM; ModV cnsin ~ Ital. cugino ‘cousin’ < 0. Fr. cosin;

ModV fngazza vs Ital. focaccia ‘bun’ < FOCACIAM. 2.2.4.3.}. Word-initial atonic /a/ is frequently deleted, especially from verbs: (a)z2erzer ‘to open’; (a)spetar ‘to wait for’; (a)sassinar ‘to murder’; (a)vanzar ‘to be left over’; (a)pena ‘hardly’; (as)sassin ‘murderer’; (a)scoltar ‘to listen to’; (a)tacar ‘to attach’, (a)rivar ‘to arrive’; (a)compagnar ‘to accom-

pany’; (a)tento ‘careful’. Pl. 1 and 2 of andar ‘to go’ (andemo, ande’) are particularly prone to deletion, so that in the present tense one finds, according to speech tempo and degree of formality: [an'demo, an'de] ~ [n'demo, n'de] ~ ['demo, 'de].

3. CONSONANTS

3.1. General

A comparison of the consonantal phonemes of ModV with those of CL and Italian suggests that the key contrastive features of the Venetian system are: (a) the absence of gemination vis-a-Vis CL and Italian, (b) the presence of systemic lenition vis-a—vis both, and (c) the presence of systemic palatalisation vis-a-Vis CL and in parallel to Italian. Vocalically ModV shared much with Italian; consonantically it was closer to Gallo-Italian and, more broadly to Ibero-, ‘Rhaeto’- and Gallo-Romance. 3.2. The Venetian; Classical Latin and Italian consonant inventories compared The consonantal phonemes of CL numbered only thirteen, / p b t d k g f h s m n1 r/, leaving aside the approxirnants /j/ and /w/. Geminates were present, sometimes phonemically, but at a much lower level of structural _93_

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importance than Latin phonemic vowel oppositions (VINEIS 1997, p. 313). Especially noticeable compared to ModV/Italian, and indeed to Romance more generally, were the absence of voiced equivalents of /f/ and /s/ and palatals. The inventory for Italian, on the other hand, with /p b t d k g ts tf dz d3 f v s f z m n p l k r/, and with approximants /j/ and /w/, reveals a radical restructuring. Of the now twenty-one consonantal phonemes fifteen have contrastive doubles, /pp/, /bb/, /tt/, /dd/, /kk/, /gg/, /ttf/, /dd3/, /ff/, /vv/, /ss/, /mm/, /nn/, /11/ and /rr/. Only /z/ is single at all times, while /ts/, /dz/, /f/, /p/ and /7»/ are always double when intervocalic. Fri-

catives /f s/ have voiced equivalents /v z/. The inventory does not make obvious, though, the limited presence in Italian of sonorisation affecting inherited voiceless consonants in intervocalic position when followed by /a 3 o u/. There is a new cluster of phonemes — voiced and unvoiced palato-alveolar affricates /tf/ and /d3/ and alveolar affricates /ts/ and /dz/; voiceless palato-alveolar fricative /f/; nasal /]1/ and lateral /9»/ — whose palatal articulation was triggered by following yod and by front vowels. The consonantal phonemes of ModV generally have pronunciations similar to, but not identical with, Italian. In particular, Venetian /s/ is often noticeably palate-alveolar, while /r/ is usually a single tap rather than a trill, although some speakers realise it, depending on position, as a retroflex tap or flap.15 Final ‘ /n/ is always velar [13], while /n/ followed by an occlusive has a more-orless velar colouring. This explains the hesitancy of EV/MidV spelling where one finds doublets such as grando ~ gramdo ‘big’ and, very commonly, tenpo ~ tempo ‘time’. Most noteworthy are the palatal allomorphs of /l/ described in § 3.4.2 below. 3.2.1. ModV continues none of the inherited geminates of CL.16 Furthermore, Venetian is distinct from Italian in never initiating new geminates by means of syntactic doubling or regressive assimilation. Partial consonantal lengthening does occasionally surface across word boundaries in ModV, e.g. vado a! Lido ['vado al'lido], ‘I’m going to the Lido’, g0 vz'm‘o a! [010

15 See Chapter IX § 2.5.

1" Traces of original Latin single-double consonant distinctions appear to survive in the conditions of final vowel apocope in ModV. With the most sonorous consonants /l n r/, which are most prone to apocope or vowel fusion, loss of final vowel tends to occur after an inherited single consonant but not after a double (see Chapter II S 3.6.5). However, rather than being a direct continuation of Latin distinctions such patterns in Venetian are likely to be the result of the koineisation process discussed in Chapter VI, with ModV showing a compromise between the radical apocope of north-eastern Veneto and the conservative final-vowel retention of central-southern Veneto.

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[go 'vinto al'bto] ‘I won on the lotto’,17 or M in malom ['va im'majora] ‘go to hell’. However, it is avoided in inherited compounds either via dissimilation or by the strong preference for the prefix-preposition IN rather than AD (both indicating movement towards), with its final consonant high in sonority, or by the replacement of AD with a prosthetic /z/: ModV arlevar vs Ital. allevare ‘to bring up’ < ADLEVARE; ModV z'megolare vs Ital. z'rregolare ‘irregular’ < IRREGULAREM; ModV cossa vorlo? ( MidV [C17‘h] a

~ add (minority) —> MidV [C18‘h] -aa’a ~ a (residual) —) ModV -aa’a. 3.3.1.1. Principal patterns of intervocalic lenition in Modern Venetian —,C > /g/: [ago ‘lake’ < LACUM; [agaaa ‘lagoon’ < LACUNAM; ago ‘needle’ < ACUM; fogo ‘fire’ < FOCUM; cogoma ‘coffee—pot’ < CUCUMAM; zogar ‘to play’ < IOCARE; cargar ‘to load’ < CARICARE; a'z'go ‘I say’ < DICO; mz'ga ‘not at all’
/Vr/ or /r/: comm ‘goat’ < CAPRAM; covrz'r ‘to cover’ < COOPERIRE; avrz'r

‘to open’ < APERIRE; avrz'l ‘April’ < APRILEM; but 30m (EV sown (majority) ~ 30m) ‘above’ < SUPRA. — T > /d/ or /®/: -adn feminine singular past-participle ending < -ATAM; frndelo ‘brother’ < FRATELLUM; nevodo ‘nephew/grandson’ < NEPOTEM; poder ‘to be able’ < POTERE; seda ‘silk’ < SETAM; spadn (EV Jpn ~ spndcz) ‘sword’ < SPATHAM; nodo ‘empty’ < VOCITUM; [z'do ‘shore’ < LITUM; gander— no (EV qnnerno) ‘notebook’ < QUATERNI. However, masculine singular past-participle endings in -ATUM and nominal endings from -ATEM both le— nit to a. Other notable examples of T > /®/ are: prd ‘meadow’ < PRATUM; fa ‘breath’ < FLATUM; ospedl ‘hospital’ < HOSPITALEM; deo (EV dedo) ‘finger’ < DIGITUM; nseo ‘vinegar’ < ACETUM; nrnz'a ‘aunt’ < AMITAM; caena ~ cadena ‘chain’ < CATENAM; cnennzzo ‘padlock’ < CATENACEUM; cag'n ‘basin’ < CATINUM; [42' ~ ladz' ‘side’ < LATUS; crz'nr ‘to shout’ < CRITARE; nnnr ~ noar ‘to

lord’ < PATRONEM; vero ‘glass’ < VITRUM; [adro (MidV [nro ~ [ndro) ‘thief’
/vr/: freve ‘fe— ver’ < FEVRE /0/ or /d/: mm ‘naked’ < NUDUM; cruo ‘raw’ < CRUDUM; bruo ~

brodo ‘broth’ < Germ. *brod—; suor ‘sweat’ < SUDOREM; meola ‘marrow— bone jelly’ < MEDULLAM; peoc/az'o ‘louse, mussel’< PEDUCULUM; pie ‘foot’ < PEDEM; coa ‘tail’ < CODAM; torbz'o ‘cloudy (of liquid)’ < TURBIDUM; gravid ‘pregnant’ < GRAVIDAM; raise ~ radz'se ‘root’ < RADICEM; m'o ~ m'do ‘nest’ < NIDUM; radio/92b ‘chicory salad’ < RADICULUM; creder ‘to believe’ < CREDERE;

rider ‘to laugh’ < RIDERE; and medego ‘doctor’ < MEDICUM. DR >/r/: quarcmm ‘forty’ < QUADRAGINTA; square; ‘set square’ < EXQUADRAM; and quare— sema ‘Lent’ < QUADRAGESIMAM. C-type: quadro ‘frame, picture’, squadm ‘team’, and quadrar ‘to convince’. — S > /2/ at all times: cam ‘house’ < CASAM; and mzso ‘nose’ < NASUM. /s/

is only retained before inherited AU, e.g. cossa ['kosa] ‘thing’ < CAUSAM, and across original word-boundaries: 60332 ~ cuss? [ko'si ~ ku'si] ‘thus’ < ECCUM SIC. Voicing also applies to NS reflexes, e.g. mese ['meze] ‘month’ < MENSEM, and sposo ‘bridegroom’ < SPONSUM. 3 .3 .2. Word-initial Zem'tz'on

Lenition does not operate in Venetian across word boundaries, and it only affects word-initial vowels sporadically, e.g. ModV gardelz'rr ‘goldfinch’ < CARDELLINUM; ModV grcmzo ‘crab’ < CANCRUM; ModV 1203c ~ 056 ‘voice’

< VOCEM; and ModV varda ~ ['vara] ~ ['ara] ‘look!’ (sg. 2). Such tendencies have sometimes been hypercorrected by a /b/, e.g. ModV bampa ‘flame’ < VAMPAM; MidV bore ‘voice’; and EV/MidV/ModV bolpe ~ volpe ‘fox’ < VULPEM. 3 .4. Palatalz'sdtz'orr 3 .4. 1. General

3.4.1.1. Long-term palatalisation processes in Romance involved, in the main, the fronting to palatal of original Latin velar pronunciations of consonants in anticipation of following approximant /j/ or front vowel. —98—

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On occasion, though, the yod also retracted alveo—dental-irealisations to palatal (TUTTLE 1997c), a type which was of marginal importance in Venetian. This most fundamental and universal restructuring of the consonantal systems of the Romance languages was underway early in the Imperial era in the case of consonant + yod, and by the late Latin period had also affected consonant + front vowel articulation. Preservation of the original velar pronunciations of C and G in the most conservative central Sardinian dialects and, partly, in now—extinct Dalmatian was a rare excep-

tion to a dynamic whose momentum in many parts of Romania, including Venice, continued into the modern period. Indeed in Venetian the /C1/ >

/Cj/ innovation only surfaces in writing in the later Middle Ages. Italian, which was only partly affected by lenition, participated fully in palatalisation in parallel to Venetian, with non-labial consonants alone remaining unaffected in both languages. In general the process ‘halted’ at an earlier stage in Italian, with the national language preserving affricate pronunciations which in ModV have evolved to sibilants. Paradigmatic is the case of Latin G + /j/ or front vowel. In Italian the result is /d3/ or /dd3/, presum-

ably via /g/ —> *[gj]. In venexz'an it has developed to /z/, probably via /g/ —) *[gj] —-> *[dg] —> [dz] —> [2]. Thus the Venetian equivalent of Italian Giorgio ‘George’ is, historically, Zorzz'. Clearly, Venetian evolution has a

good deal in common not only with Gallo—Italian but with Portuguese, Spanish, ‘Raeto’- and Gallo-Romance. Indeed, as we saw in Chapter II, ‘ §§ 3.6.3 and 3.6.4, in the mainland Veneto dialects the sibilant stage in Venetian has interdental equivalents /8/ and /6/ like Spanish, although there is no documentary evidence of the presence of dental fricatives at any point in Venetian itself.19 Unlike ‘Raeto’- and Gallo-Romance, ModV shows no palatalisation of velars before /a/, although there is tenuous evi— dence of its presence in EV.20 Within the Italo—Romance context the contrasting treatments of AR + yod in Venetian and the standard language are unusual. The typical Italo-Romance outcome of -ARIUM is -czr0 (e.g. central-southern Veneto 5mm ‘bushel’ < SEXTARIUM), with the yod retracted to tonic vowel then lost. In Venetian the outcome of this process has instead been [er] (tier), while Italian incorporates the unique Tuscan deletion of /r/ (staz'o).

19 On Veneto interdentals see TUTTLE 1985.

20 Fra Paolino Minorita wrote c/az'am (usual EV can) for ‘dog’ < CANEM in his Tmttato de regimz'ne rectorz': (c. 1315). See MUSSAFIA (1868, p. 110).

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3.4.1.2. Residues of historical crosscurrents with palatalisation are de-

tectable in ModV, although to a lesser extent than with diphthongisation and lenition. We noted above (§ 1.2) the fluid situation regarding /n/ + yod. We also observed Boerio’s insistence that archaic /ts/ and /dz/ survived (perhaps in attenuated realisations) alongside their ModV sibilant continuers (Chapter III, § 2.3.1). More striking still is the dual outcome of L + yod > /d3/ ~ /j/ which runs through venexz'an‘ from EV to ModV and even in CV is still not completely resolved. In EV and early MidV /j/ reflexes dominated, with /d3/ possibly a diastratically low variant. However, fully-palatalised outcomes gradually asserted themselves and became predominant in the ModV and CV periods, albeit with a residual presence of /j/ among some (usually older) speakers, especially in peripheral sestz'erz’.21 Examples from ModV/CV are: megz'o ~ mez'o ‘better’ < MELIUM; comegz'o ~ comezb ‘council’ < CONSILIUM; muger ~ muz’er ‘wife’ < MULIE-

REM; pagz’a ~ paid ‘straw’ < PALEAM; agz'o ~ az'o ‘garlic’ < ALLIUM; fogz'a ~ foz'oz ‘leaf’ < FOLEAM. Exceptions to the preference for the /d3/ outcome are the couplet fz'o, fzfcz (not *fz'gz'o, *fz'gz'a, although fz'glo, fz'gla appear rarely in EV) ‘son, daughter’ < FILIUM, FILIAM, with plurals fz'olz' ['fjoi] ‘sons, children’ and fz'e ['fie] ‘daughters’; and mz'o ‘mile’ < MILIUM, a back formation from

MILIA. The parallel and archaic Venetian couplet fz'ol(0), fz'ola ‘son, daughter’ < FILIOLUM, FILIOLAM (with the plurals fz'olz', fz'ole), has undoubtedly been influential here, and indeed the ModV/CV masculine plural form is taken from the latter pair.” 3.4.2. Palatal allomorphs of /l/ Undoubtedly the most unusual and characteristic palatalisation phenomenon in venexz'cm was the surfacing in ModV of conditioned palatal allomorphs of /l/ — either a laxed spirant [i]23 or [Q] — in word—initial

and intervocalic positions. When word-initial, /l/ was realised by all speak—

“ See Chapter I, note 15 and Chapter VII, 8 3.2.2.1. (f).

22 The cross-over between these pairs was already the norm in EV. Boerio registers fz'ol(0), fz'ola as provincial or diastratically lower forms. Interestingly, he records the plural of fiolo as «Fioli o Fioi» thereby revealing, indirectly, a rare example of the nineteenth-century existence of the ‘/l/ evanescente’. 23 This sound, which is not represented in the IPA, is defined in LEPSCHY (1962, pp. 18-19)

as «un’articolazione in cui l’aria passa attraverso un avvallamento nella parte centrale del dorso della lingua, sollevato verso la volta palatina, mentre i due lati del dorso della lingua some a contatto con i lati della corona dei denti superiori». CANEPARI (1976, p. 67) describes it as «an unrounded prevelar semi-vowel» that should be distinguished from [j] which is an allomorph of /i/ in unstressed prevocalic position. He goes on to reproduce useful palatograms of the sound.

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ers in later ModV and in CV as [0] before a front vowel but otherwise as [1]: lzcar [i'kar]‘to lick’; letera ['etera] ";letter and legao ['egno] "wood vs late ['1ate] ‘milk’, lorz ['1ori] ",they and lame ['1ume] ‘light’. In intervocalic position the realisation of /1/IS [0] if preceded or followed by /i e 8/. Otherwise it is [1]. Contrastive examples are mzlle ['mie] thousand’; leo [’fio] t;h’read solzto ['saito] usual’; patelo [pu' teo] ‘little boy’, belo ['bso] ‘beautiful’ (m.;) bela ['bea] ‘beautiful’ (f.); calle ['kae]‘street’,pele ['pee] ‘skin’; and gelega [“seega]sparrow’ vs pzcolo [' piko1o] "small,spala ['spa1a] ‘shoulder’ (vs spale ['spae] ‘shoulders’;) calo ['ka1o] ‘bunion’; cavalo [ka'va1o] horse’; colo ['k31o] neck; colombo [ko' 1ombo]‘pigeon; calo ['1kuo]‘arse’; malo ['mu1o] ‘mule’; gondola ['gondo1a] ‘g’;ondola and solo ['so1o] ‘alone’. /1/ remains intact across morpheme boundaries, when consonant-bound or followed by yod, and when word-final. Thus late ['1ate] ‘milk’ vs el late [e1 'late] ‘the milk’; lz'moa [i'mon] ‘lemon’ vs aa lz'mon [u 1i'mor_]] ‘a lemon’; la goaa’ola [1a 'gondo1a] ‘the gondola’ vs el goaa’olz'er [e1 gondo'ljer] ‘the gondolier’; canalz' [ka'nai] ‘canals’ vs canal [ka'nal] ‘canal’; poltroaa [pol'trona] ‘armchair’; and gz'garlo [si’garlo] ‘to shout it’. It is probable that the “development initiated with a palatal pronunciation (*[K] —> *[j] —> *[1] —> [0]) of inherited Latin /11/ + /i/,24 which subse— quently spread to /l/ + /i/, then — as perhaps a diastratically/diatopically lower variant — to /l/ in all intervocalic environments and to word-initial /1/. The best evidence for such a hypothesis are spellings, going back to ‘ MidV, of words containing the suffixes derived from -ELLI and —ALLI, e.g. fraa’ez' ~ fraa’elz' ‘brothers’ < FRATELLI, osez' ~ oselz' ‘birds’ < AUCELLI, and cavaz' ~ cavalz' ‘horses’ < CABALLI. Palatal plurals from the suffix -EOLI are recorded by Boerio early in the ModV period, e.g. fasz'oz' ~ fasz'olz' ‘beans’ < PHASEOLI. Significantly, Manin wrote in the early nineteenth century (CARACCIOLO ARICC) 1986, pp. 15-16): «I nomi maschili che anno la desinenza in alo ed elo, avranno i1 plurale tanto in all, elz', quanto in az', ez': p.e. el cavalo, il cavallo, z' cavalz', cavaz'; elfraa’elo, il fratello, z'fradelz', fra-

dez'. Ma se queste parole saranno di due sole sillabe, avranno nel plurale la sola terminazione in alz', elz': p.e. palo, il palo, palz’ e non paz'; el pelo, il pelo,

pelz', non 1762'». Not surprisingly, given Manin’s statement, there is scant evidence of the existence of the so—called ‘l evanesceate’ as a generalised

24 See PELLEGRLNI (1977, pp. 27 and 77-78). This type of palatal evolution was and is wide— spread in the Gallo—Italian dialects. In pre—modern central-southern Venetan it actually led to fully palatalised outcomes, e.g. b(z)egi ‘beautiful’ (m. pl.) < BELLI; and os(z)egz' ‘birds’ < AUCELLI. The movement [11] + /i/ —> [A] —> [0] is also documented in early Florentine and in other Tuscan dialects. See ROHLFS (1966, pp. 326-328) and (1968, p. 47).

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CHAPTER FOUR

phenomenon in the pre-modern period, and none of the major nineteenth— century writers or lexicographers refer to it overtly in the orthography or in their comments.25 However, by the twentieth century it was an inescapable oral presence. 26 Indeed its considerable geographical spread on the Vene— to mainland, and its occupation without residue of the lexicon, strongly suggest a long-standing, if unacknowledged, process. 3.4.3. Principal patterns of palatalisation in Modern Venetian — Word-initial and post-consonantal C + front vowel > /s/. Stages reconstructable as /k/ —* "‘[kj] —> *[tf] —> EV/MidV [ts ~ 5?] > ModV /s/: gem ‘dinner’ < CENAM; gesto ‘basket’ < CISTUM; germ ‘certain’ < CERTUM; gima ‘peak’ < CIMAM; gz'nque ‘five’ < CINQUE; venger ~ vz'nger ‘to win’ < VINCERE; dolge ‘sweet’ < DULCEM; and porcelo ‘pig’ < PORCELLUM. — Intervocalic C + front vowel > /z/ or, occasionally, /s/. Stages reconstructable as /k/ —> *[kj] —> *[d3] —> *[dz] —> EV/MidV/ModV /z/: pare ‘peace’ < PACEM; vase ‘voice’ < VOCEM; more ‘walnut’ < NUCEM; pz'aser ‘to

please’ < PLACERE; tqser ‘to be quiet’ < TACERE; oselo ‘bird’ < AUCELLUM; masemzr ‘to grind’ < MACINARE; and cusz'mz ‘kitchen’ < COCINAM. However,

w'gz'n ‘near’ < VICINUM, and z'nvege ‘instead’ < IN VICEM. — C + yod > /s/. Stages reconstructable as /k/ —> *[kj] —-> *[tf] —> EV/ MidV [ts ~ 5?] —> ModV /s/: brazzo ‘arm’ < BRACHIUM; fazza ‘face’ < FACIAM; fazzo ‘I do’ < FACIO; gz'azzo ‘ice’ < GLACEUM; calza ‘stocking’ < CALCEAM; and the -azzo suffix < -ACEUM, e.g. caemzzzo ‘padlock’ < CATENACEUM. — Word—initial and post-consonantal G + front vowel > /z/. Stages reconstructable as /g/ —> *[gj] —> *[dg] —> EV/MidV [dz ~ 2?] —> ModV /z/: zente ‘people’ < GENTEM; zeneml ‘general’ < GENERALEM; zenocbz’o ‘knee’ < GENUCULUM; zz'mr ‘to turn’ < GYRARE; zz'gam‘e ‘giant’ < GIGANTEM; pz'cmzer

‘to weep’ < PLANGERE; and onzer ‘to grease’ < UNGERE. — Intervocalic G + front vowel > /z/: lezer ‘to read’ < LEGERE; 1626 ‘the law’ < LEGEM; frz'zer ‘to fry’ < FRIGERE; ruzene ‘rust’ < (AE)RUGINEM; grezo

‘rough’ < GREGIUM?; and EV/MidV fuzz'r (ModV fyger/fugg'r, under Italian influence) ‘to flee’ < FUGIRE. However, when G was followed by a stressed front vowel the latter palatalised to /j/ in hiatus and was subsequently de—

25 Although see above, note 22.

2" Intriguingly, Mafera detected residues of a previous unpalatalised /l/ in the speech of some older working—class Venetians in the 19505 (MAFERA 1958, p. 179).

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VENETIAN PHONOLOGY

leted: vz‘ntz' ‘twenty’ < VIGINTI; deo ‘finger’ < DIGITUM; gnekte ‘nothing’ < NEC ENTEM or NE GENTEM; fredo ‘cold’ < FRIGIDUM; and paese ‘country/vil-

lage’ < PAGENSEM. C—type: pagz'mz ‘page’ and regz'na ‘queen’. — D + yod > /z/: zomo ‘day’ < DIURNUM (possibly via 0. Fr./O. Prov. jam); mezo ‘middle’ < MEDIUM; Chiosa ‘Chioggia’ < CLODIA; orzo ‘barley’ < HORDEUM; and 06724 ‘cabbage’ < VIRIDIAM. However, the later dz'ndz'o ‘turkey’ was unaffected, while agz'umr ‘to help’ may be an adaptation of Italian az’umre < ADIUTARE.

— I /j/ > /z/: 26? ‘already’ < IAM; zogar ‘to play’ < IOCARE; mazo ‘May’ < MAIUM; zugno ‘June’ < IUNIUM; and pezo ‘worse’ < PEIUS. S + yod > /z/: camz'sa ‘shirt’ < CAMISIAM; baso ‘kiss’ < BASIUM; brusar ‘to burn’ < BRUSIARE; EV also ‘cheese’ < CASEUM; c/yz'esa ‘church’ < ECCLESIAM;

and preson ‘prison’ < PRAEHENSIONEM. In a few later cases the following yod remains, e.g. busz'aro ‘liar’ (— *busz'adr0, ultimately from Germanic perhaps via Old Provencal. The proper name Biasio may be C-type. — T + yod > /s/ or /z :27 palazzo ‘palace’ < PALATIUM; prezzo ‘price’ < PRETIUM; vz'zz'o ‘bad habit, vice’ < VITIUM; servz'zz'o ‘service/favour’ < SERVI-

TIUM; pozzo ‘well’ < PUTEUM; stazz’o ‘site’ < STATIO; and nozze ‘wedding’ < NUPTIAE. However: rayon ‘reason’ < RATIONEM; EV/MidV staxon ~ stason ‘season’ < STATIONEM; MidV presz'ar ‘to prize, to appreciate’ < PRETIARE;

and ModV indusz'ar ‘to delay’ < INDUTIARE. The vernacular name of Venice ‘ itself may reflect the hesitation between the unvoiced and sibilant outcomes (Chapter III, note 11). -ST + yod > /s/: bz'sscz ‘snake’ < BESTIAM; and cmgossa ‘anguish, terror’ < ANGUSTIAM. C-type: berm: ‘anjmal’. There is some evidence over the EV/MidV period of secondary /t/ + yod > /tf/ via developments in diphthongisation, e.g. TOLLERE > tor —> Mar —> tz'or ‘to take, to catch’. According to BOERIO (1856, s.v. tor), the variant tz'or could be pronounced

['tfor]. Only the exceedingly common ModV/CV exclamation 625! ‘of course, you bet, no way, yeah right!’ remains as a relic of this palatal pronunciation. — GN > /p/: legno ‘wood’ < LIGNUM; segno ‘mark’ < SIGNUM; agnelo ‘lamb’ < AGNELLUM; pegno ‘deposit, collateral’ < PIGNUM; cugmi ‘brotherin-law’ < COGNATUM; and cognosser ‘to know’ < COGNOSCERE. — N + yod > /p/: montdgmz ‘rnountain’ < MONTANEA; vegno ‘I come’
casa, -e ‘house(s)’, and TABULAM, -AE/-AS > tola, -e ‘table(s)’, as well as later Latin creations such as DOMINAM, -AE/:AS > dong, -e ‘woman, women’ and TONSAM, -AE/-AS >

low, -e ‘girl(s)’. HOwever, it early attracted into its orbit ferninines from the fourth declension such as NURUM, -US —> NORAM, —AE/-AS > ModV

flora/mom, -e ‘daughter(s)—in-law’, and from the fifth declension such as FACIEM, -ES —> FACIAM, -AE/-AS > Modeazza, -e ‘face(s)’. Some second-de— —111—

CHAPTER FIVE

clension and third-declension neuters were also reanalysed along these lines, e.g. ModV arms, arme ‘arm(s)’ (vs Ital. 477724, 47771:) < ARMA, ARMORUM and ModV sema, seme ‘seed(s)’ < SEMEN, -INA, as were late Latin sub-

stantival generics such as CAMPANIA, MONTANEA and BATTUALIA which became campagna, -e ‘countryside(s)’, montagna, -e ‘mountain(s)’ and batagz'a, -e ‘battle(s)’ respectively. The plural of second—declension neuter CLLIUM, CILIA ‘eyebrow(s)’ was interpreted as a feminine singular and generated ModV cegz'a, -e ‘eyebrow(s), eyelashe(s)’, and a similar process affected FUNDAMENTUM, FUNDAMENTA ‘foundation’, reanalysed in Venetian as fondamenta, -e ‘paved canal bank or walkway in Venice’. More significantly, throughout the Romance period this category has exerted attractive pressure on feminines from the former third declension so that from APEM -Es, DOTEM -ES, NUCEM -ES, GLANDEM -ES, RADICEM -ES, VESTEM -ES, BUTTEM -ES, and VITEM -ES ModV evolved 412:), -e ‘bee(s)’, data, -e ‘dowry, -ies’, 710521, -e ‘walnut(s)’, gz'cmda, -e ‘acorn(s)’, miss, -e ‘root(s)’, vesta, -e ‘garment(s)’, bota, -e ‘barrel(s)’ and vz'da, -e ‘Vine(s)’. These outcomes contrast with the Italian equivalents ape, -z', dote, -z', mace, —z', malice, -z', veste, -z', botte, -z' and wife, -z', but concur in the case of g/az'cmda, -e. ModV arid ‘air’ has

ousted MidV qz'ere (lower-register early ModV agere ~ agz'are) < AEREM (m.). Loanwords of feminine origin, or perceived as such, were also ab‘ sorbed into category 1. Emblematic is angurz'a ‘watermelon’ where the Byzantine Greek. ayyobpza, plural of {zyyoépzov ‘cucumber’, was reanalysed as a category 1 feminine singular. Nouns constructed from the first-conjugation feminine past participle -ada < ~ATAM show normal past-participle lenition of the /d/ in the plural, e.g. ModV ocbz'ada, oc/oz'ae ‘glance(s), look(s)’ which contrasts with ModV fada, fade ‘fairy, fairies’ and sfz'da, sfi'de ‘challenge(s)’. 1.3.2.1. A small number of nouns with category 1 endings have switched gender because of ad semzmz association with masculinity, e.g. am 7720713, -e ‘idiot(s)’, from mom, —6 (f.) ‘cunt(s)’, and 2m rec/via, -e ‘homo— sexual’, from rec/aid, -e (f.) ‘ear(s)’. On the other hand, in early ModV Z20— gz'a ‘torturer, executioner, bastard’ was masculine and marked -a, -1'. In later ModV/CV it has, however, switched to -a, -e, while retaining its

masculine gender. Fascinatingly, am 17060 [poko] ‘a little’ may switch in ModV/CV to a category 1 ending (while remaining masculine) if it refers to a feminine noun, so am [2060 de zucaro ‘a little sugar’ vs zm pom de 70174 ‘a little stuff’. 1.3.2.2. A preceding velar consonant /g/ or /k/ on the stem vowel is not palatalised by plural -e, and this is reflected in ModV by the introduc—112—

VENETIAN MORPHOSYNTAX

tion of an , so amz'ga, amz'gbe ‘female friend(s)’ and paca, paw/9e

‘blow(s)’. Where palatalisation in the singular is indicated by in the othography, the , although redundant, is maintained in the plural, e.g. ModV rec/Jig, rec/vie ‘ear(s)’, fogz'a, fogz'e ‘leaf, leaves’. 1.3.3. Category 2 nouns. 5g. -0, pl. -i, gender masculine Similar patterns of retention and attraction characterise the archetypal masculine category. On the one hand, nouns such as ModV mum, -1' ‘wall(s)’ and [0220, -i ‘wolf, wolves’ unproblematically continue Latin second declension MURUM, -I and LUPUM, -I. On the other hand, this majority type is joined by a series of declensional metaplasms. From the fourth-declension FRUCTUS -US and VERSUS -US are derived fruz‘o, -i ‘fruit(s)’ and verso, -i ‘Verse(s), way(s)’. To these can be added some formerly third-declension masculines. For instance, the nominative singular form in ModV omo, omz'm' ‘man, men’ and ladro, -I' ‘thief, thieves’ consigns them to category 2, notwithstanding the irregular third—declension dimorphism retained by the former. Other former third declensions remoulded in its image include ModV nevodo, -i ‘nephew, grandson’ from the masculine NEPOS, -POTIS, tempo, -1' ‘time(s)’, and corpo, -i ‘body, bodies’ from the neuters TEMPUS, -PORIS, and CORPUS, -PORIS, and even alboro, -1' ‘tree(s)’ and palqo, -i

‘swamp(s)’ from the feminine ARBOR, -IS and PALUS, -UDIS. Such metaplasms were commoner still in EV, for example prz'ngzpo ‘prince’ < PRINCIPEM, and even the designations of the last four months of the year were commonly shifted from third declension to category 2 in EV/MidV, producing retembrz’o, otubrzo, novembrz'o and degembrz'o from SEPTEMBER, OCTOBER, NOVEM-

BER and DECEMBER. Most significantly, the distinctive category of Latin second-declension neuters has been masculinised, producing such ModV outcomes as brazzo -1' ‘arm(s)’ (vs Ital. braccz'o, -a),vdeo, -1' ‘finger(s)’ (vs Ital. dz'z‘o, -a), and 00120, -i ‘egg(s)’ (vs Ital. uovo, -a) from BRACCHIUM, -IA, DIGI-

TUM, -A, and OVUM, -A. This shift in Venetian was not fully realised in the EV period, where one finds forms such as bingo, braga ~ bulge ‘arm(s)’, ova, ove ‘eggs’, coma, come ‘horns’ and dedo, dede ‘fingers’. In MidV ‘arms’ could be [e brazze and ‘fingers’ [e clear or [e dee. A few formerly second-declension neuter nouns manifest their origins even more clearly in ModV, with sg. -0 (because of -RIUS > /r/) and plural -a: per, pera ‘pair’, ster, stem ‘bushel’, and mz'er, mz'era ~ mz'qzm ‘around a thousand, thousands of, from PER, PARIA, SEXTARIUM, -IA, and MILIARIUM, -IA. Note that ModV

pomodoro ‘tomato’ may be pluralised in the normal way or according to its semantic compounding, so pomodori ~ pomidoro, and that rice is always

It)

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CHAPTER FIVE

plural in ModV, as in the classic Venetian risotto rz'si e [2231' (lit. ‘rice and peas’), where in Italian it is singular, 2'! 7130. 1.3.3.1. Category 2 has been quite profoundly affected by diachronic phonological change in Venetian. In particular, ‘zero-marked’ singular endings have resulted from the apocope of final -0 after /n/ and /r/ (or its absorption in reflexes of the -RIUS ending) and, in some contexts, after /l/. This has led to typical outcomes such as 122'”, -i ‘wine(s)’ < VINUM; murer, -1' ‘bricklayer(s)’ < MURARIUM and m'ssz'ol, -i ‘sheet(s)’ < LINTEOLUM.

1.3.3.2. Intervocalic lenition has blurred the category 2 nature of a series of words which superficially show sg. -c‘z, pl. -z', but whose original singular —0 is now, in fact, zero-marked. These include soldd, -soldai ‘sol— dier(s)’, peed, pecai ‘sin(s)’, fz'gd, fz'gozi ‘liver(s)’, cugmi, cugmzi ‘father(s)—in-

law’, meza, mezai ‘mezzanine study, -ies’ and desgmzza, desgmzz'ai ‘wretch(es)’. They are originally derived from the masculine past participles of the first conjugation (< -ATUM, -ATI) and, as such, have historically un-

dergone lenition of intervocalic /d/, generating EV/MidV outcomes -ad0, -adz' ~ -ao, -czz' ~ 12, -az' (e.g. EV pecado and MidV pecao ‘sin’), and

ModV 12, —az'. ModV papa? ‘daddy’, from French, is invariable, while law} ‘yeast’ and passe) ‘the past’ are uncountable. 1.3.3.3. Masculine nouns of foreign origin (usually Greek) ending in -a in the singular are integrated into category 1 by plural-ending —z'. Thus problema, -1' ‘problem(s)’, poeta, -i ‘poet(s)’, dentz'sta, -1' ‘dentist(s)’, patrz'arca,

-c/a1' ‘patriarch(s)’. Barbs: ‘uncle’, probably Latin-derived,6 follows the same pattern in ModV, although in EV it took the plural barbam' (ROHLFS 1968, § 357). The C—type nature of most of these words is revealed by the lower-register variants z'pocrz'to ~ z'pocrate of ModV z'pocrz'm ‘hypocrite’ which try to reclassify it as a category 1 or category 3 (a) masculine noun. On the other hand, a series of unusual Venetian trade names, masculine

but with a singular ending -d from the suffix -eta, remain unchanged in the plural, e.g. guez‘a, -a [gu'eta] ‘knife-grinder’ and careg/oeta, -a ‘chair upholsterer’. 1.3.3.4. Phonological developments have occasionally led to dimorphism. In most cases a velar stem consonant remains unaffected by palatalisa-

6 See Chapter VIII, § 1.4.4.

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VENETIAN MORPHOSYNTAX

tion before the plural -z', e.g. Zago, lag/7i ‘lake(s)’ and taco, foe/9i ‘piece(s)’. There are notable exceptions such as ModV amz'go, amz'gi (EV amigo, amisz') ‘friend(s)’ < AMICUM, AMICI; ModV nemz'go, aemz’g‘i (EV aemz’go, aemz'sz') ‘enemy, enemies’ < INIMICUM, INIMICI; and EV Veaea'ego, Veaea’esi ‘Vene-

tian(s)’. However, one finds, analogically, later MidV/ModV porco, pore/91' ‘pig(s)’ /d/ > /0/ has also nullified the singular and (by analogy) plural endings of former feminine third-declension nouns with accusative singular -TEM. This has generated a category of oxytone invariables in ModV, e.g. gm}, 12 ‘cities’, Zz'bertci, -d, ‘freedom’, z'stci, -o‘z ‘summer’, 116m}, -z‘¢ ‘virtue(s)’

from CIVITATEM, -ES, LIBERTATEM, -ES, AESTATEM, -ES and VIRTUTEM, -ES. Their regular underlying origins are clear from EV singular variants such as gz'tade ~ 9de and MidV gz'tade ~ g’tae ~ gz'td, where the plural of gz'tade and g'tae shows the regular -e ending. One important feminine noun attracted to category 3 (b) from the fourth conjugation is [4 mm, [6 mm ‘hand(s)’ from MANUM, -US. Italian [4 momo, [e mam, on the other hand,

is deeply irregular, with the femininity expressed by the definite article in strident contrast with category 2 masculine endings. It is worth noting, on the other hand, that whereas Italian has retained intact in category 3 both components of third declension gender—dimorphic nouns such as impemtore, z'mpemtrz'ce ‘emperor, empress’ from IMPEMTOR, -TRIX, Venetian

has innovated. In EV the original pattern reflected Latin (with feminines z'mpemtrz'ge ‘empress’, z'nganatrz'se ‘deceiver’, audz'trz'xe ‘listener’) and lingered into MidV (for instance serm'tor, -trz'g:e ‘servant’), but has since been

replaced, as in Spanish, by a category 1 feminine suffix in -0m which is even applicable to a ModV/CV coinage such as fumador ~ fumadom ‘smoker’. 1.3 .5. Other invariable nouns

Leaving aside the category 2 and category 3 (b) nouns discussed above, Venetian monosyllables or oxytones have a zero—plural marker, as do nouns ending in -z' in the singular, e.g. re ‘king(s)’, pz'e ‘foot, feet’, bo ‘ox(en)’ café —116—

VENETIAN MORPHOSYNTAX

‘coffee(s)’, d2 ‘day(s)’, comb ‘dressing table(s)’, [2'4ng ‘roof—tei‘race(s)’, lz'som' ‘bindweed’ and tz'bz'doz' ‘hubbub’. Three EV masculine nouns, ladz' (MidV 142‘) ‘side’ < LATUS, fondz‘ ‘bottom’ < FUNDUS, and petz’ ‘chest’ < PECTUS, were

habitually invariable, with the expected singulars, [ado and fondo at least, very uncommon. The explanation for the singular in -z' has been traditionally sought in their frequent adverbial/prepositional use, e.g. EV a [4611' (de) ‘at the side (of)’, and z'n/a fomdz' ‘at the bottom’. This may have linked them analogically with ammtz' ‘before’, 6141247211 ‘in front of’ and other common EV adverbs in -z' (STUSSI 1965, pp. LXII—LXIII, following Mussafia and Ascoli). However, an alternative explanation, involving the reanalysis of seconddeclension neuters with -s plural morphemes, has recently been proposed (FORMENTIN 2004). 1.3 .6. Suffixes Within the Romance context Venetian, like Italian, makes considerable

use of nominal suffixes: compare French cuz'llére, petite cuz'llére with ModV/CV scuger, scugerz'n ‘spoon, tea spoon’. These take the endings of noun categories 1 and 2. As in Italian, suffixation is not an automatically applicable process: only certain modifiers may be available to a given noun, and the resulting word may be lexicalised with a meaning transcending that normally imparted by the suffix. Doneta from domz is a little woman (although it can be ‘pansy’ if applied to a man), whereas momma is a little ‘ hand and donomz may be a big or masculine woman. Cavalo ‘horse’ may be simply diminutivised by -et0 (cavaleto ‘little horse’) but that can also be an easel or embroidery frame, and the feminine cavdlem is a grasshopper. A big horse is straightforwardly cavalon, but a nag may be either cavaloto or cavaluzzo. Venetian, like certain north-eastern Scots dialects, is particularly fond of diminutives. These are formed from -z'7z (< -INUM) or -et0 (< —ITTUM), and in some cases can be attached directly to the noun after subtraction of the final vowel, e.g. momentz’n ‘moment, instant’, toseto, t0-

:ez‘a ‘little boy, little girl’. In other cases they are part of a double diminutivisation, with pocketz'n ‘a tiny amount’ being smaller still than pocketo ‘a little bit’.7 Other common examples in ModV are pz'cem'n ~ pz'cz'm'n ‘a little child’, vaporz'n ~ vaporeto ‘Grand-canal and lagoon ferry boat’, toc/aeto ‘little piece’ ~ toc/oetz'n ‘tiny piece’, netadz'm ‘a little clean’, fz'antz'n ‘a very little bit’ (from am fie? ‘a»1ittle’), fantolz'n ‘poor little child’, oclaz'adz'm ‘a quick

7 For a discussion of the use of diminutives in the Veneto dialects compared to the situation in Italian see LEPSCHY (1989) and MARCATO (1990).

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CHAPTER FIVE glance’, spusseta ‘a stuck-up girl’, w'seto ‘cute little face’, bruseg/yz'n ‘pang of envy’, bz'sogrteto ‘the bare minimum’, poareto ‘poor soul’ and oreta ‘no more than an hour or so’. Less common as a diminutive is -e[0 (< -ELLUM),

e.g. patelo, putela (‘little boy, little girl’) from puto/puta, and cassela ‘drawer’. The suffix -ot0 (< *-OTTUM) is used to characterise individuals,

sometimes negatively, as in pz'cmzoto ‘cry-baby’ and casoto ‘fusspot’. The augmentative suffix is -0rt (< -ONEM), for example regalon ‘big present’ and casseton ‘chest of drawers’, but it sometimes has negative connotations as in 643072 ‘poor, peasant house’ and, by extension, ‘slum’. Large size or sometimes negativity can be expressed by -dzzo (< -ACEUM), e.g. campazzo ‘uncultivated field’, Ccmaldzzo ‘Grand Canal’, domzza ‘fishwife’ and poa—

razzo ‘poor wretch’. On the other hand, -ezzo (< -ITIUM), often in the plural, suggests indulgent disapproval, e.g. sempz'ezzz' ‘silly nonsense’, matezzz' ‘monkey tricks’, cocolezzz' ‘cupboard love’ and smorfz'ezzz' ‘simpering’.

2. ADJECTIVES

2.1. Inflectzonal endings From EV to ModV Venetian adjectives have clustered into two classes, mirroring their Latin equivalents, but with no neuter gender in either. Adjectival class 1 employs feminine endings of nominal category 1 (-a, -e) and the masculine endings of category 2 (-0, -z'). Adjectival class 2 displays the masculine and feminine endings of nominal category 3 (-e, -z' and -e, -e respectively).

Class 1: meta ‘clean’ Class 2: forte ‘strong’

m. sg. neto forte

m. pl. neti fortt'

f. sg. meta forte

f. pl. nete forte

2.1.1. Normal apocope of word-final -0 after /n/ and word-final -e and, sometimes, -0 after /1/ on paroxytones has to be factored into the singular forms: Class 1: ban ‘good’

ban

bom’

borza

bone

Class 2: crude! ‘cruel’

crude]

crudeli

crude]

crudele

Versus: utz'le ‘useful’

utz'le

utz'li

utile

utz'le

Adjectives ending in an accented syllable, such as salt} ‘salty, salted’,

malmontd ‘off colour’ and malcbzkzpd ‘in a bad way’, are derived from past —118—

VENETIAN MORPHOSYNTAX

participles and show the normal past-participle inflections of their respective conjugation, e.g. salt}, mini, salada, salae. Other adjectives derived from

past participles, such as stordjo ‘stunned’ and malnzesro ‘badly dressed, badly off’, take the four normal class 1 endings. 2.1.2. Under contact pressure from Italian, the feminine singular of paroxytones in -I may in ModV and CV take -e, e.g. crude] ~ crudele ‘cruel’, g’vz’l ~ givz'le ‘civil, civilised’ and mortal ~ mortale ‘mortal’. While common class 2 adjectives such as forte, verde ‘green’ and dolge ‘sweet’ maintained the inherited adjectival inflection pattern, less usual or C-type ones increasingly adopted the Italian feminine plural in -z', producing, for example, ortbz'le, orz'bz'li, orz'bz'le, orz'bz'le ~ orz'bz'li ‘horrible’; fedel, fedeli, fedeKe), fedele ~

fedeli ‘faithful’; gentz'l, gentz'li, genttl(e), gentile ~ gentz'li ‘kind’; and spz'ngevole, spiag‘evoli, spzkzgevole, spz'agevole ~ spz'czgevoli ‘unpleasant’. 2.2. Metaplasrns The same pressure which has historically shifted some former third-declension Latin nouns into Venetian nominal categories 1 and 2 has also affected adjectives from EV to ModV. Striking examples in ModV of such metaplasms into class 1 are grando ‘big’ < GRANDEM; molo ‘soft’ < MOLLEM; qualo, -a ‘which?’ < QUALEM, and fz'n, -a ‘fine, high quality, astute’ < FINEM, while unit and sutz’lo ‘slender, subtle, nitpickjng’ (< SUBTILEM) co- ‘ exist. The diachronic pattern is one of fluctuation, with grande still outnumbering grando in EV and the feminine singular form verda, alongside verde ‘green’ (< VIRIDEM), still present in early ModV. Such forms are more numerous in EV, with 0gn0, -a ~ ognz' ‘each, every’ < OMNEM and trz'sto < TRISTEM. In EV trz'sto far outnumbers the expected reflex trz'ste which has prevailed in ModV/CV. 2.3. Agreement and position Venetian adjectives agree in gender and number with the noun they qualify. If simultaneously qualifying a masculine and feminine noun, their plural is masculine, e.g. ornz'niforti ‘strong men’, done forte ‘strong women’, onzz'ni e done forti ‘strong men and women’. The default position for the adjective in Venetian is after the noun, e.g. ModV nn palto‘ bombo ‘a soaking-wet overcoat’ or unn manestrcz ~ nn'nestra demote ‘a tasteless soup’, but with a good deal of flexibility. As in Italian, pre—positioning implies descriptiveness whereas post-positioning suggests contrastiveness or —119—

CHAPTER FIVE

emphasis. This is clear in examples like teribile a'esgrazia ~ desgrazia teribile ‘terrible tragedy’ where the latter highlights the horrific aspect, and ana bela creatura ~ nna creatura bela ‘a beautiful creature/soul’ where the latter is either contrastive or emphatic and the former takes on an idiomatic quality. This contrast can also be clearly seen in ana bona a’ona vs nna a’ona bona ‘a good woman’. Duality is most apparent in adjectives like bon ‘good’, belo ‘beautiful’, brato ‘ugly’, grana’o big, picolo ‘small’, novo ‘new’, vecbio ‘old’, solito ‘usual’ nnico ‘sole’, bravo ‘clever’, benedeto

‘blessed’, gerto ‘certain’, caro ‘dear’ and istesso ‘same’ which commonly precede the noun but whose positioning has developed lexicalised semantic implications. Common examples are: an po(v)aro omo ‘a poor soul/devil’ vs an omo povaro ‘a poor man’ i.e. one without wealth; an vecbio amigo ‘an old friend’ vs an amigo vecbio which underlines age; an’nnica ocasion ‘one opportunity only’ vs nn’ocasion nnica ‘a unique opportunity’; and nna brava tosa ‘a good/decent girl’ vs nna tosa brava ‘a clever/intelligent girl’. In the case of belo and grana’o pre-positioning modifies their post-positioned or freestanding morphology, affecting masculine singular in the case of the former and, in the latter, both masculine and feminine singulars:

beio —> be! (an be! omo ‘a handsome man’) and grando —> gran (an gran strambezzo, ‘a great blunder’ and ana gran riservatezza ‘great reserve’). ’ The spelling of be! is not modified, as in Italian, by a following noun beginning with a vowel, e.g. ModV an be! imbrogio vs Ital. an beli’zmbroglio ‘a fine mess’. When two adjectives qualify a noun both may follow it, e.g. el a’iriz‘o criminal 6 civil ‘criminal and civil law’, ana gena cativa e cara ‘a bad and dear dinner’. Adjectival framing of the noun commonly occurs when one of the adjectives precedes in normal circumstances, e.g. an be! a’epento r0550 ‘a beautiful red painting’, and la vecbia cbiesa gloriosa ‘the glorious old church’. However, if one of a pair is descriptive it too may occasionally precede in more elevated style, e.g. [a virtuosa nazzbn frangese ‘the virtuous French nation’. Adjectives which obligatorily precede are: numbers ordinal and cardinal, san ~ santa ‘saint’, the two demonstratives (qae)sto ‘this’ and queio ‘that’, poco ‘a little, few’, piii ‘more’, mezzo ‘half’, nessan ‘no’, molto ‘much’, tanto ‘rnuch, many, a lot’, altro ‘other’, quaisiasi ‘any’, qualnnqne

‘any’, ogni ‘each, every’, qualcbe ‘some, a few’, and tropo ~ massa ‘too much/many’. Adjectives of colour and of nationality always follow. 2.4. Invariables

The main uninflected adjectives in ModV/CV are qnalcbe ‘some, a few’, quaisiasi ‘any’, qaalanqne ‘any’, ogni ‘each’ (all followed by a singular —120—

VENETIAN MORPHOSYNTAX

noun), piii (MidV pi ~ piii) ‘more’, massa ‘too much/many’, par(z) ‘equal’, dispaflz) ‘unequal’, megio ‘better’, daben ‘honest, decent’, perbea ‘respectable’, a’e sesto ‘sensible’ and mile ‘thousand’ (Venetian has no equivalent to Ital. mila ‘thousands’, a modified reflex of Latin third—declension neuter

plural MILIA). The following colours are also invariable in ModV: blii ~ [215 ~ [916‘ ‘blue’, aosela ‘hazel’, limoa ‘lemon’, aaraaza ‘orange’, viola ‘pur-

ple, violet, mauve’, rosa ‘pink’, mama ‘brown’ and c/aiocolaz‘a ‘chocolate’. Compound adjectives of colour are always uninflected: vestii verde scaro/ c/aiaro ‘dark/light green dresses’. 2.5. Comparison

The only remnants of the CL synthetic comparative structure are found on the adjectives boa ‘good’ and cativo ‘bad’ where ModV/CV show: boa, comparative megio (inv.) ‘better’ and relative superlative el megio ‘the best’; and ModV/CV cativo, comparative pezo (inv.) ‘worse’ and relative superlative el pezo ‘the worst’. The respective absolute superlatives are bom’ssimo ‘excellent’ and cativissimo ‘dire’. In both cases the comparatives and rela— tive superlatives are drawn from the Latin adverbial forms MELIUS and PEIUS rather than from the adjectival MELIOREM and PEIOREM as in Ital. migliore and peggiore, although ModV also had the now obsolete mior and pezor inherited from EV and MidV. Otherwise the widespread Romance periphrastic structures are used, involving piii ‘more’ < PLUS and ”Mia ‘less’ < MINUS, although the original Latin absolute superlative marker —ISSIMUM remains highly productive, so caro ‘dear’, piii/meao caro ‘dearer/less dear’, el piii/meno caro ‘dearest/least dear’, carissimo ‘extremely dear’. Strengthening is also commonly achieved by adding a second adjective, e.g. staaco morto ‘dead beat’, stufo agro ‘sick fed-up’, seco incaadio ‘thin as a rake’ and imbriago patoco ‘dead drunk’, using morto ‘dead’, agro ‘bitter, acid’, incaadio ‘parched’ and patoco ‘blatant’ as reinforcers. Intensification may also be achieved by repeating the adjective, sometimes with a suffix, e.g. piaa piam'a ~ piaa pianelo ‘softly, softly’. The relative superlative may precede the noun, as in ModV [a piii bela zomaa’a de la mia vita ‘the most beautiful day of my life’. When it follows the noun the definite article may be repeated as in French but in contrast with contemporary Italian, so ModV misaria l’omo (cl) piii felige del mondo vs Ital. io sarei l’aomo piii felice a’el momio ‘I would be the happiest man in the world’. Comparison between two items — nouns or pronouns — is effected, in parallel to Italian, by piii/meao a’e or, in the case of [7072 and cativo, by megio a’e and [7620 de, for instance el mar xe piii profona’o de [a lagzma ‘the sea is dee—121—

CHAPTER FIVE

per than the lagoon’, me par c/ae sto abz'tz'u qua sz'a megz'o de quelo ‘this little dress here seems better to me than that one’. Other comparative constructions employ cbe (EV/early MidV clae ~ c(/o)a) as the comparand marker, e.g. el ga pz'u boaa volouta c/ae scbez' ‘he’s got more willingness than money’ and g/aepz’ase a’epz'u e! um c/Je la him ‘he/she prefers wine to beer’. ‘The more... the more’ constructions are distinctive in Venetian for their use of co pz'u, e.g. co pz'u 5e beve, pz'u se ga sé ‘the more you drink, the thirstier you get’. If the relative superlative construction is not end—stopped then the following verb takes the subjunctive, as in ModV xe la pz'u simpatz'ca comedz'a c/Je mz' gabz'a vista sto auo ‘it’s the most attractive play I’ve seen this year’. On the other hand, the verb in comparative constructions which are not end-

stopped takes the indicative, e.g. ModV el xe pz'u dz'fi'gz'le a’e quel(0) c/Je tz' credz/crea’evz' [present or imperfect] ‘it is more difficult than you think/thought’ and el xe sta pz'u difiez'le de quel(0) c/ae crea’evo/gavarza crea’esto [imperfect or past conditional] ‘it was more difficult than I thought’. The above outline does not differ significantly from the equivalent situations in EV and MidV.

3. DEMONSTRATIVES, INDEFINITES AND NUMERALS 3.1. Unlike Spanish, normative Catalan, and central and most southern halo-Romance dialects, but like other northern Italian varieties, ModV

only has a binary system of deictics, with proximal (que)st0 ‘this’ and distal quelo ‘that’. There is not, and never has been, an equivalent of the Tuscan and literary Italian codesto and Spanish ese ‘that by you’. Both Venetian demonstratives are in adjectival category 1, but with the endings of quelo mirroring those of the definite article, e.g. quel uz'azo ‘that journey’, quel 06‘be ‘that eye’, quel zomo ‘that day’, quela goua ‘that skirt’, quela ora (or quel’ora) ‘that time/hour’, quez' (EV quelz') vz'azz' ‘those journeys’, quez' (EV quelz’) oclaz' ‘those eyes’, quez’ (EV quelz') zoruz' ‘those days’, quele gone ‘those skirts’, and quele ore ‘those times/hours’. Positional emphasis is achieved by adding qua ‘here’ to (que)st0 and [a ‘there’ to quelo, in a development which mimics their spoken origins in the strengthened Latin demonstratives ECCU ISTU(M) and ECCU ILLU(M), e.g. 5ta 5trada qua ‘t/az's road’ and quela strada Za‘ ‘t/Jat road’. Questo only has its full form when pronominal, e.g. me pz'ase questo (qua) ‘I like this one (here)’. Both deictics precede a pre-positioned adjective with qua or ta, if required, following the noun, e.g. Sta vec/az'a vestagz'a (qua) ‘this old dressing-gown (here)’ and quele brute mascare (ta) ‘those ugly masks (there)’. Unlike in Spanish, a possessive ad— jective may be inserted between demonstrative and pre-positioned adjec—122—

VENETIAN MORPHOSYNTAX

tives, as in Std mid vecbz'a vestagz'a ‘this old dressing-gown’of mine’. Both questo and quelo (in its full form) function as the demonstrative pronouns in ModV, and qua and [d can again be co-opted for precision. To these can be added, in the earlier part of ModV, com? ‘this man, him’, cuszfiz'a ‘this woman, her’, costorz' ‘these men, them’, colt? ‘that man, hjm’, colz'a ~ culja

‘that woman, her’ and costorz' ‘those people, them’ — forms which abound in Goldoni. The general demonstrative 20 ~ go‘ ~ gz'o (Ital. do) ‘that’, exceedingly common in EV/MidV, had petered out by ModV. 3 .2. The main ModV indefinite pronouns are: qualc/aedun(a) ~ gunk/92'dun(cz) ‘some(body), any(body)’, with MidV also manifesting qualcun(a) and qualc/ae un(a), and EV preferring algun(a). In ModV uno is also, occasionally, ‘someone’, e.g. no 12' xe zmo stupz’do ‘you’re not somebody who’s stupid’, while ‘anyone’ or ‘whoever’ can also be rendered by the indefinite c/az', e.g. cbz' vol vegm'r g4 dd dz'rmelo prz'ma ‘anybody wanting to come has to tell me beforehand’. Nessun(a) ~ m’sszsz) ‘no(body)’ and, interrogatively, ‘anybody’ may also, contrary to the invariable Ital. nesszmo, take a masculine plural form nessum', as in no xe vegmto nessum' ‘nobody came’, vim nessum? ‘is anyone comingP’. Nesszm also had an EV/MidV variant negun ~ m'gzm. Qualcossa is ‘something’ or ‘anything’ in an interrogative construction, and qualcosseta is ‘a little something’. In a question, gnem‘e ‘nothing’ can also mean ‘anything’, e.g. g/ae xe gneme par m2? ‘is there anything for me?’. The negative marker no could stand alone in ModV. Its ’ main combinations were with post-positioned gnemfe ‘nothing’, nesszm ‘nobody’ and mz'(n)ga ‘really’. ‘Neither...nor’ is né...né. For ‘everybody’ ModV has at its disposal tutz', tutz' quantz' and, with emphasis on the individual, ogmm(a). For ‘each (one)’, EV and MidV had gascun(a), gascadu”(a), corresponding to Ital. cz'ascun(o), -cz ~ cz'asc/aeduMo), -d, but ModV/

CV prefer the invariable par omo lit. ‘per person’. ‘Much, many’ is molto. The indefinite adjective ‘some’ can be rendered in ModV, on a scale of increasing precision, by: a noun on its own, the partitive, gem, -e and qualc/ae with a singular noun, as well as by am poc/az' ale and do 0 tre, lit. ‘two or three’. For ‘some...others’ the construction c/az'...cbz' is used. From EV to ModV/CV ‘several’ and ‘Various’ have been expressed by varz'o and dz'verso, although EV was fond of the uninflected French borrowing pluxor ~ ploxor. 3.3. The ModV numerals 1—10 are zm/zmo/zma, do, ire, quatro, gz'nque,

sz'e, sete, oto, move, diese. Only 1 is gender marked, with am used when counting and zm(o) and mm employed as freestanding pronouns. In Vene—123—

CHAPTER FIVE

tian, unlike in many Gallo-Italian dialects, 1 and the indefinite article are

identical. Unlike in Old Tuscan and in some modern northern dialects 2 shows no gender differentiation in venexz'cm and has had the single form do ['do] since Early Venetian (with the less common doz' persisting into MidV, and with due only a rare EV variant). 3, on the other hand, showed

a certain variability in EV: tre ~ trez' ~ m‘ < TRES, and 6 did not settle into its present diphthongised form sz'e — originally ['sje], now [Ysie] with stress retraction as in pie ['pie] ‘foot’ — until MidV, with EV only manifesting 562' ~ sex. MidV/ModV/CV dz'ese also shows diphthongisation compared to the majority EV form dexe ~ dese < DECEM. For 10 as for 6 (and also for 12) one sometimes finds an -x ending in EV: dex, in parallel to sex and dodex. That these may not be Latinisms is suggested by the occasional survival of the form dies ‘ten’ in early MidV, e.g. dies ducatz' ‘ten ducats’. 3.3.1. The numerals 11-12 are: dodese, tredese, quatordese, qm’ndese, sedese, dz'sz'sete, dz'sdoto [diz'dato], dz'sz'nove, vz'mz'. 11-15 follow the inher—

ited Latin DUODECIM pattern. 17, 18 and 19 are reflexes of a spoken type DECEM ET SEPTEM, DECEM ET ocro and DECEM ET NOVEM, and thus contrast with Italian dz'cz'assette, dz'cz'otto, dz'cz'cmnove derived from the DECEM AC SEP-

TEM type. In normal speech the pronunciations of dz'sz'sete and dz'sz'nove are ‘ [diz'sete] and [diz'nove]. Vz'm‘z' (Ital. vem‘z') regularly continues VI(G)INTI. Unlike in French, there is no trace of a vigesimal counting system in Venetian. The decimal forms are regular phonological reflexes of their inherited Latin equivalents: vintz', trenta, quaranm, gz'nquanm, sessam‘a, setantcz, otcm— la, nommm. ModV nommz‘a (90), alongside the Italianising and analogical

novcmta from nave, is particularly interesting as it represents a rare continuation in Italo-Romance of NONAGINTA. The invariable gem‘o and mile are 100 and 1000 respectively and mz'lz'on, -z' is ‘million(s)’ — as in the picturesque Corie seconda del Mz'lz'on complex in the San Zuane Grisostomo dis— trict of the city where the family of Marco Polo lived in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Numerals between the decimals are formed by adding an, do, ire and so on, with am invariable and able to be followed by a

singular noun, e.g. ModV vz'ntz'un cmo ~ am’ ‘21 years’. After 100 and 1000 the number may be preceded by e ‘and’, e.g. tre gento (e) ginquanta ‘350’. 200 has a special fused form dusento [du'zento] where treated as intervocalic /s/ has undergone voicing. The ordinals (Pt-9th) in ModV are the four-way inflected prz'mo, secondo ~ segondo, terzo, quarto, quim‘o, sesto, setz'mo, otavo, nono.

—124—

VENETIAN MORPHOSYNTAX

4. ADVERBS

4.1. As in Italian, there are no remnants in ModV of the characteristic

Latin adverbial formation, seen in FORTITER ‘strongly’ or INSTANTER ‘immediately’, involving -z'ter (or -er) added to the adjectival stem. Both Venetian

and Italian have also lost the common Latin method of forming adverbs by adding —E to the adjectival stem, although there are a considerable number of reflexes of this Latin class surviving in Venetian, including the exceptionally high—frequency be” (Ital. bene) ‘well’ and ma! (Ital. male) ‘badly’. The other common reflexes of this class manifest a phonologically difficult-to-explain -z' ending: tardz' ‘late’, davam‘z' ‘in front of’, ammtz' ‘before’, quasi ‘nearly’, forsz' ~ fursz' ‘maybe’, to which one can add EV dmmtz' ~ omen-

tz' ‘before’ and z'ncontz'nentz' ~ encontz'nemz' ‘immediately’. Ben and ma! are also the only adverbs in Venetian to preserve remnants of Latin polymorphic comparison: be”, megz'o ‘better’, el megz'o ‘the best’ and ma], pezo ‘worse’, el pezo ‘the worst’. In all other cases the periphrastic pz'z‘z ‘more’ or memo ‘lcss’ (comparative) and definite article + pz'z‘t/meno (superlative) are pre-positioned. Instead, Venetian shares the pan-Romance innovation of adding the uninflected suffix -mente — from the ablative case MENTE of MENS, MENTEM (f.) ‘mind’ — to the feminine adjective, or to the stem in the case of -l—stem adjectives, in a process which remains productive, e.g. ModV vero ‘true’: vemmem‘e ‘truly’; solo ‘alone’: solameme ‘only’; forte‘ ‘strong’: fortemente ‘strongly’; special ‘spccial’: spegz'almente ‘specially’; and crude! ‘cruel’: crudelmente ‘cruelly’. While this new formation was present from EV it was at first outnumbered, as in some other northern Italian

dialects, by a variant suffix morph in —mem‘re, a probable conflation of -mente and synthetic Latin forms in -NTER, like INSTANTER, which is also

found in Old Spanish. From the earliest Venetian texts, and right through the fourteenth century, outcomes such as altmmentre ‘otherwise’, cotz'dz’anamem‘re ‘daily’, aspmmemre ‘bitterly’, solamemre ‘only’, sz'mz'lmem‘re ‘simi-

larly’ and alz’egmmentre ‘happily’ were frequent. The —mem‘re —> -me7¢te shift is discussed in Chapter IX, § 2.1. 4.2. Another typical, though less common and no longer productive Venetian adverbial desinence, is -a, inherited and expanded from Latin ad-

verbial forms such as FORAS ‘outside’ and SUPRA ‘above’. Examples are ModV fom ‘outside’, som ‘above’, (4)610”ch ~ dunque ‘therefore’, cmccz

‘also’, cmcom ‘still, again’, gmmcom ‘not yet’, gmmca ‘not even’, perfz'mz ~ perfz'n ‘even’, persz'na ~ persz'n ‘even’, z'nfi'na ‘until, even’, 012%; ‘forward, be—125—

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yond’ and aalentz'era ‘willingly’. An innovation typical of Venetian is adverbial univerbation, sometimes indicated in the orthography, built on the prepositions a’e ‘of’ or a’a ‘from’. Common instances are ModV a’ebato ‘nearly, soon’, a’asseno ‘really’, a’e nova ~ a’a nova ‘again’, a’aresta ‘besides’,

de [ongo ‘immediately’, daa’rz'a ‘behind’, a’e sara or dessasa ‘upstairs’, a‘e rota ‘down below’, a’abassa ‘downstairs’; and de le valte ‘sometimes’. Also characteristically Venetian are ModV sasa < SURSUM ‘up’; 2050 < DEORSUM ‘down’; drenta ‘inside’; massa ~ trapa ‘too much’; assae (MidV parassé) ‘much, many’; comaa'a ~ coma ~ coma ~ came ‘how’ (< QUOMODO); z'n

(dove) ‘where’; aa’assa (also EV/MidV z'na'assa) ‘on (of clothing)’; (a) banara ‘early’; pa (< POST) ‘then, after’; a] di ’ancaa ‘nowadays’; cafa ‘like’; sata-

man or de scandan ‘underhandedly’; a’rz'a man ‘subsequently’; ca [a flaw ~ co la fi'ac/aeta ‘leisurely’; defaraaz'a ‘under the counter’; fatalz'ta ‘by chance, by bad luck’; and the splendidly evocative (a) gatognaa ‘on all fours’ (Ital. carpanz'). As in Italian, the masculine adjective can sometimes function as

an adverb, e.g. ModV la(z2)arar dam ‘to work hard’, crz'ar forte ‘to shout loudly’, scrz'ver palz'ta ‘to write properly’, and this adjective may be repeated for emphasis, e.g. el [0 teneva streto streta ‘he held him ever-so tight(ly)’.

5. ARTICLES

5 . 1. Definite articles Venetian definite articles are weakened reflexes of the Latin demonstrative adjective iLLE, -A, (-UD) ‘that’. Their configuaration in ModV/ CV, as well as in MidV, is: Singular

Plural

Masculine

el, 1’

i

Feminine

la, 1’

le

These articles are always pre-positioned, with absolutely no evidence of post-positioning in the history of venexz'an. The phonetic realisation of el varies between [el] and [1] according to context and speech tempo. L’, [a and [e undergo the. usual Venetian partial palatalisation of /l/ and are therefore realised as [l], [’a] and [e] respectively. The Venetian system is identical to the Italian in the feminine, but much simpler in its masculine options. In Italian, article choice is phonetically determined in the masculine and feminine singular by noun-initial vowel (yielding l’) as it is in Ve—126—

VENETIAN MORPHOSYNTAX

netian. However, unlike in Venetian, Italian article shape" is also determined in the masculine singular by noun-initial consonants: [0 before , consonant + or ; otherwise 2']. Similarly, 2' is selected in the plural in parallel to 2'1, and glz' in parallel to lo and to 1’. For comparison, the Italian 7-article system is:

Masculine Feminine

Singular il, 1’, 10 la, 1’

Plural i, gli le

Contrastive examples in the singular are: ModV el late ~ Ital. i! [ate ‘milk’; ModV l’orso ~ Ital. l’orso ‘the bear’; ModV el spec/91b vs Ital. [0 specc/az'o ‘the mirror’; ModV el zucaro vs Ital. [0 zuccbero ‘sugar’; ModV [61 ca-

mam ~ Ital. [a camera ‘the room’; and ModV [’elem ~ Ital. Z’edem ‘ivy’. Typical plural contrasts are: ModV/Ital. z' cam' ‘(the) dogs’; ModV 2' omem' vs Ital. glz’ uomz’m' ‘(the) men’; ModV z' stronzz' vs Ital. glz’ stronzz' ‘turds, bastards’; ModV [e done vs Ital. [e dame ‘(the) women’; ModV/Ital. [e z'sole

‘the islands’. In ModV/CV speech and writing and in contemporary Italian writing, it is possible not to elide feminine singular [a before a vowel, e.g. ModV/Ital. [4 ~ l’z'ndz'pendenza ‘independence’. This type of elision in Venetian goes back to EV where forms such as [a z'nzurz'cz ‘the wrong’ and [a avarz'sz'a ‘greed’ were common. 5.1.2. The historical patterning of the definite article in Venetian is much more straightforward than in Italian, in spite (or perhaps because) of the absence of codification and standardisation. Whereas usage uncertainty in Italian continued into the twentieth century, the present Venetian system was settled shortly after 1500. In EV up to c. 1300 the dominant masculine singular articles were [0 < (iL)LfJM, with the elided equivalent 1’ before a vowel, and plural [2' < (iL)LI. El < iL(LI"JM) and z', analogical with nominal category 2 plural, were a minority. The feminine articles were, as at present, [a < (iL)LA(M) and [e < (iL)LAE. After a period of apparent randomness then of contextual persistence of [0 in set constructions (notably per [0 ‘for the’, in [0 ‘in the’), el and z' imposed themselves in the fifteenth

century. Lz' persisted only into the early sixteenth century, sometimes with a form gz' whose palatalisation mirrored that of the central-southern main-

land Veneto type. I 5 .13. Use and distribution of the definite article in ModV coincide with Italian. The article designates a specific noun or else a group, so that —127—

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ModV el gato ~ Ital. z'l gatto is, as in English, the specific cat which I have already mentioned or it may be the feline as a class. As is normal in R0mance, abstract, categorical or uncountable nouns obligatorily take the article, as in [a spemnza ‘hope’, el peed ‘sin’, [a pare ‘peace’, [a natum ‘nature’, but also elpesse ‘fish’, [a fruta ‘fruta’, [a verdura ‘greens’, el 56!] ‘salt’, z'fasz'oz' ‘beans’ and [e tegolz'ne ‘green beans’. This usage goes back to the earliest Venetian texts. Indeed, unlike in Old French, one neVer finds such nouns without the definite article in EV. 5.2. Indefinite articles The Venetian indefinite articles, indicating nominal singularity, are derived from the Latin numeral UNUS, —A ‘one’ in its accusative forms UNU(M),

-A(M), and are always pre-positioned. There is no plural indefinite, with variousness expressed either by the noun plural alone or else by a partitive. ModV/CV g0 comp”? 7m [2570 per e1 corso therefore becomes g0 comprd [2'brz/dez' librz' per el corso ‘I bought a book/books for the course’, with the first of these plural options expressing a greater degree of generality. As in Italian, the ModV article forms are as follows: am before all masculine nouns, even if vowel-initial, and um: before feminine nouns, except when

‘ they are vowel-initial where zm’ is triggered (although the full form was common in MidV). Examples are: am pelo ‘a hair’, an 0350 ‘a bone’, umz 1261662 ‘a cow’ and un’ombm ‘a shadow’ or ‘a glass of wine’. In conformity with Venetian phonology the /n/ of the masculine article is more-or-less velarised, up to [1]], except before a vowel. Realisations of mm range from ['una] to ['na] according to speech tempo. MidV forms and usage are identical with ModV/CV, as are those of EV. However, in EV one finds uno ~

am before masculine nouns, with the latter roughly four times commoner than the former. When the indefinite is used in isolation in ModV/CV as a pronoun, full forms zmo and mm are selected, e.g. g/Je n’bo (or glae me go) from? two/um; ‘I found one (of them)’.

6. PREPOSITIONS

6.1. The core ModV prepositions are the inherited in ‘in’ < IN; a ‘at’ < AD; de ‘of’ < DE; (in) su ‘on’ < SU(SUM); co (EV co ~ com) ‘with’ < CUM; par ‘for’ < PER; and the highly productive innovation do: ‘from’ < DE + AB. Also common are dareme ‘next to’ < RADENTE; vz'gz'n ‘near to’ < VICINUM; lontcm ‘far from’ < LONGITANUM; davantz' ‘in front of’ < DE +ABANTE; drz'o —128—

VENETIAN MORPHOSYNTAX

(EV dredo) < DE + RETRO ‘behind’; ModV/MidV drem‘o (EV' and CV dentro) ‘inside’ < DE + INTRO; ford ‘outside’; mm ‘above’ and soto < SUBTUS ‘be-

low’; verso < VERSUM ‘towards’; dopo ‘after’ (EV dd(s)po‘ ~ ddpoz' ~ dd(s)puo) < DE + POST; fin ‘until’ < FINE; trd/frd ‘among, between’ < INFRA/INTRA; and z'm‘omo ‘around’ < IN + TORNUM. Of the latter rddem‘e, drem‘o, solo, sord,

verso, frd/trd and z'm‘omo are either followed directly by the object in ModV, or else by de (or d in the case of z'ntomo) if this is a pronoun. Ddrem‘e is followed by d; vz'gz'n, ddvdm‘z' and drz'o may or may not be followed by d, but take de before a pronoun; [omdn requires dd. PM is not followed by another preposition, e.g. fm dommd ‘until tomorrow’. Many Venetian verbs take a preposition, most commonly d or de, but sometimes dd, when followed by an infinitive, e.g. dnddr d veder ‘to go and see’, provdr d fdr ‘to try to do’, scomenzdr d Cdpz'r ‘to begin to understand’, fz'm'r de fdr ‘to finish doing’, creder de esser ‘to believe one is’, dver dd fdr ‘to have things to do’. Some verbs are followed by a preposition, or not, according to meaning, e.g. creder d ‘to believe in someone or something’ vs creder+ direct Object ‘to believe something to be true’. Phrasal verbs involving the range of prepositions are relatively frequent in Venetian and sometimes have a single— verb Italian equivalent, e.g. dnddr 20 ‘to go down’ (Ital. sceddere), ddddr su

‘to go up’ (Ital. 5dlz're), dnddr ford ‘to go out’ (Ital. uscire), Cdvdr ford ‘to take/pull out’ (Ital. estrdrre), buldr 20 ‘to dishearten’ (Ital. scordggz'dre), and vegm'r demro ‘to come in’ (Ital. em‘rdre). 6.2. Of the above prepositions, d, de, su, co and dd fuse obligatorily with the definite article in the masculine singular before a consonant—initial noun. With all masculine plurals, article and preposition are run together in speech, but without alteration this time, to produce written fused forms which have a history going back to the medieval scrz'ptd. Fused forms are ModV/CV: dl : dz' ‘to the’ (EV dl ~ d [o : dz' ~ dlz' ~ d 12'); del : dez' (EV del : deli ~ de [2' ~ EV/early MidV d2) ‘of the’; (in) ml : (2'72) suz' ‘on the’ (EV sul ~ .tzdo ~ SM [0 : sui ~ sulz' ~ m lz'); col : coz' ‘with the’ (EV col ~ con [0 : coz' ~ co 2’ ~ c0 [2' ~ con 12'); and dd! : ddz' ‘from

the’ (EV ddl ~ dd [0 ~ ddlo : ddz' (rare) ~ ddlz' ~ dd 12'). With its absence of syntactic doubling Venetian has not, of course, developed the full range of articulated prepositions shown by Italian for the equivalent feminine forms and before vowel-initial nouns of both genders. The most interesting, puzzling and fluctuating series of articulations in Venetian is found with in. EV shows very little evidence of fusion in writing. The forms z'n/en lo, z'n/en lz', in/en Id, and id/en [e ‘in it, in them’ are exceed-

ingly common and predominate overwhelmingly in EV, with me], ne [2, —129—

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nela ~ 716 la, nele ~ 716 [e and even inele also occurring, but uncommonly. They persisted into early MidV where they were suddenly joined by a variant, unattested in EV, which quickly ousted its competitors, affecting

masculine and feminine forms of in + definite article but also in + indefinite article. This variant was found at the same time in some other northern dialects, including Milanese. Involving what appears to be an intrusive /t/ it was, to take the example of the masculine singular definite article,

variously spelled as z'm‘el, int 61, int" 61 and in tel. By later MidV/early ModV this innovation, which was unknown in written EV, was entirely dominant and Boerio documented it without comment. Its presence continued to be strong throughout the nineteenth century, although by then it competed with 7161, ne [4, net, ne [6 which had made a comeback, prob-

ably under Italian influence. Increasingly perceived as campagnolz’, i.e. associated with the rural areas of the Veneto mainland, the /t/ forms retreated completely before the nel type in the first half of the twentieth century and there are no traces of them in CV. It is worth detailing the /t/ forms in ModV. They were, for the definite article, /intel/, /intei/, /intela/, /intele/ and, for the indefinite article, /intun/, /intuna/. Their ori-

gins are unclear. ROHLFS (1969, § 858), noting that this type extended across northern and (parts of) southern Italy, suggested that it continued ’ the Latin adverb INTUS ‘inside’, but one suspects that the /t/ may (also) have functioned as a hiatus bridge.

7. RELATIVE CHE

Like Italian, but unlike French, Venetian has never distinguished between direct relative pronouns qualifying subject or object, and has 6196 (EV c/ae ~ que < QUID x QUEM) for both. Nor, like English, does it discri-

minate between humans and non-humans: so ModV l’amz’a clae vz'sz'ta ‘the aunt who is visiting’ ~ l’amz'a 0/96 023220 ‘the aunt (whom) I am visiting’, and z' omz'm' c/ye c/oz'acola ‘the men who are chatting’ and z' cam' c/ae bagz'a ‘the dogs that are barking’. In EV/earlyMidV the direct relative was sometimes omitted, an option not open to ModV/CV, e.g. prego e1 sz'gnor dz'o metta remedz'o a! [e cosse crz'stz'ane [Zuane Dario, writing in 1485 (CALO 1992, p. 50)] ‘I pray the Lord sorts out Christian affairs’. For the indirect relative EV/MidV used quako), quaKa), quaKz), quake) preceded by the partitive, e.g. in [0 qua], in [z' qualz' ‘in which’, per [a qua] ‘for whom, for which’, co 1'

quaKz) ‘with whom, with which’. With the diminished use of Venetian writing after the Renaissance and, in the ModV period, with the reduction of —130—

VENETIAN MORPHOSYNTAX

venexz'cm to mainly a spoken medium, the use of complei subordination has been drastically diminished. The result is that in ModV/CV indirect relatives are either avoided by parataxis or else dye is employed, sometimes with an indirect object pronoun. Examples are: stz' novz' oz’m’ venez‘z' c/ae t2" (g/oe) discorevz' primal, 2' me par bom’ ‘these new Veneto wines which you were talking about before seem good to me’ and Z’amigo 6/26 17' (g/ae) ga z'mpresto? el relogz'o ‘the friend you lent the watch to’. The relative ‘what’/‘that which’ has, since EV, been quel(o) dye or, when there is an element of un-

certainty in the utterance, cossa c/ae, e.g. me go pz'asso quel 6/96 [a ga fato ‘I liked what she did’ vs dime cossa cbe xe sucesso ‘tell me what happened’. Characteristic of ModV compared to Italian is the obligatory use of dye after some common adverbs of time and manner and even after c/az' ‘whoever’, as in quando Che tomo ‘when I return’, vado dove c/Je vogz'o ‘I go where I like’, fd come cbe te piase ‘do as you like’ and [o dago a 6192' c/ae oogz'o ‘I’ll give it to who(ever) I like’. Venetian shares with Italian the common use of generic relative 6/96 to avoid juxtaposing a consequential statement e.g. ModV/CV vie” qua 6/98 007721 darte zm baso ‘Come here. I’d like to give you a kiss’.

8. POSSESSIVES

8.1. Forms

ModV, unlike Italian, has a double series of possessives derived ultimately from the Latin MEUS, -A, TUUS, —A, suus, -A, NOSTER, —TRA, VESTER,

—TRA, SUUS, —A. The atonic series consists of unstressed possessive adjectives. The tonic series takes in stressed possessive adjectives and all possessive pronouns: Atonic Singular Masculine Feminine 1. mz'o ~ me mid ~ me Singular 2. to to

Plural

Plural Masculine Feminine 7721(2) ~ me mz’e ~ me to to

‘my’ ‘your’

3. so

so

so

so

‘his, her’

1. nostro 2. vostro 3. so

nostm vostro so

nostrz' vosz‘rz’ so

nostre vostre so

‘our’ ‘your’ ‘their’

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Tonic

Masculine Feminine 1. mio 772sz Singular 2. Mo ~ to(o) tua 3. mo ~ 30(0) sud ~ roa Plural

Masculine Feminine mii mie tui tue mi ~ 501' rue ~_soe

‘my, mine’ ‘your, yours’ ‘his, her, hers’

1. nostro

nostm

nostri

nortre

‘our, ours’

2. vortro

vostm

vostri

vostre

‘your, yours’

3. mo

ma

sui

sue

‘their, theirs’

The first person singular of the atonic series has two sets of variants, one inflected. The inflected series has been predominant since EV but in ModV/CV the uninflected forms have risen to prominence. In the singular the two forms coexist, so that both mid mare and me mare ‘my mother’ are possible, although some speakers consider the latter, which coincides with Veneto mainland outcomes, as more ‘rural’ in feel. On the other hand, the

plurals in me are now the norm. There are also parallel forms for the third singular of the tonic series, with the mo type prevailing in later ModV and dominating alone in CV. Third singular and plural forms are identical in Venetian and have been since EV, so that reflexes of the oblique ILLORUM are not used as they are in the uninflected Ital. loro. If disambiguation is necessary de iii, de 614, de lori, de lore ‘of him, her, them’ are added. Nostro, -i, —a, -e and vostro, -a, -i, -e have an uninterrupted tradition going back to EV. For sg. 1 atonic EV had meo ~ mio ~ 7726’, mid, mie ~ mie’ (m./f. pl.) and tonic mio, mid, mic, mie’ (m./f. pl), with the m. pl. form mie continuing into MidV. For sg. 2 atonic EV showed to ~ to’, £04 ~ tua, tuo’ ~ toi (m. pl), toi (f. pl.) and tonic to, £04 ~ tua, tuo’ ~ toi (m. pl), 102' (f. pl), with

tonic m. sg. to(0) present throughout MidV and into early ModV. For sg. 3 atonic EV manifested so ~ mo, 50 ~ 5061, 50 ~ suo ~ suo’ ~ 502' ~ suoi (m. pl), mo ~ suo’ ~ me ~ roe (f. pl), and tonic 50 ~ mo, :04, mo ~ soi ~

moi (m. pl), roe ~ sue (f. pl). 8.2. Position

The atonic possessive adjective precedes the noun in ModV/CV and is itself preceded by the definite article, e.g., e! mio dover ‘my duty’, [at to ignoranza ‘your ignorance’, [a nostril famegia ‘our family’, [6 50 case ‘their houses’. This holds good for MidV and, with a few restrictions, for EV.

An exception is kinship terms which are not preceded by the article unless —132—

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in the plural, so mz'o fmdelo ‘my brother’ but 1' me fmdeli my brothers. Mama ‘mummy’ may or may not take the article. When tonic or in fixed expressions the possessive adjective follows the noun, e.g. in camara/cczsa 172sz ‘in my room/house’, d modo tuo ‘in your way’ and per amor vostro ‘for love of you’. As a pronoun the possessive does not take the article, e.g. xe tuo ‘it’s yours’. The definite article in a possessive construction may be replaced by an indefinite article or an adjective of quantity: zm mz'o zogatolo ‘a toy of mine’, tamz' nosm' amigz' ‘many friends of ours’, stz' vostrz' comegz' ‘this advice of yours’. As in Italian, a possessive is avoided by the use of an indirect object pronoun if felt to be inappropriately emphatic, so that 6! ga tocd [a mid man ‘he touched my hand’ is replaced by el me ga toai [a man if one does not wish to emphasise my hand.

9. PERSONAL PRONOUNS

Stressed (or Disjunctive) Subject

Singular 1 2 3

Unstressed (Conjunctive)

Direct object

Indirect Object (only after preposition)

Direct Object

[7722] [ti] tz' [la] el [61¢] [a

mi tz’ [u 614

mi tz' [u ela

me te [0 [4 se

me £6 g/Je give 56

[nu/nualtrz] [nu/nualtre] [vu/vualz‘rz’] [vu/vualz‘re] [[017] z' [lore] [e

”Malt”? nu(altre) vu(altrz) vu(altre) [072' [are

nu(altrz) nu(altre) vu(altrz) vu(altre) [077' lore

ne

I16 (refl. se)

ve

ve

[2' [e se

give gbe 56

Reflexive Plural

1 2 3

Indirect Object

Reflexive

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9.1. Forms and functions 9.1.1. The ModV pronominal system manifests (i) an incomplete obligatory series of atonic subject-pronoun clitics (SP3) and (ii) a complete but optional tonic one.8 Along with the other Veneto varieties it therefore lies between the configuration of French, some Gallo-Italian dialects and Friulan, with their two complete series of obligatory atonic and optional tonic SPs, and the Italian system with its optional tonic series and complete ab— sence of atonic subject clitics. Italian pronoun-drop conditions only apply to ModV sg. 1 and pl. 1 and 2, e.g. sero ‘I close’, seremo ‘we close’ and seré

)

‘you close’, with tonic SPs available for emphasis, clarity or contrast, as in

mi sero Id [907722 ‘I am closing the door’. On the other hand, sg. 2 takes an obligatory atonic SP and may be preceded by its tonic equivalent for emphasis: 11' magm’ sempre in fund ‘you always eat in a rush’ vs 11' ti magm’ sempre m furz'a or 11' ”Mg/71' 16/721076 [22/91/74, ti ‘you always eat in a rush’. The clitic must remain even if the tonic SP is present. Unlike with sg. 2, the subject clitic can in fact be dropped from sg./pl. 3 if a tonic SP is present, e.g. elparte subz'to ‘he’s leaving right away’ vs lu part6 subz'to ~ [U e] [747% subz'to ‘be’s leaving right away’, with subtle pragmatic nuance conveyed by the presence or absence of the clitic. However, in sg./pl. 3 the atonic clitic is obligatorily reprised after a noun subject, e.g. Alw'se e] magmz de gusto ‘A. eats heartily’. The assertion sometimes made that this goes beyond French conditions ignores parallel constructions widespread in spoken French, e.g. George: 2'! mange avec appétz't ‘G. eats heartily’. 9.1.2. Subject-pronoun conditions were rather different in EV and indeed were not restructured into their present state until c. 1550. In EV the use of subject pronouns was frequent but not obligatory. Particularly problematic to assign to tonic or atonic status are sg. 1 and 2. These were reflexes of the Latin nominative subject pronouns, appearing in the forms 60 ~ eu ~ z'eu ~ yo ~ 2'0 ~ 2" ~ 6’, and occasionally a, < EGO; and la < TU. For

example, one commonly finds for sg. 1 ‘I want’ in EV: eo voz'o ~ 6’ voz'o ~ voio. Tu functioned more clearly like an atonic clitic in EV, although it was not necessarily reprised for a second verb governed by the same subject, even if considerably distant. By later EV, however, the full eo type was in steep decline and, when clearly atonic, was reduced to the clipped e’

3 On personal pronouns within the Veneto systems see BENINCA/VANELLI (1982), within northern Italian varieties, including Friulan, see VANELLI (1998, pp. 23—120), and within ItaloRomance see VANELLI/RENZI (1997).

—134—

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3pc which was itself not obligatory. These in turn faded in early MidV. The sg. 1 tonic function was taken up, from later EV onwards, by the oblique nn' < MIHI. This certainly occurred via a reanalysis of the stressed pronoun in constructions like (6’) no [790 volesto scoltar, mi —> (In!) no H10

L'olesto scoltar ‘I didn’t want to listen to him’ which were already frequent in EV — a shift mirrored by the vast majority of northern Italian dialects. In parallel, tn was modified in late EV to the more clearly atonic 17', while its tonic equivalent was assigned to the disjunctive 17' derived from TIBI, e.g. ModV tz' tz' magnz' ‘you are eating’. How, though, can one explain the incomplete clitic series found in ModV/CV and also in a number of northern Italian dialects surrounding the Veneto? It is incontrovertible that retention of clitics on sg./pl. 3 is occasioned by the inflectional identity of sg./ pl. 3 verb forms in Venetian. However, such an explanation does not appear, at first sight, to apply to sg. 2. While sg. 2 inflections are unambiguous on regular present tense paradigms, this is not the case with the commonest verbs — esser ‘to be’, aver ‘to have’, nndar ‘to go’, dar ‘to give’, star

‘to be, to stay’ and far ‘to do’ — where sg. 2 and sg./pl. 3 are identical. Similarly, the desinences of sg. 2 and sg./pl. 3 of all Venetian future tenses are identical. Such potential ambiguity may explain the retention of atonic clitic sg. 2. 9.1.3. Pl. 1 and 2 of subject and disjunctive pronouns and of DOP are nu and on. These are the uninterrupted heirs of EV nuy ~ nuz' ~ nu and vny ‘ ~ vnz' ~ nu < N03 and VOS. The collective nualtrz' and vualm' (cf. Spanish nosotros, vosotros), with variants such as nz'alm', vz'altrz', were unknown in

written EV but became prominent alongside nu and 1m in MidV. They triumphed in ModV in all contexts, undoubtedly sustained by the demise of W as a polite singular mode of address, but in CV the Italianised noz'altrz', voz'nlz‘n' have won the day. The sg. 3 tonic and atonic pronoun series goes back, in the forms In : 61(0), 6161 : In, to EV and is derived from categori-

cally—reassigned demonstrative ILLE forms, although 6530, -a, -z', -e (from IPSE) were not uncommon, both as third-person tonic subject and as dis-

junctive pronouns, in EV/early MidV. Pl. 3 clitics z' and [e are uninterrupted from EV. However, stressed pl. 3. 612' and 616 were the norm in

EV, MidV and early ModV, and were only fully replaced in the second half of ModV by formerly disjunctive [072' and lore (< ILLORUM). Such gendermarked MidV/ModV innovations, from undifferentiated EV loro, are

highly distinct in the Italian dialect context, forming the plural SP series lorz': z', [are : [6. Lori and z' are employed when both masculine and feminine are referred to. Sg. 3 614, with its clitic equivalent la, is used in the ModV/ —135—

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CV mode of address, with its masculine equivalent [u : 6!. Examples are: com: dz'sela, ela? and com: dz'selo, In? ‘what do you say?’. An alternative masculine type c0354 dz'selo, e10? was felt by late ModV and by CV to be archaic or lower-class. In MidV/early ModV ela : [a were used in polite address even to males, like Ital. Lez'. Clitics e], la, 2', [e obligatorily precede po-

lite, but not familiar, imperatives, as in la vegmz denim, sz'gnom ‘do come in, madam’ and la [0 [4532' star ‘do leave him alone’ vs vz'en dentro ‘come in (sg.)’ and [5253210 star ‘leave him alone (sg.)’. Pl. 2 1m, still common in MidV and in early ModV, is no longer used as the polite form of singular address. Tz' is employed in situations of informality in the singular, while the ModV collective plural is vualm', -e (CV voz'altrz', -e). There are no separate ‘it, they, them’ pronouns for inanimates in ModV.

9.1.4. Clitic el meaning ‘it’ could preceed an impersonal in EV/early MidV but this is no longer the case, even with weather irnpersonals, e.g. ModV me sembm ‘it seems to me’ and nevega ‘it is snowing’. DOP [0 can function as a neuter plural referring back to an entire preceding statement:

61 xe [a doe ga rovz'mi [a festa: no 10 gavarz'az credesto ‘it was him that ruined the party’: ‘I wouldn’t have believed it’. DOP la, on the other hand, can refer back to an unspecified ‘it’, as in 17' me la pag/oem ‘I’ll get you back for it’ i and la xe pr0p(r)z'o cuss? ‘that’s just the way it is’. It is a fixed, unspecified pronominal component in a substantial series of idiomatic verbs, sometimes in combination with other pronouns, e.g. fz'm'rla ‘to stop it’, batersela or farsela a gambe, ‘to take to one’s heels’, malaria ‘to “give over’” andfarsela ado:50 ‘to crap oneself’. This idiomatic [a occupies its normal DOP position when the verb is conjugated, for instance ma c/ae tz' g/ae 13 7720127 ‘oh, do give over! ’, me Iafassevo adosso ‘I was cacking myself or fi'm'ssz' [3! ‘stop it!’ Disjunctive tz' can appear as a free exclamative marker with reference to — but often in grammatical contradiction with — the person indicated by a preceding pronoun, e.g. cossa gogz'o, 11'? ‘what the hell’s wrong with me?’ In MidV/ early ModV [u sometimes had a similar exclamatory-contradictory function, e.g. [a xe [96151, In! ‘it’s not half beautiful!’ The disjunctive reflexive (Ital. sé) was 52' (< SIBI) in EV. However, as in many northern and some southern Italian varieties, it is paraphrased in ModV using disjunctives (In, 614, 1017', lore) followed, if necessary, by (2)5tesso, -z', -a, -e ‘him/her/them-selves’ or even by

dd 3010 ‘alone’. ‘She did it by herself’ is ModV [a [0 ga fato ela (032%:ch or do: 5014 vs Ital. ([62) [794 fatto dd sé. 9.1.5. Going beyond Italian and even French conditions, sg./pl. 3 of the Venetian indirect object pronoun (IOP) series are — and have been —136—

VENETIAN MORPHOSYNTAX

since CV — identical both between themselves and across genders. All show the form g/ae (EV ge) ‘to him/her/ them’, of uncertain etymology. G/ae also serves as the locative pronoun ‘there’ (cf. Ital. a’), e.g. gbe vado cmcuo ‘I’m going (there) today’. It obligatorily precedes the Venetian pronoun ne (EV/ early MidV ’nde ~ emde < INDE) ‘some, of it/them’ if no other atonic object pronoun is present, e.g. ModV vustu clue te ne daga? ‘do you want me to give you some?’ vs gbe ne comprarz'a vz'm‘z' ‘I’d buy twenty of them’. Ne, etymologically unclear and found in northern Italian varieties and in Old Tuscan, is also the DOP and IOP ‘(to) us’ (Ital. cz').

9.1.6. The unstressed reflexive series in Venetian has always been sg. me, te, 5e, pl. se, ve, se. As is normal in northern Italy, sg./pl. 3 are also ex-

tended to pl. 1. Throughout the history of Venetian, compound tenses of a verb in reflexive re (Ital. 32') constructions have been conjugated with ‘to have’, rather than with ‘to be’ as in Italian. Examples are ModV quando el 3794 male? ‘when he fell ill’ vs Ital. quando 32' e ammalato; [a se g4 sen? in camera me ‘she shut herself in her room’ vs Ital. 32' e chime in camera 5m; and el fogo 3e got stun? ‘the fire went out’ vs Ital. z'l fuoco 52' e spento. As a consequence, there is no agreement of past participle with subject as in Italian, e.g. ModV el zomo c/oe 3e gavemo marz'dci ‘the day we got married’ vs Ital. z'l gz'omo in mi cz' sz'amo sposatz', and magarz' c/oe no se gavessz'mo maz‘ imam”? ‘if only we had never met’ vs Ital. magarz' non cz' fossz'mo maz' incontmtz'. Under the influence of Italian one does, however, come across '

examples conjugated with ‘to be’ in later ModV and in CV which show agreement e.g. no me so maz’ marz’dczda ‘I have never got married’ or me so scordada de ti ‘1 have forgotten you’. The complement of the se xe ‘one is’ construction is plural, in Venetian as in Italian, in apparent contradiction with the singular verb, e.g. ModV/CV co se xe sz'curi ~ Ital. quando 37' e sz'curz' ‘when one is sure’. With female referents this would be co 3e xe szcure. 9.1.7. Venetian possesses an impersonal pronoun se, identical in form to, and originally derived from, the reflexive. Although superficially analo— gous to the Italian 52' z'mpersonale, there are fundamental differences. The Italian impersonal 32' also has its roots in the reflexive, but this underlying reality remains manifest in impersonal constructions being conjugated with essere ‘to be’ in compound tenses, and in the surprising agreement of verb with direct object in such constructions. Venetian :e, on the other hand, acts with the autonomy of its French equivalent on and is a genuine subject pronoun. It takes a verb conjugated with aver ‘to have’ in compound —137—

CHAPTER FIVE

tenses. Compare Ital. quando si maagia ima pizza ~ qaana’o 3i maagiaao a’ae pizza with ModV/CV qaana’o clae se magna ima pizza ~ qaaado c/Je re magaa a’o pizze ‘when one eats a pizza/two pizzas’ and Ital. qaaaa’o si (.3 mangiata ima pizza non 52' 17a piii fame with ModV/CV qaaaa’o clae 3e ga magaa ima pizza no 56 ga pia fame ‘when you have eaten a pizza you are no longer hungry’. As with Ital. si, Venetian ye may also function as a passive particle, but again the above differences obtain. Ital. qai 5i parla italiaiio ~ qai 5i parlaao inglese e italiano therefore contrast with ModV/CV qaa se parla italiaa ~ qaa 5e parla italiari e inglese ‘English is spoken here, English and Italian are spoken here’. 9.1.8. The original proclitic subject-pronoun forms have survived throughout the history of Venetian — and even partially into CV — in a characteristic set of bound interrogative enclitics of a type once found across northern Italy but now everywhere in steep decline. In Venetian, from EV to ModV, they applied to all persons in the present tense and were also found in more-or-less complete paradigms in the imperfect, future and conditional tenses. These enclitic forms arez-io, -tu, -10, -la, -1'o, -u, -li, -Ie, with pl. 1 analogical with sg. 1, and pl. 2 showing lenition of (v)a. The ModV/CV interrogative present tenses of esser ‘to be’ and aver ‘to ‘have’ illustrate the paradigm. Esser: sg. 1 so(n)gio? ‘am I?’ (~ MidV sogm'o?), 2 sestu? ‘are you?’ (MidV xesta ~ siesta ~ estaP), 3 m. xelo? ‘is he?’ (MidV ~ 610?), 3 f. xe la? ‘is she?’; pl. 1 semio? are we?’, 2 sea?

‘are you?’, 3 m. xeli? 'are they?’ (MidV ~ 61?), 3 f. xele? ‘are they?’. Aver: sg. 1 gogio? ‘have I?’ (MidV oio ~ ogio ~ 02?), 2 gastu? ‘have you?’ (MidV astu?), 3 m. galo? ‘has he?’ (MidV alo?), 3 f. gala? ‘has she?’ (MidV aZaP); pl. 1 gavemio? ‘have we?’ (MidV avemsz), 2 gaveu? ‘have you?’ (MidV

aveaP), 3 m. gali? ‘have they?’ (MidV ali ~ ai?), 3 f. gale? ‘have they?’ tMidV aleP). The enclitic interrogatives can be preceded by a sequence of atonic pronouns, e.g. te lo gala a’iz‘o? ‘did she tell you it?’, but inversion is blocked by negation, e.g. vasta? ‘do you want?’ vs 710 ii vol? ‘don’t you want?’. Through ModV and into CV these bound enclitics became increasingly restricted to the present tense and, in CV, to an ever-diminishing range of common verbs — esser, aver and the modals in particular — and, even when the system was operative, pl. 2 and 3 were rarely employed. Younger CV speakers signal the interrogative simply by altering the tone of declarative statements, preferring, for example, ti xe? ‘are you’ and ti 5:? ‘have you?’ to the traditional sesta? and gasta?

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9.2. Position and agreement 9.2.1. As elsewhere in Italo-Romance, subject clitics in Venetian have always preceded oblique clitics, e.g.ModV/CV ti me rompz' [e rcatole ‘you’re getting on my nerves’. Similarly, unstressed pronouns precede the verb, e.g. ModV Io strnco ‘I press/squeeze it’, el me dd ‘he gives me’. In EV, however, the so—called Tobler-Mussafia ‘law’ generally applied, whereby the unstressed pronoun followed the verb enclitically when sentence- or clause-initial, e.g. EV parme znsto vs ModV me par znsto/gz'nsto ‘it seems right to me’. In a ModV modal-with-infinitive construction the pronoun may precede or follow. In the latter case it is bound to the infinitive, e.g. te oogz'o parlar ~ vogz'o parlarte. Unstressed pronouns also follow and are bound to all familiar imperatives, with indirect preceding direct if together, e.g. dame [a man ‘give me your hand’ ~ dame/a ‘give it to me’. They precede polite imperatives: [a me daga nn eto ‘please give me 100 grams’. The unstressed pronouns also follow and are bound to the gerund (parlnndogbe ‘speaking to him/her’) and to the infinitive (capz'rlo ‘understanding it’, per capz'rlo ‘to understand it’). 9.2.2. MidV/ModV/CV have obligatory preverbal negation involving the particle no (EV no ~ non) < NON, but unlike the predominant Gallo-Italian pattern Venetian has never had an obligatory postverbal negative marker.9 As in many modern dialects of northern Italy, but unlike French, ' the ModV preverbal negator precedes not only object pronouns but also a clitic subject pronoun in all persons where the clitic must appear, e.g. no tz' g/Je entrz' ‘it’s got nothing to do with you’, and no la g4 dd partir ‘she musn’t leave’, although this was not necesssarily the case in EV where no(n) sometimes appeared after a subject clitic. No(n) has always been able to fuse with m. sg. 3 atonic SP e1, e.g. ModV nolpol z'ncontmn‘e ‘he can’t meet you’. However, when both tonic and atonic SPs are present, the negator in Venetian is interposed: 17' no 17' vol capz'r ‘yon don’t want to understand’, and In nolpol vegnz'r ‘lae can’t come’. 9.2.3. As in French and Spanish, clitic doubling is normal in Venetian. This may involve left-shifted reinforcement of the indirect object pronoun (IOP) for emphasis, in contrast to (standard) Italian where the original pronoun disappears after such a dislocation, e.g. ModV a mi me pinse (vs Ital.

9 On negation in Italo-Rornance see PARRY (1997).

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CHAPTER FIVE

a me pz'ace) ‘I like’ and a ti no! te dire} de no (vs Ital. a re non dire) 412' no) ‘he

won’t say no to you’, where the preposition a + disjunctive anticipates the IOP. It may also involve anticipation of the disjunctive with an IOP, showing the obligatory doubling with dative complements found in many northern Italian dialects, e.g. ModV/CV 61 glie scalda [a testa a qua/a tosa ‘he’s firing that girl up’ and ghefarenzo nn dz'snareto a 13 110113 ‘we’ll rustle up a cosy dinner for Granny’. An object is commonly reprised by a DOP after relative c/oe, e.g. te dz'ro‘ de le cosse cbeforsz' tz' non [1' [e 54 ‘I’ll tell you things that maybe you don’t know’. 9.2.4. As in Italian, a ModV past participle agrees in gender and number with a preceding direct object, but only if this is a pronoun, so that [e papuzze c/ae go comprd ‘the slippers I bought’ and z' lz'brz' c/oe go leto ‘the books I read’, where there is no agreement, contrast with [e go comprae ‘I bought them’ and 1' go leti ‘I read them’. Preceding partitive g/Je ne does not activate agreement in the same way, e.g. ModV qnantz' cortelz' gastn porm? — gbe ne go pom? gz'nque ‘how many knives did you bring?’ — ‘I brought five (of them)’.

, 9.3. Unstressed pronoun order 9.3.1. Unstressed pronouns may cluster in groups of two (unusually three) before a verb in Venetian, in well-established orders.10 These sometimes accord with Italian patterns but sometimes contrast with them fundamentally. Unlike in Italian, there is never modification of the vowel of the first pronoun component in Venetian, nor is there pronoun fusion as in Ital. glz'e/o ‘it to him, them’. However, a cluster enclitically bound to

an infinitive is run together in writing, e.g. go dd parlargbene ‘I have to speak to him/her/them about it’. 9.3.2. As in most of the Italo-Romance area the most frequently occurring cluster in the textual and spoken history of Venetian, from EV to ModV/CV, is IOP + DOP, e.g. glue [0 go ports? ‘I brought it to him/her/ them’, [a me 11' do; z'ndrz'o ‘she’s giving them back to me’ and vogz'o dz'rgbelo ‘I want to tell him it’. The IOP is also, and always has been, commonly followed by ne, e.g. no glze ne z'rnporm gnente ‘he doesn’t give a damn about

10 For a thorough analysis of pronoun ordering hierarchies in later ModV/CV see LEPSCHY (1983). For ordering in the Italo-Romance context see POLETTO (1997) and BENINCA (1997, pp. 129-130).

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it’, and occasionally by direct indefinite la, e.g. Dz'o me la mindoz [907ml ‘fin— gers crossed for me!’ Next in ModV and historic frequency is reflexive 36 followed by (i) a DOP, by (ii) me or even by (iii) an IOP. Examples are (i): e] se 10 merz'ta ‘he deserves it’, 61 se 13 ga tum spapolada ‘he gobbled it all up’ and godemoselo.’ ‘let’s enjoy it!’. (ii): [a se m: m: quz'eta ‘she’s sitting quietly’ and g0 paum 6/96 z' se ne zhcorza ‘I’m afraid they’ll notice it’. (i): 2' se glue ga butt} damzm‘z' az' zenoc/Jz' ‘they threw themselves at his knees’, [e rec/9219 se gbe verze ‘her ears prick up’ and [u se gbe MM 4 [e cotole ‘he sticks to her apron strings’. All of the above accord exactly with con— temporary Italian, except for reflexive se+IOP where Italian reverses the order. 9.3.2.1. The Venetian tradition, from the earliest EV scrz'pz‘a to ModV spoken practice, was in discord with Italian and central-southern Italo—Ro-

mance — but in accord with northern varieties and Sardinian — in placing impersonal se in first place in pronoun combination. This is evident, first of all, in the ordering of impersonal 36 + DOP. Compare ModV se lo vede 5176530 in gz'toi and Ital. [0 Si vede spesso 2'72 cz'ttd ‘one often sees him in town’ and ModV se 11' compm dd! 07656 and Ital. [2' 52' compmno dall’orefi'ce ‘one buys them at the goldsmit ’s’. Under the influence of Italian, though, the opposite order also became possible in ModV/CV, e.g. 5m cossa no 12 se g4 dd far ‘this thing musn’t be done’. When impersonal se combines with the IOP one again finds hesitation in ModV/CV between a traditional ' order — solidly observed in EV and MidV — headed by the impersonal and an Italianising one which reverses it, e.g. el gem deventd lama grasso 6/76 no se gbe conosseva pz'z‘t cl visa ‘he’d become so fat his face was no longer recognisable’ and se me ga streto el mar ‘my heart ached’ vs me se ga streto el cuor. Impersonal 5e continues in ModV/CV to precede (g/ae) ne (this time in accord with Italian equivalent me): ModV se glze ne compm sz'e ‘you buy six of them’. It also precedes the locative give in the same way: ModV se gbe vol stasem vs Ital. 61' 31' 224 stasem ‘we’re going there this evening’ — an order already attested in EV c. 13 00. Venetian and Italian contrast interestingly in the impersonal + reflexive combination. Venetian allows the unaltered juxtaposition of both 36 pronouns while Italian alters its first 32' to 62'. Compare MidV/ModV/CV dopo Che se se ga desmz’ssz'c‘z, se se 41ch dd] [eta with Ital. dopo the 62' 52' é weglz'atz; a" 52' alza dd] letto ‘after one wakes up, one gets out of bed’. Venetian occasionally even allows a triple combination — not possible in Italian — of impersonal + reflexive + locative, e.g. ModV se se glre senm ‘one sits there’, analogous with French on 3’)» assz'ed.

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CHAPTER FIVE

10. VERBS

10.1. General

10.1.1. Venetian verbal morphology has maintained, from EV to CV, a robust system of inflections which are operational in speech as well as in writing. These are ultimately inherited from Latin but show wideranging morphonological and/or anological change, while some are the result of formal reanalysis of inherited morphs with subsequent grammaticalisation. Unlike Latin where most desinences were consonant-final, all ModV inflections end, as in Italian, in a vowel. This was not the case in EV, however,

where -s endings on sg. 2 of present, future, conditional and subjunctive tenses were common. Remnants of such sigmatic endings have survived, fossilised, into ModV/CV as present tense interrogative enclitics (see above § 9.1.8). Although exhibiting a greater range of functional desinence-distinction than French, Venetian lacks the totally transparent six persons = six endings equivalence of Italian. Strikingly, the third persons singular and plural of all verbs in all its tenses are identical. Furthermore, neutralisation extends to affect singulars 2 and 3 and plural 3 in many common verbs in the present tense and all verbs in the future paradigm, plausibly ‘ triggering the Venetian system of obligatory subject-pronoun clitics in

these persons (see above § 9.1.2). In the conditional and imperfect subjunctive' sg. 1, sg. 3 and pl. 3 are identical, while in the imperfect indicative sg./pl. 2 are identically inflected, albeit contrasting with sg./pl. 3. Venetian finite verb forms have always been morphologically marked for tense (past, present and future), for mood (indicative and subjunctive), for aspect (perfective and imperfective), for voice (active and passive), as well as for person (1-3) and number (singular and plural). A verb form will typically show four constituent elements: stem (S), theme vowel (TV), tense (T) ~ aspect

(A) ~ mood (M) markers, and person (P) ~ number (N) markers in the following linear pattern: S + TV + (T/A/M) + P/N. An example is cantavz'mo (pl. 1, imperfect indicative of ModV ammr ‘to sing’) which can be segmented: amt + a + v + z'mo. ModV verbs also have non-finite forms — infinitive,

past participle and gerund — whose important diachronic variation is examined below as well as in Chapters VI and IX. 10.1.2. Some Venetian verbal categories show direct continuity in function and form from Latin. This is the case with the present and imperfect indicative tenses, when allowance is made for the effects of phonological change and analogy on the reflex paradigms. A late Latin development

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which affected the present indicative of some -IRE verbs across Romania, including Venetian, was the addition of an infix -ISC- (> ModV 433-), mark-

ing change of state, between stem and inflection on all persons except pl. 1 and 2. An example is ModV flair ‘to finish’: fi'aisso, fz'aissz', fz'm'sse, fz'm'mo, fz'm’, fz'aisse. Other categories have undergone functional reassignment: the Venetian imperfect subjunctive with its -Vsse desinences, for example, is recycled from Latin -ISSEM type inflections of the pluperfect subjunctive. However, swathes of the Latin conjugational system have disappeared, with the imperfect and perfect subjunctive, pluperfect and future-perfect indicative, deponents and synthetic passive and future paradigms leaving no trace in veaexz'an. In the case of the past tenses, the past historic inherited from the Latin perfect was fully functional in EV (in writing at least) but was abandoned in MidV — as happened, usually at a later date, across the northern Italian varieties. In Venetian this has left aspectual difference in the past to the imperfect vs perfect contrast. Venetian exhibits the usual Romance reanalysis of Latin past participle + HABERE in present and imperfect which issued in new compound perfect and pluperfect tenses. Auxiliaries deployed are reflexes of HABERE (ModV aver) and ESSE (ModV esser). The former has a much wider range of functions in Venetian than in Italian, being obligatory with transitive, impersonal, modal (including modal + infinitive) and even reflexive verbs, as well as in impersonal se constructions. The obligatory use of 63367 is restricted to the passive 11 and to a more limited range of intransitives than in Italian. These are: esser itself, star ‘to be, to stay’, aaa’ar ‘to go’, parz‘z'r ‘to leave’, tomar ‘to return’, vegm'r ‘to come’, restar ‘to stay, remain’, em‘rar ‘to enter’, a’evemar ‘to become’, sparz'r ‘to disappear’, sacea’er ‘to happen’, cascar ‘to fall’, nasser ‘to be born’ and

morir ‘to die’. When used intransitively a few other verbs — notably cresser ‘to grow’, carer ‘to run’, z'nvecbz'ar ‘to age’, scampar ‘to escape, run away’, mom‘ar ‘to climb, go up/on’, desmoatar ‘to climb down, get down/off’, ca-

lar ‘to lower or to lose weight’, saltar ‘to jump’ and wolar ‘to fly away’ — may take esrer in ModV/CV.12 10.1.2.1. Instead of reflexes of the Latin synthetic future, Venetian displays, like most of Romania, univerbated forms generated from periphras-

11 In EV the passive was commonly constructed with es(s)er ‘to be’ and vegm'r ‘to come’ but also, as in other northern Italian texts, with fir ‘to be’ < FIERI. 12 For the wider context of Romance auxiliary use see VINCENT (1982) and POSNER (1996,

pp. 15-24).

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tic constructions. These derive from the infinitive + present indicative tense of HABERE, with the latter post—postioned. Grammaticalisation and fusion of the two elements was complete by EV. Like most Italo-Romance varieties, Venetian can also express futurity, especially in colloquial speech, through the present indicative. As is normal in Romance, Venetian generated a specific conditional tense-form where Latin had none. This arose in the late-Latin period in parallel to the periphrastic, post-positioned future forms, with infinite + imperfect indicative of HABERE. Mirroring the future, it underwent subsequent grammaticalisation and fusion. Like many other Italo-Romance dialects, especially in the north, the native Venetian conditional form has had, from the scrz'pta onwards, a long-term rival form in -z'a (derived from infinite + Latin perfect indicative of HABERE), of uncertain

geographical provenance, which only finally prevailed in later ModV and in CV. 10.1.2.2. The subjunctive mood is as alive and well in Venetian as it is in Tuscan/Italian. It has four tenses — present, imperfect, perfect and pluperfect — the latter two constructed with past participle preceded by aver (if the verb is transitive) or esser, in the present and imperfect respectively. As well as being governed by a few conjunctions, notably the concessive ‘ sz'ben or bencbé ‘although’, pure/96’ ‘provided that’, perc/aé ‘in order that’ and Magarz' ‘if only’, as well as primal c/ae ‘before’ and fz'rz(a) c/aé ‘until’ if dubitative, the subjunctive is triggered in subordinate clauses in Venetian by a similar semantic range of verbs to Italian. These include verbs of wishing, hoping, fearing, uncertainty, negation, doubt and prevention, e.g. ModV vogz’o c/Je [a vegna ‘I want her to come’ and g0 paum c/ae 2' 3e [mm ‘I’m afraid they’ll burn themselves’. Some verbs of saying or knowing in the interrogative and negative take the subjunctive too, e.g. ModV no 61ng c/a’el 522; am [azaron ‘I’m not saying he’s a rascal’. It is also obligatory with impersonal verbs (acore c/ae tz' vegm' ‘you must come’) and in superlative constructions (see above § 2.5). Conditional sentences in the past are particularly representative of subjunctive use. They show the typical tense sequence of imperfect subjunctive with conditional and pluperfect subjunctive with past conditional that is also found in Italian, e.g. :6 6! vegm'sse, lo saludarz'a ‘if he came I would greet him’ and re 6! fosse vegnuo lo gavarz'd mimic? ‘if he had come I would have greeted him’. The subjunctive occasionally appears in the principal clause. The main contexts for this are third person singular polite imperatives (e.g. el vegmz demro.’ ‘do come in! ’), exclamations of desire or hope (e.g. c/oe non tz' c/az'apz' m malcm.’ ‘don’t catch your death!’) and expressions of doubt (c/Je sz'a pr0p(r)z'0 lu? ‘could it

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really be him?’). The polite singular imperative in ModV uses sg. 3 present subjunctive forms. 10.1.2.3. Aspectual differences are embedded within the present and imperfect indicative tenses, so that the meanings of sg. 1 present z'mpz'sso and sg. 1 imperfect z'mpz'ssavo (from z'mpz'i‘sar ‘to switch on’) are ‘I switch on, I am switching on, I do switch on’, on the one hand, and ‘I switched on, I was switching on, I did switch on’, on the other. However, Venetian

and Veneto dialects as a whole often emphasise progressiviness or contemporaneousness with a separate construction, the periphrastic esser drz'o ‘to be in the middle of’ [lit. ‘to be behind’] + infinitive, conjugated with the present or imperfect indicative. This is the equivalent of Ital. stare+ gerund. ‘I’m busy/in the middle of switching on’ is therefore ModV so drz'o zfizpz‘ssczr, while in the past it is gero drz'o z'mpz'ssar. The Venetian imperfect tense stands aspectually to the perfect in the same way as its Italian equivalent. In other words, the imperfect is (i) the tense of description and (ii) of

habitual action, and (iii) it contrasts with the perfect for action in the subordinate clause during which something else occurs in the principal clause. Examples are: (i) no [7222116224 pz'z‘t e 61 301 scomenzaw a vegm'rfom ‘it was no longer raining and the sun was starting to come out’, (ii) ogm’ zz'obcz g/Je cmdavo dd 772221 477222; ‘every Thursday I used to go to my aunt’s’, and (iii) mentre 6/96 me camwo zo, [a me go; com‘d elfdto ‘while I got changed she told me all about it’. Note that in (iii) if the action in the principal clause had been continuous the imperfect would have been used for both clauses: [a me com‘mm el fato mentre c/Je me ammo zo. 10.1.3. The four Latin infinitive types in —ARE, -ERE, -ERE and -IRE have been reorganised in Venetian into three categories, MidV/ModV/CV —ar, -er and -z'r. The precise shape of these endings fluctuated in EV, however, revealing vowel-final and syncopated variants that lingered in diatopically-

peripheral Venetian until the early ModV period.13 The two infinitive categories most susceptible to mutual interaction in later Latin were those of the second and third conjugation, leading in the Romance varieties to category shifts and preferential prosodic dynamics. Venetian and Iberian Romance manifest opposite vectors in this respect: the former preferring, in the main, retractionto stem-vowel stress (although not as completely as Sardinian), the latter opting for theme-vowel stress. While both stress pat-

” See Chapter VI, § 2.

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CHAPTER FIVE

terns are found in Venetian, these do not always directly reflect, as one

might have anticipated, inherited Latin second and third conjugation endings. A few verbs, such as modal dover ‘to have to’ < DEBERE, stressed on

the theme vowel e, do continue the second-conjugation infinitive, but alongside others such as saver ‘to know’ < SAPERE which are in fact derived from non-CL metaplasms of original -ERE verbs. Most category 2 Venetian infinitives either continue the —ERE type directly (bever ‘to drink’ < BiBERE; vender ‘to sell’ < VENDERE) or, more often, show parallel stress-retraction to

stem vowel on verbs which were originally in -ERE. Examples are: goder ‘to enjoy’ < GAUDERE; pz'qzser ‘to like’ < PLACERE; rider ‘to laugh’ < RIDERE; tqser ‘to be quiet’ < TACERE; responder ‘to answer’ < RESPONDERE; and persuader ‘to persuade’ < PERSUADERE. C1 and C3 infinitives in ModV overwhelmingly continue Latin types in -ARE and —TRE, respectively, but with a few deviations. ModV tegm'r ‘to hold’ < TENERE and vegm'r ‘to come’ < VENTRE are an intertwined case in point. By EV both had their infinitive stem-consonant palatalised by analogy with normal phonological development of their present indicative sg. 1, TENEO > tegrro and VENIO > vegrro. In addition, the infinitive reflex of TENERE had, by analogy, joined that of VENTRE as an apparently C3 verb in Venetian. However tegm'r has continued into ModV/CV to retain its C2 -e stem in tense conjugation. It also exhibits a normal category 2 past participle (ModV tegmro), attracting that of vegm'r (ModV veg/mo) into its orbit by EV. ModV (d)verzer ‘to open’, coverzer ‘to cover’ and [roger ‘to boil’ appear to be category 2, although they are ultimately from Latin C4 APERTRE, COPERIRE and BULLTRE respectively. The infinitive metaplasm is purely superficial, however, and was created analogically from present indicative sg. 1 forms stressed on the stem vowel: APERIO > (a)verzo —> ModV (a)v_erzer, COPERIO > coverzo —> ModV coverzer, BULLIO > 199ga —> boger. However, in EV and into earliest MidV the respective etymological infinitives avrz'r, covrz'r and bollz'r were the norm, with the analogical cognates only prevailing in ModV, although with bogg'r ~ [roger for a time. All three verbs continue in ModV to act as normal C3 types. Some common infinitives affected by processes of phonological reduction defy immediate classification, e.g. ModV far ‘to make, to do’ < FACERE, dz'r ‘to say’ < DICERE, tor ‘to take’ < TOLLERE, condrrr ‘to lead’ < CONDUCERE (with related -UCERE derived verbs), and compor < COMPONERE are in reality C2.14

14 For variants of these infinitives see LEPSCHY (1963a, p. 140).

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10.1.4. The ModV/CV gerund is formed by adding W210 to the stem of -are verbs, and -ena’0 to that of all other verbs, e.g. cantana’o ‘singing’, vendena’o ‘selling’, and dormena’o ‘sleeping’. This exactly parallels the Italian pattern and derives ultimately from the Latin gerund paradigm: CANTANDUM, VENDENDUM, MONENDUM, DORMIENDUM, with Latin C4 (Ve-

netian C3) restructured to conform to the more frequent and regular Latin second and third conjugation types. The gerunds of esser and aver are sendo and gavena’o and are used to construct the gerund in the past, e.g. sena’o sta ‘having been’ and gavena’o visto ‘having seen’. However, the ModV/CV pattern does not reflect the historic situation in Venetian which, in EV/MidV, extended the -and0 type to the whole paradigm, producing cantana’o, vendando, dormando, with particularly noteworthy forms such as siando ‘being’ (occasionally sianto in EV), stagana'o ‘being, staying’ and dagana’o ‘giving’. The part played by Italian roofing influence in the gerund shift in Venetian is discussed in Chapter IX, § 2.1. It is also worth noting some residual disturbance of the restructured pattern in ModV. One finds, in early ModV especially, occasional relic forms such as corana'o ‘running’ (from corer) but also innovative analogical C3 types such as dorniina'o ‘sleeping’, sentina'o ‘hearing, feeling’ (from sentir) and coverzina’o ‘covering’ (from coverzer) which were also sporadically present in EV and MidV. As in Italian, the gerund in Venetian has always conveyed action in the subordinate clause which is contemporaneous, and is often translatable as ‘while’, ‘when’ or ‘since’ +verb. Exam- ’

pics are: andana’o a far la spesa a Rialto 10 go incontra ‘I met him as I went to do the shopping at the Rialto’ or canainana’o ya [a Riva del Vin g0 perso i ocbiai, ‘I lost my glasses while walking on the Riva del Vin’. It was com— monly used in EV/MidV in a relative function, e.g. vete nna bellitissiina verzene stagana'o sovra l’ altar ‘he saw a most beautiful Madonna standing over the altar’. In ModV/CV c/oe stava sora l’ altar would be preferred in such a relative clause. 10.2. Modern Venetian verb paradigms (a) Present indicative of regular verbs — Category 1: cantar ‘to sing’ ~ Latin CANTARE Mod V: canto, canti, canta, cantemo, canté, canta Latin C1: CANTO, CANTAS, CANTAT, CANTAMUS, CANTATIS, CANTANT

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— Categ ory 2: VC3nder ‘to sell’ ~ Latin VENDERE ~ MONERE ‘to warn’

Mod V: panda, vendi, vende, vendemo, vendé, vendeLatin C3: VENDC), VENDIS, VENDIT, VENDIMUS, VENDITIS, VENDUNT Latin C2: MONEO, MONES, MONET, MONEMUS, MONETIS, MONENT

— Category 3: dormjr ‘to sleep’ ~ Latin DORMIRE Mod V: dormo, dorm], dorme, dormjmo, dorm]: dorme

Latin C4: DORMIO, DORMTS, DORMIT, DORMTMUS, DORMiTIS, DORMIUNT

The comparative lists above indicate the following combination of phonological and analogical restructuring processes in the history of Venetian. Sg. l -o. Operative since EV, it generalises Latin C1 and C2 forms, reinforced by the fact that none of the other persons inserted a yod before the ending-vowel. Sg. 2 -i. This inflexion was the norm from MidV to ModV/CV and also in later EV. Loss of vowel quantity and of final con— sonants in late Latin neutralised sg. 2 and 3 oppositions in C1-C3, so that the distinction maintained in Latin C4 was opted for in all categories in Venetian. However, —5 endings were commonly retained in all three categories in EV until the fourteenth century, sometimes along with -e (from Latin C2 and C3) rather than -z', e.g. m comenges ‘you begin’, tu entendes ‘you understand’. The —e inflexion continued to occur in verbs of all categories in early MidV, even C3 (e.g. ii 720 z'ntende ‘you don’t understand’; dormestu? ‘are you sleeping?’). Sg. 3 -a, -e, -e reflect normal phonological change and have been the norm since EV. Pl. 1 -emo, -emo, -imo. These inflexions show a long-term restructuring process not settled in the present configuration until c. 1550. Category 2 -em0 (based on Latin C3 and also C2, which in VL shifted stress similarly to desinence) was extended to category 1 even in EV, probably also influenced by the normal phonological outcomes in -é of pl. 2. However, EV and early MidV texts sometimes show phonologically regular W720, on occasion even extending it to category 2 and 3 verbs in EV, e.g. possamo ‘we can’ (ModV podemo) and vegmmzo ‘we come’ (ModV vegm'mo). In category 3, -z'm0 is the normal phonological reflex. Pl. 2 -é, -é, -i, regularly derived, have been operative since EV. Pl. 3 -a, -e, -e have always been identical with their sg. 3 equivalents, with no trace of Latin -N (T) reflexes in the scrz'pm. Category 1 shows normal phonological

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development, while 2 and 3 show an analogical extension of" the Latin C2 ending—type in -ENT. (b) Irregular present indicative paradigms A group of very common ModV verbs shows marked parallel patterns of irregularity in the present indicative sg. 1—3. In these verbs, analogical forces have levelled off reflex phonological trends, although sometimes not completely, as is evident from sg. 1 offdr. The main examples are: — Star ‘to be, to stay’: 1. Stng, 2. std (EV stay), 3. std. — Dar ‘to give’: 1. dng, 2. dd (EV dds), 3. dd.

— Andar ‘to go’: 1. vdgo, 2. 12d (EV ms), 3. 0d. — Far ‘to make, to do’: 1. fdzzo, 2. fd, 3. fd (EV 1. fdgo ~ fdzo ~ fd ~ 1%, 2. fd:, 3. fd ~ fdxe ~ fdse). — Saver ‘to know’: 1. so, 2. $61, 3. 5d (EV 1. Sdi ~ sé ~ 56 ~ 362' ~ 50 ~ son, 2. 5613 ~ mi, 3. 3d).

— Aver ‘to have’: 1. go, 2. gd, 3. gd (EV 1. (b)dz' ~ be ~ 6" ~ 0‘ ~ 190 ~ be, 2. (/9)ds ~ d’, 3. d ~ lad). It is likely that star and ddr provided the centrifugal momentum for this process, with the EV forms *ddo (< *DAU), dds, dd and "stdo (< *STAU), stds, std, attracting the others into their orbit, including sg.

1 of dver which originally showed (/9)dz' —> é reflexes of dz'o (< HABEO). The /g/ in 11ng and dng, extended to vdgo, is common to many northern Italian varieties. In Venetian it is motivated by the avoidance not only of hiatus but also, probably, of the EV past-participle forms stdo ‘been’ and ddo

‘given’. In their turn, star and ddr were influenced in sg. 1 by sg. 1 son ‘I am’ of 63367 ‘to be’, leading in EV and early MidV to alternatives 5:072 ~ stdgo and don ~ ddgo, occasionally extended to son ‘I know’ and van ‘1 go’. The /g/ in the ModV paradigm of dyer (sg. 1. go, 2. gd, 3. gd, pl. 1. gdvemo, 2. gdvé, 3. gd) signals grammaticalisation of the preceding locative particle g/ae which in MidV preceded it optionally: MidV sg. 1. g/a’lao ~ 170, 2. g/a’bd ~ lad, sg. 3. g/a’lyd ~ bd; pl. 1. gb’dvemo/dbz'emo ~ dvemo/dbz'emo, 2. gla’dvé ~ dvé, 3. g/a’lad ~ lad. — Voler ‘to want’ and poder ‘to be able’ show normal loss of /e/ after final /l/, and have reorganised their sg. 2 and 3 symbiotically. They have thus moved from EV 1. voz'o (MidV 1202'0 ~ 002" ~ vogz'o), 2. 005 ~ vuo: ~ voz’ ~ vuo’, 3. vol and 1. posso, 2. p05 ~ puos, 3. p0 ~ puo‘ ~ pol —> ModV/CV 1. vogz'o, 2. vol, 3. 220! and 1. [70550, 2. pol, 3. p01. — Tor ‘to take’ shows a similar pattern in ModV: toga, to], to]. — Parer ‘to seem’ shows loss of /e/ after final /r/, giving sg. 1, 2, 3, pm.

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— Vegnir and tegnir lose their final vowel after /n/ to give vegno, men, men and tegno, item, #671.” — Verbs with a -c or -g stern keep the unpalatalised /k/ and /g/ even when followed by a front vowel, e.g. gercar ‘to seek, to taste’: gerco, gercbz; germ, gerc/oemo, gerc/oé, germ, and gz’gar ‘to shout’: gz'go, gig/92', gz'ga, gz'g/oemo, gig/9e, gz'ga. — Dir ‘to say’. The paradigm of dz'r has been diachronically more uncer— tain. Sg. 1 dz'go has regularly continued Latin DICO since EV. All remaining persons show, in ModV, the normal palatalisation of the stern consonant before front vowels extending, however, to pl. 3 dz’se (echoing sg. 3 dz'se) where dz'g(/9)e would have been expected. In fact, sg. 2 dig/91' for (1232' was still present in lower register venexz'cm of the early ModV period. In EV one sometimes finds sg. 1 /g/ generalised to pl. 1 and 2, giving dz'gczmo and dz'gé [di'ge]. (c) Present indicative paradigm of esser ‘to be’

The fundamental present-tense paradigm of esser is mi generz's. It is worth considering in its historical development and in comparison with CL ESSE which showed SUM, ES, EST, SUMUS, ESTIS, SUNT. The Venetian his-

. torical paradigms are as follows. — EV sg.130(7¢)~ 50772 ~ sun, 2. es ~ 8” ~ ez' ~ 363 ~ 5e’~ 52's, 3. e ~ xe ~ xé~se~ sé ~sz'e~ este,pl.1semo,2.e~se’~se~sé~sz'e,3.e~xe~xé~ 5e ~se’ ~ 51? ~ son —> MidV sg.150n ~ sun ~ sum ~ 50, 2. se’ ~ se’ ~ xe, 3. xe

~ Xe ~ sé ~ é, pl. 1 semo, 2. sé, 3. xe ~ xé ~ sé ~ n? —+ ModV/CV sg. 15001), 2. xe, 3. xe (~ 2» in early ModV), pl. 1 semo, 2. sé, 3. xe. All sg. 1 forms are direct reflexes of SUM, while pl. 1 semo (not *somo)

has been attracted by the dominant —em0 morph of regular verb paradigms 1 and 2. In sg. 2, es, e’ and ez' are regular phonological reflexes of ES (which also survived intact in EV/MidV estu? ‘are you?’). However, there is no doubt that, as with Italian equivalent set, the s- of sg. 1 has influenced these forms since EV, with sex, sis, se’ (clearly with an initial /s/) gradually morphing towards the ModV/CV pronunciation with initial /z/, to which we will return shortly. ModV pl. 2 sé, mirrored by 32’ in many northern varieties and by sz'ete in Italian, appears to be a reflex of a metathetical form "SETIS from ESTIS, with initial 5- again exercising analogical influence. In

15 The stems of vegm'r and tegrzz'r show dimorphism caused by historic diphthongisation of E when tonic, so sg. 2 men vs pl. 2 vegm’. For a discussion of Venetian irregular verb paradigms see LEPSCHY (1963a, pp. 140-142).

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pl. 3 the expected phonological outcome son (< SUNT) does 'occur rarely in EV, but was quickly rejected in favour of sg. 3 forms, so that esser conformed to the identical sg. 3 2 pl. 3 pattern found in all Venetian tense paradigms. (d) Origins of present indicative sg./pl. 3 xe of esser ‘to be’ The origin of xe is one of the most vexed and widely—debated questions in Venetian morpho—etymological studies. The various solutions proposed are outlined in ROHLFS (1968, pp. 269—70) and SATTIN (1986, p. 116, note 152). An examination of the attestation history leads to the following considerations. (i) Throughout the EV period the overwhelmingly predominant morph was the phonologically regular (.3 (g EST), the historically normal form in the dialects of the Veneto mainland. E was still common in MidV and persisted into early ModV. (ii) Forms in x- (xe and xé) suddenly appeared in the early fourteenth century record, but only became extensive in MidV. By the end of MidV and by early ModV they were predominant and xe, pronounced ['ze] throughout the ModV/CV period, is the sole morph in CV. (iii) We have already considered the orthographic fluctuations in Venetian over /s/ and /z/, noting that while preferentially represented /z/ in EV this was far from watertight. We also noted (Chapter III, note 11)

the key discrepancy in the modern pronunciations in /s/ of Venexia and ' venexz'cm.

(iv) In the earliest Venetian scrzpta alongside é, a tonic form appears, usually in post-vocalic position, with a reinforcing particle: 32’ e or 51' e (< SIC EST). This is undoubtedly equivalent to xe. In the Dz'stz'c/aa Catom's (TOBLER 1883, p. 82), for example, we find prendre [0 [2210/ Can [1' remi/ Si é molto plu seguro/ Ke tendre [a vela/ In alto ‘striking for shore with the oars is much safer than hoisting the sail’. The early fourteenth-century Tmtmto de regz'mz'ne rectorz's (MUSSAFIA 1868, p. 5) has: [c]/9€ prudential si é um vertude ‘because prudence is a Virtue’. Dozens of examples of the construction are found in the fourteenth-century merchant manual, the Zz'bdldone dd Ca-

mzl. These demonstrate the coexistence of the tonic form with a univerbated atonic one, sé, as in: Inprz'ma si é [a prz'mavz'em e se’ callda e bumz'da e puo’ si e l’z'stade/ £196 56 cballda e sec/m e puo’ si :3 l’otrono c/ae séfredo e umz'do (STUSSI 1967," p. 93) ‘First is the Spring and it is hot and humid and then comes Summer which is hot and dry, and then the Autumn which is cold and damp’. This atonic form 56’ in already present in late thirteenth-century texts such as the will of Geremia Ghisi (see above Chapter VI, Text 4). —151—

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(V) 52' é petered out in early MidV. (vi) The spelling se ~ sé ~ sé is common alongside the xe and é types in the Quattrocento, and continued well into the sixteenth century as in the following example from the anonymous Dz'alogo dz' Lucrezz'a, sc. 7 (PADOAN 1978, p. 401): C/ae lettem sé quella 6/96 17' 1m in sen? ‘what letter is that you’re holding to your chest?’. It is plausible, in conclusion, that since in later EV/early MidV sg. 2 and 3 and pl. 2 and 3 coincided in pronunciation, a differential voiced rendering of 56 ~ xe in sg./pl. 3 was favoured. At a later stage, in the reverse process, the /z/ pronunciation of sg./pl. 3 has actually cross-infected sg. 2, altering it from ['se] to [’ze]. The unvoiced pronunciation was, however, preserved into ModV/CV on the interroga— tive forms estu? ~ 563m? ‘are you?’. (e) Imperfect indicative ModV C1: amtava, cantavi, camava, camgvimo, amtavi, amiava

Latin CI: CANTABAM, CANTABAS, CANTABAT, CANTABAMUS, CANTABATIS, CANTABANT

ModV C2: vendeva, vendevi, vendeva, vendevimo, vendevi, vendeva Latin C3: VENDEBAM, VENDEBAS, VENDEBAT, VENDEBAMUS, VENDEBATIS, VENDEBANT LATIN C2: MONEBAM, MONEBAS, MONEBAT, MONEBAMUS, MONEBATIS, MONEBANT ModV C3: dormjva, dormivi, dormjva, dormjvimo, dormjvi, dormjva

Latin C4: DORMIEBAM, DORMIEBAS, DORMLEBAT, DORMIEBAMUS, DORMIEBATIS, DORMIEBANT The ModV outcomes show (i) regularisation of all paradigms around Latin C1—3, (ii) phonological continuity in sg. 1 and 3 and pl. 3, (iii) analogical moulding of sg. 2 to present tense sg. 2, with extension of this form to pl. 2: a tradition also represented in Tuscan. In later ModV and in CV, sg. 1 mm, -eva, -z'wz have given way to -avo, -evo and -z'z)0 in line with pre-

sent indicative sg. 1. This process affected early Tuscan and was carried through in the national language in the nineteenth century. The impact —152—

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of Italian is likely to have been decisive in altering the traditional Venetian pattern. EV often showed sigmatic endings on sg./pl. 2, e.g. tu/vuy volevz's ‘you wanted’, and tu/vuy credevz's ‘you believed’. Occasionally (like MidV) it lenited intervocalic /V/, e.g. vole(v)a ‘he wanted’, and showed /e/ for /i/ on pl. 1, e.g. devevemo ~ devevz'mo ‘we had to’. In EV dar and star were influenced by C2 trends producing, e.g., dew: ~ dam ‘he gave’ and stem ~ stave ‘he was/stayed’. This pattern even extended to far, generating EV/MidV fave ~ few ~ fageva ~ fas(s)eva ‘he made/did’. Sometimes it extended to C1 verbs, as in pemeva ‘he thought’. The MidV/ModV/CV paradigm for esser is: gero, gerz’, gem, gerz’mo, gerz', gem. EV up to c. 1300 showed the em, erz's, em type (< ERAM, ERAS, ERAT), while EV post-1300

preferred the diphthongised z'em, z'erz', z'em. The palatalised forms in initial , which would subsequently prevail, occurred in EV as a minority variant. As on all Venetian imperfect paradigms, stress has (unlike in Italian) retracted to the stem vowel on pl. 1 and 2, a trait shared by most northern Italian varieties. EV examples showing stress on the inflectional vowel on pl. 1, such as parlaqumo ‘we were speaking’, exist but are rare. The enclitic interrogative forms of the imperfect used in the late MidV/early ModV period were found on sg. 1 and 3 and pl. 3. On esser and aver these were: sg. 1 gerz'OP, sg. 3 gerelo/gerelaP, pl. 3 gerelz/gerele?; and sg. 1 avevz'OP, sg. 3 avevelo/avevelaP, pl. 3 avevelz/aveveleP. (f) Perfect indicative

The perfect is composed of the present tense of aver or esser + past participle (PP). On intransitives taking esser the PP agrees with the subject in ModV, although this was not always the case in EV, especially when the subject preceded. On aver verbs, the PP in ModV only agrees, as we have already noted, with the preceding direct object if it is a pronoun, but in EV agreement could occur with both a noun and pronoun. The ModV/CV regular PP paradigms of center, vender and sentz'r ‘to hear, to feel’ are: C1 camé, cantada, amtai, cantae < ~ATUM, -ATAM, -ATI, -ATAE C2 venduo, vendua, vendui, vendue < -UTUM, -UTAM, -UTI, -UTAE C3 sem‘io, sentia, sentii, sentie < -ITUM, -ITAM, -ITI, -ITAE

The long-term fluctuations between lenited forms and those with conservative consonant restoration were touched on in Chapter IV. They are examined in detail in Chapter VII. Such processes were only complete by later ModV/CV, with minority remnants still visible in earlier ModV singu—153—

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lar forms in all three categories, e.g. el xe vegnudo ~ vegmto ‘he came’ and [a xe vegnuda ~ vegnua ‘she came’. C2 masculine singular PPs in -z‘t, substantially present since EV where they could also be masculine plural, continued to appear as minority variants in ModV, e.g. vegmtdo ~ vegmto ~ vegm). The C2 type, derived from Latin verbs in -UERE, was particularly productive, even attracting a C3 verb such as vegmr into its orbit from EV. Regular ‘weak’ PPS in Venetian had a characteristic rival weak form in -esto. Based on outcomes of the the CL type POSiTUS ‘placed’ and the spoken Latin type VISITUS ‘seen’, it was generalised to the present or perfect stem of a range of verbs. Essentially confined to the Veneto, the -esto end— ing is found on some common C2 verbs from EV to ModV/CV, e.g. credesto (creder ‘to believe’), savesto (saver ‘to know’), podesto (poder ‘to know’), provesto (prover ‘to rain’), moverto (mover ‘to move’) and rz'desto

(rider ‘to laugh’). Fluctuation between the two weak types was still apparent in earlier ModV with, for instance, volesto (favoured in CV) ~ voludo

(voter ‘to want’). ‘Strong’ PPs inherited from Latin have been present from EV to ModV/CV. Examples from ModV are: dz'to (dz'r ‘to say’), fato (far ‘to make, to do’), scrz'to (scrz'ver ‘to write’), [eto (lezer ‘to write’), tolto ~ MidV tolesto (tor ‘to take’), messo (meter ‘to put’), motto (nasser ‘to be born’), roto (romper ‘to break’), sconto (MidV scoso) (sconder ‘to hide’), parso (parer ‘to

’ seem’), and morto (morz'r ‘to die’). However, analogical weak forms such as metudo (~ messo) and nas(s)udo (~ mto) were not uncommon in EV. Truncated PPs, sometimes found in northern varieties, are confined in ModV to

pz'asso (pz'aser ‘to like’) and despz'czsso (despz'aser ‘to be sorry’). (g) Future indicative C1: comtdro, carztara‘, cantara, cantaremo, cantaré, cantara‘ C2: vendaro, vendara‘, vendara, vendaremo, vendaré, vendara C3: dormz'ro, dormz'ra, dormz'ra, dormz'remo, dormz'ré, dormz'ra

The origin of these MidV/ModV/CV inflections in the present tense of HABERE remains relatively transparent, although pl. 1 and 2 derive from truncated forms -EMUS and -ETIS. EV, especially in its early stages, preferred sg. 1 endings in -az', evolving to -e (< A10), and only later generalised the minority variant in -o which coincided with Tuscan. Sg. 2 endings were overwhelmingly sigmatic until around the mid fourteenth century, e.g. tu demanderas ‘you will ask’, to dams ‘you will give’, to agongerax ‘you will add’, to auras ‘you will have’, tu varz'ras ‘you will recover’ and to seras

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‘you will be’. As we already noted in Chapter IV, ModV does not, unlike Italian, show syncope of the stern vowel in common C2 verbs, so that ModV vedaro‘ contrasts with Ital. vedro‘ ‘I will see’ and ModV reward with Ital. sapro ‘I will know’. However, this was not always the case in earlier Venetian, as shown, for instance, by EV averé ~ avro‘ vs ModV gavaré ‘I

will have’. Indeed there appears to be a long-term process in Venetian of vowel restitution and regularisation at play. This is clear in the case of modals where EV pore? ‘he will be able’, 3mm} ‘he will know’ and devrd ‘he will have to’ contrast with ModV/CV podarci, 56mm? and down}, and where only 220ch ‘he will want’ shows continuity across venexzkm. Such considerations also raise the issue of the stern vowel in Venetian futures before /r/ which is examined in Chapter IX (§§ 2.2.3 and 2.2.3.1). Suffice it to say that the ModV/CV situation, where inherited -AR- appears to be maintained in C1 (cantarb), with inherited —ER- in C2 lowered to -ar— (vendaro‘), reflects the situation in most Italo-Romance dialects, but not in Florentine

and Italian. It is not fully representative, though, of the Venetian tradition. Indeed —er— and -dr— morphs have coexisted in Venetian since the first EV scrz'pta, but with the latter very much a minority until ModV. Vegm'r and tegm'r have a history of theme—vowel promiscuity. For instance in EV and MidV vegnerci and vegnird are both attested, while ModV/CV prefer the analogical vegnard. Esser has also undergone the analogical pull of C1, with the EV predominant type in ten} gradually giving way to the paradigm that appears in ModV/CV: saro‘, 5412?, saw}, saremo, raré, sam‘. The full range ‘

of future enclitic interrogative forms survived in late MidV/early ModV. On esser and aver these were: sarogz'oP, samstuP, mmlo/mmlaP, saremz'oP,

sareuP, samlz/mmle? and (g)avar0gz‘0?, (yavarastufl (g)avaralo/(g)avamla?, (yavaremz'OP, (QavareuP, (yavardlz/(yavamle? (h) Conditional C1 cantarave ~ cantaria, cantaressi, cantarave ~ cantaria, contaressimo, cantarcssi, cantarave ~ amtdria C2 vendarave ~ vendaria, vendaressi, vefldarave ~ vendaria, venddressimo, vendaressi, vendarave ~ vendaria C3 dormz'rave ~ dormz'ria, dormz'ressi, dormz'rave ~ dormz'ria, dormz'ressimo, dormz'ressi, dormz'rave ~ dormz'ria

The infinitive + HABERE structure of the conditional has clearly developed in parallel to that of the future tense in Venetian, and our preceding observations about syncope and about theme vowel followed by /r/ also —155—

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apply here. Most intriguing is the coexistence of two conditional paradigms throughout the history of Venetian, one in -ave, the other in -z'a. The former,

like that of Italian, is based on infinitive + the perfect HABUI (*HEBUI for Italian), HABUISTI, HABUIT (*HEBUIT for Italian), HABUIMUS, HABUISTIS, HABUERUNT. The second continues infinitive + imperfect indicative sg. 1 and 3 and pl. 3: HABEBAM, HABEBAT, HABEBANT. The former is the native type in Venice, the

Veneto and most of northern Italy. The historical alternation of the -z'a type — found in Ibero-Romance, in medieval Tuscan and central Italian, in the

medieval Sicilian poets, and now prevalent in most northern Italian dialects — with the native -ave is plotted in Chapters VI and VII. Both forms were present from EV to ModV and appear to be used indiscriminately even within the same text (with no noticeable aspectual differences even in the earliest texts), although the ~sz type has prevailed in CV. This means that in Contemporary Venetian the paradigm is a hybrid, with sg. 1 and 3 and pl. 3 continuing -z'a, and the remaining inflexions based on -ave forms. Apart from this variation, conditional desinences were rather stable from EV to ModV with the

proviso that, as with the future, sg. 2 had sigmatic endings in EV, as in tu vomvz's ‘you would like’, tu 36mm"; ‘you would be’, and tu avemw's‘ ‘you would have’. Noticeable also is that pl. 2 in EV and early MidV regularly continued HABUISTIS. EV shows camarssé, venderssé, dormz'rssé (alongside forms analogical with sg. 1 in -avz'). Early MidV has cantassé, vendessé and dormz'ssé, along with fessé ‘you would do’ and dz'ssé ‘you would say’. In later MidV and in ModV regular sg. 2 spread analogically to pl. 2 - as happened with the imperfect indicative — yielding canmressz', vendaressz’ and dormz'ressz'. The three -ave desinences showed lenited variants in -ae in early MidV. Enclitic interrogative forms of the conditional in late MidV/early ModV were found on sg. 1, 2 and 3 and on pl. 3. On esser and aver these were as follows. Esser sg. 1 sa— mva P, 2. raressz'stu? 3. samvelo/samvela? ~ sarz'elo/sarz'eZdP, pl. 3 mmvelflsar-

avele? ~ sarz'eZz/sarz'ele? Aver sg. 1 (g)avozmvz'0?, 2. (yavaressz'sz‘uP, 3. (g)avar— Mela/(940474226149, pl. 3 (yavamvelzflgavamvele?. (i) Present subjunctive C1: 6mm, amt], canta, cantemo, amté, cam‘a

Latin C1: CANTEM, CANTES, CANTET, CANTEMUS, CANTETIS, CANTENT C2: venda, vendi, venda, vendcmo, vendé, venda Latin C2: VENDAM, VENDAS, VENDAT, VENDAMUS, VENDATIS, VENDANT

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C3: dorma, dormi, dorms, dormimo, dormi, a'orma Latin C3: DORMIAM, DORMIAS, DORMIAT, DORMIAMUS, DORMIATIS, DORMIANT

The Mod V paradigms suggest considerable analogical realignments at play. C1 sg. 1 and 3 and pl. 3 have fallen in line with C2 and C3 -a inflections, but with EV retaining etymological —e ~ -a until the early fourteenth century. In Italian (but not in old Tuscan) all three singulars show identical inflections. This is not the case in Venetian, where ModV sg. 2 forms take the -z' typical of sg. 2 present and imperfect indicative, although etymological -e on C1 was common in EV and lingered into early MidV alongside -z' and, occasionally, -a. EV sg. 2 was frequently sigmatic. C1 and C3 pl. 1 and 2 are regular — with C2 aligning itself to C1 — and are identical with the equivalent present indicative forms. The ModV paradigm for esser is: sz'a, sz'z', sz'a, sz'emo, sz'é, sz'a and conforms to C1 and

C2, except for pl. 1 sz’emo which contrasts with present indicative pl. 1 semo. It manifests great diachronic continuity, with EV sg. 1 and 3 and pl. 2 and 3 sz'a (alongside the occasional sz'e analogical with C1 and sigmatic sg. 2 sz's) identical with ModV forms. The ModV paradigm for aver is: (g)abz'a, (g)abz', (g)abz'a, (Qabz’emo ~ gavemo, (g)abz'é ~ gavé, (g)abz'a. This shows the initial grammaticalisation of the locative particle g/ae (compulsory in CV) and hesitation over pl. 1 and 3, which in CV have ~ shifted to the indicative forms. The principal diachronic variation in the paradigm is phonological. In EV sg. 1-3 and pl. 3 show the theme vowel /a/ raised to /e/ with ebz'a, 6192's, ebz’a, ebz'a ~ abz'a, abz's, abza, abz’a. This

was provoked by the retraction of yod on the inflection spreading to the stern. Indeed yod-retraction was sometimes complete, as can be seen on the EV variant az'ba found on sg. 1 and 3 and on pl. 3 in the earliest scripta. The same phonemena have affected the present subjunctive of saver ‘to know’, with EV sepia and saz'pa found alongside the regular sapz'a. In late ModV and CV a dissimilated variant-form in gapz'a, gapz', gapz'a was sometimes heard, probably influenced by the /p/ in the paradigm of saver ‘to know’: sapz'a, sapz', sapz'a. As for irregulars, the inflexions of far ‘to make, to do’ are based on stem fag}; star ‘to be, to stay’ on stag-; dar ‘to give’ on a’ag-; aaa’ar ‘to go’ on vag- or vad—; poa’er ‘to be able’ on p0ss-; and for ‘to take’ on tog-. Voler ‘to want’ shows normal palatalisation of the stem consonant, with vogz’a, vogz', vogz'a.

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(j) Imperfect subjunctive C1 camasse, camassi, camasse, cantassimo, cantassi, cantasse C2 vendesse, vendessi, vendesse, vendessimo, vendessi, vendesse C3 dormisse, dormissi, dormisse, dormissimo, dormissi, dormisse

The Venetian imperfect subjunctive continues the Latin pluperfect subjunctive of the category 1 type — CANTAVISSEM, CANTAVISSES, CANTAVISSET, CANTAVISSEMUS, CANTAVISSETIS, CANTAVISSENT — but with lenition of

-VI-. The paradigm has been exceptionally stable since EV. It reveals the usual evolution on sg. 2 to -z' seen on other paradigms, with sigmatic forms in EV such as tu 170716156)th ~ p0rtas(s)z' ‘you brought’, tu voles(3)z's ~ voles(s)z' ‘you wanted’. As with the imperfect indicative and the conditional, sg. 2 forms have been extended to pl. 2. The theme vowel of C2 has sometimes influenced Cl forms and the minority andes(s)e type is found alongside cmdasse, from EV until the end of MidV. In EV the /i/ of pl. 1 was sometimes lowered to /e/, as in devessemo ~ devz'ssz‘mo ‘we had to’. The

ModV paradigm for aver is totally predictable, while that for esser is: fusse, fussz', fusse, fussz’mo, fussz', fusse. These forms have variants in fossz’, fossz'mo and fossz', for sg. 2 and 3 and pl. 2 respectively, in later ModV and in CV that have probably been influenced by the equivalent Italian forms. The paradigms of star ‘to be, to stay’ and dar ‘to give’ are ModV stasse, stassz', stasse and dome, dam, dune. From EV until late MidV such forms attracted

far ‘to make, to do’, so that the analogicalfasse type competed with the regular fagesse. The latter has prevailed in ModV/CV. (k) Imperative Informal sg.

Formal sg.

General pl.

Exhortative

amta

amti

canté

came-1110

vendi

venda

vendé

vendemo

dormi

dorma

dormi

dormimo

The ModV imperative is articulated in four addressee-types: informal singular, formal singular, general plural, and exhortative (‘let’s’). Pronouns precede the formal singular but follow the other three as enclitics. As in —158—

VENETIAN MORPHOSYNTAX

many Italo-Romance varieties, the informal singular imperative is altered by an enclitic. In Venetian this affects C1 where -a is raised to -z' in line with C2 and C3, giving canta ‘sing’ vs cqntnne ‘sing (for) me’ and copa! ‘kill!’ vs copinze.’ ‘kill me!’. The familiar singular, the general plural and the exhortative recycle the equivalent present indicative forms, while the formal singular employs sg. 3 of the present subjunctive. A formal plural type, surviving into ModV, has petered out. It used the pl. 3 forms of the present subjunctive. The only significant irregular form is dz", the familiar singular of dz'r ‘to say’, although there is a significant spoken tendency to abbreviate informal singular forms such as varda —+ ['ara] ‘look’ and spam —> ['psta] ‘wait’. The configuration above has remained substantially constant throughout the history of Venetian, with sigmatic endings common on EV sg. 2, e.g. sapz's ~ sepz's ~ sapz’ ~ sepz'.’ ‘know!’; 452': ~ ebz's ~ abz'.’ ‘have!’ and six! ‘be!’. The negative marker no precedes all three types and also precedes proclitic pronouns on the formal singular, e.g. no [a g/ae bade, rz'gnom ‘please don’t pay any attention to her, Madam’ vs informal singular no badarg/Je/ ‘don’t pay her any attention!’. As in Italian, when the informal singular is negativised the infinitive takes over, as in vendz' ‘sell’ vs no vender ‘don’t sell’. Unlike Italian, however, Venetian and the

Veneto dialects, along with other northern varieties, have an alternative negativising strategy with no star + infinitive. Used only on the familiar singu— lar and general plural, it carries greater emphasis than the simple negative, e.g. ModV no 5th farlo.’ (informal singular), no stéfarlo! ‘don’t do it!’ (gen- ‘ eral plural). Probably the most characteristic ModV/CV formal singular is conmndz'! Used with rising intonation when a question has not been understood, it is the equivalent of ‘sorry?’ or ‘come again?’ Also typical is the sg. 2 exclamation dag/96! ‘would you believe it?’, lit. ‘give it to him/her/them! ’.

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EARLY VENETIAN: FROM LAGUNAR KOINE TO PROTO LANGUAGE OF STATE

1. ORIGINS

1.1. Problems and approac/a 1.1.1. The origins of Venetian, like those of Venice, are far from clear-

cut. Unlike the principal mainland Veneto varieties of the city’s hinterland, the central-southern and north-eastern dialect types, Venetian did not

emerge in a relatively undisturbed line from the late Latin spoken by a long-settled, ethnically Venetic population. The city’s exceptional longevity as a physical and political entity tends to distract us from its relative .historic recentness. Venice is exceptional among major Italian cities in not ~ continuing a Roman urban settlement. The original lagunar environment was in fact sparsely populated in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, and the large—scale urbanisation of Venice only began in the second Millenium. It ensues that the subsequent prestige and expansion of Venice on to the mainland, that has so profoundly altered the dialect landscape of the Veneto, misleadingly represents the longer-term linguistic perspective. The original language dynamic of the region that gave birth to Venetian was, instead, from mainland to coast.

1.1.2. When Venetian did emerge in writing around 1200 it was striking for its lack of structural homogeneity both within and between texts. This disconcerting linguistic unevenness continued until the early fourteenth century. From then until the late fifteenth century the city’s increasingly self-confident Vernacular underwent complex processes of restructuring which substantially homogenised it, in writing at least. The first part of the present chapter attempts to make sense of Venetian’s original linguistic instability and subsequent levelling within the context of the arrival and in—161— 11

CHAPTER SIX

teraction of the diverse emigration streams which populated the lagoon on either side of the first Millenium. Using a theoretical framework of dialect contact, dialect mixing and koineisation,1 it brings together detailed comparative data from the Venetian and mainland Veneto scripta on the one hand, and historical information on the other, in order to explore the com-

plex linguistic and demographic dynamics that generated Venetian. 1.2. Hypotheses The two main hypotheses put forward to explain the origins of Venetian are as follows. Either (i) Venetian is the reflex of the late Latin or proto-Romance from the north-eastern Veneto (and especially from the eastern Treviso area) brought to the lagoon by the migration movements from the mainland which followed the Germanic invasions of northern Italy in the sixth and seventh centuries. At a later stage the most extreme north-eastern elements in emerging Venetian were consciously removed ‘from above’. Or (ii) Venetian emerged organically from a koineisation process. This involved converging migratory population streams, in the wake of the Germanic invasions, carrying linguistic features from both northeastern and central-southern Veneto. The first hypothesis has been repeatedly suggested over the last quarter of a century by Giovan Battista Pellegrini (PELLEGRINI 1977a, 1990, 1991a). The second has been put forward explicitly by Edward Tuttle.2 However, neither theory has been systematically tested using substantial data from the scriptae interpreted within a sociolinguistic frame. 1.3. Lagoon varieties in historical perspective The first step in our investigation is to consider the linguistic varieties within the Venetian lagoon, as they are now and in the meagre historical record, in the hope of detecting possible traces of alleged ab-initio migra-

tory movements from the north-east and centre-south of the Veneto. As contemporary Venetian speakers are subtly aware, veaexz'an is strictly speaking the dialect of the city of Venice itself and is not coterminous with

1 I employ the definitions of koineisation, reallocation, inter-dialect and accomodation formulated in TRUDGILL (1986 and 1988), and further elaborated by SIEGEL (1985, 1993a and 1993b), KERSWILL (2002) and Trudgill himself. I also employ the concept of levelling used by Trudgill then discussed and developed by HINSKENS (1996 and 1998). 2 See especially TUTTLE (1997a). The koiné hypothesis is also implicit in STUSSI (1995), TRUMPER/VIGOLO (1997) and MULJACIC (1994).

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EARLY VENETIAN: FROM LAGUNAR KOINE TO PROTO LANGUAGE OF STATE

the other lagoon varieties, even those that are now only a shortdistance away by vaporetto like that of the island of Burano. ‘Lagoon variety’ in this context means Venetian and all the linguistic sub-varieties of the territory of the early medieval Venetian state — known as the Ducatus Veneciarum and later, in the vernacular, as the Dogado — which were plausibly levelled by it. It is important from the outset to distinguish this levelling process from that operated by Venetian from 1400 onwards on the Termferma. The mainland Veneto dialects were constantly restructured from the Renaissance until the twentieth century in step with the Venetian model emanating from the capi— tal city. This is proved by the fact that Venetan or Common Veneto is substantially the same as ModV/CV and also by the partial but not complete spread through the region of a markedly modern Venetian trait such as the palatal ‘evanescente’ pronunciation of /l/ in specific phonetic contexts. The situation is very different with the lagoon sub-varieties. Those that still survive are the Choggia-Pellestrina type and the dialects of Burano, Marano Lagunare and Grado. Although all of them are fundamentally ‘Venetian’ in nature, compared to the mainland dialects, they still maintain (or at least maintained until recently) a quite different physiognomy from that of Common Veneto, remaining largely untouched, for example, by the ‘l evanescente’ so characteristic of Modern and Contemporary Venetian. They give the strong impression, instead, of having been essentially restructured in the pre—modern period. This appears to have occurred before the fifteenth cen— tury, to judge by the presence in the sub-varieties of archaic features once found in Venetian. These include the masculine singular past participle in -610 (reduced in Maranese to «5) and a characteristic EV feature such as 01 + dental consonant < AL + dental consonant still present in the modern dialect of Grado (gmesan) and found in early sixteenth century Buranese (bumme[0).3 In the medieval period the lagoon sub-varieties were intensely exposed to and restructured by the newly hegemonic Venetian type radiating out across the Dogado. Later, in the early modern and modern periods, Marano, Grado and to a lesser extent Burano and Chioggia became isolated, maintaining archaic phonological, morphosyntactic and lexical features discarded in Venetian itself. At present the broadly Venetian type occupies the space within the lagoon of Venice as well as a narrow strip beyond. Within the la— goon it extends north to Murano, Sant’Erasmo, Treporti, Punta Sabbioni,

Lio Piccolo, Mazzorbo, Burano and Torcello. In the southern lagoon it takes

3 To judge by the letter in the Burano style («a la buranela») by Andrea Calmo (ROSSI 1888, HI, letter 29).

—163—

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CHAPTER SIX

Fig.3. RONNIE FERGUSON, A Linguim'c History of Venice. Medieval population movements to, and within, the lagoons of north-eastem Italy.

in the Lido, Malamocco, San Pietro in Volta, Pellestrina and Chioggia. It is noticeable that in both cases it is the extremities that have maintained relative linguistic distance from ModV. On the mainland the Venetian/lagunar type curves round Venice in a narrow coastal strip from the hinterland of Chioggia, through Marghera and Mestre, to Jesolo and Caorle. This whole area is now dominated by reflexes of ModV/CV, although remnants of older lagoon linguistic conditions were still discernible in Caorle at the time of Ugo Pellis’s pre-World War II survey for the Atlante Lzhguz'stz'co Italz'cmo (MARGATO 1987 and 1997). Further east, in Friuli-Venezia Giulia and therefore be-

yond the administrative confines of the Veneto, are the coastal localities of Marano Laguanare (c. 60 km from Venice) and Grado (c. 100 km from Venice). Historically more isolated, these ancient settlements have precariously maintained their archaic lagoon speech whose precise relationship with Venetian still remains to be established in detail.

1.3 .1. It would be helpful to know if, beneath the massive restructuring effected by Venetian on the other lagunar sub-varieties, there remained in

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EARLY VENETIAN: FROM LAGUNAR KOINE TO PROTO LANGUAGE OF STATE

the lagoon any traces of the alleged original north-eastern and centralsouthern migration routes from the mainland. The medieval Venetian chronicle tradition maintained that these were the population dynamics that gave birth to Venice (CESSI 1933), and it appears to be supported

in this contention by the foundation history of the earliest Venetian churches (DORIGO 2003, 1, pp. 14-16). It is therefore worthwhile examining the surviving lagoon dialects and their limited historical record in order to see whether it is possible to establish any linguistic links between them and their respective hinterlands. 1.3.2. The southern lagoon has always been dominated by Chioggia, an ancient producer and exporter of salt, the main centre for vegetable grow— ing and distribution during the Venetian Republic, and the principal fishing port of the upper Adriatic. It is hardly surprising that Chioggia was able until recently to vigorously preserve its dialect, with its markedly descending tonic stress which Goldoni caricatured affectionately in the Barufle Cbz’ozzotte. Alone among the surviving lagunar sub-varieties the dialect of Chioggia, known as c/az'ozoto [tfo'zato], maintains a prosodic structure different from Venetian but close to that of the central-southern Veneto mainland type. Most noticeably, apocope operates in c/az'ozoto after /n/, but not, as in Venetian, also after /l/ and /r/, so that we find pcm ~ ModV pom ‘bread’, but vam’dre vs ModV vardczr ‘to look’, mugere vs ModV muger , ‘wife’ and sole vs ModV sol ‘sun’. Although the records we have of early c/az'ozoto are not philologically reliable,4 it is entirely plausible that central-southern influence on the dialect goes very far back. The prosody of Chioggia is, for example, identical with that of the dialect of Pellestrina, the sandspit situated further to the north and repopulated by Chioggians in 1385 after the war between Venice and Genoa (GOY 1985, pp. 1617). Unfortunately we have no reliable historical documentation for the surviving lagoon centres of the ager pdtavz'nus, the Roman administrative unit for central—southern Venetia. These are San Pietro in Volta (formerly Albiola), Malamocco (the small fishing village which was once the capital of the Dogaa'o and a magnet for medieval migration from the districts around Treviso and Padua, and which was destroyed in the early twelfth century), and the Lido itself. The original dialects of all of them have been overwhelmed by venetian. North of Venice the only lagoon varieties which

4 The records are collected in LEVI (1901). On their linguistic unreliability see SALLACH (1993b).

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CHAPTER SIX

remain distinctive are those of the still—flourishing fishing island of Burano and, much further to the north east in their respective lagoons, the small and particularly archaic dialect nuclei of Marano and Grado. Marano was an important Byzantine staging post that gradually regressed to a fishing village, and is mentioned as a lagoon town by the historian Giovanni Diacono around the year 1000 (BERTO 1999, p. 68). Situated on the extreme eastern frontier of the Dogado, it was also a fortress town that for centuries hosted a Venetian garrison. An original member of the medieval lagoon confederation, Grado was an ancient and key castrum in the region. It was the port of the Roman metropolis Aquileia and later became the main religious centre of the Dogado for much of the Middle Ages. Its de— cline began in the fourteenth century and continued until the twentieth. 1.3.3. The prosody, consonantal phonology and lexis of the dialects of Burano, Marano and Grado are very similar to that of Venetian, and it is

difficult to connect any aspect of their archaic morphonology to the mainland rather than to the effects of EV restructuring. This applies even to the metaphony still found in Marano and Grado. A number of unusual phonological features are held in common by all three modern-day dialects and also by the sixteenth century dialects of Burano and the nearby island ‘ of Mazzorbo. The most striking is undoubtedly the fall of final -r on infinitiVes, e.g. vardd vs ModV vardar ‘to look’ (vardare in Chioggia). This loss of -r is certainly not a recent phenomenon (we have no historical documentation for Maranese or gmescm but it was present in sixteenth century Buranese), and it is highly improbable that it originated in Venice itself. Naturally it could be a subsequent, spontaneous internal development common to all three varieties. However, if it were a relic from the mainland it would

only be ascribable, given the present state of our knowledge, to the late Latin of the Aquileia area, and it is well known that the loss of infinitive -r is also a trait of Friulan and of Dolomitic Ladin. Now Grado and Marano were undoubtedly settled from the hinterland of Aquileia, and in both modern dialects there are a few other hints which suggest a Friulan connection, such as the dissirnilation of initial /t/ —> /d/ on data ‘all’ (Venetian

mm). This feature also appears, as it happens, in the most ancient record we have (from 1307) of the speech of Mazzorbo, as well as in a contract for an altar screen dated 1288 and commissioned by the authorities in the important north-lagoon centre of Torcello.5 However, the original settlers of

5 See STUSSI (1965, p. 51, doc. 40) for the text from Mazzorbo, and 117221. (Pp. 18-19, doc. 8)

for the «Contratto di fabbricazione di una pala d’altare».

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EARLY VENETIAN: FROM LAGUNAR KOINIE TO PROTO LANGUAGE OF STATE

Burano, a view of Torcello, certainly came from Altino on the lagoon edge directly north of Venice and brought a late-Latin speech type which must have been different from that of Aquileia. Whatever the facts of the matter, Roberto Cessi noted the probability that migration flows from Altino and Aquileia converged in the original migratory movement which populated the lagoons of the region.6 In addition, Wladirniro Dorigo has pointed out (DORIGO 1995b, pp. 181—82) the intense two-way commercial traffic, continuing until the fourteenth century, between the northern lagoon area and Altino, on the one hand, and Aquileia on the other. We also have six-

teenth-century records indicating that the people of Burano had fished from time immemorial in the lagoon of Marano (GOY 1985, p. 190). Finally, it is worth remembering the importance of Grado when we assess this superficially surprising linguistic dynamic. As a metropolis and as the mother church of the north Adriatic coastline, Grado exercised through— out the early Middle Ages a constant and direct influence on the early urban and artistic structures of Venice and the northern lagoon centres. This influence is also likely to have been linguistic. 1.3.4. As we have seen, there is little or no unequivocal linguistic evidence from the surviving lagoon sub-varieties of influence on them coming directly from the north-eastern Veneto mainland. However, by great good fortune we do in fact have at our disposal exceptional historical evidence of a medieval north—lagoon dialect not restructured by Venetian. The documentation for this — now housed in the Archivio di Stato in Venice — is in the AM del Podestd dz’ Lz'o Mazor, that is the criminal-court proceedings from the authorities on the island of Lio Mazor. They were first published by Ugo Levi over a century ago (LEVI 1904) and have recently become available in an entirely revised and indexed edition (SALEM ELSHEIKH 1999). The Attz' record, in the vernacular, the witness statements for the years 1312-1314, in cases of disputes and theft, taken in court from the in-

habitants of Lio Mazor after the latter had sworn an oath before the Venetian-appointed Podesté. Situated in the far north-eastern corner of the Venetian lagoon, near Jesolo, Lio Mazor (Ital. Lido Maggiore) was a small community which was partially destroyed in 13 80 during the war between Venice and Genoa. Its reduced status from then on is reflected in the de-

5 CESSI (1963, I, p. 18): «Le correnti iniziali di migrazione sono due: l’una dall’agro altinate in tutta la laguna centrale, sospinta prima verso oriente poi verso nord; l’altra dal territorio aquileiese e friulano, la quale, discendendo lungo i lidi gradensi venne poi a contatto con la prima».

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CHAPTER SIX

cision of the Venetian Senate to put it in the jurisdiction of Torcello in 1425. It seems to have disappeared in the course of the sixteenth century. All that is now left of Lio Mazor, known as Lz'tus Bovemz’s (sic) or Lz't(t)us d6 Bow'bus in the oldest documents, are traces in historical Venetian carto—

graphy and a small present-day community near Jesolo going by the same name but without medieval remains. The syntax of the eye-witness statements in the Lio Mazor proceedings is very much of an informal, spoken type, and one has the strong impression on reading them that the court clerk transcribed them more-or-less verbatim. When we also consider that the Attz' are practically free of Venetian or Latin influence, at a time when contemporary Venetian writing was largely biased towards more learned or formal registers, it is hard to overestimate their linguistic importance. 1.3.5. What is immediately obvious is that the speech of Lio Mazor was not a sub-variety or register of fourteenth-century Venetian itself. Rather it was a dialect of the north-eastern Veneto type. Intervocalic /d/ and /v/, for example, were preserved intact: crz'dar vs EV crz'ar ~ crz'dar ‘to shout’, spadd vs EV 3ch ~ spada ‘sword’. Apocope after /l/, /n/, and /r/ was shared with EV but also occurred after /m/, at times after /s/, in contexts not found in

EV, and even sporadically after /p/ and /t/, e.g. 0m ‘man’, [egmzm ‘timber’, 6mm ‘we were’, do: ‘back’, trap ‘too much’, dz’rz‘rez‘ ‘district’ and fam‘ ‘boy’. It contains examples of typically north-east Veneto syncope (mamar vs EV masenar ‘to grind’ < MACHINARE; avmve vs EV averave ‘he would have’,

with avmve a very rare Venetian variant) and even of svarabakhti (maz'ster ~ maistro ‘master’; denter ‘in(side)’; auter ~ autro ‘other’). Rather than

being a specific north-eastem Veneto dialect, the vernacular of Lio Mazor appears as a quite stable koiné containing diverse north-eastern inputs. This is hardly surprising in a community of fishermen, boatmen, craftsmen, small traders and guards whose recorded names give away their geographical origins: Altino, Jesolo, Torcello, Mazzorbo, Latisana and Treviso in the northern lagoon or on the north-east Veneto mainland, but also Istria, Dal-

matia, Padua and Venice itself. What is noticeable is that the apocope men— tioned above is actually less radical than we would have expected from a medieval north-eastern Veneto dialect, e.g. grande ‘big’ and quando ‘when’, rather then grand and quand. One is also struck by the presence of a certain amount of morphonological variation (corp ~ corpo ‘body’; apres ~ apreso ‘near’; dbz'ut ~ abz'z‘t ~ abiudo ‘had’; er ~ 62' ‘you are’), by the presence of declensional metaplasms with vowel restoration (ponto ‘bridge’, fdm‘o ‘boy’) and by the absence of metaphony.

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EARLY VENETIAN: FROM LAGUNAR KOINE TO PROTO LANGUAGE OF STATE

1.3.6. As we have noted, the idea that the Lio Mazor proceedings are the written record of an early fourteenth century type of diatopic or diastratic Venetian seems untenable. What we can deduce with relative certainty is that if EV had been a dialect or koiné of an essentially north-eastern Veneto type it would have been similar, in its typology and degree of stability, to the speech of Lio Mazor. What the Attz' also strongly suggest is that the successive waves of migration coming from the agrz' of Altinum and Opitergium, north and north east of Venice, carried with them a clearly north-eastern speech type. At this point one could wonder why the Lio Mazor variety was not restructured in the EV period by Venetian, as the dialects of the other north lagoon population centres were? Why, also, does one not detect ‘Aquileian’ elements in it? Three factors appear to provide an explanation. First of all Lio Mazor was a minor centre, and did not figure among the 12 original Dogado settlements. Secondly, it was sited in an out-of-the way part of the lagoon. And thirdly its main raz'son d’étre seems to have been to act as a trading bridge-head between the Adriatic on the one hand and, via its direct link with the river Piave, the northern

Veneto on the other.7 1.3.7. At this juncture it is worthwhile asking if diatopic traces of the original north-east and south-west population movements alluded to above are detectable on the edges of Venice itself. It is interesting that from the fifteenth century onwards both external and internal observers of Venice noticed speech variation within the city. When the Quattrocento Sicilian writer Caio Calorio Ponzio commented on the way the Venetians spoke he criticised a number of, what he saw as, wayward phonological traits, in particular masculine-singular past participles in -ao (< -ATUM). According to Ponzio these were typical of the parishes of San Basegio and San Nicolo dei Mendicoli on the extreme south—western tip of Venice (ROSSI

1893, pp. 256-257). Around 1500, Marin Sanudo, the most acute observer of the social and political life of the Serenissima, also wrote about the linguistic peculiarity of this corner of the city. He described it as the «contra in Venetia dove stanno se non pescatori — chiamata San Nicolo — e ancora

7 There are numerous reference in the proceedings to the Tar de Piave or Piave Tower. For the siting of this tum} de Plave vis-a-vis Lio Mazor see DORIGO (1995a, p. 147). One indication of the remoteness of Lio Mazor within the medieval horizon of the Venetians is the fact that it is absent from the numerous lagoon sites mentioned in the legal documents edited in STUSSI (1965). In them one finds the following communities mentioned: Murano (23 times), Mazzorbo (10), Torcello (10), Burano (5), Lido (3) and Lio Piccolo (1).

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CHAPTER SIX

questi tengono un certo parlar venexian antico chiamato nicoloto» (CARACCIOLO ARICO 1980, p. 29). In the early nineteenth century the great lexicographer Giuseppe Boerio, aware of internal variation in venexz'cm, connected it to the social stratification of the city, while Daniele Manin actually thought that speech diversification in the various districts of Venice went back to the provenance of the original settlers (BOERIO 1856, pp. 11-12; BOGNO 1930). As recently as the twentieth Century, geographical-cum-social linguistic diversity was noticeable in the city.8 Of course one cannot discount the possibility that this diversity was the result of neighbourhood isolation subsequent to the city’s original urbanisation. However, a common factor suggests otherwise, or at least that subsequent neighbourhood isolation only reinforced existing difference. What stands out in all the evidence is the siting of the linguistically anomalous areas and the fact that they were isolated even before the major urbanisation processes were more-or-less complete in Venice by the fifteenth century. The areas which had been most excluded from the urban unification pushed through in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were (i) the south-western parishes of Santa Marta, San Nicolo, San Basegio and Sant’Anzolo Rafael in the sestz'er of Dorsoduro, and (ii) the north-eastern parishes of San Martin and San Biagio in the sesz‘z'er of Castello. Furthermore, when we consider how poor these areas appear to have been and how scarce settlement by higher social groups in them was, it is not impossible that these diatopic fringes of Venice survived as marginal linguistic relics of a koinei— sation process affecting the city’s historic core.9 The likelihood of this being the case is strengthened by the evidence gathered in Venice in the last third of the nineteenth century by Papanti in his survey of Italian dialects (PAPANTI 1875). It shows that at this time the differences present were concentrated precisely in these two areas, and it provides interesting clues both in transcription and commentary. The far edge of Castello appears to have shared features with bumnelo, Via the dialect of Lio Piccolo-Treporti— Sant’Erasmo lying between the two, such as the fall of infinitive -r. Tessier, Papanti’s informant for these areas, pointed out the north-lagoon nature of Castello Venetian and contrasted it with the ‘nicoloto’ prosody of the extreme south-western district of Santa Marta. At that time Santa Marta was a working-class quarter but traditionally it was a tightly-knit fishing com-

3 Information gleaned from personal interviews with Venetian speakers born before 1923. 9 For the marginality of these neighbourhoods in the medieval settlement of Venice see

Demo (2003, II, pp. 668-674, pp. 942—955 and pp. 973-988). —170—

EARLY VENETIAN: FROM LAGUNAR KOINE TO PROTO LANGUAGE OF STATE

munity believed to have been originally settled both from" Padua to the west and Altino to the north (DORIGO 2003, I, pp. 14 and 16). Tessier considered the prosody of Santa Marta, with its ‘open’ vowels, as the most different in Venice from that of Castello and as being «piuttosto della terraferma» (PAPANTI 1875, p. 553). Also useful for understanding the nature of the diatopic Venetian of the south-west of the city is the evidence of the Soneto z'n lz'ngnn Nz'colotn (c. 1500). Although the sonnet probably contains exaggeration for effect, this evidence from the Renaissance suggests that ‘nicoloto’ was an early lagoon sub-variety that had been partly restructured by mainstream Venetian. One notes by—then archaic EV features such as 01 + dental consonant < AL + dental consonant, and sen ‘saint’ < SANCTUS.

Alongside these are what appear to be residual central-southern Veneto traits such as the lenition of intervocalic /v/ and /d/ on creeva ‘he believed’,

n snessé ‘you knew’ (imperfect subjunctive) and maleto ‘accursed’, going well beyond late-EV and early—MidV conditions. Also observable, perhaps surprisingly, is the emblematic north-lagoon loss of infinitive 4.10 1.4. Settlement of the Venice lagoon The hydrographically—complex lagoon systems of north-eastern Italy extended in the early medieval period in an arc of over 100 km from the Po delta to Grado.11 The system was rich in fish and game, and was a re- ‘ servoir for the valuable commodity of salt. It was also a key link in the wider upper Adriatic lagoon system, allowing sheltered conveyencing by boat between Ravenna and Istria during the Ostrogothic Empire and the Byzantine Exarchate along routes we can only guess at. This was an envir-

onment inhabited in the late Imperial/early Christian period by fishermen, fowlers, salt—panners and boatmen whose origins and late-Latin speech we

10 The sonnet, written by one ‘Stracola’, is in the Marciana codex Ital. IX 363, fol. 123r°,

and was published in ROSSI (1887, p. 24). The fact that ‘Aquileian’ linguistic influences from Grado in the shape of infinitive -r loss reached this south-western shore of Venice is not surprising. Indeed there is circumstantial evidence to suggest that it probably arrived as far south as Malamocco, Pellestrina and even Chioggia, carried by interchange within the lagoon fishing communities. The evidence for its presence in the dialect of Malamocco comes from Calmo and is in

DAZZI (1956, I, p. 236). For Pellestrina see CORTELAZZO (1995, pp. 453-454). For c/Jz'ozoto one notes the loss of -r on paroxytone infinitives in Goldoni’s Barnfle C/az'ozzotte (see Vescovo’s linguistic commentary on the feature in VESCOVO 1993, p. 62).

11 The indispensable reference volume for the Venetian lagoon on questions of hydrography, cartography, settlement and culture is CANIATO — TURRI — ZANETTI (1995). For the historical background in the late Roman and early Middle Ages see FORLATI TAMARO et al. (1986), in par— ticular the article by BOSIO — ROSADA (1986).

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know nothing about. Recent archaeological research raises the possibility of a more complex picture than that handed down by the Venetian chronicle tradition. It suggest that the Venetian lagoon area underwent longer-term and more sophisticated periods of settlement on an area of dry land that was far greater than at present, but that these settlements were sent into decline in the fifth century by climate change. The controversial theory put forward over 20 years ago by Dorigo that the Romans had systematically parcelled up and farmed large areas of the present-day lagoon of Venice appears to be confirmed by recent satellite photography.12 Medieval Venetian historians, from Giovanni Diacono around the first Millenium to Andrea Dandolo in the fourteeenth century, attributed large-scale settlement of the lagoon solely to the traumatic historical events which forced populations from the Roman province of Venetia et Histria to take refuge on the coast. This displacement is alleged to have given birth to a new Venetia Maritime of confederated communities from which Venice eventually emerged.13 In spite of the obvious ideological simplifications of this version of events, the broad lines of the traditional narrative are confirmed by historical evidence, by archaeological finds and by the analysis of present and past linguistic conditions within the lagoon.14 1.4.1. The great urban and rural migration from the Venetorum angular of the upper Adriatic in the fifth, and especially in the sixth and seventh, centuries was unquestionably triggered by external pressure. This was the result of the ‘barbarian’ incursions into Venetia et Histria by the Huns, then by the Ostrogoths and finally, and most importantly, by the Longobard invasion. Initially, population displacement toward the lagoons must have been limited and temporary. But subsequently it became large-scale and definitive. This transfer of people and their religious institutions was facilitated by the urban layout of the upper Adriatic area. The Romans had inherited here a ring of Venetic centres. The most important of these were, from south west to north east: Atria (> Adria), Ateste (> Este), Pa-

tavium (Padova) and Altinum (> Altino). On the eastern side of the ring

12 The results of recent archaeological research in the lagoon were presented at the conference on «Vem'ce before San Marco». Recent Studies on the Origins of the City, Colgate University, New York (5-6/10/01). For satellite evidence of Roman agriculture in the lagoon see DORIGO

(2003, I, p. 31). 13 See PASTORELLO (1938-42), MONTICOLO (1890) and CESSI (1933). 14 On the origins of Venice see CESSI (1963), CARILE — FEDALTO (1978) and DORIGO (1983).

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the Romans themselves added Tarvisium (> Treviso), Opitergium (> Oderzo), Iulia Concordia (> Concordia) and in 181 BC the most strategically

important of all, Aquileia. Crucially, these centres were linked up to a ser— ies of port outlets along the coast. In the Byzantine period Patavium was linked to Clodia or Clugia (Chioggia) in the south of the present lagoon of Venice, and probably also to Methamaucum/Metamauco (Malamocco) on a sandspit in the southern lagoon. The outlets for Tarvisium were Methamaucum and, via Altino, the island of Torcellum (> Torcello) in

the northern lagoon. Altinum was twinned with Torcellum and perhaps also linked to Rivus Altus (> Rivoalto > Rialto ~ Riolto) in the archipelago of the future Venice. Opitergium was connected to Equilum/Equilo (Iesolo) and, from 639 AD, to Civitas Nova Heracliana/Heraclea (Cittanova or

Eraclea), the important city built between the Piave and Livenza rivers by refugees from Opitergium. Further east Iulia Concordia was joined up with Caprul(a)e (> Caorle), while Gradus (> Grado) was the port of Aquileia. These ports were the destination and new home of the refugees from the hinterland. The exodus intensified after the Longobard invasion and occupation of 568 that followed the Byzantine reconquest of Ostrogothic Italy. It became permanent early in the seventh century and culminated in the formation of a new Veneto lagoon confederation, under Byzantine aegis, extending from Cavarzere to Grado. Loyal in law, then increasingly in name only, to Byzantium this politically new Venetia, under first tribunes then dukes, extended its zone of influence over the Adriatic, follow- ' ing its own policies and interests. The dummy was behind the sack and dismemberment of Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade, and thereby confirmed its position as a major Western player in the Mediterranean. It was from this confederation — following internecine strife centred on elite factions favouring either Byzantium or the Frankish Empire, and the subsequent transfer of its ‘capital’ from Cittanova to Malamocco in the eighth century and finally to Rialto in the ninth — that the embryonic Venice emerged. Initially it was only a settlement on the Rim: Altus or ‘high bank’, but it became, formally, the Civitas Rivoalti under the tribune Pietro in c. 901. By the twelfth century it was the all-encompassing Civitas Venetiarum/Veneciarum. When population and political, religious and commercial power were definitively fused on this fully-urbanised archipe— lago in the centre of the lagoon its name was soon simplified to Venetiae ~ Venetia ~ Venecia in Latin, and in the vernacular to Venexia or Venesia. It

was from this unique crucible on the margins of the historical region of Venetia that a new Veneto speech-type was born.

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1.5. Settlement, urbanisation and linguistic consequences Even if the north-eastern and south-western vectors of population movement may only be broad-brush indicators, they provide an essential and fundamentally valid reference point for understanding the genesis of Venetian. Within the present-day lagoon of Venice the primary medieval migration currents from the mainland originated, on the one hand, in the nger of Patavium and, on the other, in the ager of Altinum. And the Romance first recorded in those respective areas was of the central-southern and north-eastern Veneto types. The immigrants from north-eastern Venetia settled coastal fringes, islands and sandspits of the north and central lagoon, touching the Rivus Altus area and pushing on further east where they met up and mingled with movements coming from Grado. The immigrants from Padova, Este and Monselice (< Mons Silicis) settled on dry land in the southern part of the lagoon, from Chioggia to Malamocco, also touching the Rivus Altus area. Clearly then, the archipelago around Rivoalto, the future Venice, was in a central position in the lagoon, at the

meeting point of these two new demographic and linguistic currents. The colonisation of Rivus Altus —> Civitas Rivoalti itself seems to have happened in three overlapping phases. The first population stratum was indi‘ genous and was probably more substantial than the chronicles acknowledge. The second and modest stratum was the outcome of the initial migrations from Patavium especially, but also from Altinum, in the sixth century, which above all affected the future ‘nicoloto’ areas of Venice at the Anzolo Rafael and San Nicolo dei Mendicoli. The starting points for the third and biggest wave were the important Altino-district centres of Civitas Nova Heracliana, with its refugees from Opitergium, and its nearby, older and bitter rival Equilo. To these should probably be added contingents from the Tarvisium area. This exodus started in the middle of the eighth century and lasted until the Millenium and beyond, with substantial settlements established before the middle of the ninth century. The greater part of the tribune-class families and of the future Venetian patriciate emerged from this last stratum, most notable the pro-Byzantine Particiaco family of Agnello, the first dnx of Rivoalto. His reign, starting in 811, coincided with the transfer of the capital to Rivoalto and triggered the real development of the archipelago. These new, dominant emigrants were concentrated initially on the left bank of the Grand Canal, from the area of the future St Mark’s east to Olivolo in one direction and west to the future Rialto in the other, and from Santa Maria Zobenigo to San Samuel. Subsequently they settled the other side of the Grand Canal, from San Silvestro

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to San Pantalon. From this brief survey a number of"'salient points emerge. The first is that important settlement of the Rivus Altus area happened roughly a century after the migration movement in the northern lagoon from the Altino area and, in the southern lagoon, from the Padua

area. The second is the presence of three linguistic strata: (i) an indigenous layer of unknown type and numbers, (ii) a central-southern one, and (iii) a probably preponderant one from the north east. The third point is the slow, inexorable and, in part, planned convergence which led from the pre-urban phase of Rivus Altus and of the Civitas Rivoalti to the urban take-off of the Civitas Venetiarum at the end of the twelfth century. As the focal point of the Dogado, especially when urbanisation lifted off in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the Civitas Rivoalti —> Civitas Venetia-

rum —> Venexia attracted tertiary migration currents over several centuries towards the new political, religious and economic powerhouse in the lagoon. This centripital movement inevitably carried with it intra-lagunar linguistic influences (and certainly also extra—lagunar ones) which were not only north-eastern, in a wide sense, but also central-southern.

1.5.1. From the linguistic point of view, this slow and unique system of urbanisation based on land reclamation around the Rivoalto nucleus15 would appear to have been an ideal scenario for koineisation to take place. The two initial focal points of the archipelago were the island of Olivolo (in the present sestz'er of Castello), elevated to bishopric status in the late ‘ eighth century and, above all, the future St Mark’s area on the extreme

eastern edge of the island of Luprio (Lovrz'o in the vernacular), which was its political and civic centre. As we noted, the first areas to be solidly settled were those between St Marco and Rialto and, on the Olivolo side,

the zone known as Gemino around what is now San Zaccaria. These parts, which were exploited by the first landowners, often reveal autonomous set-

tlement structures based around courtyards. On the other hand, the configuration of the surrounding areas reclaimed later — Dorsum durum (> Dorsoduro), Canaleclo (> Cannaregio), Luprio and the strip of land on the Giudecca (Spinalonga) — shows a more modest strip-settlement pat— tern. The process of urbanisation and fusion of these urban nuclei was gradual, as can be seen by the fact that as late as the eleventh and twelfth centuries the area around Rialto, on the first corner of the Grand Canal, where

15 On this urbanisation process see SCHULZ (1991), DORIGO (2003), CASTAGNETTI (1992), CROUZET-PAVAN (1995) and JACOBY (1995b).

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the market of the Civitas Rivoalti was growing, only stretched across towards the marshy area south of the canal bend. The evolution of the city extended from then until the fifteenth century. Physical expansion proceeded thanks to the heightened pace of island and marsh reclamation. It was fuelled by its exceptional business vitality and held together ideologically by the state cult of St Mark. This expansion became explosive in the twelfth century when, around 1150, the city with its mainly wooden structures already had a population of c. 25,000-3 0,000. Within two centuries it would reach the familiar and definitive form seen in its first cartographic representation, the fourteenth century map of Paolino da Venezia. At that point Venice, mainly stone~built and comprising 70 comrade or confi'm'cz linked by a myriad of bridges, was a European metropolis of around 100,000 inhabitants. Already an empire, it had implemented its oligarchical constitution and possessed, in the continental European context, a preco— cious sense of its own identity. 1.5.2. Such an evolutionary trajectory must have had profound linguistic consequences. A probably modest indigenous population and new relatively autonomous communities of Veneto migrants from various parts of the mainland — followed by subsequent waves of migration from both ‘ north and south within the lagoon — interacted gradually, in an initial phase, then rapidly merged. An urban dynamic of this kind is bound to have favoured complex processes of koineisation between speakers of closely-related but not identical dialects: first at the micro-level then at the macro-level. Consequently it is reasonable to advance the hypothesis that the disconcerting morphonological variability endemic in Venetian vernacular writing in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries reflects an ongoing koineisation process at the macro-level, in the very period when the urban nu— clei of Venice were definitively coalescing. If this were indeed the case, one would expect to find evidence in the scrz'pta of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries of a linguistic situation stabilised by acts of accomodation, with new supra-local norms. One should expect to be able to localise elements in the new koiné directly connectable to the north-eastern and south-western contributory streams (and perhaps also to the indigenous stratum),16

16 In the absence of precise information about the original settlement of the lagoon and about the nature of the Latin spoken there, localising ‘indigenous’ linguistic traits in EV is extremely problematic. In this context DEVOTO (1984, pp. 158-159) maintained that the Latin of the Venetian estuary was «non mescolat[o]» in the late Roman period, compared to the rest of northern Italy.

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as well as interdialect forms originally present in neither. One would not be surprised to detect in the lower-register writing of this subsequent period evidence of stratification in venexz'an, with structures from the original melting pot reallocated diastratically and/or diatopically.

2. FROM STRUCTURAL VARIABILITY TO STABILITY IN EARLY VENETIAN

2.1. The early mainland Veneto types compared The outlines of the early north-eastern and south-western Veneto dialect types are rather clearcut, and one finds in them a relatively low level of structural variability — in spite of the wide geographical areas they cover and the wide-ranging chronology of the records. These points are easily confirmed by comparative data from the respective scrzpztae.17 Below I analyse data from both types for 10 diagnostic structural features, 9 of them morphonological and 1 lexical. To facilitate subsequent comparison with these features in EV, I include the equivalent forms both from the fourteenth-century lagunar dialect of Lio Mazor and from ModV. In the light of the results, I go on to explore the exceptional variability of the EV scrip— ta in order to seek evidence of ongoing koineisation. (a) Presence of apocope on infinitives. North-eastern: systematic apocope, but on proparoxytones in -ERE final -e is sometimes restored (vendre ‘ < *vena'r < VENDERE). Central-southern: complete absence of apocope. Lz'o Mazor: systematic apocope. Moa'V: systematic apocope.

(b) Apocope of -e and -0 on nouns. North-eastern: systematic apocope of both in most contexts. Central-southern: apocope only after /n/ (but not on geminate reflexes). Lz'o Mazor: north-eastern type apocope, but less systematic, with non-apocopated variants of final /d/, /p/, /s/ and /t/. Moa’V:

17 My sources are as follows. For the north—eastern Veneto type from the twelfth to the six— teenth centuries: Rz'trno bellunese (MIGLIORINI — GRIFFITH 1984, p. 73); La Canzone a'z' Aaliuer (PELLEGRINI 1957); Erercz'zz' a'z' tradazz'one trevz'gz'anz' del secolo XIV (STUSSI 1968); Trevisan sonnet of the fifteenth century (CORTI 1966); Poesz'e z'nea’z'te z'n antz'co bellunese a'z' B. Cavam'co (PELLEGRINI 1977b); Egloga pastorale e ronettz' z'n bellanexe rastz'co del rec. XVI (SALVIONI 1902-1904);

and Egloga pastorale dz’ Morel (PELLEGRINI 1964). For the central-southern Veneto type from the eleventh to the sixteenth centuries: Codice Dz'plornatz'co Padovano a’el :esto secolo a tatto l’andicesz'nzo (GLORIA 1887); Coa'z'ce Dz'pornatz'co Padovano dall’anno 1101 alla Pace a'z' Cortanza (25

gz'agno 1182) (GLORIA 1879-81); Antic/ae Rz'rne Venete (MILANI 1997); Paduan sonnet of the fifteenth century (CORTI 1966); El Lz'bro Agrega a'e Serapz'orn. Volgarz'zzarnento difrater Jacobas P/az'l— lz'par a’e Padna (INEICHEN 1962-66); Bibbz'a istorz'ata paa’ovana della fz'ne a’el Trecento: Pentateuco, Gz'owe‘; Rut/9 (FOLENA — MELLINI 1962); Padova 1371 (STUSSI 2000); and Il Copz'alettere Marciano della Cancellerz'a Carrarese (gennaz'o 1402-gennaz'o 1403) (PASTORELLO 1915).

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apocope of /e/ and /o/, but only after /1/ and /n/ on original oxytones, with the exception of geminate reflexes. Apocope of /e/ after /r/, but not on geminate reflexes, with no apocope of /0/ after /r/. (C) Metaphony. North-eastern: substantial presence of /e/ > /i/ and, in the oldest tests, of /o/ > /u/. Central-southern: massive presence of /e/ > /i/ and /o/ > /u/ throughout the period analysed. Lio Mazor: no metaphony. Moa'V: no metaphony. (d) Reflexes of nominal ending -ATEM. North-eastern: > a. Centralsont/aern: > -é. Lio Mazor: > a. ModV: > a. (e) Reflexes of nominal ending -ARIUM. North-eastern: > -er. Centralsont/aern: > -aro. Lio Mazor: > -er. ModV: > -er. (f) Reflexes of masculine past-participle desinence -ATUM. North-east-

ern: > -a‘ (as well as —at on monosyllables). Central-southern: > 0.18 Lio Mazor: > -a. Moa’V: > -a. (g) Reflexes of sg. 1 present tense of STARE ‘to be, to stay’: North-eastern: ston (rarely stag/9e). Central-southern: stago. Lio Mazor: none. ModV: stago. (h) Sg. 2 present/future sigmatic inflections. North-eastern: -s is normal in the future and on present-tense monosyllables (although more sporadic on interrogatives). It is sporadic on present-tense polysyllables. Centralsouthern: absence of -s. Lio Mazor: partial presence of -3. Absent on inter— rogatives. Moa'V: absence of -5, although it appears on enclitic interrogative forms, especially of the present tense. (i) Sg. 3 conditional inflections. North-eastern: -ave ~ -ia (rarely -af, -0e, a). Central-southern: —ave ~ -ae. Lio Mazor: -ave. Moa'V: -ia (but -ave ~ -ia until the end of the nineteenth century). (j) Reflexes of the lexeme *DE POST/*DE AD POST ‘after’. North-eastern: a’epb ~ da p0 ~ daspb. Central-southern: a’apo‘ ~ daspo (rarely a’epo‘). Lio Mazor: a’a po’. ModV: a’opo. 2.2. Extreme variability in the Early Venetian scripta up to e. 1300 2.2.1. Even a partial analysis of the EV scripta up to c. 1300 leads to two immediate conclusions. First of all, compared to the early mainland

13 An earlier stage (-aa'o ~ -ao) appears in vernacular lexemes reconstructible from the C0a'ici Diplomatici Paa’ovani (GLORIA 1877 and 1879—1881). The -00 stage, intermediate between -a0 and «5, is recorded in the Paduan sonnet of the fourteenth—century Tenzone poetica (CORTI 1966). In high-register Paduan texts of around 1400 (Bibbia irtoriata paa’ovana, Libra Agrega de Serapz'onz and, to a lesser extent, in the Copialettere Marciano where a ~ —aa'0 ~ -at0 coexist) the northern koiné outcome in a predominates, even appearing sporadically in Ruzante in the sixteenth century.

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Veneto varieties and to ModV the outlines of older EV are blurred and unstable. Secondly, the relationship between older EV and its potential feeder varieties is unclear, as is the line of continuity between it and ModV. The twelfth— and thirteenth-century scrz'ptu shows such a bewildering array of variants that textual philologists have struggled to pin down those typical traits which would allow one to unequivocally identify as Venetian older EV texts such as the Paufz'lo or the Proverbz'a que dz'curztur super uuturu femiuarum. This linguistic unevenness has been put down to factors such as the number and varying provenance of the textual copyists and the desire, undoubtedly present in many medieval texts from the Veneto and from other Italian regions, to avoid local and spoken forms as much as possible.19 However, the possibility that this exceptional variability20 might reflect an ongoing koineisation process has not been looked into. 2.2.2. The examplar I have chosen to analyse is the body of Venetian legal texts, dated 1253—1321, edited and published by STUSSI (1965) and electronically broken down by ALINEI (1973). I have contextualised the results with comparative data drawn from my own analysis of a corpus of older EV texts [Corpus].21 The appropriateness of the Testi veuezz'am' del Dueceuto e dez' prz'mz' del Trecem‘o [Stussi] is very high. They provide a wide-ranging sample of unquestionably Venetian texts. Many were drawn up by notaries but some were handwritten. They are written in prose and, apart from conventional formulae, obvious Latinisms are lar— ‘

gely absent. They are consistent in terms of typology and chronology and, within obvious limits, they cover a rather wide range in terms of

content and social groups. Furthermore, the texts show clear indications of speech sensitivity,22 and they have been edited and previously analysed independently.

19 For an examination of the question see LOMAZZI (1976). 20 It is instructive to compare the relative absence of morphonological variability revealed, e.g., by a detailed linguistic analysis of the Old Florentine scrz'ptu. See ALINEI (1978). 21 I Truttatz' con Aleppo, 1207—1254 (POZZA 1990) [Trattati Aleppo]; Sez' Testi Venetz' Antz'cbz' (BELLONI — POZZA 1987) [Sei Testi Antichi]; II Paufz'lo z'u autz'co veuezumo col latirzo a frame (TO-

BLER 1886) [Panfilo]; Proverbz'u que dicurztur super uatum femiuarum (CONTINI 1960) [Proverbia]; Dzlttz'c/aa Cutom': (TOBLER 1883) [Disticha]; Il [2'1er 112' men-er Trz'stauo (’Trz'stuuo Veneto’)

(DONADELLO 1994) [Tristano]; Venetian ‘Tenzone’ sonnet of the fourteenth century (CORTI 1966) [Tenzone]. 22 See, e.g., doc. 27, for the year 1302, which faithfully records Dalmatian features, and doc. 40, for the year 1307, which records Mazzorban traits.

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2.2.3.

(a) Presence of apocope on infinitives. Stussz': Highly variable, with results coinciding with north-eastern and central-southern outcomes. Apocopated forms predominate, but with non-apocopated examples on proparoxytones (not always ascribable to erosion of the post-tonic vowel) and even on paroxytones. Complete absence of north-lagoon lenition of infinitive -r. Typical statistical values: meter (16) ~ metere (1) ~ metre (7) ‘to put’; ueuder (8) ~ ueudere (3) ~ ueudre (8) ‘to sell’; star (25) ~ stare (4) ‘to be, to stay’. Corpus: Similar two- or three-way variability, with absence of north-lagunar -r loss. [Trattati Aleppo] -(V)r ~ -(V)re, with predominance of —(V)r; [Sei Testi Antichi] -(V)r ~ -(V)re, with predominance of -(V)r; [Panfilo]

-(V)r ~ -(V)re ~ (®)re, with predominance of -(V)r; [Proverbia] -(V)r ~ -(V)re, with predominance of—(V)re (above all when rhyming); [Disticha] -(V)r ~ -(V)re ~ -(®)re, with preponderance of -(V)r; [Tristano] -(V)r ~ —(V)re, with preponderance of -(V)r; [Tenzone] -(V)r.

(b) Apocope of -e and -0 on nouns. Stussz': Generally -e is dropped after /1/ (in wider contexts than in ‘ ModV), /n/, and /r/; /0/ falls after /n/ and /r/ (except on geminate re-

flexes). No apocope after /d/ and /t/. This situation of apparent compromise suggests north-eastern and central—southern contributions heading for a stable mid—point. Corpus: Similar distribution but with greater unpredictability in the oldest texts. In the [Panfilo] and in the [Proverbia] the fall of —e after /r/ and of -e and -0 after /1/ is more variable, and north-eastern type apocope after /d/ and /t/ in [Panfilo], [Proverbia] and [Disticha] is not uncom-

mon. (c) Metaphony. Stussz': Very limited examples of /o/ > /u/; more frequent examples of /e/ > /i/. Corpus: Similar presence and distribution. (d) Reflexes of nominal ending -ATEM.

Stussz': Highly variable, with outcomes in -ate ~ -ude ~ -ad/9e/-atlae ~ -cze ~ 12. The north-eastern form 12 is present, but in limited numbers. The le— nited morph in -ue, probably close to normal speech practice,23 never goes

23 This trait is constant in the three testamentary documents (does 4, 5, 6, pp. 10-16) hand-

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as far as -é (which was probably already stigmatised as rural). Rather, it is conservatively reinforced to -ade ~ -adbe (or -at/9e, with an interdental fricative), and at times to -ate. Typical values: mz'taz‘e (6) ~ ”Made (39) ~ 7722'tadbe (1) ~ mz'me (2) ~ mite? (2) ‘half’; militate (2) ~ utz'lz'tade (2) ~ utz'lz'tad/ae

(1) ~ utilitae (1) ~ utz'lz’tc? (3) ‘usefulness’. Comm: Similar uncertainty. One notes, alongside north-eastern -d in the [Disticha], the more archaic north-eastem morph -ad. [Trattati Aleppo] -& (predominant) ~ —ae; [Sei Testi Antichi] -ade (sole example); [Panfilo] -czde (predominant) ~ -dd/9e ~ 12; [Proverbia] —ate (predominant) ~ -oze; [Disticha] 12 (predominant) ~ -ad; [Tristano] -ade ~ -dd/9e; [Tenzone] absent.

(e) Reflexes of nominal ending -ARIUM. Slum": The north-eastern form -er predominates but with one example of the central-southern outcome -ar0 (spetiaro ‘grocer’) and three words (modem (2) ~ noder (11) ‘notary’; genera (3) ~ gener (1) ‘January’; centenero (1) ‘around one hundred’) showing an apparently interdialect compromise form -ero. Even one of the great Venetian patrician family names appears in three guises: Badoer (11) ~ Badoaro (5) ~ Badoero (5). Corpus: The same tendencies are apparent in the limited data available. Intermediate forms (-er0, but also -ar) appear, especially in the oldest texts. [Trattati Aleppo] -er ~ -47 (3) ~ -az'r0 (1); [Sci Testi Antichi] -er (predominant) ~ -er0; [Panfilo] -ero (predominant) ~ -er; [Proverbia] -ero; [Disti- ‘ cha] -er; [Tristano] -ar0 ~ -er(0) (deduced from the plurals mamerz' (1) ~ marz'nari (2) ‘sailors’); [Tenzone] absent.

(f) Reflexes of masculine past-participle desinence -ATUM. Stusxz': Exceptional inter- and intra-textual variability, with outcomes -at0 ~ -czd0 ~ -czd/90 ~ -ao ~ -c?. Limited presence of the north-eastern type 12. The probable spoken from —ad/90/—ao 2“ never reaches the central-southem -0‘ resolution, being reinforced instead to -ad0 or, in extreme cases, to -at0.

Typical values: data (49) ~ dado (56) ~ dad/90 (34) ~ dao (17) ~ do} (1) ‘given’. Corpus: Similar uncertainty typifies the older EV scrzptoz, with the addition in the [Panfilo] of the north-eastern type —ad. [Trattati Aleppo] -ad0 ~

written by Geremia Ghisi [Text 4]. The systematic secondary lenition of -d in Ghisi in all con-

texts (e.g. conmm ‘district’ < CONTRATAM, quaemo ‘notebook’ < QUATERNI, -a0 < -ATUM) is undoubtedly an indication of this. Ghisi was a powerful member of one of the great Venetian families and was domiciled in S. Moisé near St Mark’s, in the heart of the socially prestigious historic core of Venice. It is worth noting that in the ‘spoken’ venexz'tm of early sixtenth-century Venetian theatre, to which we shall return in Chapter VII, -ae < -ATEM was extremely common. 24 See above, note 23.

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—ao; [Sei Testi Antichi] —uto ~ -udo ~ -uo; [Panfilo] ~ato ~ -ado (predomi-

nant) ~ udbo ~ -ad ~ a; [Proverbia] -ato (predominant) ~ -ud0 ~ -ao ~ 12; [Disticha] -ado (predominant) ~ -£z (rare); [Tristano] -ado/-ud/90 (predominant) ~ oi;25 [Tenzone] -udo. (g) Reflexes of sg. 1 present tense of STARE ‘to be, to stay’. Stussz': Stou (3) ~ stone (1) (with epenthetic vowel) ~. sto (3).26 Similarly, the only reflexes found for sg. 1 of DARE ‘to give’ and *ANDARE ‘to go’ are don (3) and you (2). Corpus: Very limited data, with the appearance in [Panfilo] of stou. The employment in [Tristano] of you ‘I go’, don ‘I give’, as well as of the gerund stugaudo ‘being, staying’, mirrors the situation in [Stussi]. (h) Sg. 2 present/future sigmatic inflections. Stussz': From the limited data available, -s seems to be maintained on the present (metric (1) ‘you put’, debit (3) ‘you must’). No data for the future. Corpus: North—eastern sigmatic desinences predominate on both present and future, but alongside a sizeable minority of central-southern type outcomes with loss of -5 in both. [Panfilo] always shows —s in the future; [Tristano] and [Tenzone] have all sg. 2 present and future forms in -s. i (i) Sg. 3 conditional inflections.

Stussz': 4'4 (predominant) ~ -uve. Typical values: 007sz (3) ~ uomve (1) ‘he would like’; serz'a (3) ‘he would be’; porz'a (2) ‘he could’.

Corpus: The sporadic data available indicates uncertainty, with a stronger presence of the pan-Veneto desinence flue. [Trattati Aleppo] absent; [Sei Testi Antichi] -uve (1); [Panfilo] -uve; [Proverbia] -z'u (predominant) ~ -uve; [Disticha] absent; [Tristano] -aoe; [Tenzone] absent.

(1) Reflexes of the lexeme *DE POST/*DE AD POST ‘after’. Stussz': High—level variability. Values: dapo‘ (12) ~ dapoe (1) ~ dupoz/dapay (17) ~ daspoz' (1) ~ depoz' (6) ~ depo‘ (6). Corpus: [Trattati Aleppo] de 1701' (1); [Sei Testi Antichi] dupo‘ (2); [Panfilo] dapor’ (1); [Proverbia] dupoz'; [Disticha] dupoz'; [Tristano] dapuo (predominant) ~ alupuoz'27 ~ duspo‘; [Tenzone] absent.

25 With one possible example of the central-southern outcome «5 in the past participle redoto (‘feared’). 2" On Italo-Romance variation in the reflexes of STO, parallel to that of EV, see ROHLFS (1968, pp. 276-277).

27 The diphthongised variants, typical of EV post 1300, probably stem from the copyist.

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2.3. Levelling tendencies and evidence of reallocation in Early Venetian c. 1300-6. 1400

2.3.1. A comparison of the data in §§ 2.1 and 2.2.3 above with that laid out below clearly points up the fact that in the fourteenth century Venetian underwent vigorous processes of levelling and restructuring — processes which were substantially complete in both writing and speech by the later Cinquecento. A partial analytical breakdown of the Venetian scripta of the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries in fact reveals complex acceptancerejection tendencies within the pool of competing EV variants. These concluding dynamics of koineisation at the macro level happened, as we noted, at the culminating point of Venice’s urban coalescence but also, importantly, at a time when the Serenissima’s commercial, imperial and cultural

horizons were expanding unprecedentedly. Consequently, as we shall see in section 3 below, the city’s new overarching linguistic norms, which had evolved internally, were immediately exposed to prestigious external pressures. At the same time, from the original mix of competing forms, one finds unmistakable evidence of reallocated variants in texts of more modest register. Detailed below are the results of my analysis of four substantial and representative texts from around 1400: the first is testamentary [Sattin], the second epistolary [Contarini], the third notorial [Moretto Bon] and the fourth historical [Morosini].28 These higher-register documents, free from conscious Tuscan influence, incorporate the new levelled ~ norms operating in written Venetian around a century after [Stussi]. The results are strongly in line with an analysis of early fifteenth-century Venetian Chancery texts carried out recently by TOMASIN (2001, pp. 72-86). (a) Presence of apocope on infinitives. One outcome only: north-eastern —(V)r. (b) Apocope of -e and -0 on nouns. Stabilisation of the compromise position, still found in ModV/CV, be— tween north-eastern and central-southern tendencies. (c) Metaphony. Absent or only marginally present.

23 Ricerc/ae sul veneziano del rec. XV (con edizione di testz) (SATTIN 1986) [Sattin]; Uornini e fatti dell’ultirno Trecento e del prz‘rno Quattrocento da lettere a Giovanni Contarinz} patrizio veneto,

ttudente a Oxford e a Parigi, poi patriarca di Costantinopoli (DALLA SANTA 1916) [Contarini]; Moretto Bon: notaio in Venezia, Trebironda e Tana (DE’ COLLI 1963) [Moretto Bon]; The M0-

rosini Codex (GHEZZO — MELerLE-JONES — RIZZI 1999) [Morosini].

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(d) Reflexes of nominal ending -ATEM. Clear predominance of the conservative morph -ade, with north-eastern -d modestly present. (e) Reflexes of nominal ending -ARIUM. One outcome only: north-eastern -er. (f) Reflexes of masculine past-participle desinence -ATUM. Clear predominance of the conservative morph -ad0, with maintainance or restoration of secondary -d. Moderate presence of north-eastern 12. (g) Reflexes of sg. 1 present tense of STARE ‘to be, to stay’. Absent, but the presence in [Sattin] of staga ‘(may) be, (may) stay’, daga ‘(may) give’ and vaga ‘(may) go’, as well as of stagando ‘being, staying’, suggests underlying stago. (h) Sg. 2 present/future sigmatic inflections. Sg. 2 forms are absent from these documents, but the contemporary [Vanozzo] and [Norimberga] 29 — Venetian texts aiming for a ‘spoken’ flavour — confirm the rejection of -s in present and future although, as in ModV, not on enclitic interrogative forms. (i) Sg. 3 conditional inflections. '-ave ~ -z'cz, with -z'a predominating. (j) Reflexes of the lexeme *DE POST/*DE AD POST ‘after’. One form: dapuo‘. This shows a striking rejection of the pan-Veneto innovation with epenthetic -s (destined to become hegemonic on the mainland) which was present, albeit at modest levels, in the older EV scrz'pta. 2.3 .2. As a point of comparison I present below the results of an analysis of four fourteenth-century Venetian texts belonging to less formal registers. The first [Zibaldone] is a mercantile handbook, the second [Zuc-

chello] is a merchant’s correspondence, the third [Santo Stady] is a saint’s life, while the fourth [Apollonio] is a romance.30 The resulting data point clearly to features that were diastratically reallocated by the pre-1400

29 Frottola LXXVIII by Francesco di Vannozzo (CORSI 1969) [Vannozzo]; I ‘Dz'alog/az" dz' Giorgio da Norz'mberga (ROSSEBASTIANO BART 1984) [Norimberga]. 30 Zibaldone dd Canal (STUSSI 1967) [Zibaldone]; Lettere dz' mercantz' a Pz'gnol Zucc/Jello (MOROZZO DELLA ROCCA 1957) [Zucchello]; La 'Legena'a 432' Santa Stady’ dz' Francesc/az'no Griom' (MONTEVERDI 1930) [Santo Stady]; La storm dz' Apollom'o 032' Tim, versione tosco-venezz'ana della meld (161 sec. XIV (SALVIONI 1889) [Apollonio].

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levelling process. I use the numbering employed in the preceding analyses to highlight the most relevant points of divergence: (a) Great variability in infinitive endings, with -(V)r ~ -(V)re and even

— in [Santo Stady] and [Zucchello] — the north-lagunar outcome -(V), with lenition of -r (e.g. min? ‘to enter’, rumpe ‘to break’ [Santo Stady]; mete’ ‘to put’ [Zucchello]). Such infinitive forms were still present as diatopic relics in the nineteenth century. (g) Absence of the stago reflex.

(h) Overwhelming presence of sigmatic inflections on sg. 2 present and future tenses. [Zucchello] even contains an exceptional example of a sigmatic nominal plural ([z' presis, ‘the prices’).31 (i) Predominance of sg. 3 conditionals in -az)e, and even the presence, in [Apollonio] of -cze, with lenition of intervocalic -v. (j) The reappearance, especially in [Apollonio], of daspub ‘after’. 2.3.3. At this point in our investigation we can draw the following conclusions about the origins and early development of Venetian. The results of our detailed historical and linguistic investigation of the comparative textual evidence from Venice and the Terraferma lend strong support to the hypothesis that Venetian arose as a koiné forged from north-eastern and central-southern Veneto mainland inputs. The evolution of EV from structural polymorphy to relative regularity over a period of centuries appears as a paradigmatic example of combined demographic and linguistic ’ inputs generating a long-term koineisation dynamic. The data point to the classic koineisation processes: interaction of related dialects, initial highlevel variability followed by accomodation, levelling and restructuring, leading to the formation of new, stable norms and the reallocation of discarded features. The data also allow us to conclude that of the two contributory streams to the new koiné the greater influence was exerted by the north— eastern Veneto type. In the final section of this chapter we will see how an emerging Venetian written norm was attracted and influenced in the final phase of EV by two prestigious external models: the northen Italian lingua franca and Tuscan. By the early MidV period these elite influences were conditioning spoken Venetian towards less distictively Veneto and

31 Fascinating is the presence, apparently unnoticed by scholars, of two nominal sigmatic plurals on the names of fruits sculpted in the vernacular on the capital of column 10 (Pz'azzetta side) of the Palazzo Ducale: rerexz's (‘cherries’) e cbocumerz'r (‘cucumbers’). These fruit inscrip-

tions, probably datable to the fourteenth or fifteenth century, also show an example of /e/ > /i/ metaphony on pz'rz' (‘pears’). See MANNO (1992, pp. 47-48).

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more Italianising norms — in line with Pellegrini’s suggestion that some of the distinctive north-eastern Veneto elements within EV were removed ‘from above’ (see above § 1.2). At the same time, the irresistible rise of Tus-

can/Italian drastically curtailed the unmarked use of Venetian in writing. At the very moment when Latin was ceasing to be hegemonic, the codified language of the Italian elites eased vex/exam out of its position as the preferred written vernacular of the state of Venice.

3. VERNACULAR CHOICES IN VENICE

3.1. The emergence of the vernacular in Venice in the late medieval period was conditioned, as in all Italian states, by two unavoidable linguistic presences. On the one hand, Latin remained the preferred written medium of the church, of scholarship, of most aspects of the law and, over-

whelmingly, of state legislation during the period covered by EV. On the other, Tuscan established itself as the preferential medium of lyric poetry in Venice, the Veneto and elswhere after 13 00. After 1400 it increasingly assumed the role of prestigious, linguistic reference point for the Italian elites in high-register writing, including chancery practice, within a

fluid situation where a non-municipal vernacular equivalent to Latin was sought. This roofing role of Tuscan —> Italian was underpinned, especially in Venice, by the crucial homogenising function of the printing industry. It was also strengthened by the emergence of less municipal humanistic tendencies in the Venetian patriciate, represented at their most extreme by the figure and linguistic role of Pietro Bembo in the early Cinquecento. The outcome would be the ale facto adoption of Tuscan Italian as the volgare of the Venetian Sz'gnorz'a post-1500, albeit alongside Latin. However, the dynamics of vernacular choice and the reality of vernacular written usage across the second half of the EV period and into MidV were particularly complex and fluctuating in Venice. They involved competing tendencies and variabilty of practice, conditioned by individual and genre but also by the enduring prestige of venexz'cm itself: the sole and unmarked language in all spheres of oral communication within the Stato Veneto. It is particularly important, although not always straightforward, when considering Tuscan influence on Venetian texts post 1300 to distinguish between two strands: one organic, the other ‘artificial’. On the one hand it is possible to detect in this period Tuscan contact-influence on the structures of venexz'cm which, filtering down from the written then spoken practice of the Venetian elites, would become embedded long-term in spoken as —186—

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well as written Venetian between 1500 and 1600. On the other, there is the

practice of more-or-less conscious Venetian-Tuscan hybridisation which increasingly affected Venetian writing in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Such hybridisation may, of course, have served to reinforce genuine

organic contact-influence, even though its written realisations were in themselves special cultural artefacts. 3.2. The predominance of Latin in official, legal and scholarly texts in Venice as elsewhere in Italy, with the partial exception of the central Italian communes, means that vernacular writing in Venetian emerged in EV in restricted contexts and/or limited numbers. The relative tardiness of vernacular emergence in Venice may be imputable to the unique clerical monopoly of notorial functions in the city and to the absence of a court provid— ing patronage. More generally, it may also reflect a cultural preference in the mercantile republic for things practical: the paucity of creative literary texts in the EV period, compared to practical and moralising ones, may be symptomatic of this. For the period up to c. 1325 , in which the non-Veneto presence in Venetian texts is very limited or non—existent, the contexts of vernacular emergence may be classified as follows.32 Numbers in square brackets refer to the representative textual samples provided at the end of the present chapter. (i) Official state documents where the necessity of unequivocal communication was paramount. In this category one finds the earliest explicitly dated documents in venexian: the translation of a series of commercial-privilege treaties accorded to Venice by the sultinate of Aleppo in Syria between 1207 and 1254 (BELLONI — POZZA 1990). The first legal oaths sworn by community leaders, in the context of military training of district militias in Venice, also come into this category [Text 1], as do three exceptional vernacular dispatch letters sent by the Doge to Venetian merchants in November 1309 [Text 2], and the first vernacular statutes of a Venetian ma-

gistracy, the Camerlenghi di Comun, from the third decade of the fourteenth century [Text 3]. (ii) Legal documents where unequivocal understanding hy all parties was paramount. The vernacular is visible in such documents from a very early date, under the Latin patina, as in the Recordacione of Piero Corner (STUSSI

32 On the general classification of medieval Italian texts in the vernacular see PETRUCCI (1994) and REDON et a1. (2002).

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1980, pp. 87-89) from the third quarter of the twelfth century. After the middle of the thirteenth century Venetian appeared increasingly commonly in the sections dictated or handwritten by the testator of wills and bequests [Text 4], in commercial contracts and in petitions in cases of commercial dispute. (iii) Religious texts aimed at an audience comfortable in tbe vernacular. Most representative are the vernacular versions of the Gospels from the late thirteenth century (BRUGNOLO — GAMBINO 2006).33 (iv) Didactic texts in tbe broadest sense. In this category I place influential moralising verse-works such as the Panfilo, the line-by-line translation of the Latin Parnpbilus de Aniore [Text 5], the common-sense dictums of the pseudo-ancient Disticba Catonis [Text 6], and the bitterly mysoginistic Proverbia que dicuntur super natura fenu'narunz [Text 7]. I also include translations (volgarizzanienti) of lives of saints such as the Legenda de Santa Stady, in verse, from the early Trecento [Text 8], historical narratives, a

practical cum political tract like the Trattato de regimine rectoris (MUSSAFIA 1868) by Fra Paolino Minorita (c. 1270/74-1344), and a unique example of satirical verse [Text 9]. (v) Inscriptions in or on public buildings. I include an early example of a ‘ vernacular presence that was to grow considerably in Venice later in the Trecento: the inscription, dated 1310, in the basilica of Santi Maria 6 Do-

nato on Murano [Text 10]. 3.3. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the Venetian vernacular gained ever greater space alongside Latin in Venice, the Venetian State and its overseas empire. The Venetian archives abound for this period in wills, contracts, guild statUtes (niariegole),34 account books, merchant

handbooks [Text 11], personal correspondence, mercantile correspondence, less-formal diplomatic correspondence, portolans, chronicles, his-

tories, and literature of all kinds in the vernacular.35 In the Quattrocento language-learning phrase books were written [Text 12]. Public inscriptions in the vernacular became increasingly normal, indoors and out, from the mid fourteenth century, and are more common in Venice than in other Italian cities. Some can be read in situ to this day. Exceptional is the vivid de-

33 On the sources of the vernacular Venetian Gospels see also GAMBINO (2003). 34 The Museo Correr holds over two hundred mariegole of the fourteenth and fifteenth cen-

turies. For a complete list and description see GIACHERY (2004). 35 I refer in particular to the Archivio di Stato at the Frari, the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana and the Correr library and museum.

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scription of the terrible earthquake of 1347 recorded in the Cloister of Santa Maria de la Carita [Text 13]. Also linguistically important are (i) the dedication stone on the campanile of San Polo where the architect informs us that «MCCCLXHI di XXII de decembrio ao fato questo champanil» [‘On December 22nd 1363 I made this bell-tower’]. (ii) the dedication plaque under the sculpted symbol of the 56240ch of San Zuane Evangelista, informing us that «MCCCXLVIIII fo fato questo lavorier p(er)...» [‘In 1348 this work was made by...’ followed by a list of names]. (iii) the two inscriptions on the

well-head by the church of the Anzolo Rafael [Text 14]. (iv) the dedication, dated 1362, beneath the Virgin and Child bas-relief on the outside of the church of San Martino. (v) the vernacular dictum on the wall of the Tesoro di San Marco from around 1400 [Text 15]. (vi) the inscription under the splendid and recently-restored bas-relief of the cobbler Ananius being healed by St Mark, with its traces of paintwork, over the doorway of the former guildhouse of the shoemakers (Scuola dez' Caleg/aerz') in Campo San Toma (sestz'er of San Polo), which begins: «mcccclxxviii adi xiiiiii setenbrio nel / te(m)po de M (issier) P010...» [‘1478 on the 16':h of September in the time of Missier Polo...’]. (vii) the commemorative plaque on the outside wall of the church of the Santi Apostoli [Text 16]. Venetian even made timid inroads into the legislative records of the State, and in 1477 the statutes of the city (Statutz' dc Venesz'a) were translated from Latin and published in Venetian [Text 17], although it has to be emphasised that throughout the fifteenth century legislation officially recorded in Venetian ‘ remained at less than 10% of total recorded texts (TOMASIN 2001, pp. 7172). What is clear from an overview of this massive production in Venetian is that during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the educated classes in Venice were linguistically affected by two outside vernacular models. The influence of these impacted on the evolution in the later EV period of the written (and spoken) linguistic norms that had emerged in Venice from the internal koineisation process we examined above. The models were Tuscan (written Tuscan above all) and a fluid supra-regional northern written lingua franca [NLF] that exercised a pull on high-register writing in the Veneto and in northern Italy generally. 3.3.1. As is well known, Venice and the Veneto had been immediately receptive to the achievements of the great Tuscan fourteenth-century writers, especially Dante and Petrarch. In the Trecento and Quattrocento such influence generated poetic imitation in Venice: imitation that was linguistically slavish, as in the verse of Giovanni Querini in the thirteeth century, or which at least watered down the Venetian used, as in the delicate —189—

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fifteenth-century lyrics of Leonardo Giustinian. Intriguingly revealing of an early drive ‘from above’ to move literary Venetian in the direction of Tuscan are the modifications added by a near-contemporary hand to the manuscript of the mid fourteenth-century Venetian romance Apollom'o 031' Tim (SALVIONI 1889; PELLEGRINI 1990). Among the most significant ‘corrections’, in the context of our preceding analyses, are: the removal of Venetian sigmatic sg. 2 inflections (feature (h) in section 2 above), the elimination of epenthetic —s in daspuo (feature (j)), and the changing of -er(0) endings —> —ar0 (feature (e)). One notes, too, that the characteristic

EV raising of tonic /a/ > /e/ on verbal theme vowels and before some nominal nasal environments is reversed, e.g. sepa is changed to :4ch (‘he may know’), and fentz' —> fcmtz' ‘boys’. From the late fourteenth to the late fifteenth centuries the gravitational attraction of Tuscan generated — alongside an uninterrupted tradition of genuinely venexz'cm texts — a range of works, including volgarz'zzamemz', in more-or-less hybrid Tuscan-Venetian or Tuscan-Veneto, described as veneto/venezz‘ano z'llustre by modern Italian scholars.36 From around 1400, for example, is Glz’ quatro Evangelz'z' concordatz' in uno by Jacopo Gradenigo, whose linguistic hybridism has been studied in detail by Francesca Gambino (GAMBINO 1996). Other no, table examples are the fifteenth-century redaction of the Esopo (the fables of Aesop), whose Veneto is hard to localise, and the so-called Mz'lz'one Veneto (the adventures of Marco P010) in which fifteenth-century Venetian traits predominate.37 This impulse in the direction of Tuscan models was undoubtedly reinforced after 1450 by the flourishing Venetian printing industry whose vernacular production was overwhelmingly in Tuscan, and perhaps by the opening of a State-run school for civil servants in Venice in 1446, the so-called Scuola di San Marco (NARDI 1979). One observes, for instance, that in the government documents in venexz'cm from

the last quarter of the fifteenth century Tuscan morphonological and orthographical features had begun to infiltrate native Venetian structures and spelling, compared to equivalent vernacular legislation from earlier in the Quattrocento. The language of these laws remains essentially Venetian, however, in structure, lexis and orthography, and its assimilation of some Tuscan traits is not comparable to the fundamental restructuring found in literary venezz'cmo z'llustre. It is interesting to recall, in this con-

36 On Tuscan literary influence in the Veneto see BRUGNOLO (1976). On veneto/venezz'ano z'llurtre see PELLEGRINI (1990) and PACCAGNELLA (1997). 37 See BRANCA (1998) and BARBIERI — ANDREOSE (1999).

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text, that a Tuscanising process had bleached the vernaculars of other northern Italian chanceries, notably those of the Visconti and Sforza in Milan and of the Este in Ferrara, some decades previously — but in a more thoroughgoing way. 3.3 .2. In fact, in spite of Tuscan influence, the likely lasting impact on Venetian texts which did not aspire to Tuscan imitation in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was more subtle than the wholesale restructuring of venezz'cmo z'llustre would suggest. Most obvious are the shift in the adverbial desinence from -mem‘re —> -mem‘e, and in sg. 1 of the future from —é —> -0‘: contact traits that we will return to in more detail in Chapter IX. However, as we shall see in Chapter VII, Tuscan was certainly an important dynamic in influencing the drift-choice of ‘internal’ variants within the Venetian norm in later EV and in the transitional period between EV and MidV. An important impact in de-particularising Venetian and in conditioning internal venexz'cm norms was made, especially in the Quattrocento, by the fluid dynamic of the northern Italian written lingua franca. The NLF was strongly attracted by Latinising forms and spelling. In addition, it was drawn to supra-regional northern Italian traits, and to the avoidance of local ones. Interestingly, it was relatively close in its structures to the central-southern Veneto type,38 itself more superficially close in its prosody to Tuscan than was older EV. The impact of the NLF is undoubtedly present, if moderately, alongside Tuscan in the late Venetian vernacular legis- ~ lative texts. Its impact is more obvious, though, in the historically most important vernacular corpus written in Venice in the transitional phase between EV and MidV, the 58—volume diaries of the chronicler and histor-

ian Marin Sanudo whose language is an extraordinary irnpasto of Venetian,

Tuscan and NLF elements [Text 19].39 3.4. The analysis of three non-hybridised Venetian texts covering the period from the middle of the fifteenth to the early sixteenth centuty — [Badoer], [Malipiero Text 18], and [Merlini] 4° - confirms the external influ-

38 On the NLF see VITALE (1953), FRASSON (1980), BENINCA (1990), GRIGNANI (1990), MA-

TARRESE (1990) and SANGA (1990). 39 The most important study of the hybrid nature of Sanudo’s language is LEPSCHY (1993). 40 I] libro dez' contz' dz' Giacomo Badoer, Costmtz'nopolz’ 1436-1441 (DORINI — BERTELE 1956)

[Badoer]; Annalz' venetz' dell‘mmo 1457 a] 1500 del senatore Domenico Malz'pz'ero (LONGO 1843— 1844) [Malipiero]; and the correspondence of the merchant Martino Merlini (DALLA SANTA 1917) [Merlini]. Given his advanced age, Merlini’s Venetian cannot be too divergent from late EV practice.

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ence on the EV norms delineated in section 2 of this chapter, as well as the appearance in lower registers of reallocated features from Venice’s original koineisation process. In feature (d) one observes the gradual affirmation of north-eastern reflex 12, which coincided with Tuscan, at the expense of

conservative -ade, but with the reappearance in lower register [Merlini] of -ae, absent in the records from the early fourteenth century onwards. A similar, if historically more complex, evolution is observable in feature (f), where the north-eastern morph ~62 again prevailed. Modestly present from oldest EV, -ATUM > (-at/-ad?) > -d seems, within the course of a cen-

tury, to have won over educated writing in Venice and the Veneto, even extending in the sixteenth century into unmarked Venetian speech. We find that 12 is the normal form in fourteenth-century Trevisan legal usage (STUSSI 1968). Around 1400 it appeared in the Paduan Erbarz'o Carrarere and predominated in the magnificent Bz'bbz'a Irzforz'ata Padovamz. It reappeared alongside conservative -ado in early fifteenth-century Chancery Venetian and is well represented in the Mz'lz'one Veneto. It tended increasingly, in educated Venetian writing of the second half of the Quattrocento, to appear alongside -ad0. Noteworthy is the timid reappearance, again in [Merlini], of the past-participle outcome -ATUM > -40 found in old EV. In (g) sg. 1 stago is reconfirmed, as are in (h) the absence of sg. 2 sigmatic ‘ inflections, in (i) the predominance of the conditional in -z'oz, and in (j) reflexes without the epenthetic -3. These are all tendencies which coincide with the NLF and, in the case of (h) and (i), with Tuscan.

4. EARLY VENETIAN TEXTS“1

[Text 1] An extract from an oath to be sworn by the leaders of the Venetian district militia on the subject of weapons preparation and training to be undertaken. An example of early Venetian officialese, the language of the extract shows some conservative tendencies (e.g. contmm, sopto), and some typical older EV polymorphy (e.g. /ar/ ~ /er/ on future stems, and infinitives with and without vowel apocope). This early fourteenth-century copy of the original oath decree (itself issued c. 1318) is in the Archivio di Stato in Venice, Miscellanea Attz' Dz'plomatz'cz' e Prz'vaz‘z', b. 29, numbers 866/1, 2, 3 ,

4. I follow the transcription in BELLONI — POZZA (1987, pp. 91—93) which contains a detailed linguistic analysis. In line 4 I read ‘a tuti’ for ‘e tuti’.

41 All translations are my own.

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EARLY VENETIAN: FROM LAGUNAR KOINE TO PROTO LANGUAGE OF STATE

Quro alle va(n)gnelle sante d(e) Dio eo che su(m) cavo de miai(con)trata, che cu(m) li mei (con)pagnoni o chu(m) algum d(e) illi enfra q(ua)rto / die da che llo p(re)sente capitollar me sera dato 0 ad alchu(m) di li mei (con)pagnoni, scrivero o faro scrivere mi e li mei (con)pagno / ni a tuti e gasscadu(n) homeni de la mia (con)trata, da anni XV en suso en chi a ad XXXV, e si a 1i mei (con)pagnoni co(m)mo a tuti li oltri sovra d(i)c(t)i, eo coma(n)daro che casscadu(n) debia aver recovrado

una bona ballestra e soficie(n)te et b(e)ne adpare//iada de corde e de crocho, la qual sia soa p(ro)pria, en chi a XV die da ch’eo 1i avero fato lo d(i)c(t)o coma(n)damento, sopto pena / de s(oldi) XL p(er) casscadu(n), salvi et exceptati q(ue)lli che manifestame(n)tre a mi et alli mei (con)pagnoni od a la macor p(ar)te de / nui parera si povri ch’eli no possa sostegnir le spe(n)sarie de la ballestra. [‘I swear on the holy Gospels of God, I who am head of my district; that with my companions or with some of them, and within the fourth day of the present decree being given to me or any of my companions, I and my companions will write, or cause to write, to each and every man of my district, from fifteen years up to thirty five, ordering my companions and all the others mentioned above to obtain within fifteen days of the order a good crossbow adequately and properly fitted with string and hook, which should be their own, under pain of paying 40 soldz' each: with the sole exception of those who seem to me and to my companions — or to most of us — to be obviously too poor to bear the expense of the crossbow’]

[Text 2] An extract from a letter dated November 30th 1309. Possibly handwritten by the Ducal notary Benincasa de Ghezi, this is a contemporary copy of the second of three letters in venexz'an entrusting merchants with military-diplomatic missions in the Venetian possessions in the Pelopponese (Romania to the Venetians). The earliest extant letters of their kind in venexz'cm, they are held in the Archivio di Stato in Venice, Minor Con-

sz'glz'o, lettere segrete (1308-1310). This is an excellent example of high—register Venetian written norms c. 1300. Note the sigmatic sg. 2 endings on debis ‘you must’ and dams ‘you will give’, the pl. 1 present-tense endings in —emo, and the abundant use of subject pronouns, including tonic tu. I follow the transcription in STUSSI (1996), where a detailed linguistic analysis is provided. Ioh(anni) de Varino (et) Nicolao Trivisano. / Ecoti a vu comandemo p(er) nu e p(er) lo n(ost)ro (Con)seio che, siando vu conti a Modon, tu Cane / debis remagnir ad Modon (e) ess(er) ali nostri castellani ala guardia de Mothon si como / eli te ordenera. Ali qual vu daré le nostre letere le qual nu li mandemo e quelle che // nu mandemo a Negropo e daréli curace LXXX furnide de colari e vanti, miliar(a) VJ / de falsado(r)i, miliar(a) VJ de quarelli usadi —193— 13

CHAPTER SIX

e ballestre L e libr. XV de spago de ballestra. E fato co / tu Nicolo Trivisan va’ Viagam(en)tre ala Chan(ia) (e) preséntate alo rector, alo qual tu daras le nostre / letere che nu mandemo si ad ello cho’ alo ducha n(ost)ro de Crede e daras alo dito rector lo rema/gnante dele arme... [To Iohannes de Varino and Nicolao Trivisano. Receive this. We and our Council order that, having reached Modon, you Cane must remain in Modon and follow the orders given to you by our fortress commanders guarding Modon. To them you will give the letters we send them and those that we are sending to Negroponte; and you will give them 80 breastplates provided with collars and gloves, six thousand pikes, six thousand used [or ‘usual’?] bolts and 50 crossbows,

and 15 pounds of crossbow-string. Having done this, you Nicolo Trivisan go straight to Chania and present yourself to the governor, to whom you will give our letters which we send both to him and to our Duke of Crete, and you will give to the said governor the remainder of the weapons...]

[Text 3] An extract from the first official statute in Venetian, that of the Camerlenghi di Comun. The Camerlenghi, whose headquarters was the Palazzo dei Camerlenghi at the Rialto, in the heart of the city’s commercial district, were the treasury officials of the state. The statute was drawn up in Latin in the thirteenth century, with this fourteenth century vernacular version dating from c. 1330. Like Texts 1 and 2 above this officialese exemplifies the early written norm crystallising out from the lagoon koineisation process. The passage shows written conservatism in its retention of intervocalic /d/ (e.g. enfermz'mde, tegnudo), the original sg. 1 Venetian future-tense inflection in -é (vz'gm'ré) and typical EV outcomes

such as AL > /ol/ (e.g. Rz'olto) and L + yod > /j/ (e.g. Comez'o), alongside some infinitive variation (perdere ~ sagrar) and hesitation over the graphic rendering of /z/, with cason ~ caxon. Note for ‘outside’ for the expected fora. I follow the transcription of TOMASIN (1997-99, pp. 36-37). Capz'tolo H] CO z'0 dz'e’ perder lo salario in doplo 36 2'0 110 uz'gneré alo ’fz'tz'o ala campcma e dele caxon egeptade. E se io no vigneré e no stare alo ’ficio si como e dito, io die’ perdere lo mio salario de quello di, et altretanto delo mio per la pena, ’ceptade queste cason: goé per caxon d’enfermitade delo mio corpo over deli rnie’ propinqui per li quali se— gondo la forma del conseio io son tegnudo d’ensir de (Con)seio, e per cason d’andar a mo(r)to et a noce et ancora per cason de metter osia de offerir munega in monestier, o sagrar, per le qual tutte cason io no die’ perder lo salario de tuto quelo di; ancora, se io averé pledo et io de andasse o fosse for dela citade de R101to: per le qual tutte cason io no die’ aver la pena predita ni die’ perder lo salario ta(n)te fiade quante io fosse empacado d’alguna dele predite cason.

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EARLY VENETIAN: FROM LAGUNAR KOINE TO PROTO LANGUAGE OF STATE

[Chapter III. How I am to lore double my salary zf I do not cake to the oflz‘ce when the hell rings, and the exceptions to this. And if I do not come and stay at the office as has been said, I am to lose my salary for that day and the same again as punishment, except for these reasons, that is: my physical illness or that of my nearest and dearest, for whom, according to the type of Council, I am obliged to leave the Council; and because of a funeral or wedding or because of placing or offering up a nun to a convent, or consecrating — for all of which reasons I should not lose my salary for the whole of that day. Furthermore, if I have a court-case and because of it I had to be or go outside of the city district of Rialto — for none of these reasons am I to suffer the aforesaid punishment nor lose my salary, however many times I am unavoidably detained by any of the aforesaid reasons]. [Text 4] An extract from the will of Geremia Ghisi, a member of a

powerful Venetian merchant family who resided in the heart of the San Marco district at San Moisé. The will was handwritten by Ghisi in 1282 and is linguistically notable for the extensive lenition of intervocalic consonants that it displays (e.g. contraa, moo, clamao). Since in this respect it goes further than the contemporary scrz'pta, it may bear witness to unmarked spoken practice in late thirteenth-century Venetian. Also interesting is the graphic alternation between vogo ~ voio ‘I want’ < VOLEO, with the former strongly suggesting the presence of a palatal outcome of L + yod. I follow the transcription in STUSSI (1965, p. 11). In nomine domini amen. Millesimo cclxxxij mense agusti. / E[go] Ceremia Gisi dela contraa de san Muse constitute e voio que depoi la mia morte Tomasina mia muier e Lunardo / [...] dela contraa de san Stai e Filipo Gisi dela contraa de san Simion sia me’ commesarii en cotal moo que, qualor que l’un de / questi non fose a Venesia, que li do posa e debia atenplir si co(m’) de soto sé scrito e se algun de questi me’ commesarii morise, si c(om’) // plasese a Deo, vogo que ser Marco Gen, 10 qual ven clamao Camano, sia en logo de quello commesario co(n) tuta quella baillia que 6 da’ / at un deli altri et que senpre sia co(n)plio quel que parera ala maor parte deli diti commesarii. [In nomine domz'm' amen. 1282 meme agusti. I Ceremia Gisi from the district of San Muse declare and wish that after my death Tomasina my wife and Lunardo [...] from the district of San Stae and Filipo Gisi from the district of San Simion should be my executors such that were one of them not in Venice the other two can and should carry ‘out [my wishes], as is written above. And if any of these executors of mine were to die, as pleased God, I want Marco Gen, known as Camano, to take the place of that executor, with all the powers that I gave to one of the others, and that what seems appropriate to the majority of my aforesaid executors should always be carried out]. —195—

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[Text 5] The opening lines of the Pcmfz'lo, the anonymous Venetian translation of the medieval Latin Pamp/yz'lus d6 Amara, inspired by Ovid. Structural variation in the Venetian of the Panfilo is high, with past participles and even present indicatives showing sometimes radical vowel erosion (e.g. emplagd, serad, port) and diphthongisation going beyond the later EV norm (e.g. pz'eto for peto ‘breast’). Typical early EV features are adverbs in -memre (e.g. cotzdzkmamemre), PL > /pl/ (e.g. plaga), eu < EGO, and present tense sg. 1 42' on aver ‘to have’. As expected, the masculine definite articles are [0 and 12'. I use the transcription by TOBLER (1886) taken from the Hamilton (formerly Saibante) ms. 390 in the Deutsche Staatsbibliothek, Berlin, fols 114r-157r. The Hamilton manuscript is probably a thirteenth-century copy of the original text which, judging by internal his— torical references, is likely to date from the mid twelfth century. Incz'pz't lz'ber panfi'lz' — e panfilo parla enlo comencamento soura si medesemo. [and Panfilo speaks at the beginning about himself] Uulneror et clausum porto sub pectore telum. — eu panfilo son emplaga 6 port 10 langon goe lamor serad enlo mieu pieto. [1, Panfilo, am wounded and carry the spear, that is love, closed within my breast]

Crescz't et asz'due plaga dolorque mic/22'. — e cotidianamentre cresse ami la plaga elo dolore coe lamor. [and daily my wound and the pain, that is love, grow] Et ferz'emz'r ad/auc non audeo dz'cere name”. — et ancora no auso dir ni manefestar lo nome de quela kc me fiere. [and still I do not dare to speak or make pu— blic the name of she who wounds me] Nec sz'm't aspectus plaga uz'dere suos. — ella plaga coe lamore nome lassa ancora ueder li soi guardamenti. [and the wound, that is love, still does not allow me to see her looks] Vndefutum meis maz'om perz'cula dampm's. — perlaqual caosa eu spero et ai paura qe li perigoli ke rue de uegnir sera maior de li damaci. [for which reason I hope, and am afraid that the dangers to come to me will be greater than the damages].

[Text 6] An extract from the Venetian version of the influential Distic/m Catom's (second century ADP), falsely attributed in the Middle Ages to Cato the Elder. This encyclopedic and moralising verse compendium was used in teaching and as a storehouse of information in the medieval period, and was extensively translated into the Romance vernaculars. The anonymous thirteenth-century Venetian version in the Hamilton manuscript in Berlin (see Text 5 above) probably goes back to a twelfth-century Vene—196—

EARLY VENETIAN: FROM LAGUNAR KOINE TO PROTO LANGUAGE OF STATE

tian original. Like the Panfz'lo and the Proverbz'a (see Text 7 below), the Distz'c/m are notable for their structural polymorphism, with examples of syncope and apocope going beyond the later EV norm (e.g. desidre, enprendre, plas, quest) and with variable infinitive forms (e.g. conoscer ~ cognoscere). The passive employs the auxiliary fir ‘to be’ < FIERI (e.g. fz menado desevrado). Sg. 2 verbs show normal sigmatic endings (e.g. in 00752:, legems) and the gerund desinence is —cmd0 in all conjugations (e.g. [egamdo). Note pretonic vowel variation on damandarcis ~ demandanis and the use of the future stem in -ar—. The extract below is from the opening of Book II, in the transcription of SEGRE — MARTI (1959, p. 189). Se per ventura tu voras cognoscer lo lavorer de la terra, leceras Vergilio; ao se maiormentre tu te fadige a cognoscere 1e vertu de le erbe, quel libro 1e dira a ti per versi. [If by chance you want to know about working the land, you will read Virgil; or if more greatly you strive to know about the virtues of plants, that book will tell you them in verse] E se tu desidre a cognoser le romane e le a[fricane vere], damandaras Luc[ano], lo qual disse le batagle de [Marte]. [And if you wish to know about the R0man and African wars, ask Lucan who told of the wars of Mars]

S’el plas a ti amar alguna causa, o enprendre amar lecando, demandaras Ovi— dio; se quest penser e a ti ke tu vive savio, aod qelle cause 1e qual ke tu posse en— prender, per le qual cause 10 segolo fi menado desevrado da li Vicii. [If you enjoy loving something or learning to love by reading, ask for Ovid; if your thoughts are about living wisely listen to those things you can learn, for which earthly life is lived separated from vices] Adonca sta en scola et enprend quele cause le qual sea seno, lecando [So stay in school and learn those things which are wisdom, by reading]

[Text 7] An extract from the Venetian version, in rhyming quartets, of the anonymous, misogynistic Proverbz'a que dz'cuntur super ”alum femz'mmm, translated from its widely-know French equivalent the Cbozstz'emusart. The language of the Proverbz'a illustrates the polymorphic tendencies that characterise the oldest Venetian texts, with variable infinitives outcomes

(e.g. covrz'r ~ tolere) and conditions of syncope and apocope which some— times go beyond the later EV norm (e.g. 012m, 0712 ~ 07720, quaml ~ quando, and rid). Note theinitial betacism on bolpe ‘fox’ < VULPEM. The Proverbz'a are preserved in the’Hamilton manuscript in Berlin (see above Texts 5 and

6) in what appears to be a thirteenth—century copy of a mid twelfth-century Venetian original. I follow the transcription of verses 421-436 in CONTINI

(1960, I, p. 541). —197—

CHAPTER SIX

Li porgi no poi tolere / de la soa noritura, né la gata, sacatelo, / q’é fuira per natura; quando l’om cre’ de lana / trar seda neta e pura perde la soa ovra / et endarno lavora. [You cannot take pigs from their food nor the cat, know this, which is a thief by nature; when man thinks he can extract clean pure silk from wool he is wasting his work [= time] and working in vain] Femena del so vego / no la poi unca trare ca per manace dicerli / né dolce né amare: qualor vol, rid e plange / tante volte sa fare; cui plui le ama e servele, / plui lo brama enganare. [Woman from her habits can never be drawn by threats told her, whether sweet or bitter; whenever she wishes she laughs or cries, many pirouettes she has; the more someone loves and serves her the more she longs to deceive him] La bolpe fai asai boqe / a la tana o’ conversa, L’un’ ampla, l’autra streta, / gascuna fai deversa, E quando 10 can cacala / e ’l cacaor l’apresa Per una entra, per l’autra esse, / cosi scampa de presa. [The fox makes many holes at the den where she lives, one wide, the other narrow, she makes each different; and when the dog hunts her and the hunter approaches she enters one and exits the other and so escapes in haste] Altresi fai 1e femene / di e note tutavia, qe tutora s’empensa / engano e trigaria, encegno e travolte / per covrir soa folia: quand l’omo l’acausona, / ben 51 presta bausia. [That’s just what women do, night and day constantly, Always thinking of cheating and trickery, ruses and tricks to cover their folly: when accused by a man they have a lie well ready]

[Text 8] An extract from a saint’s life, in verse. The Legenda d6 Sam‘o Stady [2 St Eustace] e della muz'er e delly fz'oly (4828 lines in rhyming couplets) was written by the Venetian Franceschin Griony in the early fourteenth century. The Venetian of the Santa Stady shows hints of Tuscan influence (in this passage: sz’gnore, questo, came}, board and the adverb apermmente in -mem‘e), alongside some notable examples of the raising of tonic /e/ > /i/ (e.g. podz' for podé and glz'xa ‘church’, the latter perhaps —198—

EARLY VENETIAN: FROM LAGUNAR KOINE TO PROTO LANGUAGE OF STATE

occasioned by the rhyme with guz'xa). The text is preserved in a near-contemporaneous copy in Milan in the Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense, ms. Morbz'o 12. This envoz’ extract below is from ll. 4795-4812 and may have been written either by Griony himself or by the copyist. The ‘scritura’ referred to in the passage could be the original Latin, or perhaps a French version of the legend. I follow the transcription in MONTEVERDI

(1930, p. 175). Corando 1i anny dell’auenimento / Del nostro signore mille trecento / E vintiuno fo conpli tuto / Questo libro a moto a moto / De santo Heustadio per uer, / Cossi como vuy podi ueder: / Ch’ell’é tuto in latin trato / E for de la scritura extrato, / In tal guixa che tuta gente / L’intenda ben apertamente; / Che molta cente al mondo a / De tal, che scritura non sa; / Ch’i non poria miga intender: / Pergo me conven destender, / E o-lo fato in tal guixa, / Chon dixe la scritura de la sancta

glixa. / Pergo ui priego in charita, / Ch’ello plaqua a la uostra bonta... [During the year 1321 since the coming of our Lord, this book about St Eustace was all completed word for word, in truth, just as you can see. For it is all drafted in the vernacular (latin) and taken from the [original] writing, in such a way that everybody can understand it all clearly. For there are many people in the world of the kind who know no writing and would not be able to understand at all. I have therefore had to lay it out just as the writings of the Holy Church say. I therefore beseech you for charity’s sake that it please your goodness...]

[Text 9] A sonnet written c. 1310 by the Venetian patrician Cuan(e) [Giovanni] Querini, better known for his friendship with Dante and his Tuscanising lyric poetry. It is part of a comic tenzone of three vernacular sonnets by different authors, with the other two in Paduan and Trevisan — that is in the central-southern and north-eastern Veneto dialects — and is housed within the Camom'ere of the contemporary poet Nicolo de’ Rossi. This is a very early example of dialect used expressionistically for comic—satirical purposes. The Venetian is dense and highly-coloured, with heavy use of features such as sg. 2 sigmatic endings (52's, mantis, vadagm's, contz's, apontz's, sems, averas)42 and OZ < AL (alto, 01m, Rz'olto). Noticeable are

the first-declension adjectival metaplasm grando, the enclitic interrogative fas—tu, the raising of /a/ > /e/ on Ferem, and Germanic W > /v/ (vadagm's).

42 One is reminded that the sentence through which Dante characterises Venetian in the De vulgarz' eloquentz'a contains a sigmatic sg. 2 as well as a /pl/ nexus: Per [e plagbe dz' Dz'o tu non perms (BOT'I'ERILL 1996, p. 35).

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I have followed the transcription in CORTI (1966). For details of the manuscript tradition and for linguistic commentaries see also BRUGNOLO (1986). Verco, co’ tu sis struolego che montis / urir aqua cum verigola ad olto; / pesse tristo, como no t[e n’] afrontis, / e certo cusi fas—tu en Riolto: / mo stas-tu coy

signori e si contis / che ’1 dose col conseio e stado molto / e che tanto vadagnis se t’apontis, / che pos mancar folege e mesolto. / [O] bestia bestia, co’ sis enganado: / vestite ad oro e sis comparisente / e va cum gl’oltri a l’oste de Ferera. / Averas ficio e seras meritado; / or oldi, no ti sgumentar ni'ente / cha, par dio, nu averemo la tera. [‘Vergo [lit. ‘Cock-eye’], what kind of astrologer are you who ‘mounts’ to drill for water with a little drill—bit? You wretch [lit. ‘sad fish’] now you’re measuring yourself against us, and you certainly do so at the Rialto. Now you stay with the lords and say that the Doge has been in Council for a long time, and that you earn so much, if you put your mind to it, that you can eat coots and cured meat. Stupid fool! How deceived you are. Dress up in gold, show off, and go with the others to the Ferrara war-front. You’ll get an important post and be rewarded. Now listen, don’t be at all dismayed for, by God, we’ll win the territory.’] [Text 10] The following inscription in Venetian, dated 1310, is taken

from the bottom left of the altar painting (perhaps by Paolo Veneziano) dedicated to San Donato in the basilica of Santi Maria and Donato on the island of Murano. Note the Byzantine Greek borrowing cmcomz (lit. ‘icon’). The transcription is my own: Corando / mcccx indi / cion vii / in te(n)po de lo / nobele homo / miser donato / memo honora / do podesta / de muran facta / fo questa an / cona de miser / san donado [‘During the year 1310, in the 7th division, in the time of the nobleman Sir Donato Memo honoured Mayor of Murano, this altar-painting (cmcomz) to My Lord Saint Donado was made’]

[Text 11]. From the early fourteenth-century merchant handbook, known as the Zz'baldone dd Coma]. The Zz'baldone, in fully-characterised Trecento Venetian, contains arithmetical exercises, as well as practical navi—

gational and mercantile information and, together with the letters to Pignol Zucchello [MOROZZO DELLA ROCCA 1957], provides a unique insight into the interests, mentality and language of the Venetian merchant class at the height of Venice’s commercial ascendency in the eastern Mediterranean. Noteworthy are the regular sigmatic sg. 2 verb forms, including the imperative (e.g. M 545 and sepz's.’ ~ sapz'sl), and the employment of sz‘ é for the sg. 3 of —200—

EARLY VENETIAN: FROM LAGUNAR KOINE TO PROTO LANGUAGE OF STATE

esser ‘to be’ in a way which appears to be a precursor of the characteristic and later xe form in Venetian. The extract below, typically full of Arabisms, is transcribed from the Stussi edition (STUSSI 1967, pp. 63 and 65). In Acre et in Limixo se vende la cafaran a dexene e lbr. X] de Venexia / sono dexena J. Or sepis che lo rotollo si 6: once 12 e l’onga si e pexi / 42, doncha e lo rotollo pexi 504 e la lbr. si vien pexi 79, doncha / vien lo rotollo lbr. 6 e pexi 30. // Tu sas che io ho dito che le specarie se vende in Limixo a dexene / de mene e sapis che lo rotolo sotil si e once 12 e l’onca pexa / deremi 60. /.../ Chi vuolle andare da Venexia in Allexandria cum marcha/dantia e cum oro, la marcha d’oro de Venexia pesa in Alexandria / bexanti LV e pagasse dreto bexanti VI] men 1/3 per C de bexant(e) e val // lo bexante lbr. II] a gss‘. de fineca d’oro e quando plu e quando men. Raine e stagno e tute cosse che se pesa a Venexia a gss°. geta in Alle/xandria

cantera V geroin, vien lo canter lbr. 200 a gss°. [In Acre and Limassol saffron is sold by the tenth, and XI pounds Venetian is equivalent to 1 tenth. Now be aware [lit ‘know’] that the roll is 12 ounces and the ounce is 42 pieces, so the roll is 504 pieces and the pound comes to 79 pieces: therefore the roll amounts to 6 pounds and 30 pieces. You know that I said that spices are sold in Limassol by the mind tenth, and be aware that the small [lit. ‘thin’] roll is 12 ounces and the ounce weighs 60 dz'r/Jemr [= Arab coin]. For anybody wanting to go from Venice to Alexandria with goods or gold, the Venetian gold mark weighs LV besants in Alexandria and is payed to the tune of . VII besants minus 1/3 per hundred besants, and the besant is worth III pounds in grossz' coin, according to how fine the gold is: sometimes more, sometimes less. Copper and tin and all things that in Venice are weighed by grosso coin are worth V canters [Alexandrian measure] of the geroz'n [lit ‘heaviest’] type, with the canter coming to 200 pounds growl]

[Text 12] Language learning in early fifteenth—century Venice. An extract from the Venetian-German phrases, vocabulary lists and verb para— digms (c. 1425) of the German teacher ‘George of Nuremberg’. His school-office seems to have been in Campo San Bortolomio beside the Fontego dei Todeschi at the Rialto, where the large German merchant community of Venice resided and conducted its business. This is a unique source for later EV ‘spoken’ venexz'cm. One notes the absence of sigmatic sg. 2 inflections except on enclitic interrogatives (tu me 54 may vs bar-ta), past participles in -ad0 (e.g. z'mpamdo), and the conditional in ~ave, with stem in /er/ (bastemve). The transcription below is from ROSSEBASTIANO BART (1984, pp. 97-98), where the manuscript tradition is also discussed in detail. —201—

CHAPTER SIX

Ove has-tu irnparado todescho? W0 bastu deucz gelemt? [Where did you learn German?] In questa terra.

In dz'ser stat. [In this city] Quanto tempo es-tu andado a scuola? Wz'e [4mg pistu ze sclaz'ill gegangen? [How long have you been going to school?] El no é anchora un anno. Ez ist 1100/9 m'c/at ez'n z'ar.

[Not even a year] El sera un anno a bonaman. Ez bz'rt ez'n z'ar rein am new” 2217.

[A year come the New Year] Per me fe’, tu ne sa asay in questo tempo.

Pey mez'n trewn, du c/Jamt sez'n gnugt in dz'ser zez'z‘. [’Struth, you’ve learnt a lot in this time] El basterave se tu fosse stado vinti mese in Allemagna. Sez'rz wer gnugt 017 du zwaz'nczz'c/e monet in deuczen landen berst gebesen. [As much as if you’d spent 20 months in Germany] Ove sta to maistro? W0 stet dez'n maister?

[Where does your teacher stay?] Sul campo de San Bortolamio. Aufl Sand Bart/101mm placz. [On Campo San Bortolomio] Ov’é ’l champo de San Bortolamio? W0 lez't Sand Bart/calmer placz? [Where is Campo San BortolomiOP] Apresso el fontego di thodeschi. Nat/sent pey dem deuczen loam. [Beside the German Warehouse] Chom’a-lo nome to maistro? Wz'e bdz'st dez'n maz'xter?

[What’s your teacher’s name?] —202—

EARLY VENETIAN: FROM LAGUNAR KOINE TO PROTO LANGUAGE OF STATE

Ello ha nome maistro Zorzi. Er [mint maz'xter Iorg. [He’s called master George] Dond’é-llo, se Dio t’aida?

Von walm z'st er, daz dz'r Got belfi‘? [Where is he from, in God’s narneP] El e de Nurmbergo. Er ist fon Nurmberck. [He’s from Nurenberg]

[Text 13] This exceptional mid-fourteenth century document in vertexz'an, here reproduced in full, was and is on display in the Cloister of the (for-

mer) Scuola de la Carita, the oldest confraternity in Venice — with original statutes dating from 1260. It is written in raised and gilded Gothic capital letters on a plaque c. 1.00m x 2. 50m within a Gothic arch over a walled-up doorway in the Cloister, and describes the earthquake of January 1348 (1347 Venetian-style) and its aftermath. It is an outstanding example of Trecento Venetian written norms and is free of obvious Tuscan influence. Note the retention of /d/ on -ATEM reflexes (e.g. mortalitade, pecadi), the

progress made by diphthongisation in fourteenth-century Venice (e.g. Vem'exz'a, Pz'ero but also 36014), the retention of -mentre adverbial endings (c0mummentre), of /Cl/ clusters (e.g. glesz'a, glanduxe) and of Germanic W > ~ /V/ (vardz'cm). The passage is narrated in the past historic (e.g. f0, comma}, cagé). Interesting are the reinforcing initial betacism and the raising of posttonic /e/ > /0/ on besporo < VESPERUM. I use the transcription of STUSSI (1980, pp. 93-94) where there is also a linguistic commentary. I- nome de dio etemo e d(e) la biada vergene Maria. In l’ano de la incarnacion / del nostro Signor miser Ie(su)m Cr(ist)o MCCCXLVII a di XXV de gener, 10 di de la co(n)versio(n) de s(en) Polo cerca ora d(e) besporo fo gran taramoto i(n) Veniexia

e q/uasi p(er) tuto el mo(n)do e cagé molte cime de canpanili e case 6 camini e la glesia de // se(n) Baseio e fo si gran spave(n)to che quaxi tuta la ce(n)te pensava d(e) morir e no st(e)te / la tera de tremar cerca di XL e puo driedo que[s]to comenga una gran mortalitad(e) / e moria la ce(n)te d(e) diverse malatie e rasio(n). Alguni spudava sangue p(er) la boca e alguni / vegniva glanduxe soto li scaii e ale lengene e alguni vegnia 10 mal del carbo(n) p(er) le carne e pa/reva che q(ue)sti mali se piase l’un da l’oltro coé li sani da li ’nfermi (et) era la ge(n)te in tanto spav//e(n)to che ’l pare no voleva andar dal fio né ’l fio dal pare e dura q(es)ta mortalitade cerca mexi / VI e si se diseva comuname(n)tre ch’el iera morto be(n) 1e do parte d(e) la ge(n)te d(e) Veniexia et (i)n q(ue)sto te(n)/po se trova eser —203 —

CHAPTER SIX

vardia(n) d(e) q(ue)sta scola miser Piero Trivisa(n) d(e) Barbaria e vivé cerca mexi 11 e mori / ello e cerca X d’i soi (con)pagni e co(n) plu de CCC de q(ue)li d(e) q(ue)sta scola e fo la scola in gran derota e / puo a di XX d(e) gugno fo fato vardian miser Iacomo Bon de la Cudecha. Ancora in questo ano // ave 1i fedel cristiani una gran— disima garcia da miser lo papa, che in gascaduna parte / che li moria contriti de li soi pecadi dal di de la asension de Cristo infina a di de / senta Maria Madalena,

senca pena andese a la g[l]oria de vita eterna a la qual si nde / con[du]ga lo onipote(n)te dio pare e fiol sp(i)ri(t)o s(an)c(to) lo qual vive e regna in s(e)c(u)la s(e)c(u)lor(um) amen. [In the name of God everlasting and of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In the year of the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ 1347 on the day of January 25th, the day of the conversion of St Paul, around the hour of Vespers, there was a great earthquake in Venice and almost throughout the world, and many bell-tower, steeples and houses and the church of San Baseio [St Basil] fell down, and there was such

panic that almost everybody thought they would die, and the earth did not stop shaking for about 40 days, and then, following this, began a great wave of deaths and people died from different illnesses and in different ways. Some spat blood from their mouths and some developed swellings in their armpits and groin, while some grew carbuncles on their skin; and it seemed that these illnesses were spreading from one to the other, that is from the sick to the well. And people were so frightened that the father did not want to go to the son nor the son to the father. ‘ And this wave of death lasted around 6 months, with people saying commonly that a good two-thirds of the people of Venice had died. And at this time it happened that the Warden of this Smola was Mister Piero Trivisan from Barbaria,

and he lived for 2 months then died — he and around 10 of his companions, with more than 300 (members) from this Scuola —, and the Scuola was going to rack and ruin. Then on June 20th, Mister Iacomo Bon from the Giudecca was made Warden. Also in this year the Christian faithful received a great grace from the lord Pope to the effect that everywhere people died contrite of their sins, between the day of the Ascension of Christ until the day of St Mary Magdalen, they would go unpunished to the glory of life eternal. To which lead us (all) Almighty God — father, son, Holy Spirit — who lives and reigns in secula seculorum 4772612.] [Text 14] One of two similar, but not identical, inscriptions in Vene-

tian on the well-head in the campo de l’Anzolo Rafael in the sextz'er of Dorsoduro. The dedication is in the name of Marco Arian from the wealthy merchant family which dominated the district and whose magnificent fifteenth-century palace, Ca’ Arian, with its unique triple window in Gothic tracery, overlooks the nearby canal. Marco, who died in the plague of 1348, had left a bequest for the building of the well. Note the L + yod > /j/ outcomes on [uz'o and fz'z'o and the extreme diphthongisation of O > /wo/ on Antuom'o. The transcription is my own.

—2o4—

EARLY VENETIAN: FROM LAGUNAR KOINE TO PROTO LANGUAGE OF STATE

MCCCXLVIII a di XV de luio / s(er) Marcho Arian fiio che fo d(e) /' s(er) Antuonio Arian d(e) s(an) Rafiel me feci(t)

[1348 on the 15th of July, Ser Marcho Arian, son of the late Ser Antuonio Arian of San Rafael, made me]

[Text 15] Inscription on a plaque in Istrian marble in St Marks’s square, on the outer wall of the Tesoro di San Marco. The early fifteenth-century rhyming text in fully-characterised Venetian is found beneath the stone bench immediately to the right of the so-called ‘Tetrarchi’ group of statues. The transcription of this practical vernacular aphorism is my own. Lom : po far e / die : in pensar / e vega quel / o che li po in / chontrar [Man can act, and he must think, and see what can happen to him because of it]

[Text 16] The commemorative plaque on the outside wall of the church of the Santi Apostoli in the sestz‘er of Cannaregio. The transcription is my own. MCCCLI del / mese de luio/ fo complida . ssta ch/axa dela scuola . deli / dodexe . apostoli [In 1351 in the month of July was completed this house of the scuola of the twelve Apostles] '

[Text 17] Extract from the first printed statutes of Venice in the vernacular (1477). Taken from Book V, Chapter 2 of Statutz' de Venesz'oz factz’ per [2' z'nclz'tz' et serem'ssz'mz' duxz' de [a dim Cz'm /.../ Stampadz' in Venesz'a per Magz'stro p/Jz'lz'po de pz'ero adz' XXIIII d6 aprz'le MCCCCLXXVII. As the title indicates, the publication was instigated, or at the very least approved, by the Venetian authorities. The statutes continued to be reprinted until the eighteenth century, and although they were linguistically revised throughout the intervening period their form continued to be (an increasingly archaic) Venetian (TOMASIN 2001, p. 123). The present excerpt is an excellent example of late EV conservative written norms, showing little hybridisation with Tuscan (only stato is obvious). Note the -ad0 past-participle desinences.(e.g. frustado, bolado), the typical present indicative pl. 1 in —emo (volemo), dd [20’ preferred to dasp(u)0‘ ‘after’, and the masculine plural definite article 12'. Del furto de XX soldi in 2050 et da soldi XX fin cento

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CHAPTER SIX

De li ladroni volemo che se alcun fara furto da soldi XX in 2050, la prima fiada sia frustado, et se ello fara furto da soldi XX fin cento sia frustado et bolado; et se da po’ che ello sara frustado et bolado ello sara trovado in furto da soldi cento in 2050, perda un ochio se ’1 sera in conscientia de li zudesi che per furto sia stato frustado et bolado. [On the theft of 20 soldi or less and from 20 soldi to 100 When it comes to thieves, we wish that if any commit a theft of 20 soldi or

less, the first time he should be flogged. And if he commit a theft of 20 soldi up to 100 he should be flogged and branded. And if, after having been flogged and branded, he be found to have robbed 100 soldi or less let him lose an eye

if the judges are aware that he had (previously) been flogged and branded]

[Text 18] Another example of Venetian justice. The case of three Jews accused of murdering an Albanian beggar child. The Annalz’ venetz’ (14571500) of the senator and historian Domenico Malipiero are a good example of the Venetian written norm at the end of the Quattrocento. Note the use

of past participles in 12 and -ad0 (e.g. condomd ~ z'nfrezado), the -c2 outcome of -ATEM (quantz'td), the diphthongisation on fuog/oo < FOCUM, the adverb in -mente (crudelmem‘e) and the Tuscan-influenced Germanic W > /gw/ ‘ (guadagnd). The passage is transcribed from SAGREDO (1842, II, p. 671). Andrea Dolfin q. Giacomo, Podesta de Porto Bufalé, ha condana tre Zudei: che un sia rostido, un infrezado, e ’l terzo squarta da quattro cavali, perché i1 Zuoba Santo i ha roba un puto de sie anni Albanese che andava mendicando, e l’ha fatto molto crudelmente. La sententia (‘3 Sta reputa molto severa e la Signoria ghe ha scritto che ’1 la tegna suspesa; e ha manda Benetto Trivisan Avogador a inquirir sora tal fatto; e andado l’ha reforma el processo e ha fatto vegnir i rei de qua, e i ha placitai in Pregadi. Zuan Antonio Minio e i Dottori del Studio

de Padoa i ha deffesi, e ha guadagna gran quantita de danari; e finalmente tutti e tre é Sta condanai arsi Vivi a1 fuogho. [Andrea Dolfin, son of the late Giacomo [Dolfin], Mayor of Bufale, sentenced three Jews: one of them to be roasted, one shot through with arrows, and the third to be quartered by four horses, because on Thursday of Easter week they robbed a six-year—old Albanian boy who was begging, and did it very cruelly. The sentence was considered to be very severe and the Sz'grzorz'a wrote to him to suspend it, and sent the Magistrate [Avogador] Benetto Trivisan to enquire into the case; and having gone, he reconstructed the case and brought the wrongdoers here [= to Venice] and tried them in the court of the Pregadz'. Zuan Antonio Minio and the Doctors of Padua University defended them, and earned a great deal of money; and in the end all three were sentenced to be burned alive at the stake] —206—

EARLY VENETIAN: FROM LAGUNAR KOINE TO PROTO LANGUAGE OF STATE

[Text 19] The passage below is from volume I of Marin Sanudo’s Dz'arz'z'. It is the chronicler’s account of part of the report given to the Signorz'a in December 1496 by the Venetian government secretary Alvise Sagudino, following the latter’s return from Constantinople. It illustrates the complex confluence of Venetian, Tuscan and NLF elements in Sanudo’s prose. I transcribe from FULIN et a1 (1879-1902, 1, column 393). Prirno, che e1 Signor turcho era de etade de anni 56, de color zalo et piu presto livido, dedito piu presto a la golla et altre volupta, che a la guerra. Che da presente, l’a tre bassa, vz'delz'cet Thaut bassa ch’é albanese, Imbrai bassa et Ali bassa che sono turchi. Et che e1 superior tempo, Scander bassa, che era de mazor auctorita de tuti questi, é sta privato de questo officio et dignita. Che 1’5 7 fioli, e1 mazor dei qual e de eta de anni...el menor de anni 12. El terzo ch’é di eta di anni 21, sta a la Foje, ha mazor parte a sucieder me la signoria

del padre et da li popoli, perché li altri stanno in paexi lontani et questo sta apresso la Porta; e1 perché, morto Mahumeth, questo terzo fiol fu messo a sentar per

signor in Constantinopoli essendo suo padre fuora dil paexe, et venuto suo padre, el ge rese e1 dominio et la signoria. [First of all, that the Turkish lord was 56 years of age, yellow in colour or rather off-white, dedicated more to his stomach [lit. ‘throat’] and other sensual

pleasures than to war. That at present he has three pashas, namely: Thaut Pasha who is Albanian, Imbrai Pasha and Ali Pasha who are Turks. And that previously, Scander Pasha, who was above all of these in authority, was stripped of this office and dignity. ‘ That he has 7 children, the eldest of whom is ...old, the youngest 12. The third, who is 21, stays at la Foje and has the greatest chance of succeeding to the power of his father and of the people because the others live in distant countries while he stays near the Gate — the reason being that when Mahumeth died this third son was placed on the throne [lit. ‘made to sit’] as lord in Constantinople since his father was out of the country. And when his father returned he gave him back the domain and government]

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MIDDLE VENETIAN: FROM LANGUAGE TO DIALECT

1. THE STATUS OF VENETIAN 1500-1800

1.1. A fulcrum moment in the status history of Venetian occurred around 1500, but in an unobtrusive, matter-of-fact way that singles Venice out in the European linguistic context. In a number of major western European states the early sixteenth century saw the affirmation of national self-consciousness and, with it, national languages. This vernacular foregrounding happened at the expense of Latin but also set in motion the process of functional dialectalisation of other idioms spoken within national territories. Seen from both the historical and linguistic viewpoints, Venice appears unusual against the backdrop of these developments. The Serenissima was a state at the height of her power in 1500. She was a major European territorial player, with an overseas colonial empire, and would remain independent for another three hundred years. And yet she never defined, or felt the need to define, a de z'ure national language of her own, in spite of having a written vernacular tradition going back more than three centuries. Language debate at the institutional level in this period only occurred sporadically and when it did it was in very special circumstances which had to do with ‘progressive’ versus ‘conservative’ factions within the patriciate. In any case, it involved argument about the use of Latin or the vernacular, never about which vernacular to adopt (TOMASIN 2001, pp. 123-124; EUFE 2003). The state refrained from legislating, or even pronouncing, on the nature of its vulgar ~ volgar (Ital. volgare). What we see is, in a sense, a continuation of the linguistic pragmatism, even disinterest, that had already been Visible throughout the EV period over the question of Latin or vernacular choice. Venice’s peculiar indifference to language policy cannot, obviously, be divorced from the type of state that she was. Although immensely wealthy and influential, as well as being territorially farflung, the Sta—209— 14

CHAPTER SEVEN

to Veneto was conceptually a very different state from France, Spain or England. They coalesced round national monarchies and territorial absorption, in the direction of that fundamental modern political entity the nation-state. Governed by a unique hereditary oligarchy that was never drawn from anywhere but the lagoon-city itself, the great maritime Republic was to become, both mentally and constitutionally, an increasingly anachronistic polity on the European scene —’although often comforted by foreign political thinkers in her projected self-image as a model of good government. Venice was a city-state whose patriotism was essentially municipal and which felt no need to forge and impose a national language.1 After 1500, then, Venice de facto adopted — in legislation and in unmarked writing generally — the Tuscan-based vernacular which had become the written medium of choice of the Italian Renaissance elites, had already influenced written venexz'an in various ways in the Trecento and Quattrocento, and would eventually become the national lan-

guage of Italy. However, she did so gradually and without fuss. Unmarked writing in Venice transited seamlessly from Venetian to Italian in the course of the sixteenth century, via a more-or-less Italianised Venetian then a more-or-less Venetianised Italian. 1.1.1. The different rates at which this sixteenth-century transition in unmarked, educated vernacular usage occurred can be tangibly appreciated by juxtaposing groups of diachronic texts of various types. As exemplars I have chosen manuscript documents emanating from the Scuola Grande di San Rocco [Texts 33, 3b], statutes of the aristocratic Compagnie della Calza theatre clubs [Texts 4a, 4b], and notorial inventories [Texts 5a, 5b, 5c]. As a general rule, the higher the register the greater was the influence of Italian. For this reason artefacts such as the traditional painted and inscribed craft guild-boards (z'megne), now housed in the Museo Correr, remained strongly Venetian in character until the eighteenth century, even when they were periodically refurbished. This linguistic conservatism is also noticeable on some guild-signs on public buildings. Typical are the inscription, dated 1580, on the right hand pillar of the shoemaker’s guildhouse in Campo San Toma, and the plaque of the German cobblers (cale— g/aerz' todescbz'), dated 1658, at Crosera no. 3128 at San Stefano. Similarly,

the language of gondoliers’ guild regulations continued to be markedly Ve-

1 For a lucid discussion of the historical trajectories of Venetian patriotism see BENVENUTI (1999).

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MIDDLE VENETIAN: FROM LANGUAGE TO DIALECT

netian until the end of the Republic.2 Public signs emanating from the authorities were more quickly Italianised, yet retained Venetian lexical elements. Characteristic is the plaque on the side of the church of San Stefano, dated 1632, prohibiting ball-games, trading and swearing in the vicinity of the church: it consistently uses the Venetian term bz'astema ‘swear-word’ and is dated XX zugn. (June 20th). Amongst publications of a practical or materialistic nature the use of Venetian remained strong throughout most of the sixteenth century, as in a ‘guidebook’ of 1570 to Venice’s best prostitutes.3 1.2. The mainstream vernacular prose written by educated Venetians between 1500 and 1800 was Italian and was meant to be so. This is true from the sixteenth-century dispatches to the Sz'gnarz'a of the Republic’s ambassadors to Venice’s pioneering eighteenth—century press. It applies to the often-reprinted Della navz‘gcztz'am’ er vz'aggz' (1550-59) by the geographer Giovanni Battista Ramusio (1485-1557), to the sixteenth- and seven-

teenth-century political and historical writing of Paolo Paruta (1540-98), Nicolo Contarini (1553-1631) and Giambattista Nani (1616-78), as well

as to the anti—papal Istarz'cz del Cancz'lz'a dz' Trema (1619) by the radical Venetian historian and cleric Paolo Sarpi (1552—1623). Italian was the language of landmark prose works by Venetians throughout the MidV period: from the European dietary bestseller Tmttata de la vita sabrz'a (1558) by the polymath Alvise Cornaro (c. 1475 -1566) to the early epistolary novel, the Ultz'me lettere dz']acapa Ortz's (1799), by Ugo Foscolo. It was to be expected that Mozart’s collaborator Lorenzo Da Ponte (1749-183 8) would write his librettos (1786-90) and memoirs (1804) in Italian.4 And when both Carlo Goldoni (1707-93) and Giacomo Casanova (1725-98) produced their eighteenth-century memoirs not in Venetian or even Italian but in French they were renewing with a practice started by two thirteenth-century compatriots in another period of strong French influence on Venice. The chronicler of the Fourth Crusade Martin da Canal had used French for his Estaz'res de Vem'se (c. 1267-1275) as had the trader-explorer Marco

2 See the Mariegala del trag/aetta del Ponte della Paggz'a in the Venetian Archivio di Stato, Provveditori di Comun, B._ 63. 3 Catalaga delle princz'palz' et banamte cartigz'ane dz' Venezz'a; 2'] name Zara at 2'] name delle Zara pieze [= pimps/madams] et le stamz'e ave Zara abittmo, e! (12' pit} ancar vz' narm [a cantrada ave sana [e stantz'e, et etiam z'l numera de [2' denarz' c/ae karma da pagar quellz' Gentilbamz'm' cbe desz’a’emna emmr nella ma gmtz'a (Venice, Lorenzi, 1570). 4 For the Venetian elements in Da Ponte’s librettos see GOLDIN (1992).

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CHAPTER SEVEN

Polo for his influential late-Duecento Dz'vz'samem dou monde (later 11 Milz'one). The Italian employed by Venetians 1500-1800 as often as not revealed its origins, especially but not exclusively in the earlier part of the period.5 This was discernible in the use of terminology specific to Venice, its institutions and its environment, and in the more-or-less subtle influ-

ence of underlying venexz'cm on vocabulary and morphosyntax, or in both [Text 2]. In unmarked writing of a practical nature such intrusions were even clearer. At the same time as it withdrew from the written mainstream Venetian flourished in genre literature, particularly poetry and theatre, as never before. This absence of clean breaks is characteristic of the Venetian attitude to cultural matters in general and to linguistic matters in particular. Not only was there never to be a language policy in the Stato Veneto, but Latin itself would linger on for centuries after 1500 in legislation and official writing. And while Venetian never became a fully-fledged language, it was an exceptional dialect. The ‘bilingualism’ that characterised Venice from Renaissance to Enlightenment is only a writing-speaking dichotomy. In the oral domain venexz'cm reigned supreme from 1500 to 1800 in all social contexts and among and between all social classes. It was the language not only of home and street. It was the unselfconscious spoken medium of government debate and of the law courts (VIANELLO 1957). 1.2.1. Indeed, far from being stigmatised in any way by the encroachment of written Italian, Venetian paradoxically reached its apogee of external influence in the MidV period. This is the time of the expansion and consolidation of venexz'an in north-eastern Italy. The prestige spoken idiom of this great commercial and cultural European capital became the pole of attraction for the upwardly mobile throughout the dominions of the Venetian state. Venetian radically restructured the urban dialects of the Veneto between 1500 and 1800, especially those of Padua, Vicenza and Treviso. It formed the basis of the Common Veneto lingua franca that was constantly renewed from the mother-city and that survived into the twenty-first century.6 It Venetianised the Lombard dialects of the contiguous Trentino re-

5 As late as the mid eighteenth century one can detect the influence of venexz'zm on the informal Italian writing of Venetians. It is noticeable, for example, in the spellings of Canaletto’s

comments on his own preliminary sketches (Museum von Dahlem, Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin). The dateline on the first issue of Gasparo Gozzi’s fundamental Gazzetta Veneta (February 6th 1860) gave away its linguistic origins: mercordi addz' 6. Febmro 1760. 6 The outcome of this centuries-long restructuring of Veneto dialects was summarised by

Boerio in the early nineteenth century: «Uno solo é radicalmente il dialetto oggi comune a tutte le provincie degli antichi Veneti, poche essendo le varieta notabili e le differenze di qualche voce

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MIDDLE VENETIAN: FROM LANGUAGE TO DIALECT

gion, ousted Friulan from several major urban centres in Friuli and erased the Ladin speech of Trieste. The colonial dominions of Venice showed exceptional loyalty to the Republic and its speech, so that the ‘Italian’ of the Istrian and Dalmatian coasts that flourished well into the twentieth century was essentially Venetian. This was also the time of the greatest diffusion of Venetian lexical items both within and outside Italy.7 1.2.2. Although uncodified and never standardised, Venetian contin-

ued to evolve structurally in the MidV period towards informal spoken and written norms and indeed towards a convergence of the two. It divested itself of some of the most characteristic features of EV. It followed centuries-old and also new internal trajectories; it may have been subject to underground influence from its own hinterland and was constantly exposed to the roofing influence of Italian. While exceptionally cohesive as a dialect, with no rigid demarcations, Venetian also continued to show

the diversity one would expect from an idiom in constant use at all societal levels in a city with complex social and neighbourhood stratification. This included residues from the process of koineisation that had shaped venex— z'cm in the Middle Ages.

2. THE TRANSITION PERIOD 1500-1600

2.1. We noted the special literary factors which led to the encroachment of Tuscan/Italian on the unmarked written vernaculars throughout Italy, including that of Venice, in what can broadly be designated the Renaissance period.8 In the chanceries of independent Italian states such as the Milan of the Visconti then the Sforza, the Ferrara of the Este and

the Mantua of the Gonzaga, a Tuscan-based vernacular, albeit veined with northern features, was replacing Latin by the mid-fifteenth century (VITALE 1953; BORGOGNO 1978; MATARRESE 1988). The process would go even further in Rome where the native spoken vernacular was to be radically restructured in the direction of Tuscan by the presence of the Medicean

da un luogo all’altro. Ma non puo negarsi che il migliore, come il piu facile nella struttura, dolce nell’inflessione, metrico ne’ numeri, omogeneo ad ogni genere di scrittura, sia quello che parlasi propriarnente dal popolo della Citta di Venezia» (BOERIO 1829, pp. V-VI). 7 See Chapter VIII, section 3.

(

3) On Tuscan encroachment on other Italian vernaculars in the fifteenth century see FOLENA 1952 .

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courts in the Cinquecento. In poetry and prose the gold standard to which serious writers aspired was increasingly Tuscan, an aspiration indissociable from the growing hegemony of the aristocratic and elitist tendencies of Italian high culture in the later Renaissance, and reinforced by the standardising impact of the nascent printing industry. In Venice, too, Tuscan elements had infiltrated and, in some cases, hybridised higher-register Venetian writing by the end of the fifteenth century, in spite of Venice’s uniquely tenacious cultural and linguistic specificity (FRASSON 1980). Apart from this literary impact post 1300, what were the broader factors that tilted Venice’s cultural and linguistic centre of gravity towards Italian options?

2.2. A number of interlinked historical and cultural factors may help to explain why the textual impact of Italian upon Venetian reached a critical mass soon after 1500, tipping trend into inevitability. In 1500 Venice remained the commercial, cultural and metaphorical gateway between east and west: the great mediator of spices, goods and ideas from the B0sphorus to the Baltic. However, although the city was still actively engaged in the eastern Mediterranean, and although she had actually acquired Cy‘ prus in 1489 and Zakinthos in 1502, the long-term balance of power in the region had turned against the Stato dd Mar. The Ottoman Turks had taken Constantinople from the Byzantine Empire in 1453, and in 1463 had declared war on Venice. This signalled the start of centuries of hostilities between Venice and the Turks that gradually eroded the Serenissima’s overseas power-base and forced a westward displacement of the city’s horizons. Already by 1502 she had lost Negroponte, Modon and Coron, and had been engaged in conflict in Albania and as close to home as Friuli. By 1573 Cyprus was lost for good. In addition, Venice’s control of the Levant trade was undermined long-term by the ‘discovery’ of America in 1492, by the opening by the Portuguese of a new route to India and the Far East after 1498, as well as by the pressure of the Spanish, Dutch, English, Catalan and Genoese presence in the Mediterranean itself. Venice can consequently be seen to follow the gradual tilting of the European centre of gravity from Mediterranean to Atlantic. In Venice the turning west was se— conded, from mid fifteenth century, by a key societal evolution amongst the Venetian elite. This involved a progressive withdrawal from the traditional hands-on mercantile activity based on capitalist enterprise in overseas trade, which had made the city what it was, towards capital investment

in landed property. Such a fundamental economic paradigm-shift happened to coincide with Venice’s internally controversial Quattrocento po-

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litical decision to acquire for the first time a land Empire in northern Italy: a move that opened up possibilities for a different type of capitalist investment and a different Vision of aristocracy on the Static d4 Tera. Inevitably, Venice came to align herself with Italian patrician mentalities. 2.2.1. The Italian Humanist strand became significant in Quattrocento Venetian culture when Venice absorbed centres of learning in the Veneto, including Padua University. It reached its pinnacle in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century, in the period spanning the careers of its two outstanding Venetian exponents, Ermolao Barbaro (1453-93) and Pietro Bembo (1470-1547). Although Venice’s traditions of civic Humanism had been dilated by Barbaro, it was with Bembo, a new type of Venetian aristocrat, that the Humanist focus of cultural interest became Italian

rather than Venetian. This Italianising outlook translated linguistically in the nature of the vernacular employed by the two great scholars. In contrast to Bembo’s recherché Tuscan, from which all traces of Venetian were

banished, Barbaro employed a limpid and eclectic Italian vernacular which was clearly underpinned by Venetian [Text 1]. Bembo, however,

satisfied the elite’s thirst for a prestigious vernacular literary equivalent to Latin by giving a definitive impulse to the codification of Tuscan with his Prose della volgar lingua of 1525. His self-serving judgement on the superiority of Tuscan over Venetian in the Prose (I, 15) is based on aesthetic reasons which one could, kindly, describe as nai've: «Per cio che pri-‘ mieramente si veggono le toscane voci miglior suono avere, che non hanno le Viniziane, piu dolce, piu vago, piu ispedito, piu vivo; né elle tronche si vede che sieno e mancanti, come si puo di buona parte delle nostre vedere» (TAVOSANIS 2002, p. 198). Bembo’s linguistic ideology explicitly denied high-register textual space to other Italian vernaculars, including his native Venetian, effectively stigmatising dialect usage in literature as deviant. The progressive restriction of deliberate, fully—characterised Venetian to burlesque genres and especially to popular theatre in this period tended to reinforce such a stigmatisation and culminated in the devastating value judgement of the Tuscanising Venetian playwright and influential operatore culturale Ludovico Dolce. In 1552, in introducing his play I! Rofi‘z’ano (plagiarised ironically from Ruzante’s La Pz'ovamz of c. 1532), Dolce addressed his Venetian audience as follows: «Nobilissimi e prudentissimi ascoltatori, non vi meravigliate se avendovisi a rappresentare una

comedia non udirete me né alcuno de’ miei compagni favellare in questa vostra lingua Viniziana, percioché non usandosi cosi fatta lingua se non da’ buffoni, noi per niente non vogliamo occupare i1 grado loro né levarli dalla —215—

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possessione delle loro laudi».9 The negative effect of such linkage with popular theatre lingered until the end of the sixteenth century as Venetian became inevitably associated in Italy, and more widely in Europe, with the language of the Commedia dell’Arte character Pantalon (Ital. Pantalone), partner of the Bergamask-speaking Zcm(rz)z'. These core masks had evolved from the earlier sixteenth-century bufi‘onesca tit-for-tat duets involving the elderly Venetian merchant—figure ‘Magnifico’ and his servant Zam'.10 The poet Chiepotto de Quintavalle writing at the start of the seventeenth century still felt the need to champion Venetian in verse against the accusation that it was «un parlar da Pantalon» (DAZZI 1956, I, p. 31). 2.2.2. The primacy of Tuscan was literally given its imprirnatur in Venice by the preferences of the city’s printing industry, the most influential in Europe. From 1500 to 1550 between 18,000 and 30,000 titles came off

the Venetian presses. Although cheaper, practical and genre publications often continued to employ Venetian or a Venetianised vernacular, either unconsciously or for effect, this was not true of texts with aspirations to higher things. In the domains of religion, medicine, politics, warfare and law, in the literature of love and even in the romances of chivalry, Tuscan,

. or a volgare aspiring to Tuscan, was overwhelmingly the preferred vernacular medium.11 This preference was iconically exemplified by the first refined but affordable imprints of Italian classics issued by the Aldine Press in Venice: the editions of Petrarch and Dante of 1501 and 1502 by Bembo, and Bembo’s own Glz' Asolam' (1505). 2.3. Other historical developments were making Venice a more Italian state. The French invasions commencing in 1494 with Charles VIII, Veni-

9 From the prologue to I! Roflz'tmo/ comedia / 432' M. Lodovz'co Dolce / tratta dal Rudem‘e dz' Plauto / apprerso Gabriel / Gz'olz'to :16 Ferrari / et fratellz'. /M.DLI (= 1552). 10 See Chapter VIII, § 3.2.1.

11 In the context of printing and language norms in Renaissance Venice, Giorgio Padoan pointed out that «L’industria editoriale proponeva problemi di non poco conto: il piu importante dei quali é forse l’esigenza di stabilire comuni norme ortografiche irnposte dalla diffusione libraria in tutta italia, ed oltre, e dunque il superamento deciso delle inflessioni dialettali per una po-

litica editoriale che raccogliesse i frutti della tradizione toscana, proprio ora che Firenze pareva fuori gioco. E ben significativo che a Venezia si trovino personalita di grande spicco per la storia linguistica italiana: dal Bembo al ferrarese Francesco Alunno, ai letterati Trifon Gabriele, Giovan Francesco Valier, Maffio Lion, e tanti altri; folto gruppo quale nessun altra citta italiana poteva

vantare, e di decisivo prestigio, se agli amici della cerchia veneziana vollero affidarsi per suggerimenti e correzioni non solo (ché potrebbe apparire esempio scontato) l’autore delle Prose della volgar lingual, ma anche l’autore del Cortegz'dno» (PADOAN 1994b, p. 157).

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ce’s own annexation of territories in the Romagna and elsewhere in the face of Papal hostility, and the increasing role of Habsburg Spain in the peninsula made Venice, of necessity, a central protagonist in Italy. She survived physically intact the War of the League of Cambrai (15 09-15 ), in which all the other Italian powers, as well as the Empire and France, were ranged against her territorial ambitions on the mainland. However, the defeat at Agnadello in 1509 had forced her back to the lagoon, almost bringing her to her knees, and had traumatised her elites. In the peace treaty that followed, confirmed by the Peace of Bologna in 1529, Venice may have consolidated her territorial status but she was aware that her future now lay in careful manoeuvring and diplomacy in an Italy contended for by the epoch’s superpowers and by a Catholic church renewing itself after the earthquake of the Protestant Reformation. It is hardly a surprise that this is the precise moment when the autocratic doge Andrea Gritti (reigned 1523-38), backed by an influential and powerful section of the Venetian aristocracy linked to Rome, began his renovatz'o urbz's of the city’s public buildings — most conspicuously with Jacopo Sansovino’s classical remodelling of the Piazza San Marco — aspiring to remake Venice’s image as a new Rome.12 Much later than any other Italian centre Venice began, in her own unique way, to accept and absorb the classicising tendencies of the TuscanRoman Renaissance that would culminate with Palladio, although she still clung, well into the sixteenth century, to her own traditional architectural . styles. At this watershed historical point in Venetian history other ‘Italian’ cultural modules permeated the Republic and were, as ever, absorbed and

transmuted. In his laudatory De orz'gz'ne, sz'tu et magz'stmz‘z'bus urbz's venetae Marin Sanudo nicely captured Venice’s delicate and increasingly Italianleaning equilibrium in his description of the city c. 1500 as: «La citta di Venetia in Italia primaria et potentissirna, nella region chiamata Venetia, nello intimo seno del mar Adriatico, situada sopra le acque salse».13 2.4. Most significant for its remarkable linguistic inventiveness and, as we shall see, for the key evidence it provides of the evolution of the norms in spoken Venetian, was theatre. On the Italian and European levels Venetian stage practice in the late Renaissance was seminal although, as in much else, Venice had been marginal to the revolution in taste which, around

12 The most complete discussion of the renovatio urbz's and of the innovating versus conservative tensions within the Venetian patriciate is in TAFURI (1984 and 1985). 13 CARACCIOLO-ARICO (1980, p. 9).

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1500, had reintroduced scripted comedy on the Graeco-Roman model to Italy. In fact the theatrical trajectory of the Venetian state in the sixteenth century is curiously similar to the development of its painting and architecture in this period: from periphery to centrality via cultural receptivity and a creative conflation of native and imported traditions. Venice’s pre-eminence in the later Cinquecento as a thriving centre of commercial theatre and as an exporter of stage-models, types and language was therefore surprising. After all, she had not participated in the theatrical revolution maturing in the courts and urban centres of the north and centre of the peninsula in the opening decades of the century. However, by 1550 Venetian theatre had absorbed the hegemonic conventions of the five-act commedz'a erudz'z‘a model elaborated in Ferrara, Mantua, Florence, Urbino

and Rome. She had grafted them on to the rootstock of her own theatrical practices and was shifting the centre of gravity of Italian comedy from script to scenario, from amateur to professional and from monolingualism to multilingualism. 2.4.1. Native Venetian theatre in the early sixteenth century had been suz' generic. Without the court patronage of other Italian centres, formal en. tertainments were organised, under the aegis of the state, by private clubs of young patricians, the Compagnie della Calza or Companies of the Hose, while private patrons also hosted or sponsored stage acts, sometimes before paying audiences of diverse social composition. Shows of the most eclectic kind flourished in the most diverse venues of the city.14 Venetian audiences were accustomed at state and private functions to the following types of stage performance. Common were lavish masked pantomimes (mostly allegoric but sometimes political) called momarz'e or demonstratz'om'. Ubiquitous were bufi‘one intermezzi, either autonomous or between the acts of plays. These virtuoso patter numbers, burlesque dialogues, quickchange routines and semi-improvised vignettes were performed in Vene— tian or in other dialects of the Venetian state (notably Bergamask) or in a pell-mell farrago of Venetianised parody languages (including pidgin Greek and Croatian). They showcased versatile clowns such as Zuan Polo (d. 1540) and Domenego Taiacalze, both of the Venetian artisan class,

whose material originated, and continued to be performed, in the piazza and whose printed skits might be sold to audiences in cheap flyleaves. Buf-

14 For a survey of Venetian theatrical venues in the first half of the sixteenth century see FERGUSON (2004b).

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fonesca sometimes shaded into bulesca or bully-boy comedy? low-life playlets in slangy Venetian featuring braggart soldiers, pimps and prostitutes [Text 6]. Pastoral eclogues also flourished, with a rustic counterpart in

the vz'lanesca vein of comedy that featured caricatured peasants from Venice’s Paduan hinterland entertaining Venetian audiences with an expressionistic form of their central-southern Veneto dialect. On more formal occasions, Roman comedy revivals in Latin or in translation were performed. Although a bystander in the creation of regular comedy, Venice quickly welcomed the new genre, hosting cutting-edge examples in Tuscan, such as Bibbiena’s La CalandrODa (1513, first performed in Venice 1522) and

Machiavelli’s La Mandmgolcz (c. 1518, first performed in Venice 1522). All of the above forms, native and imported, were mediated in Venice,

the Veneto, Ferrara and perhaps elsewhere in the stage-works of the Paduan actor-playwright Angleo Beolco (c. 1496-1542) known as Ruzante, the most original dramatist of the Italian Renaissance and, with Goldoni, the most significant Italian theatrical practitioner. In two of his plays, the one-act Bz'lom (c. 1529-30) and the five-act Ancom'tcma (c. 1535?),

Beolco created parts for elderly Venetian merchants whose language, as evidenced by manuscripts and first editions, provides intriguing clues about evolving norms in venexz'cm [Text 7]. 2.4.2. Two other theatrical styles characterise Venice in mid Cinquecento: the so-called commedz'a cz'ttadz'm, or city comedy, and commedz'd ‘ plurz'lz'nguz'stz'ca or polyglot comedy. The latter conflated regular comedy and Venetian popular performing traditions; the former had no precedents outside Venice. Both stand out for their linguistic experimentation and for the contrasting evidence of Renaissance Venetian that they provide. 2.4.2.1. Commedz'a cz'tmdz'na, of which only a few examples survive, seems to have been unique to Venice, and to have been a theatrical type that ignored the division between comic and tragic.15 It pursued, instead, an urban domestic realism expressed through an unselfconscious use of everyday language for realism rather than effect. This makes its mediated testimony of early sixteenth—century spoken Venetian particularly precious. Characteristic is the charming, anonymous and undated Dz'alogo dz' Lucrezz'a (PADOAN 1978, pp. 395—402), a sequence of eight brief domestic scenes in verse, written entirely in what has all the appearance of naturalistic Vene-

15 On commedz'a cz'ttadz'na see PADOAN (1982, pp. 140-153).

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tian, set in a middle-class home and featuring an overbearing mother, an impatiently confined daughter and a sympathetically complicitous servant. The outstanding example of the genre is the anonymous, powerfully-erotic La Vem'exz'cma (c. 1535-37), one of the most original plays of the Renaissance but which, to protect the privacy of the real Venetian aristocrats almost certainly alluded to through its protagonists, was either produced privately or may indeed have remained unperformed in thesixteenth century. It survives miraculously in a single almost illegible manuscript in the Biblioteca Marciana.16 The deceptively simple plot concerns Giulio, a Lombard passing through Venice, who woos Valiera a young married Venetian noblewoman. She consents, arranging a rendez—vous. A widow, Anzola, also a patrician, is likewise attracted to Giulio and tricks him into going to her palace for a night of love. Furious, Valiera nonetheless gives herself to Giulio. La Vem'exz'cma is unusual in its mainly indoor action (commedz'cz erudz'm was always set ‘outdoors’), and in the highly unorthodox scenography, with split-level and juxtaposed sets, suggested by a practical reading of its eminently theatrical script. In an Italian cultural climate where neo-Platonic and Petrarchan treatments of love were the rule, the play is also remarkable for the uninhibited exploration of the power of lust over . its aristocratic women protagonists. The two central females are not courtesans, they are respectable; they are the subjects not the objects of desire; and their self-centred, at times manipulative, passion is examined without a

trace of idealism. One is tempted to see here the unmistakable strain of materialism which runs through Venetian (and Veneto) culture from the ear-

liest practical texts in venexz'cm to the downbeat realism of Goldoni’s theatre at the end of the Republic. Linguistically, La Vem'exz'cma is uniquely important for its non-caricatured employment of Tuscan (Giulio), Bergamask (the porter, Bernardo) and above all Venetian. The two female aristocrats and their respective serving girls provide us with a fascinating sample of early Cinquecento spoken Venetian, subtly modulated in register between mistresses and servants [Text 8]. 2.4.2.2. Polyglot theatre favoured linguistic expressionism and variety as well as rhetorical copiousness.17 The Venetian employed in it therefore tends, with few exceptions, towards slang, archaism and caricature since

16 Marciana codex Ital. 288 (6072), fols 70r°-101v°.

17 On polyglot comedy in Venice and also on linguistic expressionism in Renaissance Italy in general see CORTELAZZO (1981), FOLENA (1983), PACCAGNELLA (1984), and VESCOVO (1989).

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unmarked venexz'cm could not, as Theodor Elwert astutely pointed out (ELWERT 1958, p. 158), provoke amusement in a Venetian audience. This is

the theatre style that flourished in Venice in mid century. It was a strongly performance-oriented genre typified by verbal pyrotechnics and slapstick and unmistakably prefiguring the Commedia dell’Arte. The conventional love intrigue of literary comedy became the pretext for farcical action and a pell-mell alignment of languages and dialects that rarely had the strong link with social reality found in Ruzante. Apart from Venetian, polyglot comedy featured Tuscan, rustic Paduan, Bergamask, Friulan, Spanish and pidgin Greek and German in large-scale productions played, perhaps, to an increasingly eclectic public in Venice. Formative influences on it were the pioneering verbal and staging experiments of Ruzante as well as the routines of popular Venetian buflom’ and the marked taste for word-play and mimicry which was characteristic of the multinational emporium that was Renaissance Venice. Its outstanding exponents were Beolco’s probable late collaborator Andrea Calmo (1510-71) and the semi-professional actorplaywrights Gigio Artemio Giancarli (died before 1552) and Marin Negro (dates unknown). Calmo, from an artisan background, is in a number of

ways a key reflector of linguistic trends in mid-Cinquecento Venice. One finds him writing to Sisto Medici in Italian (VESCOVO 1994, pp. 316317). However, when making his tax declaration to the Venetian authorities he uses a middle-of-the-road Venetian veined with Italian inflUence [Text 93]. The Venetian of his plays, fictional letters and verse, on the ’ other hand, is deliberately archaic or peripheral in character. His farcical comedies with their exuberant babel of languages demand to be seen rather than read. In La: Spagnolas (1549), Saltuzza (1551), La Potz'one (1552), La R/aodz'cma (1553), La Fiorma [1553] and I! Travaglz'a (performed

c. 1546, published 1556) Calmo developed the figure of the aged and libidinous Venetian merchant in the direction of the Arte mask of Pantalon. Aside from being an actor and playwright, Calmo published influential burlesque Lettere (1547-52, 1556) [Text 9b] which the professional troupes used as a repertorial source, and the mock Petrarchan sonnets of his Rz'me pescatorz'e (1553), written in antz'qua materm Zz’ngua.18 Calmo’s choice of stylised Venetian is very much of its time. A host of ephemeral genre publications, from popular songs, monologues and cantmstz' to versions of the Orlando Furz'oso, using Venetian (and other languages) for co—

13 The definition is from the full title of Calmo’s Le bizzarre, faconde et ingeniose rz'me percatorz'e (1553).

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mic effect, circulated in Venice in manuscript form and in cheap opuscolz' throughout the sixteenth century. The outstanding proponent of this dialect vein, in terms of the vigorous low-life venexz'aa of his truculent mockepics, was Alessandro Caravia (1503-68). The last significant representative of polyglot theatre was Marin Negro who, probably in the carnival of 1553 , put on with a semi-professional company a performance of his play La Pace (published 1561, revised 1564), an exhilarating tvvo-and—a-half—hour entertainment performed in the Cloisters of the Frari church. In its deployment of a variety of Venetian-speaking types (elderly merchant, servants young and old, bravo) and in the evolution of the language of its Venetian parts evidenced by its two published redactions,19 this comedy is helpful in determining the evolutionary trends in Cinquecento Venetian. 2.4.2.3. The key figure in moving literature in Venetian away from the distortions of genre and in pointing us towards understanding what might have constituted the spoken-written norm in later sixteenth-century Venice is Maffio Venier (1550-86), perhaps the greatest of all Venetian poets. A patrician, government official and towards the end of his life (penniless) Archbishop of Corfu, Venier writes in what appears to be an unaffected, educated veaexz'an showing no traces of linguistic self-indulgence for effect. A His love lyrics are in turn restless, passionate, humorous, disenchanted and scathing [Text 10]. Conceived in a resolutely materialist and anti-Petrarchist spirit, and written with a firmly controlled intelligence, his work is

earthy and sometimes, especially in his verse-dispute with the poet and courtesan Veronica Franco (1546-91), frankly obscene. Perfectly capable of composing lyrics in Italian, Venier was subtly aware of the implications of the choice of literary Tuscan. For a Venetian poet it was the language of decorum, largely restricted to a certain way of talking about love. Venetian, on the other hand, was saltily appropriate for any topic: Sta nostra lengua si ha d’ogni saor Donde che se voro parlar Toscan Bisogna per il piu zanzar d’Arnor20 [This language of ours is full of every flavour / Whereas if I want to speak Tuscan / I mostly have to blether about love].

19 La Pace is edited by NUNZIALE (1987). On the variants between the two redactions of the play see NUNZIALE (1989). 20 From the Proemz'o of the collection of Venier’s verse in Versi alla venetiana del Signor Anzolo Inzegnerz' et d’altrz' bellissz'mz' spz'rz'tz', Vicenza, 1613.

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3. STRUCTURAL TRANSITIONS 1500-1600

3.1. From Early Venetian to Mzddle Venetian: superseded structures The linguistic transition from EV to MidV is most clearly encapsulated in the following important structural shifts. (a) Loss of sigmatic sg. 2 endings on present, future, conditional and subjunctive tenses. (b) Replacement of -e by -0‘ on sg. 1 ending of the future tense. (c) Adverbial suffix -mentre —> -merrte. (d) Loss of the past historic tense. (e) Consonant + /1/ clusters —> consonant + /j/ or to further palatalisation. (f) /01/ clusters —> /al/. (g) /en/ clusters —> /an/. (h) loss of nominative-derived sg. 1 and 2 atonic subject pronouns e0 ~ e’ and tu. Shifts (a), (b), (c), (e) and

(f) were effected in the later EV period. Shifts (g) and (h) were endstopped in the sixteenth century, while (d) lingered into the seventeenth century in popularising compositions. (a), (b), (c) and (h) were touched upon in Chapter V. (b) and (c) will be looked at in more detail in Chapter IX. Shifts (d), (e), (f) and (g) are discussed below.

3.1.1. The past historic survived the late EV period and into MidV, petering out in Venetian writing early in the seventeenth century. It survived in speech in parts of the southern Veneto until the nineteenth century. Reconstructable paradigms for early MidV are as follows. For the weak forms of -ar verbs: sg. 1 -ozz' ~ -é ~ 422, 2 -assz', 3 -c) ~ 52 ~ -e, pl. 1 ~assz'mo, 2 -assz', 3 -0‘ ~ -d ~ -e ~ -0n0. Weak verbs in -er: sg. 1 -z‘, 2 -essz', 3 -e ~ —z', pl. 1 -essz'm0, 2 -essz', 3 -e. Weak verbs in-z'r: sg. 1 -2, 2 4552', 3 -2, pl. 1 -z'ssz'm0, 2 -z'5sz' ~ -z'sse,

3 —2 ~ irro. Typical strong forms include esser: sg. 1 f0, sg./pl. 3 f0. Aver: sg. 1 am, sg./pl. 3 ave. Far ‘to make, to do’: sg. 1 fessz', sg./pl. 3 fesse ~ fe. Star ‘to be, to stay’: sg. 1 51%, sg./pl. 3 stete. Andar ‘to go’: sg. 1 ande, sg./ pl. 3 andete. Tor ‘to take’ sg. 1 $0152, sg./pl. 3 tolse. Vegm'r ‘to come’: sg. 1 vem', sg./pl. 3 vene. Dz'r ‘to say’: dissz', sg./pl. 3 dz'sse. Scrz'ver ‘to write’ sg. 1 scrz'ssz', sg./pl. 3 scrz'sse. Responder ‘to reply’: sg. 1 resposz', sg./pl. 3 respose.

3.1.2. In writing and, in all probability, in speech consonant + /l/ cluster were common in EV until the early fifteenth century, at a time when Tuscan had long discarded them. As in Tuscan and in most Gallo-Italian dialects (but not Friulan), they were eventually supplanted by semi-palatalised or fully-palatalised forms so that no trace of them remained in MidV. The analysis of the EV data provides the following picture of a shift in Venetian that was gradual and did not affect all consonants concerned at —223 —

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exactly the same time. /bl/ —> /bi/: /bl/ was a particularly tenacious cluster, and forms such as blanco ‘white’, Honda ‘blond’ and blaxemar ‘to blame’ were overwhehningly dominant until the second half of the fourteenth century, when bz'cmco and bz'ondo started to appear alongside them. /kl/ —> /tj'/: the palatalisation process was more precocious here, with forms like c/az'czro ‘clear’ already alongside clam in substantial numbers by c. 1300. However, common lexemes such as dam and clamar ‘to call’ still survived post 1400. /skl/ was also tenacious with, for instance, sclavo ‘slave’

commoner than sc/az'avo until 1400. When an originally intervocalic /kl/ —-> /gl/ in parallel to /tf/ (SATTIN 1986, pp. 77—78), one already finds by the early fourteenth century doublets like glexz'a ~ germ/gem ‘church’ alongside clesz'a and the vastly predominant c/oz'esz'a. /gl/ —> /d3/: /gl/ remained normal throughout the fourteenth century, with common examples like glam ~ glam ‘ice’ and glanduxa ‘bubon’. The persistence of this particular nexus was probably strengthened by a number of common C-types, especially glorz'a ‘glory’. /fl —-> /fj/: /fl/ was also dominant in the fourteenth century with, for example, flume ‘river’ six times commoner than flame, and

fz'or very rare compared to flor until the fifteenth century. /p1/ —> /pi/: the timescale of this transition is probably earlier, and parallel to /kl/ —> /tf/, with p22; (occasionally pz'uz') ‘more’ already challenging pluz' ~ play ‘ around 1300, but with residues of pluz' found as late as the second half of the fifteenth century in notorial writing. By 1400 we find pz'axer ~ plaxer ‘to please’ and pz'ovcm ~ plowm ‘parish priest’. That consonant + /1/ groups were not just graphic conventions is supported by their survival into the modern period in marginal northern dialects. It is also suggested by their regular use in the mid fourteenth-century letters sent to Pignol Zucchello (MAROZZO DELLA ROCCA 1957) by Tuscan merchants writing in Venetian. 3.1.3. The earliest EV texts show evidence of a tendency, common to other northern dialects including Milanese, to velarise an /al/ cluster to /aw/ then to /0/ or /:)/. One finds, for example, who ‘other’ < ALTERUM in the thirteenth century and even otro in the early fourteenth. A process of restitution of the /1/ following such velarisation, and clear evidence of resistance to velarisation altogether, yields a rich pattern of variation in EV up to the early fifteenth century, when non-velarised preferences eventually prevailed and carried through to MidV and ModV. Up to c. 1400 Rz'olto existed alongside Rz'alto, with the former 25 times commoner, and

oltro ~ altro ‘other’ with the latter twice as common. Hypercorrect forms such as aldz'r < AUDIRE, [oldar < LAUDARE and galder < GAUDERE actually survived into MidV. The Christian name Boldo (< UBALDUS) was still in

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use at the end of MidV, and the name of the Venetian parish'of San Boldo survived in ModV/CV. 3.1.4. Another striking feature of EV was the raising of tonic /a/ to /e/ in a number of (usually) nasal environments. In some common cases this appears to be an unconditioned change, as in the forms sen ~ sento ~ sentn ‘saint’ < SANCTUS, SANCTA — which were common in EV alongside snn, santo and snntn — and the name Bernaba ~ Barnaba. Until 1400 the evidence shows great variability, with sen three times commoner than san, sentn ~ snntn both equally frequent and santo outnumbering sento by three to one. Other common instances such as fentz' ~ fantz’ ‘boys’ (with the former six times more frequent) and nnentz’ ~ nnantz‘ ‘before’ (with the latter four times more frequent) are clearly conditioned by metaphony. This is proved by the fact that the singular form fante ‘boy’ never shows raising to /e/. Although rapidly superseded by /a/ forms post-1400, such /e/ morphs survived sporadically in the early sixteenth century. Indeed on the 1557 map of Venice by the State Engineer (Proto) Cristoforo Sabbadino the parish of San Barnaba is indicated as S. Bernaba.21 3.2. Spoken and written Venetian: convergence trends 3.2.1. We have seen from our survey above that fully-characterised, un— selfconscious Venetian retreated from writing post-1500. On the other hand, written records of what purports to be contemporary Venetian speech abound in theatre and genre literature generally. Our sources for unmarked written Venetian are therefore rather scarce or partly-Italianised while our sources for Venetian speech — often in the mouths of old men, prostitutes, brazn' and servants — undoubtedly tend towards archaic and socially-peripheral registers. Nevertheless, when handled with care, both types of evidence yield useful indications about trends in written and spoken Venetian in the course of the sixteenth century and indeed suggest significant convergence before the end of the Cinquecento. 3.2.2. My sources for unmarked written Venetian are: the letters of the merchant Martino Merlini (DALLA SANTA 1917), the handwritten wills of Marin Sanudo (FULIN et al. 1879-1902, I, pp. 101-109), the Venetian ele-

21 Sabbadino’s map is in the Archivio di State in Venice (Inguna, 14). An excellent colour reproduction is in DORIGO (2003, 1, p. 47).

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ments in the diaries of the patrician chronicler Girolarno Priuli (SEGRE 1921), a series of manuscript documents from the Scuola Grande di San Rocco in the Venice Archivio di Stato,22 a range of inventories covering the sixteenth century (MOLMENTI 1980, pp. 475-490), and the analyses of Venetian legislative documents in the vernacular, spanning the sixteenth century, carried out by TOMASIN (2001, pp. 125 -200). For genuine-versusexaggerated archaising features of Venetian in the firSt- half of the Cinquecento I have compared the speeches of the senex Andronico from the first edition of Beolco’s Bz'lora23 and of the seaex Ser Thomao from the two manuscript redactions and the ea’z'tz'o prz'aceps of Beolco’s L’Aacoaz'taaa.24 I have also looked at the evolution of Sabanello’s speech in the two printed redactions of Marin Negro’s La Pace (NUNZIALE 1987 and 1989) and at the language of the lawyer Messer Cornelio in Calmo’s La Rboa’z’aaa (VESCOVO 1985). For deliberately slangy Venetian I have examined the conversation of balz' and prostitutes in the anonymous La Balesca (c. 1514) and the anonymous Egloga. Iaterlocatorz' Beltrame fac/Jz'a, Tuogm'o vz’llaa e Ram/90 bravo (c. 1529),25 of the bravo Tombola in La Pace, and of the low-life characters in Alessandro Caravia’s mock epics (DAZZI 1956, 1, pp. 327-343). For low— er-class spoken veaexz'aa I have consulted the speech of the young popolaaa Ruosa and the old popolaaa Ortica over the two versions of La Pace. For apparently unmarked Venetian, spoken by middle-class women and servants of different ages, my sources are the anonymous La Vem'exz'aaa (PADOAN 1994) and the Dz'alogo a’z' Lacrezz'a (PADOAN 1978, pp. 395—

402). For the conflation of written and spoken Venetian modes towards the end of the century my source is the first-person verse of the patrician Maffio Venier.26 3.2.2.1. The features whose variation I use as the benchmarks for convergence trends in written-spoken Venetian are: (a) infinitive endings in (V)r ~ (V). (b) reflexes of past-participle desinence: -ATUM > -2; ~ -a0 ~ -aa’0. (c) reflexes of nominal desinence -ATEM > -a ~ ae. (d) Sg. 1 present tense reflexes

22 For details see [Texts 3] below. 23 First published in Venice in 1551 by Stefano di Alessi. 24 The first edition was published in Venice in 1551 by Alessi. The manuscript versions of L’Ancom'taaa are in the Marciana codex Ital. IX 66 (673 0) and in codex 36 of the Biblioteca Civica in Verona. In FERGUSON (2006) I argue that the language of Alessi’s cdz'tz'oaes priaczpe: of Ruzante is more stereotypically archaising than that found in the two mss of L’Ancom'taaa. 25 Both in DA RIF (1984, pp. 48-84 and 121-137).

25 Specifically, I use Maffio Venier, Tre lirz'c/Je (PADOAN 1985).

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of STARE ‘to stay, to be’: stago ~ ston. (e) Sg. 3 conditional inflections: -dZ)€ ~ 421. (f) reflexes of the cluster L + yod > /j/ ~ /d3/. (g) reflexes of initial QU + /a/ > /kw/ ~ /k/. (a) Infinitive endings: (V)r ~ (V) Texts of all kinds show that the MidV norm, written and spoken, was the apocopated, originally north—eastern Veneto, form (V)r in all conjugations. However, the north-lagunar outcome (V), with loss of final -r — a reallocated feature which we observed in some fourteenth-century texts — reappears occasionally in lower class and archaising speech in Calmo and Negro. There is consistent evidence that this lower social variant persisted

in speech throughout MidV and into ModV.27 (b) Reflexes of past participle desinence -ATUM > 4 ~ -ao ~ -ado We observed that towards the end of EV the great variability in outcomes of -ATUM was levelling off, with the north-eastern morph -& increasineg gaining ground alongside the more conservative -ad0. We also noted the disappearance from all texts of the outcome -czo found in the earliest EV texts. In unmarked written Venetian which did not purport to repre— sent speech this continued to be the trend between 1500 and 1600, with 12 increasingly the dominant desinence and -ao only found sporadically in the mercantile correspondence of Merlini. In many ‘speech’ texts the picture was reversed, with -ao overwhelmingly present alongside -Zt, while -ad0 (clearly a mainly written form) was scarce. A notable exception is " the Egloga where -& is exclusive. In unmarked speech texts (La Vem'exz'oma and the Dz'ozlogo dz' Lucrezz'a) the situation was much more nuanced, with both -40 and 12 present in varying proportions, and -ado scarce. In the Dz'alogo 12 outnumbers -ao, with -ado not present. In La Vem'exz'cma -ao

clearly outnumbers 12, with -ad0 marginally present. Similar proportions to La Vem'exz'cma are found in the two manuscripts of L’Ancom'mm. From a comparison of the Ruzante manuscripts and first editions, from CaraVia’s epics and from the corrections to the second redaction of La Pace, it is clear that —a0 was becoming, in the second half of the century, the

marked spoken form. It survived as a minority variant in Venier and in some seventeenth-century genre texts. Evidence shows that it remained present in marginal spoken Venetian through the rest of MidV and into

27 The feature appears in the Venetian used by lower—class characters in the early plays of Goldoni such as I! gondolz'ere venezz'ano (ZAMPIERI 1954, pp. 211-222), in Sografi’s La rivoluzz'one in Venezz'a (MONTANILE 1984) at the end of the eighteenth century, and in peripheral districts of Venice according to Papanti’s survey in the later nineteenth century (PAPANTI 1875).

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ModV.28 By 1600, however, both spoken and written Venetian were con-

verging on ~62, the norm in later MidV and in ModV/CV. (c) Reflexes of nominal desinence -ATEM > 4; ~ -ae A similar but more clearcut pattern is apparent in nominal reflexes of -ATEM. In later EV writing the north-eastern reflex w}, coinciding with Tus— can and the NLF, had come to the fore. It remained dominant in the 1500-

1600 period in unmarked written Venetian. The EV variant -ae, which had disappeared from View post-1300, reappeared tirnidly in Merlini’s correspondence. However, it exploded on to the scene in the early and mid sixteenth century in lower-register and archaising ‘spoken’ texts of all kinds, and occasionally in higher-register documents, although 12 remained absolutely dominant in unmarked speech texts like La Vem'exz'cma. By the end of the century -ae had been eliminated in mainstream writing in favour of -d. It survived in some seventeenth-century genre writing and surfaced again in the mid eighteenth century in the speech of lower-class Venetian characters in Goldoni’s early comedies. However, the norm in speech and writing, from 1600 through to ModV/CV, was -a‘. (d) Sg. 1 reflexes of STARE ‘to be, to stay’: stago ~ ston In later EV stago had emerged as the preferred reflex of star sg. 1 present tense in Venetian writing, alongside dago ‘I give’ from dar and vago ‘I go’ from molar. In early MidV it remained the sole morph used in unmarked writing and in unmarked speech texts. The earlier EV reflex slow (with don ‘I give’ and 12071 ‘I go’) did, however, reappear alongside stago in lower-register and archaising texts early in the century. It disappeared before 1600 and stago, employed exclusively in Venier, seems to have become the sole written and spoken form in later MidV and in ModV/CV. (e) Sg. 3 conditional inflections: -ia ~ -ave Both conditional morphs existed in EV, but in the fifteenth century -z'a was clearly being selected in writing and continued to be preferred in unmarked documents 1500-1600. However, -ave reappeared massively alongside it in ‘spoken’ texts of all types and registers in the sixteenth century. It would continue to coexist with -z'a until the end of the MidV period and well into ModV, both in speech and in writing. A lenited variant of -ave in —ae (cor— responding to the central-southern Veneto type) surfaced in the mouths of

23 It surfaces in popularising texts in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, appears in

the mouth of working-class characters in early Goldoni and, peripherally, in the survey of Papanti.

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some older or lower-class Venetian theatre characters in early MidV but had disappeared in print by the end of the century. Its emergence, or re-emergence, may be evidence of EV reallocation residues and/or of pressure on MidV from mainland migration patterns in the Cinquecento, when there was a surge in Venice’s population. Both -ave and —z'a appear promiscuously alongside one another throughout the sixteenth century and beyond, and it is difficult to detect any preference in usage even in writers such as Venier. (f) Reflexes of L + yod: /i/ ~ /d3/ The dominant EV reflex of L + yod was /j/, with /(13/ a minority variant. Indeed in high-register Quattrocento documents such as the Morosini Codex and in testamentary texts of that period /j/ is employed exclusively. This remained the situation in the early sixteenth century, but with the increasingly strong presence of /c13/ in texts purporting to record speech. Both outcomes are equally present in La Balesca. La Vem'exz'aaa yields 34 examples of /j/ outcomes as against 6 of /(13/, with no noticeable pattern of social differentiation,

while in the first redaction of La Pace proportions are roughly half and half. The dynamic towards /d3/ in the second redaction of La Pace, and in the sec— ond half of the century generally — allied to the overwhelming presence of /j/ in the mouths of low—life characters in the Egloga and in Caravia — suggests that /j/ may increasingly have been felt to be more old-fashioned or provincial, coinciding as it did (and does) with the exclusive L + yod reflexes found on the Veneto mainland. From Venier to Goldoni all MidV authors were to »

prefer the palatal, the only morph recorded by Boerio in early ModV. Nevertheless /j/ continued to survive as a minority variant in ModV/CV. (g) Reflexes of QU + /a/: /kw/ ~ /k/

Throughout EV the outcome of initial QU + /a/, whether primary or secondary, was always /kw/, so that one finds: qaaaa’o ‘when’ < QUANDO,

qualc/ae ‘some’ < QUALEM + 6/96 and qaelo ‘that’ < ECCU ILLU(M). This continued to be the case in the sixteenth century in all unmarked written docu— ments. Even in ‘spoken’ texts it constituted the norm, although in the slangy speech of Venetian low-life characters, in polyglot theatre and in Caravia, one also finds initial QU + /a/ > /k/ on some lexemes, e.g. caZc/ae for qualc/Je, calcaa for qualczm ‘somebody’ and calcossa for qaalcossa ‘something’. This feature tended to go hand in hand with a number of characteristic low-register lexical variants such as m'gaa for m'sszm ‘nobody’, [agar for [assar ‘to leave’ 29 — all of them unresolved residues from EV — and slang

29 On [agar ~ lassar see Chapter VIII, § 1.4.2.1.

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words such as mcmza ‘girlfriend’ (lit. ‘cow’). None of these traits, including /k/ reflexes of QU + /a/, broke out of the confines of sixteenth-century genre literature, and they were ignored by the evolving written-spoken MidV norm.

4. MIDDLE VENETIAN 1600-1800: TOWARDS A FLEXIBLE ~NORM

4.1. For Venice the sixteenth century had been a period of profound reconversion: economically, culturally and in terms of her role in the new international order. For Venetian it had been a crucial period of tran— sition in terms of structure and status. In the course of the century Venetian went from being a proto-language of state, with a strongly evolving written norm, to being a dialect. Although spoken by all Venetians in all circumstances, its unmarked written functions were more-or-less rapidly usurped by Italian. A consequence of this downgrading in the period c. 1500-c. 1550 appears to have been a sudden loosening of the Venetian roofing norms clearly at play in the Quattrocento. The uncontrolled eruption of ‘spoken’ Venetian of all registers in theatre and genre literature is symptomatic and suggestive of a period of disarray. However, our consideration above of the variant dynamics at work over a range of sensitive structural features during this period suggests that such turbulence was more apparent than real, with a norm continuing to operate discreetly over the Cinquecento. Features previously confined to speech, some of them undoubtedly from below, seem to have been partially or completely absorbed into mainstream writing. Others were rejected from speech and writing and survived, when they did, as social variants. A gradual convergence of written and spoken Venetian in the direction of a new unified norm in the second half of the century is evidenced by Maffio Venier whose language is «un veneziano medio di garbata e uniforme melodiosita» (STUSSI 1993, p. 82) and carries a new, unmarked self-assurance. This re-

assertion of educated norms is hardly surprising in an oligarchical state with a strong and literate aristocracy and bourgeoisie, with exceptional cultural traditions and historic self-awareness. From the later Cinquecento, with Italian the undisputed high language of writing and with educated Venetians comfortable in it, the negative associations of Venetian with popularising literature waned, as did any linguistic inferiority complex. Although it was largely, but not exclusively, confined to verse and to theatre, a newly self-confident and increasingly uniform written Venetian, proud to express Venice’s age-old pragmatism and materialism, asserted —230—

MIDDLE VENETIAN: FROM LANGUAGE TO DIALECT

itself between 1600 and 1800. It was a venexz'cm renewed from below by the infusion of speech, and inevitably — given the familiarity with, and edu— cation in, the national written language of its main practitioners — influenced in the direction of Italian.30 4.2. Viewed with hindsight, the period from the papal interdict on the city (1606—07) until the fall of the Republic (1797) can be regarded as one of ‘decline’. While this is undoubtedly a valid assessment of Venice’s overall standing as a naval and imperial power, it is only partly true of her eco— nomic position during this period. And while the Venetian patriciate had unquestionably lost its civic and entrepreneurial dynamism as a class, Venice was an unparalleled cultural powerhouse in her last two centuries of independent existence. Her position as print capital of Europe was no longer unchallenged in the seventeenth century, but she was the world centre for music publishing. Her exceptional musical life was animated by, among others, Vivaldi (1678-1741), Benedetto Marcello (1686-1739), Giu— seppe Tartini (1692-1770), Baldassare Galuppi (1706-85) and Domenico Cimarosa (1749-1801), and musical drama thrived in her theatres. Her daily press was a European precursor, with the GaZZetta Vex/em edited by Gasparo Gozzi (1713—86) spawning copy-cat titles across the world.31 On the stage she was the impetus behind the professionalism of European theatre. Her impresarios, venues and acting traditions led to a flowering of theatre in the seventeenth and, especially, in the mid-eighteenth century(MANCINI — MURARO — POVOLEDO 1995). This culminated in the influential allegorical fables — mostly in Italian but also in Venetian — of the ideologi— cally conservative Carlo Gozzi (1720-1806) and, above all, in the innovative

realism of the Venetian comedies of Italy’s greatest playwright Carlo Goldoni. In the eighteenth century Venice, with her ludic culture and image immortalised by the Serem'ssz'ma ludem illustrations of Gabriel Bella (ZORZI — PADOAN URBAN 1983), was the Grand Tour destination par excellence. Prestigious architectural commissions continued to enrich her civic but 30 Franco Fido has recently remarked on the apparent paradox that the Venetian of Giacinto Gallina’s (and Riccardo Selvatico’s) theatrical characters at the end of the nineteenth century seems more richly dialectal than that of the characters in Goldoni’s late Venetian plays (FIDO 2004). Such a discrepancy is undoubtedly a symptom of the MidV written-spoken norm being

breached from below after the fall of the Republic. This is also visible in the affirmation of lower spoken structural features such as future and conditional stems in /ar/ in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Chapter IX, § 2.2.3.1). On language teaching in eighteenth-century Veneto

schools see CORTELAZZO (1992). 31 On the Venetian press in the eighteenth century see CUAZ (1985). See also Chapter VIII, 8 3.2.1.

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also her ecclesiastical cityscape: from Longhena’s grandiose Madonna della Salute, via the austerely neoclassical Tolentini church and the impudently self-aggrandising Santa Maria Zobenigo (which shocked Ruskin) to the rampantly Roccoco San Moisé. She was the commercial art capital of Italy in the Seicento and Settecento, and her painting enjoyed an Indian summer with Giambattista Tiepolo (1696-1770), Rosalba Carriera (1675-1757), Pietro Longhi (c. 1702-85), Bernardo Bellotto (1722-1780), Sebastiano Ricci

(1659-1734), and the great vedutz'sz‘z' Canaletto (1697-1768) and Guardi (1712—93).3'2

4.3. Such cultural self-confidence is reflected in language, both spoken and written. Orally Venetian 1600-1800 continued to fill every registerspace in Venetian society and is recorded even late in the life of the Republic as being the normal language not only of political debate but also of the courtroom.33 This exceptional sociolinguistic situation within the Italian context was neatly summarised by Gianfranco Folena who described eighteenth-century Venetian as a «lingua parlata socialmente unitaria senza stratificazione rigida, lingua usuale anche della classe dirigente e lingua scritta non “grammaticale”: il solo dei dialetti italiani totalmente immune, nell’uso parlato anche colto, di squalifica culturale, “dialetto” nel senso

corrente solo per la prospettiva letteraria; capace di servire non soltanto nell’uso amministrativo e giuridico, ma anche per discutere oralrnente di filosofia e di scienza» (FOLENA 1983, p. 91). That written Venetian had largely stabilised around a norm close to the educated spoken usage of the city’s elites is confirmed by an examination of the written documentation. The most striking aspects of fully-characterised MidV texts 1600-1800 are the absence of obvious genre distortion and, concomitantly, their high level of structural uniformity. With a few exceptions showing plebeian features, this is true even of parodic texts such as the Venetian version of Tasso’s Gemsalemme Lz'bemm (VESCOVO 2003), of collections of popular songs 34

32 On the cultural life of Venice in the eighteenth century see ARNALDI — PASTORE STOCCHI (1985, 5/1). On Venice as a Grand Tour destination see TENENTI (1985). 33 On the use of Venetian in the courtroom in the eighteenth century see VIANELLO (1957). An extract from a courtroom speech of the period is in TOMASIN (2001, p. 279). It reveals the habitual use by lawyers of a Venetian that, though Italianised, retained characteristic structural

features such as identical sg. 3/pl. 3 on verbs, masculine past participles in -d, clitic subject pronouns, indirect object pronoun gbe, masculine definite article e1, xe as sg. 3 of esser, and apocope of final —e after /n/ and /r/. 34 For example the early and mid seventeenth-century lyrics of the street singer-songwriter Paulo Briti, known as ‘11 cieco di Venezia’ (DAZZI 1956, II, pp. 85—119).

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MIDDLE VENETIAN: FROM LANGUAGE TO DIALECT

and of the captions on Zompini’s splendid late eighteenth-century prints of Venetian trades.35 It is undoubtedly true of the mass of pleasant but generally undistinguished verse, either lyric, moralising or mocking, which characterised the period and whose liveliest exponents were Zuan Francesco Busenello (1598-1659), Bartolomeo Dotti (1649-1713), Lodovoco Pasto

(1746-1806) and Checco Gritti (1740-1811). It holds good for a genuinely original poetic talent such as the outrageously explicit Giorgio Baffo (1694— 1768). 4.4. The educated Venetian norm, stable but flexible, is best represented in three substantial bodies of work, one in verse, one in prose

and one written for the stage, spanning the mid-seventeenth to the late eighteenth centuries. The first is La Carta del Navegar Pz'toresco (1660) [Text 11] by Marco Boschini (1605-81), a verse defence of Venice’s contribution to Italian Renaissance painting written as a polemical riposte to Giorgio Vasari’s Florentine—centred Vz'te. The second is a compendium of Venetian idioms and vocabulary by the patrician Francesco Zorzi Muaz— 20 (1732-75), the Raccolta a’e’ provesz'z', a’ettz', sem‘enze, parole e frasz' vene-

zz'aae, [e pit) usz'tate (1768-71) [Text 12]. The third is the spoken venexz'an of the Venetian plays of Carlo Goldoni. Particularly important for information on the norm are his later comedies I! Campz'ello (1756), La Casa Nova (1760), I Rasteg/az' (1760), Le Barufle C/az'ozzoz‘te (1760) [Text 13], Sz'or Toa’ero Bromolon (1762) [Text 14] and Una delle ultz'me Jere dz' camovale (1762). I have also cross-checked my conclusions against the invaluable Vocabolarz'o a’el venezz'aiao a'z' Carlo Goldom' (FOLENA 1993) and against the Venetian of the Pantalone character in the theatre of Carlo Gozzi (PETRO— N10 1962).

4.4.1. An analysis of these three corpora reveals a high level of stability

in the Venetian spoken-written norm from mid seventeenth to late eighteenth centuries. The main areas of variation within the norm are as follows: (a) Reflexes of tonic E and (3 in a free syllable Parallel diphthongised and undiphthongised outcomes are common, especially on O reflexes, e.g. alegro ~ alz'egro ‘cheeerful’ < ALACREM; aovo ~ m'ovo ‘new’ < NOVUM; logo ~ [z'ogo ‘place’ < LOCUM; zogo ~ zz'ogo

35 G. ZOMPINI, Le artz' cbe vamzo per w'a nella citta a'z' Venezz'a (Venice, 1785), in the Gabinetto Stampe of the Museo Correr.

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‘game’ < IOCUM; 120] ~ vuol ‘he wants’ < VOLET. However, the trend in the eighteenth century is towards the non-diphthongised options. (b) Lenition of intervocalic consonants Outcome patterns of lenited intervocalic consonants are largely stabilised. Variation is noticeable, though, on reflexes of /p/, /b/ and /V/, e.g. 5604 ~ scam ‘broom’ < SCOPAM; laomr ~ [warm ‘to work’ < LABORARE;

sc/oz'ao ~ scbz'avo ‘slave’ or ‘ciao’ < SCLAVUM. It is also occasionally present on reflexes of /’r/ and /d/, e.g. caemz ~ cadena ‘chain’ < CATENAM and Mo ~ m’a’o ‘nest’ < NIDUM. (c) Stem vowels in the future and conditional tenses Futures and conditionals in /er/ coexist with those in /ar/, although the former remained by far the commoner outcome throughout the period. ((1) Conditional desinences Sg. 1 and sg. 3/pl. 3 of the conditional tense had parallel morphs in -z'a ~ -ave, with no aspectual or sociolinguistic differences discernible. (e) Sg. l and sg./pl. 3 of the present tense of esser ‘to be’ Sg. 1 of esser presents the couplet :0 ~ son, with the equivalent enclitic interrogative forms sogz'o ~ songz’o. On sg./pl. 3 (.3 and xe continue to appear ‘ alongside one another in the same texts, with are increasingly preferred to— wards the end of the period. (f) Presence of the grammaticalised locative particle gbe on simple tenses of aver ‘to have’ The presence of give remained optional throughout the period. Boschini generally avoided it. When using it, Goldoni preferred forms such as g/y’loo and g/o’avevo ‘I have, I had’, while Muazzo fully grammaticalised them in writing to go, gavevo, as in ModV. (g) Sg. 1 present tense of voIer ‘to want’ Palatalised and non-palatalised alternatives were possible, with 002' ~ voz'o ~ 120ga ‘I want’. In line with the marked trend towards L + yod > /d3/ in MidV (see above § 3.2.2.1. (f)) 220ga was the preferred form towards the end of the period. (h) Past participle of second-conjugation verbs There was considerable variation on weak second-conjugation past participles throughout the period. This was particularly noticeable on the common verbs aver ‘to have’, tegm'r ‘to hold’ and vegm'r ‘to come’. One finds, respectively: (4)55; ~ abuo ~ abudo ~ aw? ~ avuo ~ avudo; tegm‘t ~ tegmto ~ tegfludo; and vegm‘t ~ vegnuo ~ vegnudo.

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MIDDLE VENETIAN: FROM LANGUAGE TO DIALECT

5. MIDDLE VENETIAN TEXTS

[Text 1] A letter of recommendation from Ermolao Barbaro to the Marquis Gianfranco II Gonzaga, husband of Isabella d’Este. The letter, dated July 19th 1490, is in the Archivio di Stato in Mantua (E, XXV, 3,

busm 848). The influence of underlying Venetian on Ermolao’s Italian is obvious in features such as favorz'sse for favorz'sce (‘favours’, present tense sg. 3), fazo for faccz'o ‘I make’, cuss? for cosi ‘thus’, 2006762 for gz'overoi ‘will help’, volerztz'em for volentz'erz' ‘willingly’, and the past participle sta for stato ‘been’. It is also detectable in the absence of pretonic E > /i/ on de, 61, me

and se, and in the apocope of final /e/ on recomandatzbn. I follow the transcription of BRANCA (1962), but remove the comma between casa and n0stm. I have not translated the passage as, apart from the above Venetian features and Latinisms such as tamen ‘nevertheless’ and ex corde ‘from the heart’, the Italian is transparent. Illustrissime et excellentissime domine. Ben che so che Vostra Excelentia ama et favorisse li suo’ servitori et tracta quelli humana et liberalmente, tamen venendo de li e1 presente messo, nominato messer Jacomo de Carpentariis quale é amico et familiar antiquo de casa nostra, non ho possuto far di meno che non lo recomandi a Vostra Excelentia per esser cussi astretto per le sue bone et optime conditioni, et

suo bon animo verso casa nostra, significando a Vostra Excelentia che questa recomandation la fazo ex corde. Et tanto piu volentiera la fazo, quanto el se lauda de

la Excelentia Vostra et dimonstra esser fidel servitor de quella. Quanto li zovera la mia recomandation, reputero tuto quello esser sta facto ala persona mia offerendome a Vostra Excelentia etc. Rome. die 19. Julij. 1490. Hermolaus Barbarus. Doctor. Eques. Orator

[Text 2] The penetration of Tuscan is already considerably advanced in the prose of the historian-diarist Giralomo Priuli. His Dz'arz'z' for the years 1494-1512 clearly aim to be in Tuscan but the intrusions from Venetian remain considerable. In the extract below, from January 1500, some of

the most obvious Venetianisms are: e! 7722' par ‘it seems to me’ (MidV 61 me par vs Ital. 7722' pare); cossa ‘thing’ (Ital. casa); f0 ‘was’ (Ital. fu); conseglz'o ‘council’ (MidV consegz'o ~ comez'o vs Ital. consz'glz'o); pregadz' (Venetian government institution); ale ‘to the’ (Ital. alle); prexon ‘prisons’ (Ital. prz’gz'om'); Fm! (Ital. Friuli);'z'n [e ‘in the’ (Ital. nelle); and respondeva ‘answered’ (Ital.

rz'spondeva). Note the hypercorrect consonantal doubling on, e.g., manna (mafia ‘hand’) and venetto (veneto). Like Sanudo, Priuli peppers his writing with link-words from chancery Latin. I quote from the edition of SEGRE —235—

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(1921, I, p. 251), leaving the passage untranslated. It concerns the charge of cowardice levelled at the patrician Andrea Zancani who had been Venetian governor in the province of Friuli (patriot dc Fm!) during the disastrous incursion of' Turkish troops. Zancani’s defence was that he was short of men, that the defenders would have been cut to pieces if they had sortied, and that he had been acting in the best interests of the Stato Veneto. El mi par etz’am non dover passar cum silentio, essendo cossa necessaria et degna da intendere et chome apar qui di sopra in questo mio libro, fo prexo per il conseglio di pregadi per avanti de far venir ale prexon i1 nobel homo D. Andrea Zanchani, fo proveditor in Frul, quando 1i Turchi chorssenno et ffecenno tanto extremo et incredibile danno ala patria de Frul. Et questo perché lo irnputavanno che hera stato questo provveditor serrato in 1e citadelle et non havea volutto uscir fuori cum le gente et cum li stratioti [= Venetian cavalry of Albanian and Greek origin], che facilrnente haveriano divedato ali Turchi il passar in Frul et che tute 1e gente d’arme volevanno uscir fuori et luj per pocho anirno et chore [2 ‘heart’ or ‘courage’] stette serato in le citadelle. Et luj respondeva a questo che lo havea facto per salvatione del stato venetto, perché se atrovava deprovisto et cum poche gente et, essendo stati ale manno cum Turchi, facilmente sariano stati rotti et frachassati.

[Texts 3] Both passages below are examples of educated practical Venetian writing from the first half of the Cinquecento. They are taken from the archives of the Scuola Grande di San Rocco in the Archivio di Stato in Venice. The first, dated April 8th 1526, is in ASV Reg. 45, fol. 41r°-v°. The

second, dated January 15t 1547, is in ASV, Reg. 47, fol. 80r°~v°. The first text is substantially in Venetian with some slight Italian veining (e.g. 30pm for 5074 ‘above’, finestre for fenestre ~ fdnestre, occasional 1'] for 6! and 032' for de, gerund in -emlo in volendo, and luz' for e10). Italian influence is more

obtrusive in the second, especially in orthography and in a hypercorrect construction such as 507w fz'm'to ‘is finished’, which I translate as ‘lapses’. I follow the transcription of TAFURI (1985, pp. 150 and 153). [Text 3a] (1526) adi 8 april Con zio sia che adi 25 zener proximo passato fossi messo una partte per el spettabile mis. bort.o de zuane de la seda fo nostro vardian grando che nela faza de la salla nostra sopra e1 rio non se podesse far altra spexa se non di metter in opera le finestre fate per quel luogo /.../ come in quella per il che e1 nostro spetabil mis. grazioxo de andrea nostro digmo vardian grando se retrovi ligado et non sa quello luj abj ad exeguir perche volendo lui observar tal parte el non puol far la—236—

MIDDLE VENETIAN: FROM LANGUAGE TO DIALECT

vorar ne serar de dredo la nostra come che el voler suo et de tuta“ la fraterna se el

non fa disfar parte de quelo /.../. [It being the case that on January 25th last a motion was passed by Mr. Bortolo de Zuane de la Seda, esquire, our former Director General [vardz'an grando] that on the facade of our hall overlooking the canal no other expense was to be incurred other than the carrying out of the windows made for that place /.../ and as in this way Mr Grazioxo de Andrea, esquire, our most worthy Director General, finds his hands tied and does not know what he should carry out, in that

since he wants to obey this motion he cannot instigate work nor have the back of our hall closed as he would wish, and as is the wish of the whole brotherhood,

unless he undoes part of that /.../.] [Text 3b] 1547 adi 15 zener in Capitolo General Attrovandosi la schuola nostra al presente in Zecca 2110 5 per cento ducati 1260 da Cavedal e dar ducati 735 per conto della Commissaria del dignissimo ser Marchio della Seda et ducati 525 per conto della Commissaria Marco Bigarelli de qual danari adi 13 del presente sono finito e1 mandato et per quanto se intende non voleno pifi accettar danari se non alli 4 per cento, che daria de poco beneficio massirne havendo la predita nostra schuola de spesa ogni anno per conto della commissaria s. Marchio sopradito duc. 45 [...] [1547 on January 15th in the General Council . Since our Scuola finds itself at present in the Mint [Zecca] at the rate of 5% with a capital of 1260 ducats, and giving 735 ducats on account of the estate [Commzltsarz'a] of the most worthy Ser Marchio della Seda and 525 ducats on account of the Marco Bigarelli estate, and since the mandate on this money lapses on the 13th of the present month; and in as much as it is understood that they no longer want to accept money at less than 4%, which would yield little profit, especially since our aforementioned Scuola has 45 ducats worth of expenses every year for the estate of the above-mentioned Ser Marchio /.../] [Texts 4] The following documents, extracts from the statutes of two

Compagnie della Calza theatre clubs, show the greater shift from Venetian to Italian over the first half of the sixteenth century in more formal, highregister texts. The Compagnie, associations of young gentlemen, had the re— sponsibility of organising entertainments on the canals and streets and in the halls and courtyards of the palaces and wealthy houses of Venice — for private and state functions, for banquets, for weddings and for Carnival celebrations. Between the late fifteenth and mid sixteenth centuries at least thirty-four such amateur theatrical groups were formed, their members —237—

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bound together by contract for anything from under one year to sixteen years. Text 4a is from the Statutes of the Modesti company and dates from February 20th 1487. It is entirely in Venetian apart from the use of dz' for de ‘of’, of 37an oblz'gadz' for 5sz oblz'gadz', and of some Tuscan-influenced spellings. Text 4b is from the statutes of the Sempeterni of March 15th 1541. It requires no translation as it is almost entirely in Italian. There is some hesitation over single and double consonants (oblz'gato for 'obblz'gato, doppo for dopo, overo for ovvero) and one notes the Venetian-influenced failure to raise /e/ to /i/ on comeglz'o ‘council’. On the manuscript history of these documents see VENTURI (1909, pp. 10-12). I have followed the transcriptions in VENTURI (1909, pp. 120-129). [Text 4a] Item che in Portego non si possi meter piu di torze 6; anchora vuol dicti Compagni, che in Camera non si possi tegnir piu di Torze 2. Item per andar in contra non si possi andar con piu che cum Torze 4. Item, che cadaun di dicti Compagni siano obligadi tignir in li suoi Pasti Piffari 2, et Piva una, et si dicti Compagni con~ trafara a le dicte cosse caza a pena di Ducati XX”, et che i dicti Dinari sia spesi como parera alla mazor parte di essi Compagni.

[Also that in the main palace hall [Portego] it be forbidden to put up more than 6 torches; the said Companions also want there to be no more than 2 torches per room. Also that in going around the city districts [andar in comm] it be forbidden to go with more than 4 torches. Also that each of the said Companions be obliged to hire 2 fife(r)s at his meals and one bagpipe(r), and if the said Compa— nions contravene these things then they should incur the penalty of 20 ducats, with the said money being spent according to the wishes of the majority of the Companions]

[Text 4b] Che ogni Compagno maritandosi sia obligato fare due pasti a Trombe, e Pifari, uno in Casa della Sposa, l’altro nella di lui Casa; e doppo il secondo, lo Sposo deve fare una festa, Comedia, overo Momaria [= a pantomimic entertainment],

nella quale spenda da D. 30. in su oltre al pasto, sotto pena di D. 50 per ciascuna volta, ch’ei contrafacesse, e la Comedia con licenza del Conseglio di Dieci.

[Texts 5] Venetian notorial inventories of the sixteenth century show strong loyalty to venexz'cm. Of the three inventorial extracts below only the last, from the end of the century, shows significant Italian influence. Text 5a is taken from the inventory of goods of Cardinal Battista Zen —238—

MIDDLE VENETIAN: FROM LANGUAGE TO DIALECT

and dates from May 9th 1501. Text 5b is an extract from the inventory of the grocer Francesco De Scoperti and is dated August 30th 1528. Text 5c is the inventory of the patrician Lorenzo Correr from May 1584. The extracts are studded with characteristic Venetian lexical items such as cuslz'er ‘spoon’, cortelo ‘knife’, pz’ron ‘fork’, zoz'a ‘jewel’, m'nzuolz' ‘sheets’, stramaz-

(z)o ‘mattress’, disdoto ‘eighteen’ and the EV/MidV Germanism sonda ‘slice’ (see Chapter VIII § 2.1.2). I have followed the transcriptions in MOLMENTI 1880, II, pp. 475-488. [Text 5a] 1 bacil d’arzento bianco con zoie e schudo dorado /.../ una coppa d’arzento dorada pe e coverchio con suo fior /.../ uno fiascho grando dorado con arme e cadene coperto lavorado a relievo; non se poté pexar /.../ uno vaxo in forma de zucha con cadena con sonde dorade /.../ uno cortelo, uno piron, uno cuslier,

uno salareto tutto d’oro /.../ una vesta scarlato fodra de armeljni. [1 white silver basin with jewels and golden shield /.../ a gilt silver goblet, foot and lid with their flower /.../ a large golden flask with arms and chains, lid in relief work; could not be weighed /.../ a vase in the shape of a marrow with gilded slices /.../ a knife, a fork, a spoon, an all-gold salt cellar /.../ a scarlet coat lined with ermine] [Text 5b] Lo anello de messer san Marco nel suo tabernacolo d’arzento /.../ Moneda venitiana grossa ducati cinquanta /.../ Monede forestiere de piu sorte ducati disdoto /.../ una centura fornida d’arzento /.../ Quatro pezzi de pironi roti val L.3 de pizoli /.../ Una vesta de raxo negro da dona /.../ Tre para de manege da dona al’antiga, uno d’oro, cremesini de veludo et el terzo de veludo paonazo /.../ Uno paro de ninzuoli vechij strazadi. [The ring of My Lord St Mark in its silver tabernacle /.../ Large Venetian coin, 50 ducats /.../ Foreign coins of various kinds, 18 ducats /.../ a belt with silver trim /.../ Four pieces of broken forks, worth 3 lire de pizoli /.../ A woman’s black dress in fine cloth [mxo] /.../ Three pairs of antique-style women’s sleeves, one in gold, [one in] crimson velvet and the third in purple velvet /.../ A pair of sheets, old and torn.] [Text 5c] In camera granda: doi quadri, uno con l’effigie di papa Gregorio XII Corraro, e l’altra del Sr Antonio Corraro cardinal: Una littiera dorata con quattro piramide —239—

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/.../ Otto casse de nogara dorate /.../ Una tavola di pietra negra con 11' suoi piedi dorati /.../ Doi stramazi /.../ Una vesta ducal di raso cremisino fodrata de zebelini /.../ Una ducal de saia negra fodra de martori. [In the master bedroom: two paintings, one with the effigy of Pape Gregory XII Corraro, and the other with Signor Antonio Corraro cardinal: a gilded bed (stead) with four pyramids /.../ Eight chests in gilded walnut /.../ A table in black stone with its gilded feet /.../ Two mattresses /.../ A ducal robe of fine crimson cloth lined with sable /.../ A black pinstripe ducal (robe) lined with pine martin]

[Text 6] A typical extract from La Bulesca (c. 1514), possibly the first ‘bully-boy’ (bulesca) comedy performed in Venice. This early sixteenthcentury vogue genre, comprising song, verse, sketches and farcical urban playlets, was an offshoot of Venetian bufi‘onesca theatre (FERGUSON 1996). It featured hard-men, pimps and prostitutes, and its fictional brush with low-life Venice clearly gave well-heeled audiences a frisson. La Bulesca is likely to have been staged in private by a Compagnia della Calza. The passage below is typical of the consciously slangy Venetian used in the play, e.g. busdava ‘poof’ (lit. ‘beehive’) and fm’ for fmr ‘brother’. Note the masculine-singular past participles in both w? and -ao (gem? and desfi'diz ~ cazao), future stems in /er/ (besognerd, veden‘z), L + yod > /j/ (e.g. voio),

‘ the evidence of strong diphthongisation (zuoga), the clipped subject pronoun 6’ < EGO (e.g. 6’ son), the use of the conditional in -ave, and the fre-

quent enclitic interrogatives (vustuP, éstuP). A reference, just after this extract, to the district of Quintavalle situates the action in the eastern lowerclass sestz'er of Castello. The manuscript of the one—act La Bulesca is in the Marciana Library, codex Ital. IX 288 (6072), fols 52r°—69v°. I follow the

transcription in DA RIF (1984, pp. 64-65) which contains this and other bulesca works, with textual and contextual commentary. Lolz': Ho gerca tuto ancuo, per trovar Bulle, / e si non so dove ’1 sia cazao; / forsi ch ’1 die esser a caxa de Zule. / Ghe voio andar a dir come Fracao / m’ha desfida, sta sera per doman, / a do per do, lu e mi, lu e Figao. / Besognera saver menar le man / e aver, te so dir, l’ochio al fato so, / ché sempre el zuoga de prirno sto can. / Non ho paura, mi, de tuti do; / di’ pur ch’i vegna, perché i vedera, / vignisi pur con qualcosa del so. / Credo che ’l sia custfi che Vien in qua. / Dio guardi, Bulle, a ponto te cercava.

Bulle: Vustu niente da mi? Lolz': Si. Bulle: E’ son to fra’. Lolz': Vorave saver da ti: éstu busdava? Bulle: Non mi, chi disc ’1?

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MIDDLE VENETIAN: FROM LANGUAGE TO DIALECT

Lolz': El dise un om da ben. Bulle: Che dise ’1? L012': Che ti non val una fava.

Bulle: E chi é sto bravo? Di’. Lolz': Te ’1 diro ben. / Vustu combater con lu, si te ’l digo? Bulle: Si, mi combatero, si ’1 me ’1 mantien.

Lolz': El 6 Fracao. Bulle: Fracao? E’ no ’1 stimo un figo /.../. [Lolz'z I’ve been looking all day to find Bulle, but I don’t know where he’s holed up. Maybe he’s at Zule’s house. I want to go and tell him how Fracao’s challenged me this evening for tomorrow, two against two, him and me, him and Figao. We’ll have to know how to handle ourselves and have our wits about us, I can tell you, ’cause he always makes his move first, that dog. I’m not scared of both of them, me. Bring ’em on! They’ll see, they will, even if they have backup. I think that’s him coming. God be wi’ you, Bulle, I was just looking for you. Bulle: Want something from me? Lolz': Yes. Bulle: I’m your brother. Lolz': I’d like you to tell me. Are you a poof? Bulle: No. Who says I am? Lolz': A gentleman says so. Bulle: What does he say? Lolz': That you’re not worth a bean. Bulle: Who is this hard man? Speak up. Lolz': I’d like to tell you right enough. Will you fight with him if I tell you? 374116: I will if he doesn’t back down. Lolz': It’s Fracao. Bulle: Fracao. He’s not worth a fig /.../]

[Text 7] In an entirely different register is the soliloquy below of the old Venetian gentleman Andronico, from Ruzante’s one-act Bilora of

c. 1529-30. In this dark ‘comedy’ the near-decrepit Andronico snatches away for himself the ambivalent Dina, young wife of Bilora, a brutal peasant from the Paduan countryside. In what is probably the only on-stage murder in Italian Renaissance comedy, the desperate and drunken Bilora eventually stabs his weathy rival to death in a scene unrivalled at the time for its tragic brutality. The play is remarkable for its exploration of the polemical theme of city-country antagonism at a time of war, famine and population displacement from the Veneto countryside towards Venice. The merchant psychology of Andronico is subtly explored through his fussy, slightly archaic Venetian, littered, like that of the contemporary Venetian

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diarists Marin Sanudo and Girolamo Priuli, with snippets of chancery Latin. One notes the constant use of -ae (< -ATEM) and no (-ATUM) reflexes,

the presence of L + yod > /d3/ (vogz’a, vogz’o), of occasional strong diphthongisation (muodo, matieria, truow'stn vs vogz'a and bone), of Germanic W > /v/ (vasta), and of sg. 3 sé of esser ‘to be’, as the old man delves

into his own motivations. I follow the transcription in ZORZI (1967, pp. 561563), re-correcting vea'eza to vechieza, vecz'o to vec/oz‘oand vecz' to vecbz' in line with the first edition of Bz'lom (Venice, Stefano de Alessi, 1551). Andronz'co: Or tandem el sé pur la veritae, al corpo de mi, che chi no fa so puerigia in zoventue, e1 besogna farla in so vechieza. Mi e’ me arecordo, al mio tempo, quando quele bone memorie, maxz'nze missier Nicoleto d’i Aliegri e missier Pantasileo da Ca’ Bucentoro, le so Magnificenzie, me diseva: “Che vuol dir, Andronico, che ti sta cussi pensoso, de mala vogia? Ché diavolo no te truovistu

una fia, e date piaser con essa? Quando vorastu aver piaser, né bon tempo? Quando ti no pora pi? Ti me par un omo a no so che muodo, mezo incantao. Mo tiente a mente, ve’, e arecordate, che in to vechieza ti fara qualche matieria per amor, puo!" Co’ sé anche stao. E si sarave squasi pi contento esser inamorao adesso ca quando giera zovene, si ’1 no fosse per una cossa che purassé fiae me vasta el desegno, che...n0n respondent ultz'ma prz'nn's. O diavolo, el sé una mala cossa vegnir vechi! Tamen, el me basterave l’anemo ancora...Basta mo, no pi, perché in efeto e’ no son nianche vechio in decrepitae. L’amor fa far de gran cosse. Aldi a che muodo ho menao via sta mamola e tolta da so mario. E si son stao a pericolo de lassarghe la Vita per averla, tanto ghe son imbertonao e tanto ben ghe vogio. [Now, tandem [= however], it’s the truth all right, I swear on my body, that the man who doesn’t sow his wild oats when he’s young has to get it out of his system in his old age. I can recall back in my day, when those dead and dearly beloved souls, maxnne [2 especially] their Excellencies Sir Nicoleto d’i Aliegri and Sir Pantasileo da Ca’ Bucentoro, used to say to me: ‘What’s the meaning of this Andronico? How is it that you’re always so pensive and out of sorts? Why the devil don’t you get yourself a girl and enjoy yourself with her? When do you intend enjoying yourself and having a good time? When you’re past it? You look like a man going about in some kind of dream. But just bear this in mind, and don’t forget it, now: in your old age you’ll commit some folly or other for love. You’ll see’. And that’s just how it’s turned out. And yet I’d almost be better pleased to have fallen in love now than when I was young, if it weren’t for one thing spoiling my plans: the fact that...n0n re:pondent ultnna prz'nn's [= the body is willing... but not able]. Ah, damn it! It’s a bad business, this growing old! Tamen [= nevertheless], I’d still be up to...stop it now: that’s enough! I may be old but I’m not decrepit, after all. Love does move mountains. Just consider how I’ve taken this lass away from her husband.

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And to think I’ve really put my life on the line to have her, I’m so head-over-heels in love with her.]

[Text 8] An extract from Act 1, Sc. 3 of the anonymous La Vem'exz'aw. In a unique indoor bedroom scene the aristocratic Angela mimics her lust for Giulio with her hapless servant—girl Nena. The Venetian of mistresses and servants in the play seems fully characterised and realistic, with very slight social differentiation visible, for example, in the servants’ use of the

lenited conditional in —ae versus the patrician preference for -ave ~ -z'a. Note the constant use in the passage below of M? for sg. 3 of esser, hesitation over the outcome of L + yod (megio vs void and zoz'e), the unusual raising of /o/ > /u/ on sg. 3 present tense of voler ‘to want’ (ml), the alternation on the pl. 2 enclitic interrogative of voler (voliu? ~ voleuP), the variability in diphthongisation (omo vs uomz'm'), and the apparent dissimilation on Vem'esa (for Vem'e— sz'd?). The geographical horizons of the Venetian world in the early Cinquecento are stated succinctly by Angela in her praise of Giulio. I quote from the edition of PADOAN (1994a, pp. 39-41). Angela: Ti no intende. Digo un sol omo. New: Cossa voliu dir: un omo grande, bello, possente? Angela: Digo un sol: che Xe un viso de anzolo, un musin d’oro, vegnuo qual dal Paradiso. New: Madona, tuti Xe uomini.

Angela: Si, ma questo Xe el megio de quanti xé in Veniesa, in Levante, in Terraferma, in tuto ’l mondo. New: Ve par cussi, perché vu ghe volé ben. Angela: Che, hen?! El xe e1 mio tesoro, le mie zoie, e1 mio dio! New: Felo vegnir, se ’nd’ avé tanta voia. Angela: Non vul vardarme sotto el panesello: el me crede vechia. El xé inamorao in Valiera, qua presso casa. New: Iiih! El xe quel bel fio? Che voleu far d’un puto? Angela: Che an? Varda sta bestia! Ti no scia, no? New: Disé un puoco zo che volé far. Angela: Butarghe cusi le braze al collo, zicar quelle lavrine, e tegnirlo streto streto. New: E po’, no altro? Angela: La lenguina in boca. New: Meio lo saverae far mi, cha esso.

Angela: Quella bochina dolce tegnerla per mi, cussi, sempre sempre! New: Sté indrio, ché me sofeghé! [Angelou You don’t understand. I mean there’s only one man. New: What do you mean: a big, handsome, powerful man?

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Angela: I mean one man only: he’s got an angel’s face, a little golden muzzle, come as if from Paradise. New: Milady, a man’s a man. Angela: Yes, but this one’s better than all the men in Venice, the Levant, the mainland, in the whole wide world. New: You think he is ’cause you like him. Angela: Like him?! He’a my treasure, my jewels, my god! New: Have him brought up, if you want him that much. Angela: He doesn’t want to look under my veil [Venetian patrician women wore a veil when outside]. He thinks I’m old. Anyway he’s in love with Valiera, who stays just nearby. New: Ah! It’s that handsome lad? What do you want a boy for? Angela: What do I want a boy for? Are you thick? Don’t you know? New: Go on then: what do you want him for? Angela: To throw my arms around his neck like this, to nibble those pretty lips, and hold him so so tight. New: And? Nothing else? Angela: To play at tongues. New: I could do it better than him. Angela: To keep that sweet little mouth for myself, like this, for ever and ever! New: Get back, you’re smothering me!]

[Texts 9] Types of Venetian used by Andrea Calmo. [Text 9a] A comparison between the two texts below confirms that the Venetian of Andrea Calmo’s tax return of 1566 is noticeably different from that used in his fiction. In the first place, it does not contain the archai'sing structures found in the latter, e.g. in -ATEM noun reflexes 12 is preferred to ~ae (mite? ‘half’, not mime) and in past particple -ATUM reflexes -w’0 is preferred to the universal -40 of his Lettere, plays and poetry (dam'flcado ‘damaged’, not danifi'cao). In addition, while Italian is rigorously omitted from the venexz'om in the antique; materw lengw of his fiction, Italian influence is clear in this official declaration in spellings such as all’mmo ‘per year’, in the use of the pronouns 2'0 and mi and in the choice of sez' ‘six’ over sz'e. Otherwise this is a good example of unmarked practical Venetian from the mid sixteenth century, with characteristic lexical items such as cortz'veto ‘little courtyard’ (from cortivo) and mastellz' ‘tubs’. The declaration is in the Ar— chivio di Stato in Venice, Died 5401' 50pm [e decz'me in Rz'alto, Condz'zz'one dz'

decz'ma 1566, Sestz'ere dz" Canwregz'o, b. 132 cond. 261. I follow the transcription in VEscovo (1996, pp. 214).

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In obedentia de la parte del Excellentissirno conseio de pregadi, magnifici et Illustrissimi signori diese savii, dinoto i0 Andrea Calmo, sta ne la contra de Santi

Appostoli, come io mi attrovo in villa de Saornigo soto Treviso campi dodese in circa de terra con un cortiveto et caseta, tien affito Cecho de la Riosa et paga ogni anno formento stara dodese, et la mita del Vin, ma da sei anni in qua la tempesta del continuo mi ha danificado Che non ho tratto in mia parte dui mastelli de vin, et pago di colta all’anno lire tre e soldi uno, et le zonte. [Obeying the edict of the Most Excellent Council of the Pregadz', most Magnificent and Illustrious gentlemen of the Ten Savz'z', I Andrea Calmo, living in the district of Santi Apostoli, hereby declare that I possess in the village of Saornigo in the jurisdiction of Treviso around twelve fields worth of land with a little courtyard and cottage, let out to Cecho de la Riosa and paying every year twelve bushels, and half as much of wine. But in the last six years the constant gales have caused me so much damage that I haven’t taken in two tubs of wine, and I pay out three [ire and one roldo per year in tithe [colta] as well as sundries]

[Text 91)] An extract from Calmo’s Lettere. Meant to represent the old-fashioned speech of Venetian fishermen, the venexz'cm in this vivid lagoon scene is highly characterised not only in its local lexical choices but in terms of structure, with insistent diphthongisation (lz'ogo, puoco, buovolo), gerunds in -cmd0 in all conjugations (e.g. stagando, tignando, sbatando), the past historic for narration, and the use of alzandone lit. ‘raising ourselves up’ for alzandome ‘raising myself up’. Paganez' for paganelz’ may be very early evidence of the ‘Z evanescente’. The passage is from Book 1 (1547), 23, 3-4 (ROSSI 1888, pp. 56-57) with graphic adjustments by VESCOVO (1996, p. 192). /.../ el me pareva de trovarme in canal de Altin, cusi a mezo fren, in cirna dela poppe dela mia grotesca, che adopero quando vago a goate e paganéi. E cusi, stagando sul vogar, sento un strepito e stalo, tignando e1 remo in acqua, e si vedo vegnir per mezo d’i palui do compagni che sonava de tamburo sun do séssole, sba— tando con zate de astesi in liogo de bachete, e puoco drio slongava i passi un altro, con un confalon fatto de un vardacuor longo; donde, alzandone per veder meio,

descoversi assai esercito de zente varie. El primo subito e1 conosciti che el giera Petolo dei Treporti, el qual sonava de tromba con un buovolo marin, a par de un che portava una bandiera fatta da tre pera de braghesse cusie a un /.../ [/.../ I thought Ifound myself in the Altino canal, just half breaking like, on the poop of my grotescoz boat, that I use when I’m out fishing for goate [a lagoon fish: Gobius op/az'ocep/aalus] and paganéz' [a lagoon fish: Gobz'm paganellm]. And then, just rowing along as I was, I hears this din, and I veers right, with the oar in the water, and right enough I sees coming towards me in the middle of the

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marshes two companions drumming on two bailing buckets [réssole], striking with two lobster claws instead of drumsticks, and not much further back another was loping along with a banner made from a long jerkin. So, raising myself up to see better, I made out a host of folk of all types. I recognised the first one right away as Petolo dei Treporti [a village in the lagoon] who was trumpeting with a conch shell, alongside somebody carrying a flag made out of three pairs of breeches sown together /.../]

[Text 10] The Venetian written-spoken norm at the end of the sixeenth century as represented in the lyrics of Maffio Venier. Note the use of past particples in w? (-ATUM), —ATEM noun reflexes in -£z, the choice of conditionals in both -z'a and -ave, the preference for xe as sg. 3 of esser, conditional stem in /er/ (paremve), and the diphthongisation on puol and tuol but not on povero. The influence of Italian spelling habits is visible in some orthographic consonantal doubling. I transcribe the first two stanzas of Amor, son 60’ xe m can dd scoazzem from PADOAN (1985, p. 21). Amor, son co’ xe un can da scoazzera, / che xe uso a magnar ogni carogna, / e chi e1 volesse usar / a star incaena / e1 se sentiria a urlar, / ch ’1 parerave un’anema danna. / Déghe quanto vole, mattina e sera, / tutto quel da magnar che ghe besogna: / né con el carezzarlo / né con el bastonarlo / e1 poria aver pazienza, / perché l’uso puol piu dell’insolenza. El voria innanzi andar un di cercando / un sporchezo, un gram’osso in ogni buso; / e spesso anche e1 se imbate / che, co’ el l’ha trova, po’ / un ghe ’l tuol dalle zatte: / ché nianche quello no ghe puol far pro. / Chi el strussia, chi e1 tra’ in acqua, e ’l va fuzando; / chi el broa, chi e1 pela, e chi ghe scotta el muso, / chi ghe traze d’i

sassi, / chi ghe fa mille arlassi: / e1 povero animal / per la so liberta soffre ogni mal. [Love, I’m like a rubbish-dump dog used to eating any carcass, and anybody who wanted to get him used to staying chained up would hear him howl just like a soul in hell. Give him as much as you like, morning and night, all the food he needs: yet neither by stroking him nor beating him could he put up with it [= the chain], because habit is stronger than the unknown. He would rather go off looking one day for a piece of garbage, a bone sucked dry from every hole; and it often happens that when he finds it, it’s taken from his paws: so even that pleasure is denied him. Some tease him, some throw him in the water and some chase him off; some scald him, some skin him and some burn his

muzzle; some throw stones at him, some tease him every which way: the poor an— imal suffers every indignity for (the sake of) his freedom.]

[Text 11] The mid seventeenth-century Venetian prose norm in the writing of Marco Boschini: art dealer and critic, engraver, painter and car-

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togropher. Masculine past participles of the first conjugation are exclusively in -£z, as are -ATEM reflexes. Both conditional types are retained and future and conditional stems are in /er/. In + indefinite article is now z'nt’zm, although in + definite article resists the intrusive /t/ (2'72 1’, in

[a and 2'72 la). The sg. 1 subject pronoun is mi and in the present tense of aver the locative particle g/ae has not been grammaticalised. The outcome of L + yod is /d3/ and diphthongisation is stronger than in ModV, e.g. muodo for modo and puol for pol. The past participle of aver is 4622 ~ aw}. Italian influence is noticeable in the use of giusto ‘just’ for EV/early MidV gusto ~ zusto. Interesting are Boschini’s general linguistic awareness and patriotic defence of Venetian as expressed in this prefatory passage to his Cartel del Navegar Pz'toresco in 5370 rhyming quatrains. I quote from PALLUCCHINI (1966, pp. 8—9). So che alcuni me dira (e za el m’é sta dito): mo alrnanco avessistu abu tanto inzegno de tesser insieme quatro parole toscane, che a quel muodo ti averessi fato pifi onor ai to Patrioti. Per dir e1 vero, de questo si, che me ne rido, e con la rason in man. Si vegnisse a Venezia un Fiorentin, per esempio, e um Bergamasco vestii a Ma-

negacomio, che i andasse al Brogio a ora de S. Marco, e che i se metesse a parlar ognun de lori in la so lengua natural, mo no pareraveli giusto giusto un missier Beltrame e l’altro missier Cicobimbi stravestii, per far un intermedio a quel regal congresso? Mi che son venezian in Venezia, e che parlo de Pitori veneziani, ho da andarme a stravestir? Guarda al Cielo, che chi puol parlar col capelo in man, se ’1 vogia tirar sui ochi. No no, saldi pur per i pali: che questi xe i veri trozi dele nostre lagune. O donca ti sprezzi la lengua toscana? Mi no digo sta cosa; digo ben, che xe sta tanti valorosi scritori, che s’é compiassi de scriver in le so lengue native; e che i ha avu l’aplauso per tuto el Mondo; e che basteria solo portar in tola le rime de Mafio Venier e le comedic del famosissirno Ruzante e 1e argutissime letere de Andrea Calmo; oltre che Camilo Scaligero dala Frata 3’6 anche lu toca qualcosa in tal proposito. Infin mi (bisogna che la diga) me par che se discoresse in toscan, o in romanesco, e1 saria giusto meter la Virtfi veneziana int’un vaso, che ghe fasse piar l’odor da forestier; dove che la perderia quel bon gusto, che rende la pifi soave fragranza che sia in l’universo. E in fin sta ben che tute le cose sapia dal so saor. [I know that some will tell me (and have already told me): oh, if only you had had enough sense to stitch together four words in Tuscan. That way you would have brought greater honour to your (com)patriots. I tell you, in truth, that I laugh that one off, and with reason in hand.

36 The pseudonym of Andriano Banchieri (1567-1634) who in 1622 published a defence of the dialect of Bologna.

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CHAPTER SEVEN

If, for example, a Florentine were to come to Venice, and a Bergamask, both dressed in posh wide sleeves [a Manegacomz'o], and if they were to go to the Bro— gio37 at St Mark’s hour and both start talking in their native language: now wouldn’t they look just like two comedy characters all dressed up in disguise to per— form a routine at that stately gathering? Now should I — a Venetian in Venice, talking about Venetian painters — go and disguise myself? Heaven forbid that somebody able to speak with cap in hand should choose to pull it down over his eyes. Stick to the channel markers instead: they are the true pathways of our lagoons. “So, you despise the Tuscan language?” That’s not what I’m saying. What I am saying is that there have been many quality writers who took pleasure in writing in their native language and that they were applauded the world over. And it would suffice to put on the table the verses of Mafio Venier and the comedies of the most famous Ruzante and the razor-sharp letters of Andea Calmo. Besides which, Camilo Scaligero has something to say on this subject. As for me (I have to say it), it seems to me that if I were to write in Tuscan or romanesco it would be exactly like putting Venetian virtue in a jar where it would take on a foreign smell; and where it would lose that good taste of the sweetest fragrance in the universe. And, at the end of the day, it’s right that all things should taste of themselves]

[Text 12] Unmarked mid-to-late eighteenth century Venetian prose from the patrician Francesco Zorzi Muazzo. The extract below is taken from the alphabetical letter C entry (p. 31) of his unpublished Venetian dictionary-thesaurus the Raceolta a’e’ Proverbz'z', a'ettz', seateaze, parole e frasz'

veaezz'ane, le pz'z‘t asz'tate. One notes in it the regression of late EV/earlier ModV diphthongisation (log/2i, 3e loga, scoderlz', vol), the maintenance of G + front vowel > /z/ (e.g. zeatz'lomem') and the influence of Italian spelling (e.g. batta, galabz'a). The manuscript is in the Archivio di Stato in Venice under Miscellanea Coa'z'cz' 1, Storz'a veaeta 161. This extract is Muazzo’s iro-

nic entry on the Venetian magistracy of the Provvea’z'tore al Cottimo that he himself held in Damascus (1766-68) and Alexandria (1771-72). It reveals his disenchanted View both of his own status and of that of Venice as the Republic neared its end. Interestingly, he imputes Venetian decadence to the long-term shift from overseas to mainland investment. On Muazzo and his Raccolta see ZOLLI (1969). Cottimo de Londra, d’Alessandria, de Damasco; una volta in repubblica i giera tre magistrati gravissimi e de conseguenza, e i vegniva per lo piu con sto titolo co— verti da senatori e patrizii i piu riguardevoli e attempai e la sua spezion giera de so-

37 The Brogz'o or Brolz'o was the section of St Mark’s Pz'azzetta beside the Doge’s palace where Venetian patricians would stroll and intrigue when in council.

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MIDDLE VENETIAN: FROM LANGUAGE TO DIALECT

vraintender alle mercanzie che da que’ loghi provegniva; adesso se loga tre poveri zentilomeni, che ghe fa da bever el caffé e i ghe butta disdotto ducati d’arzento per ogni mese e una lirazza e se va a scoderli da Pennagin 0 da Paolo in Zecca [the Venetian mint], che i zé la pezo che do ebrei, che alle volte i ghe li da un sora l’altro, perché no’ i gabbia l’incomodo de far le scale, e ognun tira sedese mesi de carica 0 de tempo, e questo nasce perché zé perso affatto el commercio della citta, co’ la cosa che i nostri s’a (1:21 a fabbricar casini sulla Brenta, e fuor che i anglesi, che ancora fedelrnente ne vol ben, no’ se vede in sti porti a vegnir che trabaccoli de legne da Istria o dalla Dalmazia. [Cottz'ma The London, Alexandria and Damascus Cottz'mo officials. Once

upon a time during the Republic they were three very weighty and important magistrates, and those who were awarded them were the most esteemed and seasoned senators and patricians, and their remit was to oversee the goods shipped from those places. Nowadays they farm them out to three poor gentlemen, making them coffee to drink and tossing them eighteen silver ducats a month and a lz'mzza coin; and they go and redeem them at Pannegin’s or at Paolo’s at the mint, and they’re worse than two Jews there for at times they give them to them one on top of the other so they don’t have the inconvenience of climbing the stairs. And each one drags out sixteen months in charge or in time. And the reason for this is that the city’s commerce has gone down the drain because of the fact that our people took to building villas on the Brenta canal [on the mainland]. And apart from the English, who still faithfully like us, all you see coming in these ports is merchant ships [trabacolz] carrying timber from Istria and Dalmatia]

[Text 13] Mid eighteenth-century educated Venetian in the mouth of a minor official. In Goldoni’s Le Barufle C/oz’ozzotte the unmarked urban speech of the Venetian Isodoro, the legal stand-in (Cogz'tor) representing central goverment law in Chioggia, is contrasted with the marked south-la— goon dialect of the town’s fisherfolk. In the passage below from Act II, Sc. 8 one notes the unapocopated central-southern Veneto infinitives in the dialect of the skipper Vicenzo (gz'ustczre ‘to fix’ vs Isodoro’s gz'usmr). Isodoro’s normative language still shows some allomorphy, e.g. 062' ~ voggz'o ‘I want’. As in ModV, feminine past participles of the first conjugation are now in -ada (no sz'a stada premz'dz'tada) rather than in earlier MidV -c2. Future and conditional stems remain in /er/ (poderave, vede”), parlei'é, par-

leré). Italian spelling habits can be seen in orthographic gemination (e.g. dell’z’ndolente for del z'ndoleme; vecc/az'e for vec/az'e; s’aspetta for s’aspeta). I quote from the edition of VESCOVO (1993, p. 129). Vicenzo: La diga, lustrissimo: no la se poderave giustare? Isodoro: Ve diro: se ghe fusse la pase de chi xe offeso, salve le spese del processo, la se poderave giustar.

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Vz'cenzo: Via, lustrissimo, la me cognosse, so qua mi, la me varda mi.

Isadora: Ve diro, paron Vicenzo. V’ho dito che la se poderave giustar, perché fin adesso dal costituto dell’indolente no ghe xe gran cosse. Ma no so quel che possa dir i testimoni; e almanco ghe ne voi esaminar qualchedun. Se no ghe sara delle cosse de piu, che no ghe sia ruze vecchie, che la baruffa no sia stada premeditada, che no ghe sia prepotenze, pregiudizi del terzo, o cosse de sta na— tura, mi anzi daro man all’aggiustamento. Ma mi per altro no voi arbitrar. Son cogitor e no son cancelier, e ho da render conto a1 mio principal. El cancelier xe a Venezia, da un momento all’altro e1 s’aspetta. El vedera el processetto;

ghe parleré vu, ghe parlero anca mi; a mi utile no me ne vien, e no ghe ne voggio. Son galantomo, me interesso volentiera per tutti; se podero farve del ben, ve faro del ben.

[Vz'cenzoz I say, yer Excellency: couldn’t it be fixed? Isadora: Here’s my View: if there was the consent of the offended party, and with the costs of the case saved, it could be fixed.

Vz'cerzzo: Come on yer Excellency, you know me, please look at me. Isadora: Here’s my View, skipper Vicenzo. I’ve told you it could be fixed, because up until now there’s not much in the plaintiff’s case. But I don’t know what the witnesses might say; and I do want to question at least a few of them. If there’s nothing more in it and there are no previous disputes, if the fight wasn’t premeditated, if there is no prejudice to third parties, and if there was no intimidation or " things of that nature, then I will actually encourage a reconciliation. What I don’t want to do, though, is adjudicate. I’m the stand-in [cogz'tor], not the judge [cancelz'er], and I have to answer to my superior. The judge is in Venice and is expected any moment now. He’ll see to this minor case; you’ll speak to him and so will I;

I’ve nothing to gain from this and I want nothing. I’m a gentleman and I’m happy to get involved for everybody’s sake; if I can help you out, I will.]

[Text 14] Mainstream unmarked Venetian conversation in the middle of the eighteenth century, from Goldoni’s Sior Todero Brom‘olon. Note the continuing alternation of é and xe on sg. 3 of esser, the first-conjugation masculine past participles exclusively in 12 (semi, meld, dc}, scomenzd), with feminine equivalents in -ada (stada, sermdoz), and the absence of diphthongisation on 710120. The extract below, from Act I, Sc. 1, features Marcolina, Sior Todero’s daughter-in-law, and her chambermaid Cecilia. I quote from

the edition of PADOAN (1997, pp. 117-118). Marcolz'na: E cusi? Ghe xe caso che possa béver el caffé stamattina? Cecilia: Co no la manda a térselo alla bottega, ho paura che no la 10 beva. Marcolz'mz: Per cossa? No ghe n’e del caffé in casa? Cecilia: Siora si, ghe ne xe; ma el paron vecchio l’ha serra el caffe, e l’ha serra e1 zucchero, sotto chiave. —250—

MIDDLE VENETIAN: FROM LANGUAGE TO DIALECT

Marcolz'mz: Anche questa ghe xe da novo? Tra le altre insolerize che ho sofferto da mio messier, ho anca da tollerar che e1 me serra e1 zucchero, che e1 me serra el caffe. Cecilia: Cossa disela? Piu vecchio che el vien, e1 vien pezo che mai. Marcolz'na: Com’éla stada? Che grillo ghe xe salta in testa? Che vovada xe stada questa? Cecilia: La sa che el xe un omo che bisega per tutto, che brontola de tutto. L’é anda in tinelo, l’ha da un’occhiada al zucchero, l’ha da un’occhiada al caffé; l’ha scomenza a dir: “Vardé: un pan de zucchero in otto zorni e1 xe debotto finio; de una lira de caffé debotto no ghe ne xe piu. N0 gh’é regola; no gh’é discrezion”. L'ha tolto suso la roba, el se l’ha portada in camera, e e1 se l’ha serrada in armer. [Marcolz'mzz 50? Any chance of getting a drink of coffee this morning? Cecilia: I’m afraid not, not unless you send somebody to fetch it from the shop. Marcolz'm: Why not? Is there no coffee in the house? Cecilia: Yes, Milady, there is; but the old master has put the coffee and the sugar under lock and key. Marcolz‘na: Whatever next? To add to the other slights I’ve suffered from my father-in-law I’ve now got to put up with him locking up the sugar from me and locking up the coffee from me. Cecilia: What do you think, eh? The older he gets the worse than ever he gets. Marcolz'mz: How did it happen? What got into him? What’s this craziness? Cecilia: You know he’s a man that ferrets about everywhere and grumbles about everything. He went into the dining room; he had a look at the sugar, then ‘ he had a look at the coffee; then he began to say: “Just take a look: a whole sugarloaf almost used up in a week; there was a lz'm’s worth of coffee and now there’s hardly anything. There are no rules here, no sense”. He picked up the stuff, carried it off to his bedroom, and locked it up in the cupboard]

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CHAPTER EIGHT

THE VENETIAN LEXICON

1. THE LATIN LEXICAL INHERITANCE: COMMONALITY AND DISTINCTIVENESS

1.1. General

Our examination of ModV prosody and orthography in Chapter III of the present study, and of Venetian phonology and morphosyntax in dia— chronic context in Chapters V and VI, has foregrounded a considerable corpus of Venetian vocabulary, often accompanied by etyma. Even a superficial consideration of this representative sample suggests that the Venetian lexicon can be broadly classified in terms of widely-shared Romance com— monalities, on the one hand, and more-or—less distinctive Romance and loanword features on the other.1 1.2. The route: of Latin lexical inheritance 1.2.1. The overwhelming majority of Venetian lexemes, both in terms of number and frequency, are clearly of Latin descent in the wide sense.2

1 The indispensable reference points for the Italo-Romance lexical inheritance are BATTISTI — ALESSIO (1950—57), BATTAGLIA (1961—), CORTELAZZO — ZOLLI (1979-88), COLUSSI (1983-), and PFISTER (1984-). On lexical and semantic variation in Italo-Romance see ROHLFS (1954), VARVARO (1997) and ZAMBONI (2003, pp. 161-180). On Italo-Romance lexical distribu-

tion see JABERG —JUD (1928-37 = AIS) and (for the eastern Veneto and Friuli) PELLEGRINI et al. (= ASLEF), as well as ROHLFS (1972). On Romance lexical etyma see MEYER-LUBKE (1935 = REW). On Romance etymological studies see PFISTER (1980) and MALKIEL (1993). For Venetian and Veneto etymologies see MUSSAFIA (1873), PRATI (1968), MARCATO (1982), SALLACH

(1993) and CORTELAZZO — MARCATO (1998). On internal lexical differentiation within the Veneto see ZAMBONI (1980, pp. 44-45) and ZAMBONI (1988, pp. 529-532). For a bibliography of Veneto dictionaries and of dialect dictionaries for Piedmont, Liguria, Lombardy. EmiliaRomagna, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Istria and Dalmatia see FERGUSON (2002, p. 11, note 20) and FERGUSON (2004a, pp. 96-97, note 36). 2 By ‘wide sense’ I mean the Latin diasystem as a whole. Included under this definition are

early Celtic, Greek and Germanic words absorbed into Latin and diffused within Romania.

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CHAPTER EIGHT

Using diachronic textual data, allied to documented phonological and semantic evolutions, their progress can be plotted towards ModV along two separate but sometimes intersecting routes. On this basis most can be ascribed to what we may assume to be an uninterrupted spoken tradition common to the proto-Romance then early vernacular of the city. Typical and uncontroversial examples of the unbroken Venetian inheritance are omo ‘man’ < HOMO (‘human being’), femem < FEMINAM (‘woman, female’), muger ‘wife’< MULIER (‘woman, wife’), deo ‘finger’ < DIGITUM, rec/aid ‘ear’
/d3/ in Venetian and /gj/ in Italian) and /r/ + yod. On the other hand, ModV c/az'em ‘church’ < ECCLESIAM seems to issue from competing trends. EV demonstrated the following order of preference: c/Jz'esz'a, glesz'a, clesz'a

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THE VENETIAN LEXICON

and gesia, with normal phonological forces at work on aphaere'sis of initial /e/ and on the palatalisation of the /kl/ cluster, but with the unusual preservation of the /s/ + yod nexus. The latter suggests a disinclination to stray too far from the Latin etymon. The MidV/ModV resolution to c/aiesa may have been operated under Italian roofing influence. ModV ista ‘summer’ < AESTATEM is utterly normal in its uninterrupted spoken development, whereas ModV atano ‘autumn’ reveals in its phonology traces of the learned tradition that marks most Romance reflexes of AUTUMNUM. EV paovolo ‘people’ < POPULUM, cavedal ‘capital’ < CAPITALEM and own ‘work’ < OPERAM showed unfettered popular development but have been replaced in ModV by the C—types popolo, capital and opera from Italian. On the other hand, masica (not *nzasega) ‘music’ and cronica (not *cronega) ‘chronicle’ were entirely learned in their phonology when first recorded in Venetian in the early fourteenth century and have remained so into ModV. Similarly, abz’to < HABITUM ‘dress’ and abz’tar < HABITARE ‘to live’ were present in the EV period and showed C-type resistance to B > /v/ lenition. They have remained identical ever since. 1.3. The in/aeritea’ Venetian word-stock shared by (Italo) Romance A very substantial stock of such inherited Latin-derived Venetian words, present from EV to CV (sometimes, of course, with slightly varying

forms over time), have cognates not only in the dialects of the Veneto but _ in Italian and Italo-Romance generally and in all or part(s) of Romania. The principal categories in ModV are: — The definite and indefinite articles. — The possessives. — The personal pronouns. - The deictics.

— Conjunctions e ‘and’, ma ‘but’, p0 ‘then’, a’opo ‘after’ and perc/ae’ ‘because’. — The numerals, both ordinal and cardinal.

— Days of the weak, months of the year, and seasons. — Prepositions in ‘in’, ya ‘on’, sora ‘above’, soto ‘below’, per ‘for’, de ‘of’, co ‘with’, da ‘from’, vigin ‘near’ and [ontan ‘far’. — Adverbs such as poco ‘little’, molto ‘much’, tanto ‘much, so much’, [aen ‘well’, inal ‘b'adly’, volentiera ‘willjngly’, pin ‘more’, meno ‘less’, mai ‘never’, seinpre ‘always’, tara’i ‘late’, a’avanti ‘in front’, avanti ‘before’, quasi ‘nearly’, forsi ‘maybe’, 5010 ‘alone’, fora ‘outside’, and adverbial desinence —Inente.

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CHAPTER EIGHT

— Interrogatives cat? ‘who?’, came? ‘how?’, quanda? ‘whenP’, qnale?

‘which?’ alone ‘where?’ and quanta? ‘how much?’. — Relative pronoun clae ‘who, whom, that, which’. — Modal verbs poder ‘to be able’, saver ‘to know’, valer ‘to want’ and

a’aver ‘to have to’. — Verbs esser and star ‘to be’, and aver ‘to have’.

— High—frequency verbs, notably ana’ar ‘to go’, a’ar ‘to_ give’, far ‘to make, to do’, an ‘to say’, vegnz'r ‘to come’, tegnz'r ‘to hold’, (a)rz'var ‘to arrive’, tamar ‘to return’, carer ‘to run’, menar ‘to take, to lead’, sentz'r ‘to feel’, a’armz'r ‘to

sleep’, capz'r ‘to understand’, meter ‘to put’, partar ‘to carry’, travar ‘to find’, damandar ‘to ask’, responder ‘to answer’, scrz'ver ‘to write’, parer ‘to appear, to seem’, vea’er ‘to see’, (a)scaltar ‘to listen’, ca(g)nasser ‘to know’, taser ‘to be quiet’, lezer ‘to read’, crz'ar ‘to shout’, mastrar ‘to show’, cln'amar ‘to call’,

zagar ‘to play’, aena’er ‘to sell’, scamenzar ‘to begin’, flnz'r ‘to finish’, creder ‘to believe’, prameter ‘to promise’, bever ‘to drink’, cantar ‘to sing’, caaar ‘to remove’, tagz'ar ‘to cut’, fermar ‘to stop’, pera’er ‘to lose’, cambz'ar ‘to change’, cagar ‘to shit’, pz'ssar ‘to piss’, valar ‘to fly’, prover ‘to rain’, neaegar ‘to snow’, nasser ‘to be born’, cresser ‘to grow’ and marz'r ‘to die’. — Common adjectives such as bela ‘beautiful’, larnto ‘ugly’, ban ‘good’, zavene ‘young’, aec/oz'a ‘old’, nova ‘new’, granola ‘big’, pa(a)ara ‘poor’, can~ tenta ‘happy’, trz'ste ‘sad’, forte ‘strong’, mala ‘soft’, a’nra ‘hard’, alto ‘high’, basso ‘low’, langa ‘long’, cnrta ‘short’, largo ‘wide’, grassa ‘fat’, grassa ‘big’, streta ‘narrow’, pz'en ‘full’, vaa’a ‘empty’, scnra ‘dark’, claz'ara ‘clear’, crna ‘raw’, cata ‘cooked’, prafana’a ‘deep’, debale ‘weak’, mala ‘ill’, nna ‘naked’, a’alge ‘sweet’, amara ‘bitter’, cara ‘dear’, altro ‘other’, ntz'le ‘useful’, z'nntz'le

‘useless’, gerta ‘certain’, sordo ‘deaf’, aera’e ‘green’ and negro ‘black’. — Fundamental kinship terms such as mare ‘mother’, pare ‘father’, sorela ‘sister’, fraa’ela ‘brother’, fi'a ‘daughter’, fz'a ‘son’, marz'a ‘husband’, mn-

ger ‘wife’, nevaa’a ‘grandson, nephew’, cngna ‘brother~in-law’, engnaa’a ‘sister-in-law’, spasa ‘bride’, parente ‘relative’ and famegz'a ‘family’. — Most parts of the body, including fazza ‘face’, testa ‘head’, fronte ‘forehead’, nasa ‘nose’, [906a ‘mouth’, laara ‘lip’, a’ente ‘tooth’, lengna ~ lz'ngna ‘tongue’, gala ‘throat’, barba ‘beard’, 0350 ‘bone’, gervela ‘brain’, caaez' ‘head hair’, enar ‘heart’, panza ‘belly’, Stamega ‘stomach’, knela ‘bowel’, peta ‘chest’, spala ‘shoulder’, brazza ‘arm’, man ‘hand’, a'ea ‘finger’, angz'a

‘nail’, pz'e ‘foot’, gamba ‘leg’, zenac/az'a ‘knee’, cnla ‘arse’, 6035a ‘thigh’, acln'a ‘eye’, cegz'a ‘eyelash’, rec/92a ‘ear’, pele ‘skin’, pela ‘body hair’ and carpa ‘body’ itself. — Basic nouns like ama ‘man, mankind’, femena ‘woman’, aea’aa ‘wi-

dow’, zente ‘people’, mare/92a ‘male’, amz'ga ‘friend’, nemz'ga ‘enemy’, can —256—

THE VENETIAN LEXICON

‘dog’, gato ‘cat’, cavalo ‘horse’, pesse ‘fish’, bo ‘ox’, toro ‘buIl’, vaca ‘cow’,

vedelo ‘calf’, agnelo ‘lamb’, galina ‘hen’, bolpe ~ volpe ‘fox’, lovo ‘wolf’, corno ‘horn’, coa ‘tail’, oselo ‘bird’, corvo ‘crow’, inerlo ‘blackbird’, stornelo ‘starling’, mosca ‘fly’, aqua ‘water’, fiunze ‘river’, niar ‘sea’, 0nda ‘wave’, nave

‘ship’, barca ‘boat’, gielo ‘sky’, tera ‘earth’, sol ‘sun’, lunie ‘light’, stela ‘star’, luna ‘moon’, sal ‘salt’, strada ‘road’, vento ‘wind’, neve ‘snow’, alboro ‘tree’,

fogia ‘leai’, erba ‘grass’, fien ‘hay’, spin ‘thorn’, farina ‘flour’, fior ‘flower’, campagna ‘country(side)’, paese ‘village, country’, late ‘mjlk’, niiel ‘honey’, uin ‘wine’, lana ‘wool’, forno ‘oven’, porta ‘door’, crose ‘cross’, baston ‘stick’, roda ‘wheel’, canu'sa ‘shirt’, capelo ‘hat’, cortelo ‘knife’, nianego ‘handle’, martelo ‘hammer’, cloiave ‘key’, gera ‘wax’, nose ‘walnut’, castagna ‘chestnut’, sangue ‘blood’, merda ‘shit’, campo ‘field’, piera ‘stone’, arzento ‘silver’, oro ‘gold’, fero ‘iron’, anelo ‘ring’, saon ‘soap’, fogo ‘fire’, fuino ‘smoke’, genere ‘ash’, casa ‘house’, gita ‘city’, ponte ‘bridge’, and solda ‘soldier’.

— Fundamental abstract concepts such as caldo ‘heat’, frea’o ‘cold’, paura ‘fear’, ainor ‘love’, dolor ‘pain’, faine ‘hunger’, sé ‘thirst’, odor ‘smell’, gusto ‘taste’, inente ‘mind’, name ‘name’, vose ‘voice’, rayon ‘reason’, natura

‘nature’, cossa ‘thing’, mondo ‘world’, logo ‘place’, parte ‘part’, fornia ‘shape’, fato ‘fact’, inodo ‘way’, uso ‘use’, verita ‘truth’, quantita ‘amount’,

festa ‘feast’, consegio ‘advice’, studio ‘study’, inenzoria ‘memory’, bisogno ‘need’, compagnia ‘company’, regno ‘kingdom’, color ‘colour’, saor ‘flavour’, carne ‘meat’, fruto ‘fruit’, pase ‘peace’, tempo ‘time’, ano ‘year’, inese ‘month’, zorno ‘day’, ora ‘hour, time’, inatina ‘morning’, sera ‘evening’, note

‘night’, gieri ‘yesterday’, doman ‘tomorrow’, fin ‘end’, vita ‘life’, and inorte ‘death’. — A few common Latin-derived items have developed phonologically distinctive forms in Venetian. Among these are the ModV nouns tola ‘table’ < TABULAM, claeba ‘cage’ (Ital. gablaia) < CABIAM, conn'o (Ital. goniito) ‘elbow’ < CUBITUM, cubia ‘couple’ (Ital. coppz'a) < COPULAM ‘tie’, faliva ‘spark’ < FAVILLAM, piova ‘rain’ < PLUVIAM, fravo ‘blacksmith’ < FABRUM, mercore ‘Wednesday’ < MERCURII (DIES), zioba ‘Thursday’ < IOVIA, relogio ‘clock’ (vs Ital. orologio) < HOROLOGEUM and biastenia (vs Ital. besteniinia)

from BLASTEMARE; the adjective tivio (Ital. t(z)epz'do) < TEPIDUM ‘tepid’; and the prepositions and adverbs drento ‘inside’ < DE INTRO and drio ‘behind’ < DE RETRO.

1.4. Individuality 0f the Venetian lexicon 1.4.1. Within this common Romance framework the Venetian lexicon

exhibits a very high degree of individuality and idiosyncracy in the north—257—— 17

CHAPTER EIGHT

ern Italian, Italo-Romance and Romance contexts. This specificity applies both to the forms and semantics of its inherited Latin vocabulary, to the exceptional input of Byzantine Greek loanwords it exhibits, to the conspicuous presence of Arabisms, and to the surprisingly sizeable and important presence of Germanic borrowings.3 The reasons for its striking lexical profile are unquestionably to be located in the overlapping geographical, historical and cultural factors that we have already examined and which moulded this unique and uniquely long-lasting city and polity. Inside its irnpregnable lagoon the nascent Venice was constantly exposed to Byzantine influence. Although shielded from direct contact with the Longobards themselves, Longobardic lexical influence infiltrated the city with the population streams reaching the lagoon from the Veneto mainland, supplementing the previous more modest borrowings from Gothic. The Germanic presence in Venetian would be further supplemented by a later sprinkling of Frankish terms. As Venice expanded her commercial and military field of operations in the Mediterranean there followed centuries of daily contact with the Levant, involving substantial Arabic influ~ ence on her lexicon. Direct contact with the French in the Middle East reinforced the lexical input from a civilization whose literary culture exerted a strong fascination throughout northern Italy in the medieval period. It is a notable fact that borrowing into Venetian was always essentially adstratum: from Greek, Arabic and French in the Middle Ages, and from French again in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Exceptional Venetian urban, environmental and institutional specificity and continuity, and a physical and conceptual detachment from its hinterland, guaranteed its lexicon a unique identity. From the later Middle Ages Venice became a lexical exporter to the mainland, to its overseas empire and, eventually to Italian and beyond, and was a primary source for the diffusion of Arab— isms in Europe. 1.4.2. The diverse layerings that fill in the common Romance lexical framework of Venetian — their origins and inter-relationships — are complex and not always straightforward to disentangle. Most importantly, patterns of commonality between Venice and the Veneto, in their ModV configuration at least, have to be approached with caution, and any attempt to establish clear lexical isoglosses is fraught with difficulty. As we have noted, the restructuring of the Veneto dialects at the hands of Venetian since the

3 On Slavisms in Venetian see CORTELAZZO (1984).

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THE VENETIAN LEXICON

fifteenth century, and the long-term irradiation from the capital of linguistic models, means that the evidence of lexical distribution provided, for ex-

ample, by the AIS or by the ASLEF linguistic atlases requires careful, item— by-item evaluation. This is crucially the case when we come to judge whether a word present in both Venetian and in one or more Veneto areas is descended from the inherited Latinity of the original Venetia region or whether, instead, it resulted from a subsequent Venetian innovation or preference that later spread outwards. From our examination of the textual, demographic and historical evidence, we concluded in Chapter VI that Venetian arose in the Middle Ages as a koiné, crystallising out of linguistic inputs from specific parts of the Veneto mainland. Since this mixed inheritance is reflected in the morphonology of Venetian, we would also expect it to have left its mark on the Venetian lexicon. We could anticipate, a priori, a high degree of lexical commonality between Venice and the central— southern and north-eastern Veneto dialects, since these two areas provided the population feeder-streams from which the medieval Venetian koiné was forged. Given that the ab-initio areas also showed some original lexical divergence between themselves it would not be surprising to find that ModV sometimes displayed commonality with one zone rather than the other, occasionally preserving residues of discarded variants from the other zone. On the other hand, we might confidently expect there to be considerably more lexical divergence between Venetian and the western Veneto, considering the absence of a Veronese contribution to the koineisation process and the influence on that area’s lexis of contiguous Lombard. It goes without saying that historical inferences about the patterns of shared and divergent lexical choices observable in the ModV period can only be drawn with the backing of evidence from the textual tradition of the respective dialect zones. Finally, Venice’s long isolation and specificity would lead us to expect to find coinages which evolved in situ and were unique to Venice in terms of morphonology and/or semantics. Some of these would be likely to have spread over time by prestige irradiation as a hinterland overlay, even to the western Veneto on occasion, masking original distributions. 1.4.2.1. Such expectations are substantially reflected on the ground and in the written record. Venice shares a major part of her word-stock, at present and in the past, with the north-eastern and central-southern Veneto areas, and this block often differs historically and currently from the Veronese area. An example is the word for ‘apron’, with Venice and almost all of the Veneto preferring travemz < TRANSVERSAM, but with Verona opting —259—

CHAPTER EIGHT

for [grom'bjal] < GREMIALEM.4 On other occasions Venice shares items with Belluno and the north-eastern Veneto, sometimes including Friuli, but with nowhere else in the region. A possible instance is ModV and north-eastern Veneto notolcz ‘bat’ (AIS 448) < NOCTULAM which is opposed, in most of the rest of the region, by the barbdstrez'o type < BARBASTRILLIUM. However, the situation is muddied by the awkward historic presence of barbastrz'gz'o in Venetian too (BOERIO 1856, s.v. barbastrz'gz'o). The Veneto has had two competing variants for ‘bird’s nest’, a [paro] type < NIDARIUM and reflexes of < NIDUM. ModV m’o (EV m'do) suggests that the former type, preferred by central—southern Veneto, was historically rejected by Venetian in favour of the latter. Such patterning begs the question of origin and spread, and the historical record is not full enough in this case for us to reach firm conclusions. We appear, though, to be in the presence of competing variants from the Venetian koineisation pool, with barbastrz'gz'o possibly a reallocated residue, but with no record of gm;ro. The basic substantive ‘stone’ provides another superficially puzzling doublet. ModV pz'em goes back to EV and, unproblematically, to Latin PETRAM. However alongside pz’em EV also presents the minority variant prz'a, a metathetic derivative of PETRAM which subsequently disappeared in MidV. The historical record strongly suggests that prz'a, still alive in the Padua area in the modern period, was a residue of Venetian’s central-southern feeder source. Another intriguing doublet in EV and early MidV was provided by the presence of two common and semantically identical verbs for ‘to leave’: lassar (< LAXARE) ~ [agmg with the former eventually predominating in later MidV and in ModV/CV. Since lagars was a type represented in both the central—southern and north-eastern textual traditions the factors operating historically in favour of lunar are more obscure. The problem of origins and classification is undoubtedly compounded by transition zones, by the modern influence of Italian and by a Common Veneto overlay, originating in Venice, on what may or may not be original diversification patterns. Thus for ‘aunt’ Venice and most of the Veneto have always preferred the Latin-derived ab-initio AMITAM type (ModV 4mm, EV ameda), but with Verona and most of its area showing in the modern period [’sia] or ['zia] < THIAM, undoubtedly under direct or indirect Italian

4 For a chart showing lexical differences between Venice and the three Veneto dialect areas see ZAMBONI (1980, pp. 44-45). 5 Possibly a cross between LAXARE and LEGARE or else derived from sg. 1 Iago, itself analo— gical with sg. 1 dago ‘I give’ and xtago ‘I stay’.

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THE VENETIAN LEXICON

influence. The amid type is common to much of northern Italy, however, and is consequently very likely to have been native to the western Veneto too. On the other hand, the pattern for a term such as ‘shoemaker, cobbler’

suggests competing trends on the western edge of the central-southern Veneto. Venice, along with north-eastern Veneto, has always possessed the caleg/oer type < CALIGARIUM. Western Veneto now prefers [skar' par] < SCARPARIUM, although calz'aro is found in the Veronese scrz'pm. Central-southern Veneto presents [kale'garo], attested as early as the twelfth century, and [skar'paro], hinting at a complex and unresolved intermediate position between two tendencies. A fortiori, it is highly probable that items linked to Venice’s Levant trade became lexically pan-Veneto via the regional capital herself. A persuasive example is armelz'n ‘apricot’ < (FRUCTUM) ARMENINUM. On the other hand, Venice also preserves some lexemes found historically nowhere else in the region and which remained confined to the city because of its specific urban morphology: campo < CAMPUM, in the sense of city-square, and calle ‘street’ < CALLEM were nothing if not Venetian. Lexical separation between Venice and its region may also result from historic loss. In the ModV period rural areas of the Veneto preserved words of ancient Latinity which had for centuries disappeared from the capital, such as cogner(e) ‘to need to’ < CONVENIRE. 1.4.3. In the case of loanwords from Greek and Arabic which are present both in Venice and its hinterland it is reasonable to assume that they spread from Venice. A striking example is the Arabic-derived Venetianism fontego ‘warehouse’ < Ar. funduq, present as far west as the Veronese in the sense of ‘fabric store, warehouse or building lobby’ (RIGOBELLO 1998, s.v. fontego). The assumption may sometimes be a simplification, though, given the importance, especially for Greek, of other Adriatic centres such as Grado and Ravenna. Venice’s enduring influence as lexical source can be detected in the outward movement from the city of a modern borrowing from the German of the nineteenth—century Austrian occupation. Scbez' ['skei], from the designation Scbez'demimze ‘district coin’ found on occupation coins themselves, has achieved enduring popularity, in the Veneto as well as in ModV/CV, as the informal word for ‘money’,

with the retroformed singular scbeo used figuratively for ‘a penny’. There is also the greater long-term impact of Italian on Venetian itself than on the mainland Veneto dialects to consider when looking at the present lexical configuration of the Veneto region and the distribution of common and divergent lexemes within it. ModV/CV fczrfala ‘butterfly’, for instance, is an adaptation of Ital. farfalla (itself of Longobardic origin) which has —261—

CHAPTER EIGHT

ousted pavegz'a < PAPILIAM (AIS 480), the type common to the Veneto, present in ModV but now obsolete in CV. Also not to be overlooked are Veneto lexical dynamics from the Terraferma towards Venice itself in the post-medieval period. The historical record suggests, for example, that such apparently incontrovertible ModV/CV items as tom ‘boy’ < TONSUM, tom ‘girl’ < TONSAM, and mama ‘too much, too many’ < MASSAM, may in

fact have been carried (or at least reinforced) by migration flows from the Veneto to Venice which continued into the modern period. T030 and tom, well attested in the early mainland Veneto records, are absent from Venetian texts, including Goldoni, until ModV. Boerio mentions

them sparingly, devoting much more space to the traditional Venetian puto, pum type < PUTUM, PUTAM, with its diminutives putelo, putela and putz'n. AIS 45 reveals the £030 type as dominant in the northern-eastern and central Veneto, with the puto type confined to the strip south of Venice, so that Boerio may well have been right, at least in a long-term perspective, when he designated tow (BOERIO 1856, S.V. tom) as «voce Lombarda».6

In ModV taro/tom have occupied the niche once filled by puto/puta but with patelo/putela retained in ModV/CV for ‘little boy’/‘little girl’. Again, massa ‘too much’ is common in older mainland Veneto texts, whereas Ve-

netian historically preferred the Frankish-derived Gallicism tropo. In Goldoni’s Venetian theatre 77243ch is barely used compared to the common tropo. As ever, the essential corrective to hasty assumptions is the pre-1500 textual evidence of the central-southern and north-eastern Veneto varieties and of Venetian itself that we adduced in Chapter VI. Finally, it is also very plausible, as we shall see, that most of the Germanic borrowings histori-

cally present in Venetian were mediated by the mainland dialects rather than resulting from direct contact. 1.4.4. Bearing in mind these important provisos, three useful, broad categorisations of the Venetian lexical inheritance from Latin can be attempted, with a selection of representative examples. The categories I use are (i) Venetian words also historically found across much of the Gallo-Italian and often Friulan dialect zones of northern Italy; (ii) Venetian words found not only in the city but historically common to all or part of the Veneto region; and (iii) Venetian words historically restricted to Ve— nice itself. I then bring together under (iv) a body of common Venetian

6 Interestingly, the first edition of the Crusca dictionary of 1620 also listed tom as «voce Lombarda» (CORTELAZZO 1990, p. 356).

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THE VENETIAN LEXICON

verbs from all three categories and from a range of semantic'fields to illustrate the lexical specificity of Venetian vis-a-vis Italian, central-southern Italo—Romance and, sometimes, Gallo-Italian and Friulan.

(i) Examples ofModern Venetian lexical reflexes ofLatin wit/9 a wide nortlaern Italian distribution The following are typical Venetian words whose type appears to be ascribable to a common Cisalpine Latinity. Amia ‘aunt’ < AMITAM (vs Ital. zz'a < THIA). Ancyo ‘today’, with unique Venetian stress retraction from the final vowel, < HANC HODIE (vs Ital. oggi ‘today’ < HODIE). Barba ‘uncle’ of uncertain origin but prob. connected with BARBAM ‘beard’, representing the authority of the maternal uncle (vs Ital. zio < THIUS). Brag/1e (f. pl.) ‘trousers’ < BRACHAE (vs Ital. calzoni from CALCEAM, and pantaloni). Canton ‘corner’

< CANTONEM (vs Ital. angolo < ANGULUM). Carega ‘chair’ < CATHEDRAM (vs Ital. sedia from SEDERE). Goto < ‘drinking glass’ < GUTTUM (vs Ital. bicclJiere < Germ. *bikari x BICARIUMP). Cuna ‘cradle, cot’ < CUNAM (vs Ital.

calla < CUNULAM). Luganega ‘type of sausage’ < LUCANICAM, i.e. from the southern region of Lucania, with the typical Venetian derivative luganeg/oer ‘pork butcher, delicatessen’. Malena ‘white of the bread’ (vs Ital. mollica) from MOLLEM ‘soft’. Orbo ‘blind’ < ORBUM ‘deprived [of sight]’ (vs Ital. cieco < CAECUM). Ptignata ‘pot’ of uncertain etym. (vs Ital. pentola < PINTULAM). Pomo ‘apple’ < POMUM ‘fruit’ (vs Ital. mela < MELUM, CL MALUM). Scarsela ‘pocket’, orig. ‘money-bag’, of uncertain etym. (vs Ital. tasca also of uncertain etym.). Toco ['tako] ‘piece’, of uncertain etym. but common to the whole Cisalpine area (vs Ital. pezzo type < PETTIAM). T050 ‘boy’ < TONSUM (lit. ‘shorn-haired’) (vs Ital. ragazzo < Ar. raqqas). Two widely distributed northern words indisputably spread from Venice itself are Inarangon ‘joiner, carpenter’ and becber [be'ker] ‘butcher’. Becker < BECCARIUM, whose morphonology can only be Venetian, has spread through the whole north-east of Italy, penetrating deeply into Lombardy and part of Emilia, and pushing back the MACELLARIUM type (Ital. macelkzio). More striking still is the spread from Venice of marangon 7 (vs Ital. falegnarne) into the whole of the territory of the former Stato Veneto and beyond. (ii) Examples of Modern Venetian lexical reflexes of Latin restricted essentially to Venice and to part or all of tbe Veneto.4111010 ‘plurn’, of uncertain etym. but perhaps linked to HAMULAM ‘container’ (vs Ital. sasina from the Persian city of Susa). Bisato ‘eel’, of uncer-

7 Of disputed etymology. See CORTELAZZO — MARCATO (1998, p. 269).

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CHAPTER EIGHT

tain etym., possibly from Veneto bz'so ‘grey’ (vs. Ital. anguz’lla < ANGUILLAM). Bomlgolo ‘belly button’ < UMBILICUM (vs Ital. ombelz'co). Boto ['boto] ‘hour’, lit. ‘blow, chime’, of uncertain etym. Mainly used for tm boto ‘one

o’clock’ (vs Ital. l’tma), reminiscent of Tusc. z'l tocco. Ceola (with variants gevola/gegola) ‘onion’ < CEPULLAM (vs Ital. cz'polla). Ciesa ‘hedge’ < CAESAM from CAEDERE ‘to cut’ (vs Ital. sz'epe and North. It. sieve type < SAEPEM). Cpgoma ‘coffee pot, coffee maker’ < CUCCUMAM (vs Ital. caflettz'em). Cortivo ‘courtyard’ < CURTIVUM (vs Ital. cortz'le < COHORTILE). Desavjo ‘unsalted, tasteless’ < DESAPIDUM (vs Ital. z'mz'pz'do < INSAPIDUM or sa'occo of uncertain etym.). Ea ‘(a) little’ < FLATUM ‘breath’ (vs Ital. (am) po’ from

PAUCUM). Foresto (adj. and n.) ‘foreign(er)’ < from FORIS ‘outside’ (vs Ital. stmm'ero from EXTRANEUM ‘outsider’ prob. via Fr.). Formtgola ‘ant’ < FORMICULAM (vs Ital. formz'ca < FORMICAM). Fravo ~ f3Vl‘0 ‘blacksmith’ < FABRUM (vs Ital. fabbro and North. It. FERRARIUM type). Fregola ‘crumb’ < FRICULAM from FRICARE ‘to rub’ (vs Ital. brz'cz'ola from BRICIAM). Gya ~ gueta ‘knife sharpener’ from ACUTUM ‘sharp’ (vs Ital. arrotz'no from mota ‘grinding wheel’). Lissia ‘Washing (of clothes)’ < LIXIVAM ‘ash-water used for washing purposes’ as in Fr. Zessz've (vs Ital. bucato from Frank. *bukon ‘to do the washing’). Mal de san Valentin (AIS 678) ‘epilepsy’ (vs Ital. epi[essz'a < EPILEPSIAM). Marcantonio ‘a well-built or strapping man’ from Marcus Antonius ‘Mark Anthony’. Also known as 2m toco de 07720 ‘a hunk of a man’ (vs Ital. um fusto from FUSTEM ‘stick’). Mussato ‘gnat, mosquito’ from MUSTIO with —ato suffix (vs Ital. zcmzam < ZINZALAM). Nonanta ‘ninety’ < NONAGINTA (vs Ital. nowmta < NONAGINTA x move ‘nine’, although cf. Belgian and Swiss French nommte ‘ninety’). Notola ‘bat’ < NOCTULAM ‘little night creature’ (vs Ital. pz’pz’strello < VESPERTILIO). Pavegia ‘butterfly’ < PAPILIAM (vs Ital. farfalla from Longob. and vs North. It. PARPALIAM/PARPALIONEM types). Paryssola ‘any member of the tit ornithological family’ prob. from PARRA, name of an unspecified bird (vs Ital. cz'ncz'cz, prob. onomatopoeic). Peloco ‘bald’ from an unclear derivative of pelo ‘hair’ < PILUM (vs Ital. calvo < CALVUM). Piavola ‘doll’ dim. of PUPAM ‘doll’ (vs Ital. bambola, dim. of Tuscan children’s word bambd ‘ragdoll’). Pigozzo ‘woodpecker’ < PICUTIUM (vs Ital. pz'cc/az'o < PICULUM, prob. onomatopoeic). Pressa ‘hurry’ from PRESSARE ‘to press’ (vs Ital. fretta of uncertain etym.). Paine ‘ricotta cheese’ of uncertain etym. (vs Ital. ricotta from past participle of RECOCERE ‘to cook again’). Santolo Godfather’ < SANCTULUM (vs Ital. padrz'no from padre). Sagr ‘marinade’ < SAPOREM ‘flavour’ (vs Ital. marz'mtta from (acqua) marina ‘sea water’). Scuri (m. pl.) ‘shutters’ < OBSCURI

‘dark’ (vs Ital. z'mposte from IMPONERE ‘to press on to’). Straloclzio ‘cock— eyed, squinting’ < EXTRA OCULO with definite article interposed (vs Ital.

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THE VENETIAN LEXICON

strabico < Fr. strabiqne ultimately from Gk.) T013 ‘table’ ('Vs Ital. tavola) < TABULAM. Traversa ‘apron’ < TRANSVERSAM (vs Ital. grembinle < GREMIALEM). Vane-22 ‘flower-bed’ prob. from VANUM ‘empty’ (vs Ital. ai(u)0la < AREOLAM ‘small area’). Zemzan ‘(first) cousin’ (cf. Fr. cousin ger-

niain) < GERMANUM ‘brother’ (vs Ital. (prz'nzo) cagino < 0. Fr. cosin). (iii) Examples of Modern Venetian lexical reflexes of Latin historically restricted to Venice Altana ‘characteristic wooden roof-terrace in Venice’ from ALTUM ‘high’. Bare-Ha ‘exposed lagoon mud flat with vegetation’. From Venetian baro ‘tuft’ possibly derived from Celt. *laaros. Bisi (m. pl.) ‘peas’ (vs Ital. piselli) from PISUM ‘pea’. Bar/1911 ‘mullet’ from barba ‘beard’ (vs Ital. triglia of Gk. origin). Bertoela ~ bartoela ‘door or shutter hinge’ of uncertain etym. (vs Ital. cardine < CARDINEM). quolo ‘snail’ < from a dim. of BOVEM ‘ox’ on account of the snail’s horns (vs Ital. claiocciola < COCHLEAM). Boiled then served in an oil and parsley dressing, the small, stripe-shell bovoli are a characteristic Venetian treat. Bragozzo ‘fishing trawler’, prob. from BARCAM ‘craft’ or from a late metathetic form braga. Branzin ‘sea bass’ from BRANCHIAM ‘gill’. Bricola ‘bound bundle of poles in the lagoon marking navigation channels’, of uncertain etym. Caligo ‘mist, fog’ < CALIGO (vs Ital. nebbia < NEBULAM, but also caligine < CALIGINEM). Cal/e ‘road, street’ (also found in 0. It. and Sp. calle) < CALLEM ‘way’ (vs Ital. strada < STRATAM and via). Campo ‘square’ < CAMPUM ‘field’, and dim. campielo ‘small square’ (vs. Ital. piazza < PLATEAM and piazzetta, with Venetian restricting the designation piazza to St Mark’s square). Canestrelo ‘scallop, clam’ prob. from CANISTRUM ‘basket’ (vs Ital. pettine, lit. ‘comb’). Cavana ‘covered shelter for boats’ < CAPANNAM. Cesendelo ‘small lamp in front of a religious image’ < CICINDELAM (vs Ital. lumicino dim. of LUMEN ‘light’). Cheba ‘cage’ < CAVEAM (vs Ital. gabbia, the type also found on the Veneto mainland). Chiapin ‘oven glove or cloth’ from cln'apar ‘to grab’ < CAPULARE (vs Ital. presa from prena'ere ‘to take’). Darente (prep./adv.) ‘beside’ (with the Veneto mainland form arente) < RADENTE ‘grazing, shaving’ (vs Ital. vicino < VICINUM). Egg ‘liver’ < FICATUM (vs Ital. fegato). Folpo ‘squid’ < POLYPUM (vs Ital. polipo). Fondamenta ‘paved canal bank or walkway in Venice’ < FUNDAMENTA ‘foundation(s)’. Forcola ‘rowlock’ from FURCAM ‘fork’. Fort}.‘scissors’ < FORFEX, compared to Veneto mainland types forfese ~ forbese (vs Ital. forbice < FORBICEM). Fritolin ‘fish-fryer, fish fryer’s shop’ from frito ‘fried’, past participle offrizer ‘to fry’ < FRIGERE (vs Ital. friggitorza). Ganzer ‘retired gondolier who holds the gondola steady by the quayside for passengers to (dis)embark’, from the ganzo ‘hook’ on the ganzer’s mooring—265—

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stick. Gbebo ‘small canal in the lagoon’ prob. from CAVEAM ‘hollow’. Lido ‘shore, sandspit (island)’ < LITUM. Lamina] ‘skylight’ from LUMEN ‘light’ (vs Ital. abbaz’no of uncertain etym.). Marzarja ‘street lined with merchant’s clothes and cloth shops’ from MERCEM ‘goods’. Used specifically in Venice for the great shopping thoroughfare that has always wound its way between the Rialto and St Marks. Mole-ca ‘soft-shell crab’ from MOLLEM ‘soft’. Murazzi (m. pl.) ‘barrier of rubble and mortar protecting the outer edge of the Venetian lagoon’ from mum ‘wall’ < MURUM, with the suffix -azzo denoting large size. The magnificent wall of the mumzzz', built in the eighteenth century, was first significantly breached by the exceptional tide of

November 4th 1966. Peoclu'o ‘mussel’ < PEDUCLUM from PEDICULUM ‘little louse’. Pie ‘foot’ with retraction of stress compared to Veneto mainland ['pje] < PEDEM (vs Ital. pz’ede). Piscina ~ pissina ‘historically, a body or arm of stagnant water within the city of Venice’ < PISCINAM ‘pool for breeding fish’. Preserved in a series of street names, e.g. Piscina de San Zulian. Nessa ‘niece, granddaughter’ < NEPTIAM (vs. Ital. mpote < NEPOTEM and the nevoda type found on the Veneto mainland). Pestrin ‘dairy’ < PISTRINUM ‘mulching/grinding place’ (vs Ital. [attend from LACTEM ‘milk’). Pontil ‘landing stage for boats’ from PONTEM ‘bridge’. Portego ‘long main hall in historic Venetian palaces with balcony at end and rooms leading off’ < 'PORTICUM ‘colonnaded walkway’. P029] ‘balcony’ < PODIOLUM from P0DIUM. Rama ‘side street in Venice’ < RAMUM ‘branch’. Rio ‘canal in Venice’ < RIVUM ‘bank’. Infilled canals in Venice are designated as rz'o ten) in street names. Canal is used only for the Grand Canal, known as the Canal grando or Canalazzo. Riva ‘wide embankment along a Venetian canal where goods were formerly unloaded’ < RIPAM ‘river bank’, e.g. the Riva del Vin and the Riva del Carbon at Rialto and the Riva dei Schiavoni along the waterfront near San Marco. Saca ‘dead-end pocket of water in the lagoon’ from SACCUM ‘sack’. Salizada ‘paved street’, used in street names for early paved thoroughfares in Venice < SILICATAM ‘paved with hard stone’ from SILI— CEM. Scoazzera ‘open—topped walled structure by a Venetian canal for collecting refuse which was later to be removed by boat’ from scoazze ‘rubbish’, lit. ‘sweepings’, itself from 5604 ‘broom’ < SCOPAM. Sestier ‘one of the six districts of Venice’ < SEXTARIUM. Sfogio ‘sole’ prob. from FOLEAM ‘leaf’ because of the fish’s shape (vs Ital. soglz'ola from SOLEAM ‘shoe-sole’). Sotoportego ‘close or covered walkway in Venice’ from solo ‘under’ and portego < PORTICUM. Tegaline ‘green beans’ from tega ‘pod’ < THECAM (vs Ital. fagz'olz'm' dim. of PHASEOLUM). Terazzo ‘characteristic Venetian

floor or flooring’ from TERRAM ‘earth’. Vale ‘man—made inlet in the lagoon where fish are bred and trapped’ < VALLEM ‘Valley’. Vera da pozzo ‘well—266—

THE VENETIAN LEXICON

brink’ < VIRIAM ‘bracelet’ and PUTEUM ‘ditch, hole’. Zatara "raft’ of uncertain etym. Le zatare is the name given to the open fondanienta that runs along the edge of the sestier of Dorsoduro facing the Giudecca. It is a favourite walk with Venetians. (iv) Examples ofModern Venetian Latin-derived verbs restricted to Venice or localised in their halo-Romance distribution Busnar ‘to buzz’ prob. from BUCINARE ‘to trumpet’ (vs Ital. ronzare of uncertain etym. but prob. onomatopeic). Catar ‘to find’ < CAPTARE (vs Ital. trovare of disputed etym.). Carcar ‘to taste’ < CIRCARE ‘to go around’ (vs Ital. assaggiare from EXAGIARE ‘to weigh up’). Cbiapar ‘to take, to grab, to earn’ < CAPULARE from CAPULUM ‘cord, lace’ (vs Ital. prendere < PRAEHENDERE and pigliare of uncertain etym.). Cigar ‘to shout’, prob. linked to CIGALAM ‘cicada’ (vs Ital. gridare < CRITARE). Consar ‘to season or dress food’ < COMPTIARE from COMERE ‘to put together, arrange, adorn’ (vs Ital. condire < CONDIRE). Copar ‘to kill’ < from CUPPAM, referring to the nape of the neck where a butchered animal was struck (vs Ital. nccidere < OCCIDERE and amnmzzczre from MATTEARE ‘to butcher with a club’). Curar ‘to shell’ < CURARE (vs Ital. sgnsciare of uncertain etym.). Desmissiar ‘to wake up’, prob. from MISCITARE ‘to stir up’ (CL MISCERE) with privative des— (vs Ital. svegliare < EXVIGILARE via 0. FL). Destrigar ‘to clear up, to hurry up’ < DE x EXTRICARE (vs Ital. sbrigare from briga ‘difficulty’ with privative s-). FaIar ‘to make a mistake, to err’ < FALLARE, CL FALLERE (vs Ital. sbagliare of un— certain etym.). Fruar ‘to wear out, to use up’ prob. from FRUI ‘to make use of’ (vs Ital. consumare < CONSUMERE x CONSUMMARE). Guar ‘to sharpen’ < ACUTARE from ACUTUM ‘sharp’ (vs Ital. afi‘z‘lare from filo < FILUM ‘blade’). Impem'r ~ impinir ‘to fill’ < IMPLIRE x PLENUM ‘full’ (vs Ital. rienipire from IMPLIRE). Impissar ‘to switch on, to light’ of disputed etym. (vs Ital. accendere < ACCENDERE). Intivar ‘to guess, to get right’ of uncertain etym. (vs Ital. indovinozre < INDIVINARE). Netar ‘to clean’ from NITIDUM ‘shiny’ (vs Ital. pnlz’re < POLIRE). Onfegar ‘to stain (with grease)’ < UNCTIFICARE (REW 9056) ‘to grease’ (vs Ital. mace/azure < MACULARE). Pair ‘to digest’ < PATIRE (CL PATI) ‘to suffer’ (vs Ital. digerire < DIGERERE). Rebaltar ‘to

overturn’ < REVOLUTARE? (vs Ital. rovesciare < REVERSARE). Resentar ‘to rinse’ < RECENTARE ‘to refresh’ (vs Ital. sciacqndre < EXAQUARE). Roncbizar

‘to snore’ < RHONCHIZARE (REW 7293) (vs Ital. rnssozre of uncertain etym.). Scampar ‘to run away, to escape’ < EXCAMPARE ‘to run from the battlefield’ (vs Ital. scappare < EXCAPPARE). Sentar ‘to sit’ < SEDENTARE (vs Ital. sedere < SEDERE). Serar ‘to close’ < SERARE from SERAM ‘bolt’ (vs Ital. cbindere < CLUDERE, CL CLAUDERE). Sopressar ‘to iron’ from SUPPRIMERE ‘to press —267—

CHAPTER EIGHT

down’ (vs Ital. rtz'mre from TIRARE with strengthening s—). Stropar ‘to stop up, to stuff’ < STUPPARE x STROPPUM ‘binding’ (vs Ital. turare < TURARE). Stuar ‘to switch off’ < EXTUTARE from TUERI (REW 3110) ‘to protect’? (vs Ital. spegnere < EXPINGEREP). Subiar ‘to whistle’ < SUBILARE from SIBILARE (vs. Ital. fz'sc/az'are < FISTULARI). Verzer ‘to open’ from sg. 1 present tense (A)PERIO of APERIRE ‘to open’ (vs Ital. aprz're).

2. LEXICAL IMPORTS INTO VENICE8

2.1. Germanisms

As is well known, Germanisms in Italo—Romance can be categorised into four types. First there are early Germanic words of unspecified provenance which entered Latin between the third and fifth centuries AD and were subsequently spread by spoken Latin through the Roman Empire. These do not concern us here. The second wave of borrowings was from Gothic,9 an eastern Germanic language which in the fourth century had been used by Wulfila to write his Gothic Bible, the only early Germanic text we possess. Gothic borrowings in Italo-Romance emanated from the ‘ Ostrogothic kingdom established throughout Italy by Theodoric, with its capital at Ravenna, which lasted for two generations between 489 and 552. The third and most important wave of borrowings for Italian and Ve-

netian was from Longobardic, a western Germanic language.10 The Longobards swept into Friuli in 568 under Alboin and conquered first northern Italy then most of the rest of the peninsula, leaving only pockets of Byzantine-ruled territory including Istria, the Venetian lagunar territories, Ravenna and the Pentapolis, Calabria and Sicily (IARNUT 1982). The Longobardic kingdom lasted almost uninterruptedly from 568 until overthrown by the Franks in 774. In the south of Italy the Duchy of Benevento, from which the first text containing vernacular Italo-Romance writing emerged in 963,

3 On Germanisms in Italo-Romance see GAMILLSCHEG (1935, II), ROHLFS (1947), SCARDIGLI (1977), PFISTER (1978 and 1982), and ARCAMONE (1994). On Greek borrowings in Venetian

the fundamental study is CORTELAZZO (1970). On Arabisms in Venetian, in Italo-Romance and in Romance in general see PELLEGRINI (1972) and MANCINI (1994). On the impact of French on Medieval Italo-Romance see BEZZOLA (1924), HOPE (1971), MORGANA (1994) and CELLA (2003), and on Early Venetian FOLENA (1990). On eighteenth-century French borrowings in Venetian see ZOLLI (1971).

9 On the Gothic language see MASTRELLI (1967). 10 On the Longobardic language see BRUCKNER (1895).

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THE VENETIAN LEXICON

lasted well into the eleventh century. The Longobards were initially less Romanised than the Goths and, although eventually assimilated, undoubtedly maintained their original language, first separately then in various stages of bilingualism, over a number of generations. This and the duration of their dominance in Italy means that Longobardisms outnumber Gothic loanwords in Italo-Romance by at least four to one, although many of them are confined to particular dialects. Longobardic was never written down and our knowledge of it has to be reconstructed from names and terms em— bedded in Latin texts. The fourth wave of Germanisms, from the late eighth until the tenth centuries, was from Frankish, another western Germanic

language that was never written down. The route for Italian Frankish bor— rowings was probably twofold. There was direct contact between Venice and the Carolingian Italian kingdom in the ninth century, alongside the written lexical influence of texts emanating from northern, then southern France. In the case of the former, Frankish words would have been in proto-Romance form. In the case of the latter they were Latinised. 2.1.1. A number of general observations are in order at this point. First of all, establishing the ultimate source of Germanic loanwords is far from straightforward.11 Geographical, toponomastic, phonetic, taxonomic and textual criteria, along with settlement evidence of various types provided by archaeology, have to be applied with extreme care to presumed Germanic borrowings in order to establish from which wave a given word originated. Frankish loanwords, which are shared with French and whose typology tends towards the military, juridical, administrative and commercial spheres, are generally the least problematic to pinpoint. Sorting Gothic from Longobardic words is more troublesome, although as a general rule a word found only in Italy is likely to be Longobardic whereas one that also crops up in the Iberian peninsula or the south of France, which the Goths also settled, is likely to be Gothic. Both potential Germanic sources cover a broad semantic spectrum of loanwords in Italo-Romance. For Longobardic these can roughly be classified as: terms linked to power and authority; terms for parts of the body, animals, objects and craft techniques linked in some way to the Germanic way of life or outlook; and expressive or vulgar words, usually short and punchy. Gothic words tend towards the earthy. We have, above all, to be careful not to apply mechanistically the test of the second Germanic sound-shift which used to be considered di-

11 On the classification of Gerrnanisms in Italo-Romance see ARCAMONE (1994).

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agnostic in separating Longobardic, presumed to have undergone it, and Gothic which did not. We are now more cautious, since it appears that the shift did not affect Longobardic completely. This complication is compounded by the rapprochement between Gothic and Longobardic that went on in the sixth century through prolonged contact between two languages that were already strongly related. It is also indisputably the case that the Veneto area was a centre of strong settlement'for both the Goths and Longobards and that loanword—overlap cannot sometimes be excluded. I therefore assign Venetian borrowings to Gothic or Frankish when geographic, phonological and semantic evidence is compelling. Otherwise I designate them simply as Germanic (Germ). It will be clear from the examples below that some historic Germanisms in Venetian such as [az'auco ‘white’, bosco ‘wood’, fiasco ‘flask’ and guauto ‘glove’ are widely shared in Italo-Romance. Others such as bz'aua ‘corn, oats’, biota ‘naked’, fiuco ‘chaffinch’ and sparaguar ‘to save’ are more regionally limited to the north-east or to the north. Still others, like sc/az'to ‘bird-shit’, are widespread but local in distribution. A few, such as uelma ‘mud flat’, are exclu-

sively Venetian. A number of recent Germanisms, apart from sc/aeo (8 1.4.3 above), have entered Venetian in the modern period principally because of the Austrian occupation of the city and its region in the first half of the 'nineteenth century. These include crautz' ‘saurkraut’ < Ger. Sauerkraut; strua’el ‘strudel cake’ < Ger. Strudel; krapfeu ~ crapfeu ‘doughnut filled with jam or confectioner’s cream’ (known elsewhere as bomboloue) < Ger. Krapfeu ‘hook-shaped cake’; sprz'tz ‘spritzer’ < Ger. Sprz'tz ‘spray’; and wurstel ‘Vienna sausage’ from a southern German dim. form of Ger. Wurst ‘sausage’. 2.1.2. It is received wisdom that Venice was linguistically shielded from the important body of superstratum Germanisms in Italo-Romance, especially from Longobardic. This is not borne out by the lexical evidence. It is certainly true that some common Germanic loanwords found on the Veneto mainland did not fully penetrate to Venice. One thinks, for example, of the widespread Veneto term magou ‘stomach’ < Germ. *magarzwhich never ousted stomego < STOMACHUM, tending instead to be confined in EV to the specialised sense of bird’s crop or gizzard. Similarly, the widely-used Veneto terms for ‘starling’ (strz'olo, storlo, storlz'u) based on

Germ. *rtor— ‘starling’ have never fully replaced in Venice the traditional storuo < STURNUM and its dim. storuelo < STURNELLUM. Another example of a term that partially penetrated the lagoon barrier only to retreat again was souda ‘slice’ < Germ. *suudra- ‘separate’, found in EV and early —270—

THE VENETIAN LEXICON

MidV, but which was reconquered by feta, of uncertain etymology. These, however, are exceptions. By and large Venice shares the major Germanisms found on the Veneto mainland, and this is not surprising. Our examination of the demographic and linguistic evidence for how Venice was

populated and for how its Romance dialect evolved makes the presence of Germanic influence inevitable. The population streams from the north-eastern and central-southern Veneto mainland, where Gothic and

Longobardic settlement had been considerable, were bound to carry a considerable body of assimilated Germanic loanwords to the evolving Venetian word-stock. Examples of Germanisms in ModV Albergo ‘church outbuilding, hotel’; also ‘refuge’ and a ‘bed-sitting room’ in EV < Germ. *laczrzlbergo- ‘billet’. Balcon ‘window’ < Germ. *balk‘beam’. Banca ‘bench’ and banco ‘bench, workbench, counter, bank’ < Germ. *bamkzl ‘bench’. Banda ‘side, band’ < Germ. “bawd- ‘band, thin strip’. Bianca (EV blanco) < Germ. *blomk- ‘white, shining’. Biava ‘corn,

oats’ < Frank. *blad ‘crop’. Bioto ‘naked, genuine’ < Goth. Maui/as ‘nude’. Bosco ‘wood’ < Germ. *busk- ‘wood’. Bruo ~ Brodo ‘broth’ < Germ. *brod— ‘broth’. E'apo ‘floppy, droopy, flabby, listless’ < Germ. *flap- ‘limp’. Fiasco ‘flask’ < Germ. *flasko- ‘wicker container’. Finco ‘chaffinch’ < Germ. *fz'nk- ‘finch’. Fodra ‘lining’ < Germ. *fodr— ‘scabbard’. Gnoco ‘lump, bump’ < Germ. *knokk- ‘knuckle, joint’. Fresco ‘fresh’ < Frank. *frz'sk ‘cool’. An intriguing Venetian derivative is fresc/Jz'n ‘unpleasant smell of fresh fish or egg on dishes’. Graspo ‘bunch of grapes’ from a variant of Germ. *kmppa ‘hook’ then ‘bunch’. Guanto ~ vanto ‘glove’ < Frank. "want ‘glove’. Grinta ‘anger, resentment’ < Goth. *grz'mmz't/Ja ‘frightening’. Guera (EV verm) ‘war’ < Germ. *werro— ‘strife, skirmish’. Lista ‘strip’ < Germ. "‘[z‘sm ‘border, strip’. Used particularly for straight thoroughfares, notably the popular Lista de Spagna from the railway station to the Rialto. Its augmentative, lz'ston, applies to the stretch of square along the Procuratie in Piazza San Marco, and far 6! [Non is therefore to take the leisurely afternoon passeggz’ata up and down the Piazza. Rafa/o ‘gust of wind’ < Germ. *rzflz'l— ‘ruffling caused by a breeze’ cognate with Eng. rzpple. Rico ‘rich’ < Germ. *zz'la/a-‘powerful’. Naslro ‘ribbon’ < Germ. *mstz'l— ‘tie’. Roba ‘stuff, possessions’ < Frank. *mulm ‘armour, jacket’ then ‘booty’. Robar ‘to rob, to steal’ < Germ. *mub- from *muba in sense of ‘booty’. Rafa ‘grime’ < Germ. *bruf- ‘scurf’. Sala ‘room’ < Germ. *sala ‘country house’. Sopa ‘soup’ < Germ. *suppa ‘sop’. Schena ‘back’ < Germ. *skz'na ‘back’. —271—

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Sclu'eto ‘pure, clear, sincere, unadulterated’ < Goth. slaz't/ar ‘simple’. Scher-

zar ‘to joke’ < Germ. ”skerz— ‘to deride’. Schinco ‘shin’ < Germ. *skz'nk‘leg bone’. Scbito ‘bird dropping’, with verbs scbz'mr ‘to shit (of animals)’ or ‘to let something out of the bag’, as well as sc/az'tolnr(se) ‘to have diarrhoea’ or ‘to shit oneself < Goth. "skez'mn ‘to shit(e)’. Sparagnar ‘to save money’ < Germ. *rparo- ‘to save’. Spiron ~ speron ‘spur’ < Frank. *rpor ‘spur’. Spranga ‘metal bolt or bar’ < Germ. "spnngé with intrusive /r/. Springar ‘to sprinkle’ < Germ. *spn'nkel— ‘to spot’. Stanga ‘bar’ < Germ. *stnng- ‘bar’. Ste-ca ‘stick, rod’ < Goth. *stz'kkn ‘stick’. Sttaco ‘tired’ < Germ. *stmk- ‘tired’. Stringa ‘a lace for clothing or shoes’ < Germ. "‘streng- ‘cord’. Stronzo ‘turd’ < Germ. *strnnz- ‘excrement’. Strucar ‘to squeeze, to press’ < Germ. *slrok-, variation of *rtrz'k- ‘to strike’. Tacola ‘jackdaw’ < Germ. *takbnln dim. of *tak/aa ‘jackdaw’. Tatara ‘gear (in terms of clothing or arms)’ < Germ. *mz‘ur— ‘tatter, rag’. Tonfo ‘a blow’,

with tonfar ‘to pummel’ < Germ. *z‘nmpf- ‘thud’. Trapola ‘trap’ < Frank. *tmppn ‘trap’. Vadagnar ~ guadagnar ‘to earn’ < Frank. *wnz‘danjan ‘to work, to earn’ from *wnz’d ‘meadow’. Vardar ‘to look at’ < Germ. *wnrd—

‘to guard, to observe’. Varir ~ guarir ‘to cure’ < Germ. *wnjr- ‘to protect, to defend’. Vastar ~ guastar ‘to waste, to spoil’ < Germ. *wost— ‘to waste’ x VASTARE. Velma ‘mud flat’ < Germ. *mz'lm- (cf. Goth. malnnz ‘sand’). 2.2. Byzantine Hellenism: 2.2.1. Venice was born under the aegis of the Byzantine Roman Empire with its Greek language and culture. During the period of her early growth and consolidation she was surrounded by important Hellenic centres in the upper Adriatric: Grado, Istria and Dalmatia to the north east and Ravenna and the Pentapolis to the south west. Until the end of the eleventh century she remained nominally subject to Byzantium and underwent the influence of the eastern Empire governmentally, ecclesiastically and commercially — most clearly visible in her early church architecture and mosaics and in the iconography and style of her early painting. Inevi— tably, such direct contact at all levels with a superior culture had a linguistic influence on an expanding Venice. Commerce and pilgrimages to the East meant that the lexical impact of Greek was not restricted in this early period to learned or high-register borrowing but penetrated, at a popular level, into many semantic spheres, particularly the vocabulary of building, shipping, the sea, and zoonomy. The massive increase in contact and ex— change with Byzantium that came with the Crusades and with the partial annexation of Constantinople by the Venetians after 1204 led to a further

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wave of borrowings into Venetian, especially in the sphere "of commerce and commercial objects. This was certainly consolidated by Venice’s cen— turies-long occupation from 1200 onwards of major Greek-speaking colonies in the Mediterranean: especially in the Pelopponese, the Aegean and in the island of Crete which was settled by the Venetians for some four hundred years. The fall of the Eastern Empire to the Turks in 1453 trig— gered a Greek cultural and physical diaspora towards Venice, where a substantial Greek colony was established. Ecclesiastical words, but also plebeian and slang expressions, were consequently taken up into Venetian in the late EV and early MidV periods, and in the early sixteenth century pidgin Greek was one of the favoured languages of Venice’s characteristic polyglot theatre. 2.2.2. The selection of Byzantine Hellenisms below illustrates the range of Greek influence on the ModV lexicon, although I omit loanwords which were important historically in Venetian but which are now obsolete, such as aacoaa ‘icon, alter painting’, aatz'an ‘frying pan’, archipelago ‘the Aegean archipelago’, c/az'l(l)a ‘hernia’, colfo ‘gulf’ and dragomaa ‘interpreter’. The documentary and/or phonetic evidence rarely allows us to establish with accuracy the chronology of a particular Greek borrowing but the above outline allows a broad if tentative grid for classifying the roughly three hundred Byzantinisms in Venetian. Some of these loanwords, such as Zz'ago‘ ~ a’z'ago ‘sun terrace’ and sandalo ‘lagoon rowing boat’, have remained essentially confined to Venice. Others such as masz‘aa ‘money box’ and moaa ‘cunt’ have a wide circulation in the Veneto and probably radiated out from Venetian itself. Some, such as aagarz'a ‘watermelon’, also penetrated early into the other Greek influenced north-eastern regions of Italy and have become pan-northern and even Italian. Still others, such as gondola,

have been spread much further afield by the prestige of Venetian. The complexity of Greek borrowings into Venetian, in terms of origin, distribution and semantics, can be appreciated by considering how the Byzantinism (6pv1g) Kpoxdkng ‘bird of the sea shore’ > crocal(e) cancelled all traces of Latin GAVIAM ‘seagull’ along the upper Adriatic coastline. In Venice this reflex itself interacted with coca ‘cunt, idiot’ (and therefore ‘gull’) to pro— duce the MidV/ModV variant coca] which subsequently expanded into the Veneto (FERGUSON 2002). A similar formal and semantic complexity marks the transformation of the Greek xeMScbv ‘swallow’, the passerine par excellence of the Greeks, into gelega ‘sparrow’, the passerine par excel— lence of the Venetians, and the marginalisation in the city of reflexes of the native PASSERUM/PASSERAM ‘sparrow’ (FERGUSON 1996-98).

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CHAPTER EIGHT

Examples of Byzantine Hellenisms in Modern Venetian Anguria ‘watermelon’ < a'yyoépta, pl. of dyyobptov ‘cucumber’. Armizar ‘to moor a boat or ship’ < opuon ‘to moor’. Astese ‘prawn’ < dotaxog ‘prawn’. Baracocolo ‘apricot, plum’ < Baptxéxmov dim. of Bspixomcov ‘apricot’. Basegd ‘basil’ (vs Ital. basilica) < Baothxog ‘royal’. Bazarioto ‘street hawker’ < unaCupcbtng ‘shopkeeper’. Bombaso ‘coton—wool’ < [30m— Bdnct(ov) ‘coton’ dim. of deBafi. Botarga ‘salted fish eggs’ < anymdpaxa ‘salt egg’. Calaflqtar ‘to caulk’ < Kakacponigco ‘to caulk’. Catastico ‘register of public and private possessions for tax purposes’ < Katdouxov ‘business register’. Celega ‘sparrow [Passer domesticus]’ < xsktfidw ‘swallow [Hirundo rustica]’. Cisila ‘swallow [Hirundo rustica]’ < Kéwekog ‘sand martin [Riparia riparia]’. Coca] ‘seagull’ < (6pv1g) Kpoxdkng ‘shore-bird’. Farm} ‘ship’s light, harbour light’ < (powég ‘torch’ then ‘lantern’. E'ga ‘cunt’ perhaps from *(pfiicn for 5mm ‘Vagina’. Ganassa ‘jaw’ < 'yvdfiog ‘jaw’. Go ‘small lagoon fish [Gobius niger]’ < ydfiog ‘type of fish’. Gondola ‘gondola’ of uncertain etym. but possibly from Ko'avroupog ‘short-tailed (craft)’. IndiVia ‘chicory’ < éerBta pl. of évrfiBtov. Ing/Jz'stem ‘jug’ < 1’] ’Yth‘TépU. ‘earthernware pot’. Liagé ~ diagé ‘sun terrace on Venetian house’ < Maxog or Memo ‘balcony’. Magari ‘if only!, God willing!, maybe’ < naxdpt ‘if only!’. Malvasia ‘Malmsey wine’. From the name of a port in Morea called MovoBasia. MaroeIe (f. pl.) ‘haemorroids’ < aiuoppoifisg ‘haemorroids’. Mandola ‘almond’ (vs Ital. mandorla with intrusive /r/) < Late Lat. AMANDOLAM

‘almond’ from a Byzantine Gk. variant of auoyfidkfi. Mandolato, ‘hard nougat with almonds’, is a favourite Christmas-time treat in Venice. Mastelo ‘tub, pail’ < uaotog ‘breast-shaped cup’. Molo ‘harbour jetty or quayside’ < uékog ‘quayside’. Used specifically in Venice for the great quayside that runs from the gz'drdz'm' at Sant’Elena to St Mark’s square. Mona ‘cunt, idiot’ of disputed etym. but prob. connected to to pouvfi ‘cunt’. Musina ‘money—box, piggy-bank’ < élsuooévn ‘alms’. Mustaci (m. pl.) ‘moustache’ < uovordm ‘moustache’. Pampalugo ‘sirnpleton’ < nompékuya ‘bubble, bladder, windbag’. Pantegana ‘rat’ < névnmg ‘rat’. Peata ‘barge’ < nxdrn ‘kind of transport craft’. Pestaclu'o ‘pistachio’ < mordmov ‘pistachio nut’. Piron ‘fork’ < nerpofivr ~ mpobw ‘fork’, with back-formation to form a

new ‘singular’ in Venetian. Piter ‘flower-pot’ < medptov ‘small wine am— phora’. Pitima ‘an annoying person, a pain-in-the-neck’ < éniespa ‘poultice’. Proto ‘craft master, foreman’ < npmtoudyiotpog ‘first master’. Sandolo ‘typical light rowing boat of the Venetian lagoon’ < cdvéaMg ~ cavéakog ‘type of boat’ Scafa ‘sink’ < oxéupn ‘trough, tub’. Scagio ‘armpit’ < uaoxdhov ‘basket of palm leaves’ dim. of mode ‘palm branch, armpit’. Scampo

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THE VENETIAN LEXICON

‘scampi’ < Kdum] ‘caterpillar’. Scbiavo ‘cockroach’ < oKldBog ‘Slav’, then ‘prisoner of war’, then ‘servant’, with semantic degradation. Scuger (MidV/early ModV sculz'er, EV/early MidV cusKDer) ‘spoon’ < Koxhdptov ‘measure’. Selena ‘celery’ < O'éMvov ‘celery’. Squero ‘boatyard for repairing gondolas and other small craft’ < éoxdptov ‘building yard’. Zago ‘deacon, alterboy’ < 816mm; ‘deacon’. 2.3. Arabz’sm:

2.3.1. The medieval Islamic world translated into Arabic and continued, with its own empirical speculation, the ancient Greek medical, scien-

tific and mathematical traditions. This fundamental corpus of knowledge was then recovered by the West through Latin translation. Like the other Romance languages, Venetian therefore absorbed by this route terms of Arabic origin which were to become Italian or pan-European, such as ModV zero ‘zero’, zzfiem ~ zz'fm ‘cipher, code’, sz’ropo ‘syrup’, tacuz'n ‘diary’ and arc/Jimz'a ‘alchemy’. In addition, a dominant and highly sophisticated Islamic urban civilisation made a massive and direct impact on a rapidly developing Europe between the ninth and fifteenth centuries. Contact and influence stemmed essentially from the overwhelming religious, political and economic expansion of Islam: from Asia to Iberia, via the Middle East, Sicily, the Maghreb and the Balearics. As Venice became increasingly independent from Byzantium, and extended her sphere of activity from Dalmatia into the southern Adriatic and the Mediterranean itself, her ma-

jor trading partners became Islamic. We noted in Chapter VI that the earliest Venetian vernacular documents are a series of treaties between the Republic and the Sultinate of Aleppo in Syria in the early thirteenth century. This is symbolic of a commercial relationship that saw Venice, along with the other Italian maritime Republics, establish trading posts throughout the Arabic-speaking Mediterranean, with substantial long-term settlement of merchant communities in the major Levant ports. Venice’s unrivalled business success and the stupendous wealth that it generated were founded, above all, on a Levant trade that only faltered after 1500. Even more than Genoa, Pisa and Amalfi, Venice became the great medieval

gateway between the Islamic and Christian worlds, transiting goods, fashions, artistic styles. and, of course, the prestigious or distinctive Arabic words connected with them. One need only consult the fourteenth-century Venetian merchant manual, the Zz’baldone dd Canal (STUSSI 1967 and supra Chapter VI [Text 11]), to gauge the lexical impact — in terms of the nomenclature of goods, weights, measures and officialdom — made on the Ve—275 —

CHAPTER EIGHT

netian trading community by their daily contact with Levantine vocabulary of all types, mediated by Arabic. Inevitably, many such terms were ephemeral while others are now obsolete. However, a substantial body has survived into ModV with some being passed by Venetian to other major European languages, including English. In addition, although not coming directly from Arabic itself, many everyday products had names connected with the Levant trade. Examples are ModV persego ~‘peach’ < FRUCTUM PERSICUM lit. ‘Persian fruit’ and armelz'n ‘apricot’ < FRUCTUM ARMENINUM lit. ‘fruit from Armenia’. Examples of Arabisms in Modern Venetian Almirante ~ amiragio ‘admiral, flagship’ ultimately from Ar. amz‘r ‘commander’. Amiragio ~ asmiragio ‘lagoon-port customs officer under the Venetian Republic’ ultimately from Ar. amz'r ‘commander’. Ala babaIa‘ (adv.) ‘to wrack and ruin, any old how’ < Ar. ‘ala bub allot/7 ‘at the door of Allah’. Arsenal ‘naval shipyard’ (EV 47mm?) < Ar. diz‘r as-sz'mi ‘house of work, house of skills, factory’. Articbioco ‘artichoke’ (vs Ital. carcz'ofo) < Ar. 4! barfflf ‘artichoke’. Bagigi (m. pl.) ‘peanuts’ < Ar. Imbb ‘berry’ and azz'z ‘precious’. Barbacan ‘overhang on a building supporting an extension’, cognate with Eng. barbz’can ‘outer defence of a city or castle’. Of disputed origin but perhaps from Ar. bab-k/aama/o ‘gate-house’. Boraso ‘borax’ < Ar. bdumq ~ bflmq ‘borax’. Cafetan ‘kaftan’ < qafi‘cm ‘kaftan’. Doana ‘customs(house)’ < Ar. dz‘wdn ‘book for registering goods in transit’. Coton ‘coton’ < Ar. qutzm ‘coton’. Faclu'n ‘porter’ < Ar. faqi/a ‘doctor in law, custom’s controller’, with semantic degradation. Fontego ‘depot, storehouse’ < Ar. funduq ‘merchant’s lodging-house’. The most famous in Renaissance Venice was the Fontego dei Todeschi, the entrepot of

the ‘German’ merchants at the Rialto, while the Fontego dei Turchi at San Giacomo de l’Orio, was the entrepot of the Turkish merchants from 1621 until 183 8. Lapislazaro ~ Iapislazolo ‘lapis lazuli’, LAPIS ‘stone’ + Ar.-Pers. [dz’wam’ ‘blue’. Limon ‘lemon’ < Ar. [imam ‘lemon’. Magazen ‘warehouse, cellar’ < Ar. ma/Jzz'a ‘depots’. Marzapan [marsa’pan] ‘marzipan’ < Ar. marmbdn, originally ‘porcelain pot (for storing marzipan)’ from the city of Mataban in the Bay of Bengal. Naranza ‘orange’ (vs Ital. amncz'a) < Ar.-Pers. airang‘ ‘orange’. Papuzza ‘slipper’ < Ar.-Pers. babuf ‘flat leather slipper’. Recamar ‘to embroider’ < Ar. mqama ‘to embroider’ from mqm ‘drawing, sign, embroidery’. Risego ~ risclzio ‘risk’. Prob. from Ar. rz'zq ‘payment in kind to occupying troops’ Via Gk. ptCucé ‘fate, fortune’. Senser ~ sanser ‘commercial agent’ < Ar. .tz'msir ‘go between’. —276—

THE VENETIAN LEXICON

Sofa ‘sofa’ < Ar. sofa/9 ‘couch’. Spinazzi (m. pl.) ‘spinach’ /d3/

This long-term Italian-Venetian contact process can be indicated by the following observations. Pre-16OO Venetian only had /dz/ and, perhaps, /z/ reflexes of Latin I (yod), D + yod or G + front vowel, e.g. IAM > ca ~ za (‘already’), DIURNUM > corno ~ zorno (‘clay’), GENERALEM > general ~ zeneral (‘general’).11 The equivalent Italian reflexes were and are: gz'a, gz'orno, generale. By the mid-eighteenth century writers such as Goldoni, Gozzi and Muazzo retained, overwhelmingly, /dz/ ~ /z/ forms in their Venetian, but also employed /d3/ in a number of high register, abstract words whose phonology is clearly Italian in origin, such as gz'aa’z'zz'o (‘judgement’: EV/ MidV cudz'sz'o ~ zna’z'sz'o), gz'aa’z'car (‘to judge’: EV/MidV cua'egar ~ zna'egar), gz'asto (‘right’: EV/MidV gusto ~ zusto), gz'ustz'zz'a (‘justice’: EV/MidV castisz'a ~ znstz'sz'a). Such breaches paved the way for an overall restructuring in the direction of the Italian-type reflex that eventually swamped the lexicon. Following a period of flux in early ModV in which common lexemes like za and zente (‘people’) were maintained in the midst of strong /d3/ diffusion, later ModV and CV manifest /d3/ almost exclusively, with even some patrician surnames such as Zustignan —> Giustinian affected. As one would anticipate in a process of sound change by lexical diffusion, a few residues of /z/ are detectable in CV, notably zo(so) (Ital. gin) ‘down’, zogo (Ital. gz'oco) ‘game’, zogar (Ital. gzocare) ‘to play’, zogatolo (Ital. gz'ocattolo), zalo (Ital. gz'allo) ‘yellow’ and zenoc/az'o (Ital. gz'nocc/oz'o) ‘ldrnee’.12

1° The principles of lexical diffusion were first expounded in WANG (1969). 11 As we observed in Chapter III, SS 2.3.1 and 2.3.2, the phoneme /dz/ was represented in EV by the graphemes or . The former was normal until c. 1400, with replacing it after that date and continuing to be used in MidV and ModV. We also noted that BOERIO (1856, p. 12) deplored the widespread, originally plebeian according to him, habit of pronouncing the voiced alveolar affricate as the voiced alveolar fricative /z/. Given that Boerio undoubtedly re-

flected late eighteenth-century/early nineteenth century conservative Venetian usage, one suspects that /dz/ was already rather archaic even then. This conjecture is reinforced by the obser-

vation that Goldoni over-employs the affricate as a verbal tic, to signal snobbishness, in the mouth of Gasparina in Il Campz'ello. The occasional appearance of in EV and MidV, in contexts where one would expect the affricate (e.g. a’esembre for degernbre ~ a'ezembre ‘December’), may suggest that the sibilant was present even then as a parallel diastratic or diatopic variant. It is

worth noting that the spread of /d3/ through the Venetian lexicon is very likely to have been facilitated by its phonemic presence in venexz'an (from at least the MidV period) as a reflex of Latin L + yod, e.g. megz'o ~ mezo < MELIUS ‘better’.

12 For details of the Italianising of the Venetian school curriculum in the later MidV period that must have played a major role in conditioning young Venetians in the direction of such changes see GULLINO (1998).

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ITALIAN CONTACT INFLUENCE ON VENETIAN

2.4. Lexical resistance, convergence or replacement: contrasting case-studies

2.4.1. Table 3 below provides graphic evidence of the complexity of convergence-resistance patterns in Venetian. It lists kinship terms in ModV/CV, as attested both in the nineteenth century and at present, alongside their Italian equivalents. The first, most numerous, group of Venetian lexemes — mainly but not exclusively ‘inner’ family designations — shows complete resistance to Italian. The first of the two groups of ‘outer’ ones shows complete lexical substitution, while the second (‘son-in-law’ and ‘daughter-in-law’) presents ongoing convergence in the direction of Italian, with traditional Venetian forms persisting among some older speakers. Structural factors appear to be the key to the processes of resistance, adaptation or substitution exemplified in this grid. The first, commoner, Venetian group has maintained both its morphology and phonology intact. Dialect morphology appears, paradoxically, to be protected by iconic similarity to Italian equivalents, as other contact studies have shown (SANGA 1985). Phonological integrity may be safeguarded by resistance to Italian phonemes which are not already part of the Venetian phonemic inventory, for example geminated consonants (fratello, sorella) or /?»/ (fl'glio, fi'glz'a), or to segments which violate strong Venetian phonetic tendencies, for example clusters with an unvoiced intervocalic plosive (marito, cognato). In the small third group, zenero is suspended in the midst of the lexical diffusion process described in § 2.3 above, while niora, already relatively close to Italian structurally, was per— haps too peripheral a term to avoid assimilation. The four items in the second group (barba ‘uncle’, arnia ‘aunt’, nizssier ‘father-in-law’ and rnaa’ona ‘mother—in-law’) are present in the consciousness of older speakers but have markedly old-fashioned connotations. One suspects that they may, in part, have fallen into disuse as part of a sociological shift in the status of these particular family relationships. However, complete formal dissimilarity with Italian is undoubtedly the principal factor in their replacement. Table 3. KINSHIP TERMS

19th century Venetian

Contemporary Venetian

Italian

English

pare

pare

padre

‘father’

mare

mare

madre

‘mother’

fio

fia

figlio

‘son’

fia

fia

figlz'a

‘daughter’

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CHAPTER NINE

19th century Venetian

Contemporary Venetian

Italian

English

fradela

fradela [fra'dso]

fratella

‘brother’

sarela

sarela [so'rea]

sarella

‘sister’

maria

maria

marz'ta

muz'er~nzuger

muger

maglz’e

‘wife’

cugnc‘z

cugnci

cagnata

‘brother-in-law’

cngnnda

cugnada

cognate

‘sister-in—law’

barber

zza ['zio]

zia ['dzio] ~ ['tsio]

‘uncle’

amz‘a

zz'a ['zia]

zz'a ['dzia] ~ ['tsia]

‘aunt’

mim'er

macera

macera

‘father—in-law’

madana

xnacera

suacern

‘mother-in-law’

zenera

genera ~ zenera

genera

‘son-in-law’

nz'ara

nuarzz ~ nz'ara

nuara

‘daughter-in-law’

_ ‘husband’

2.4.2. Another apparently contradictory pattern of convergence—resistance is revealed by comparing the long-term diachronic evolution in Venetian of, on the one hand, the designations for months of the year (Table

4) and, on the other, those for the days of the week (Table 5). Table 4. MONTHS

Venetian

Venetian

Venetian

c. 1300

c. 1500

1800-1850

Zener ~ gener ~ zener

zenara ~

Italian

Contemporary Venetian

gennaz'a

gennaz'a

febbrnz'a

febbraz'a

gtz'ener ~ genera

~ genera

gennra

fevrer ~ febrer ~ fevrer ~ fevrera ~ fevrara febrara

fearara ~ febrara”

13 According to BOERIO (1829) fewer (s.v.) was «voce ant.».

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ITALIAN CONTACT INFLUENCE ON VENETIAN

margc

marzc

marzc

marzc

marzc

acrz’l ~ avrz'le ~ avrz'l ~ april avrz'll(e) ~ aprz'l(e)

aw‘z'l ~ aprz'l

aprz'le

aprz'le

magc ~ magic ~ mazc

mazc ~ mazzc

mazc14 ~ magic

maggz'c

maggz'c

gugnc ~ zagnc

zugnc

zugac ~ gz'ugnc

gz'ugac

gz'ugac

gulz'c ~ [uz'c

[ujc ~ [aic ~ lugz'c

lugz'c

Zaglzc

luglzc

avcstc ~ agcstc

avcstc

agcstc

agcstc

agcstc

setem/nbrz'c ~ septem/abre ~ set(t)embre ~ setenbre

se(p)tembrz'c ~ setembre

settembre

settembre

c(c)tul9rz'c ~ (b)c(c)tabrz'c ~ ctcbre ctclm'c ~ ctubre ctubre

cttcbre

cttcbre

novenbrzc~ nccembre

novembrz'c ~ accembre

accembre

accembre

accembre

decem/nbrz'c ~ degenbrz'c ~ decembre ~ desembre

dezembric ~ dezembre ~ decembre ~ desembre

degembre ~

a'z'cembre

a’z'cembre

xetembre

dz'gembre

Table 5. DAYS OF THE WEEK Venetian c. 1300

Italian

Contemporary Venetian

[um

lunea'z‘

[am' ‘Monday’

martz'

martea’i

martz' ‘Tuesday’

merccre

mercclea’z‘

merccre ‘Wednesday’

gcbz'a ~ zcbz'a

gz'cvea'i

zz'claa15 ‘Thursday’

14 Defined by BOERIO (1829) as «voce pifi vernacola» compared with magic. 15 BOERIO (1829) s.v. zz'cba has «zz‘cba o zcba (colla z dolce)», although all his examples give zicba.

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CHAPTER NINE

Venetian c. 1300

Italian

Contemporary Venetian

venere

venerdz‘

venere ‘Friday’

sabado ~ salaato ~ rabao

sabato

sabo ‘Saturday’

domenega

domem'ca

domenega ‘Sunday’

Table 4 shows that over 700 years the names of the months in venexz'cm gradually converged on Italian forms, then suddenly became identical with them in CV, even when Italian morphonology violated Venetian structures. Only superficial pronunciation differences remain in 2006 and a residual memory of some older variants among elderly speakers. One could even, legitimately, conclude that when naming the months Venetians now actually codeswitch into Italian. In apparent contradiction with this dynamic, Table 5 shows total Venetian resistance to the Italian terms for the days of the week over the same seven centuries, even though there is a clear one-to-one etymological and iconic relationship between each item. The paradox is resolved by closer inspection of the status of each designation—type. Months of the year are essentially bureaucratic, written forms, and are only semi-popular.16 Days of the week are in universal daily use. This point is confirmed by the striking diachronic variability in the names of months in Venetian as compared to the stability displayed by the days of the week: lum', mam, mercore, venere and domenega have, in fact, remained identical, over the centuries while 206121 —> zz'oba and saba(d)o —> who are

the outcomes of purely internal changes.17 2.4.3. The most substantial lexical phenomenon to have affected Venetian between the late MidV and late ModV periods was the gradual Italianisation of the native lexicon, particularly where the parallel items were cognates and iconically similar. While such creeping lexical processes involved morphonological convergence on the roofing model, it is clear from Table 6 below that Venetian structural preferences in this area were not

16 A point made by Clemente Merlo in his fundamental study of the Romance designations for seasons and months (MERLO 1904, pp. 94—97 and 123). It goes without saying that in the EV period the opening lines of even vernacular documents often gave the date in Latin. 17 Data about the fate of day-names in other Italian dialects in the early 19905 underline how hazardous it is to make generalisations concerning which items are likely to succumb to the contact influence of Italian. Studies show that the Friulan dialect of Maniago maintained

all its names for the days of the week intact, whereas in the dialects of Novi Ligure (Liguria) and Tropea (Calabria) Italian designations had largely prevailed. See BERRUTO (1997b, pp. 21-23).

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ITALIAN CONTACT INFLUENCE ON VENETIAN

violated, with the result that the Italianising forms continhed to be perceived as ‘Venetian’. Table 6. CREEPING LEXICAL CONVERGENCE BETWEEN LATE MIDV AND CV

Venetian 1750

Venetian 2006 Italian

English

arecordarre

rz'cordarse

ricordarsz'

‘to remember’

avcmtz' d6

primal de

prz'ma dz'

‘before’

gz'elo /'sjelo/ or /'tsjelo/ cz'elo ['tfeo]

cz'elo

‘sky’

drem‘o

dem‘ro

denim

‘inside’

fava

fagewa

faceva

‘he made’ (imp. tense)

fem'r

fz'm'r

flm're

‘to finish’

furrz' ~ forrz'

forse

forre

‘maybe’

incorzerse

acorzerse

accorgem'

‘to realise’

z'mom'o

sogno

sogno

‘dream’

in tel

7161

”61

‘in the’ (m. sg.)

invidar

invz'tar

z'nvz'tare

‘to invite’

[aomr

lavomr

[avomre

‘to work’

m’ssun

nessun

7163574710

‘nobody’

squasz'

quasi

quasi

‘nearly, almost’

vago

vado

vado

‘I go’

2.4.4. The lexical convergence processes described above seemed to reach a critical mass in CV, moving from convergence itself to a considerable and wholesale replacement, among many younger speakers, of some of the most characteristic items of the Venetian lexicon by their Italian equivalents. Table 7 shows some typical examples of lexical replacement — involving nouns, verbs and an adverb. Although of a different order from the convergence adaptation described in § 2.4.3, it remains noticeable that in each instance of replacement the Italian item selected is adapted to Venetian structural preferences, thus providing a continuing, if attenuated, Venetian specificity. It is, of course, the case that many older speakers of Venetian have retained some or all of the traditional terminology as repre—297—

CHAPTER NINE

sented in ModV. It was also usual in late ModV/CV for adopted Italian words, including technological terms, to be Venetianised, e.g. Ital. televisore ‘televison set’ —> CV televz'sor [teevi'zor] and Ital. telefom'no ‘mobile phone’ —> CV telefom'n [teefo'nin]. Table 7. LEXICAL REPLACEMENT IN CONTEMPORARY VENETIAN

Italian

English

allaz'coca

albicocca

‘apricot’

coca!

gabz'cm

gabbz'cmo

‘seagull’

goto

bz'c/Jer [bi'tfer]

bz'cc/yz'ere

‘(drinking) glass’

puma

ricota

ricotta

‘ricotta cheese’

barbuzzo

memo

memo

‘chin’

bombaso

coton

cotone (z'drofz'lo)

‘cotton wool’

butz'ro

bum

[774770

‘butter’

_ darente

vz'cz'n

vz'cz'no

‘near(by)’

dc [ongo

.mbz'z‘o

rubz'to

‘immediately’

desmz'm'ar

wegz'ar

weglz'are

‘to wake’

c/aeba

gabz'a

gabbz'a

‘cage’

cogoma

cafetz'em ~ mac/when; caflettz’cm ~ (del cafe) macc/az'netta

‘coffee-maker, coffee-pot’

comar

condir

condz're

‘to dress a salad’

fz'gd‘

fegato

fegato

‘liver’

forfe

forbz'ce

forbz'cz'

‘scissors’

gatarz'golc

soletico [so'stico]

rolletz'co

‘the tickles’

guar

afz'lar

afi‘z’lare

‘to sharpen’

z'mpz'rz'a

z'mbuto

z'mlmto

‘(filter) funnel’

pz'avola

bambola ['bamboia]

bambola

‘doll’

pz'ron

forc/aeta

forclaez‘z‘a

‘fork’

roaza

cornice

corm'ce

‘picture frame’

Modern

Contemporary

Venetian

Venetian

armelz'n

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ITALIAN CONTACT INFLUENCE ON VENETIAN

snsta

mold ['maja]

molla

‘a spring’

terczzzo

pavinzento

pavinzento

‘floor’

2.5. Divergent phonological change reinforced by contact-pressure: the vanis/aing /l/ and five flapped /r/ The most characteristic Venetian phonetic realisations to an outsider’s ear are the various alveo-palatal allomophs of / 18 and the flapped /r/. There is possible pre-modern evidence for the former as a diatopic or dia-

stratic variant.19 Within living memory the latter was a low diastratic variant. The Venetian ‘l evanescente’, used in word-initial and intervocalic positions, was originally found nowhere else in the Veneto but had spread extensively from Venice to the mainland by the nineteenth/twentieth centuries, at precisely the time of increased Italian contact pressure.20 Strongly connoted as typically Venetian, the ‘l evanescente’ appears to be totally immune to the Italian lateral, especially as the latter corresponds, in word-initial and intervocalic positions, to rural realisations in the Veneto. Phonol— ogy as identity-indicator is also forcefully evident in the very recent spread within Venice of the retroflex /[/ (previously marked as lower-class), at the expense of the voiced alveolar tap or trill partly held in common with Italian. Its salience as identity and loyalty marker in the face of outsider pressure has led to its increasing adoption by younger Venetian speakers. This is a process that suggests parallels with Labov’s observations in the 19605 about in-group identity effects on internal phonological variants on Martha’s Vineyard (LABOV 1963). It bodes well for the survival of Venetian linguistic difference.

13 Described in detail and discussed in Chapter IV, § 3.4.2. See also LEPSCHY (1962, pp. 18-22). 19 It may be represented in print as early as the second half of the sixteenth century in the Venetian of the fishermen of the anonymous Dialogo. Interlocntori. Marin. Et Vetor. See DAZZI (1956, I, pp. 441-449). For a possible example from even earlier in the century in Calmo see

Chapter VII, section 5 Text 9b. 20 For a map showing the mainland spread of the /l/ evanexcente see ZAMBONI (1980, p. 38).

—299—

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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