Iconicity and Analogy in Language Change: The Development of Double Object Clitic Clusters from Medieval Florentine to Modern Italian 9781614516392, 9781614517528

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Janice M. Aski and Cinzia Russi Iconicity and Analogy in Language Change

Studies in Language Change

Edited by Cynthia Allen Harold Koch Malcolm Ross

Volume 13

Janice M. Aski Cinzia Russi

Iconicity and Analogy in Language Change The Development of Double Object Clitic Clusters from Medieval Florentine to Modern Italian

ISBN 978-1-61451-752-8 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-1-61451-639-2 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-1-5015-0098-5 ISSN 2163-0992 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2015 Walter de Gruyter, Inc., Berlin/Boston Cover image: iStockphoto/thinkstock Typesetting: PTP-Berlin, Protago-TEX-Production GmbH, Berlin Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck ♾ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com

This book is dedicated to Eleanore Rose Aski with love and affection and to Dario Russi with love and gratitude

Acknowledgements This book was not written overnight, but rather over years, during which we received significant support and helpful input. We would like to thank our research assistant, Daniel Paul, who tirelessly collected and sorted tokens. Over the years, we presented parts of this work at various conferences and reading groups. We wish to thank all conference participants, in particular J. C. Smith and Martin Maiden, as well as Brian Joseph, Kathryn Campbell-Kibler, Hope Dawson and the participants in the Changelings reading group at The Ohio State University for their invaluable feedback. And to Tom Cravens, Nigel Vincent, and Knud Lambrecht who read and commented on selections of this book, we are indebted and extend heartfelt thanks. We also thank the anonymous readers for their comments and suggestions. Cinzia Russi thanks the College of Liberal Arts (University of Texas at Austin) for the College Research Fellowship she received for Spring 2014 which helped her to make considerable progress on the manuscript. Finally, we are both grateful for our loving and supportive families. Janice thanks Antony and Julian who nourished her spirit and waited patiently for her to finish so that they could travel together once again. Cinzia thanks Dario, Alice and Chiara and Case for their enduring trust and warming smiles.

Table of contents Acknowledgements | vii List of tables | xii List of abbreviations | xiv Chapter 1 Introduction | 1 1.1 Objectives of the study | 4 1.2 Texts and tokens in our Florentine corpus | 9 1.3 Organization of the book | 15 Chapter 2 Origins, earliest attestations and forms of the Romance personal clitic pronouns | 17 2.1 Origins | 17 2.2 Earliest attestations | 20 2.2.1 Outside Italy | 20 2.2.2 Italy: non-Tuscan vernaculars | 22 2.2.3 Tuscan vernaculars | 24 2.3 Forms | 25 2.3.1 Third person acc forms | 26 2.3.2 First and second person dat forms | 32 2.3.2.1 First person plural no and ne | 34 2.3.2.2 Second person plural vo | 44 2.3.2.3 Forms found in clusters | 46 2.4 Double object clitic clusters in Old Romance | 50 2.4.1 Outside Italy | 51 2.4.2 Italy: non-Tuscan vernaculars | 53 2.5 Double object clitic clusters in thirteenth-century Tuscan vernaculars | 55 2.5.1 Previous accounts | 55 2.5.2 OVI data for thirteenth-century Tuscan vernaculars | 57 2.6 Double object clitic clusters in fourteenth-century Tuscan vernaculars | 60 2.7 Summary | 62

x   

   Table of contents

Chapter 3 The theoretical approach | 64 3.1 The cognitive/functional aspects of variation and change | 64 3.2 Analogy vs. Iconicity | 68 3.3 Cognitive/functional features of clitic order alternation and change | 74 3.3.1 Iconicity | 74 3.3.2 Analogy | 82 3.4 Grammaticalization of the dat-acc order | 83 3.5 Explanation of language variation and change in a cognitive/ functionalist approach | 85 Chapter 4 Pragmatic functionality of clitic order in fourteenth-century Florentine | 91 4.1 Previous approaches | 91 4.2 The methodology of the present study | 96 4.3 Significant structural features | 100 4.4 Exophoric pragmatic iconicity: Empathy vs. Urgency | 102 4.4.1 Empathy | 104 4.4.2 Urgency | 106 4.5 Empathy and urgency: Token analysis by text | 109 4.5.1 Il Filocolo (Giovanni Boccaccio, 1338) | 109 4.5.2 Elegia di Madonna Fiammetta (Giovanni Boccaccio, 1344) | 112 4.5.3 Il Corbaccio (Giovanni Boccaccio, 1355) | 117 4.5.4 Decameron (Giovanni Boccaccio, 1370) | 118 4.5.5 Lettera di Gherardino di Niccolò Gherardini Giani a Tommaso di Piero di messer Rodolfo de’ Bardi (1375) | 121 4.5.6 Frammenti del libro segreto di Simone di Rinieri (1380) | 122 4.6 Clusters with dire ‘to tell, to say’, dirò ‘I will tell you’ and credere ‘to believe’ | 124 4.7 Formulaic and/or idiomatic expressions | 136 4.8 Summary of results and other considerations | 139 Chapter 5 The demise of the acc-dat order and the fixation of the dat-acc cluster | 143 5.1 Introduction | 143 5.2 Endophoric structural iconicity: Causatives, convenire ‘to suit; to be advisable’, parere ‘to seem’ | 144 5.3 Morphological constellations and analogy: The relationship with the masculine singular definite article | 155

Table of contents   

5.4 5.5 5.6

   xi

Other analogical pressures: Phonotactics, morphological structure, and clusters with reflexives | 162 Language external factors: Borrowing from Tuscan vernaculars | 168 Summary and conclusions | 171

Chapter 6 Conclusions | 173 6.1 Summary of the analysis and issues for further research | 173 6.2 Implications of this analysis: Language change, iconicity, and analogy | 177 References | 178 Index | 191

List of tables Table 1: Table 2: Table 3: Table 4: Table 5: Table 6: Table 7: Table 8: Table 9: Table 10: Table 11: Table 12: Table 13: Table 14: Table 15: Table 16: Table 17: Table 18: Table 19: Table 20: Table 21: Table 22: Table 23: Table 24: Table 25: Table 26: Table 27:

Thirteenth-century Florentine texts | 3 Florentine texts 1311–1350 | 10 Florentine texts 1355–1394 | 11 Third person clitic pronouns in Old Tuscan vernaculars | 13 Latin personal pronouns | 18 Latin ille ‘that’ | 18 Personal clitic pronouns in modern Romance languages: First and second person and third person reflexive/reciprocal | 18 Personal clitic pronouns in modern Romance languages: Third person | 19 Thirteenth-century Tuscan vernaculars (180 documents) | 25 Fourteenth-century Tuscan vernaculars (891 documents) | 25 First and second person dat clitics in fourteenth-century Aretino | 33 Clitic forms in -e in comparison to forms in -i in thirteenth-century Toscano | 34 Thirteenth-century first person plural no in OVI | 36 Thirteenth-century first person plural ne in OVI | 38 Distribution of no/ne vis-à-vis ci in thirteenth-century Tuscan texts | 42 Thirteenth-century second person plural vo in OVI | 44 dat-acc clusters with dat forms in -i: Thirteenth and fourteenth centuries | 47 Thirteenth-century Tuscan vernaculars displaying proclitic double object clitic clusters | 57 Thirteenth-century Toscano texts displaying both dat-acc and accdat order | 58 Fourteenth-century Tuscan vernaculars displaying proclitic double object clitic clusters | 60 Fourteenth-century Tuscan texts displaying dat-acc and acc-dat in comparable or equal distribution | 61 Factors considered in the overall analysis | 97 Endophoric iconicity | 97 Unanalyzable tokens | 99 Tokens with vowel-initial verbs other than avere | 100 Tokens preceded by non | 101 Clitic morphology after non | 101

List of tables   

Table 28: Table 29: Table 30: Table 31: Table 32: Table 33: Table 34: Table 35: Table 36: Table 37: Table 38: Table 39: Table 40: Table 41: Table 42: Table 43: Table 44: Table 45: Table 46: Table 47:

   xiii

Fourteenth-century Florentine clusters whose host verb is a form of dire (or a semantically related verb) and dirò | 125 Fourteenth-century Florentine clusters involving dire or dirò whose order is motivated by pragmatics | 125 Total number of tokens whose clitic order is motivated by discourse empathy or urgency | 139 Tokens from Boccaccio’s narrative texts | 141 Number of pragmatically motivated constructions in which the host verb is a form of dire or dirò in the Decameron | 141 Causative constructions | 146 Convenire | 146 Parere | 146 Clusters with verb + infinitive constructions | 153 Elision in Corbaccio | 156 Distribution of the two orders in the context of vowel-initial verb and avere | 158 dat-acc tokens with the apocopated form of 3sg.m.acc | 159 Distribution of 3sg.m.acc clitics | 159 Clusters with 3sg.m.acc clitics preceded by non | 160 Apocope of 3sg.m.acc clitic in acc-dat clusters preceded by non | 160 Subject pronouns and subject pronouns + rflx clitic: Florentine prose texts (1300–1400) | 163 Subject pronouns followed by rflx-3acc cluster: Florentine prose texts (1300–1400) | 163 Clusters with true and lexical reflexives | 166 Clusters with reflexive benefactives or reflexive emphatics | 167 Clusters with impersonal si | 168

List of abbreviations acc dat f fut ger ii imp imper inf is m

accusative dative feminine future gerund imperfect indicative impersonal imperative infinitive imperfect subjunctive masculine

pass pc pi pl plperf pp pst ps rflx sg sup

passive present conditional present indicative plural pluperfect past participle past indicative present subjunctive reflexive singular superlative

Chapter 1 Introduction Romance clitic pronouns have attracted considerable attention since the institution of Romance philology and Romance linguistics as independent disciplines, and they continue to be among the most actively and comprehensively investigated topics in present-day linguistic research (both from a synchronic and a diachronic perspective), especially within the formalist generative tradition. Nonetheless, the number of studies which expressly address the diachronic evolution of the ordering patterns of clitic clusters in Romance languages is surprisingly limited, in spite of the fact that most Romance languages/dialects had a stage in which the order was nearly consistently accusative (acc)-dative (dat) and eventually changed to the opposite order, dat-acc. To the best of our knowledge, classic studies such as Melander (1929) and Lombard (1934) remain the most comprehensive discussions of the changes in the order of clitics in clitic clusters, at least from a descriptive point of view since, even though they focus on Old Italian (i.e., Old Florentine), they include a certain amount of Romance data. To these two central works, we can add Wanner (1974), who draws heavily on these two precursors, as well as on Castellani (1952), whose data are limited to medieval Tuscan vernaculars. Indeed, neither Wanner’s (1987) seminal work on the development of pronominal clitics in Old Romance nor de Dardel and de Kok’s (1996) notable monograph on the placement of clitic pronouns in Proto-Romance address the issue of the order patterns of clitic pronouns in clitic clusters. The latter, in fact, declare: “Il y a trois aspects de la syntaxe pronominale que, pour être d’un pertinence trop limiteé à la position du pronom dans la proposition, nous laissons de côte: c’est premierement la place respective des pronoms combines (illum mihi vs. mihi illum) […]” (de Dardel and de Kok 1996: 8).¹ The goal of the present study is to fill this void in the research on Romance clitic pronouns, in particular with regards to the change from medieval Florentine acc-dat to modern Italian dat-acc. Early studies, such as Parodi (1887), Lombard (1934), Melander (1929), Castellani (1952: 90) and Rohlfs (1968) find that in thirteenth-century Florentine, double object clusters involving third person acc (1a) and first/second singular/plural dat clitic pronouns (1b) had a fixed order, with the acc clitic always preceding the dat, as shown in (2).² 1 ‘There are three aspects of pronominal syntax that, possibly of limited importance to the position of pronouns in the proposition, we ignore: firstly, the respective position of pronouns in clusters (ILLUM MIHI vs. MIHI ILLUM) […]’ (our translation; JA&CR). 2 These authors include in their data clusters involving partitive ne, reflexives and clusters comprising third person dat and third person acc clitics, as well as enclitic clusters (see Chapter 2,

2   

(1)

(2)

   Introduction

a. lo 3sg.m

la li le 3sg.f 3pl.m 3pl.f

b. mi 1sg

ti 2sg

ci 1pl

vi 2pl

Quelli che t’ insegnò cotesta novella non that who 2sg.dat teach-3sg.pst this story not la t’ insegnò tutta 3sg.f.acc 2sg.dat teach-3sg.pst all ‘The one who taught you this novel did not teach it to you entirely’³ (Novellino (ca. 1281–1300); 89, p. 331)

Cardinaletti (2010: 444) claims that although rare, the dat-acc order is attested in Florentine already in the thirteenth century and provides one example from Libro degli ordinamenti della Compagnia di Santa Maria del Carmine, which is given in (3). (3)

…

and that fosse adomandato il luogho and that be-3sg.is ask-pp the place al priore generale che cci lo assegni to.the prior general that 1pl.dat 3sg.acc.m assign-3sg.ps ‘… and that the place was asked to the prior general, so that he assigns it to us’ (Cardinaletti 2010: 444; ex. [180])

We searched the 58 thirteenth-century Florentine texts available on the online textual database Opera del Vocabolario Italiano (OVI)⁴ and collected a total of 94 proclitic double object clusters from the texts listed in Table 1 below, only two of

§ 2.4.2 for more details). In the present study, we have excluded these clusters, except for reflexives, for the reasons discussed in Section 1.2. Reflexives are examined separately in Chapter 5 (§ 5.4) for their potential analogical influence on the change in double object clitic clusters from acc-dat to dat-acc. 3 The English translations do not always reflect the order of the clitics in the Italian original. 4 Unless otherwise specified, our examples are taken from the Opera del vocabolario italiano (OVI) on-line corpus, http://artfl-project.uchicago.edu/content/ovi. The OVI database “contains 1960 vernacular texts (22.3 million words, 456,000 unique forms) the majority of which are dated prior to 1375, the year of Boccaccio’s death. The verse and prose works include early masters of Italian literature like Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, as well as lesser-known and obscure texts by poets, merchants, and medieval chroniclers” (http://artfl-project.uchicago.edu/content/ovi).

Introduction    

   3

which are dat-acc: the one in (3) above and the one given in (4). This confirms that acc-dat was most likely the overwhelmingly dominant order in thirteenthcentury Florentine. Table 1: Thirteenth-century Florentine texts

Date

Author/Title

Genre

Form

1211

Frammenti d’un di libro di conti di banchieri fiorentini del 1211 Brunetto Latini, La Rettorica Ricordi di pagamenti Primo libricciolo di crediti di Bene Bencivenni Anonymous, Fiori e vita di filosafi e d’altri savi e d’imperadori Libro d’amministrazione dell’eredità di Baldovino Iacopo Riccomanni Il libro della Parte del Guelfo di Firenze Libro d’introiti e d’esiti di papa Niccolò III nella Marca, tenuto dal tesoriere Ruggieri da Firenze Ricordi rurali di casa Guicciardini Registro di Entrata e Uscita di Santa Maria di Cafaggio Ricordi di compere e cambi di terre in Val di Streda e dintorni Lettera di messer Consiglio de’ Cerchi, e compagni in Firenze, a Giachetto Rinucci, e compagni, in Inghilterra Bono Giamboni, Il Libro de’ Vizî e delle Virtudi Bono Giamboni, Delle Storie contra i Pagani di Paolo Orosio libri VII Bono Giamboni, Fiore di rettorica (redazione beta) Bono Giamboni, Dell’Arte della Guerra di Vegezio Flavio volgarizzata libri IV Dante Alighieri, Vita nuova Secondo libricciolo di crediti di Bene Bencivenni Forese Donati, Rime Anonymous, Libro degli ordinamenti della Compagnia di Santa Maria del Carmine

mercantile documents

prose

rhetoric documents documents lives

prose prose prose prose

documents

prose

mercantile documents documents

prose prose

documents mercantile documents

prose prose

documents

prose

letters

prose

didactic religious chronicles, statutes

prose prose

epistles, orations

prose

arts, techniques

prose

lyrics documents

mixed prose

lyrics statutes

verse prose

1261 1274 1275 1275 1278 1279 1280 1284 1286–1290 1290 1291

1292 1292 1292 1292 1293 1296 1296 1298

4   

(4)

   Introduction

ben til dico well 2sg.io-3sg.m.do tell-1sg.pi ‘I tell it well to you’ (Forese Donati, Rime (1296); 3, p. 93)⁵

In modern Italian the order of double object clitic clusters is fixed as dat-acc. It appears that the transition from acc-dat to the dat-acc began in the early fourteenth century when the dat-acc order emerged in alternation with the acc-dat as shown in (5).⁶ (5)

a. e s’ io non la vi mostrassi bene and if I not 3sg.f.acc 2pl.dat show-1sg.is well ‘and If I were not to show you well’ (Storia di Merlino (1310–1330); 55, p. 61) b. e sì ve lo mostrerrò and so 2pl.dat 3sg.m.acc show-1sg.fut ‘I will show you so’ (Storia di Merlino (1310–1330); 20, p. 20)

The alternation between the two orders is recorded by Melander (1929), Lombard (1934) and Castellani (1952) who give examples of both enclitic and proclitic clusters from a variety of texts. With his data, Melander (1929) places the establishment of the new dat-acc order at the end of the fourteenth century. Maiden (1995) and Wanner (1974), on the other hand, place it in the fifteenth century.⁷

1.1 Objectives of the study In thirteenth-century Florentine acc-dat is the predominant order of double object clitic clusters. In contrast, by the first half of the fourteenth century a significant

5 The data collected for the fourteenth century were limited to prose or a mix of prose and verse (cf. Section 1.2). However, since there were not many thirteenth-century prose texts and the majority of those that were prose were ‘documents’, it did not seem meaningful to limit the search to prose because the corpus would have been skewed in favor of documents of a practical nature. Therefore, in the thirteenth-century search we included texts in verse. 6 This date emerges from our data since among the texts we analyzed the earliest that shows both orders is Paolino Pieri’s La Storia di Merlino (1310–1330). 7 Rohlfs (1968: 176) reports several acc-dat tokens in Torquato Tasso and Bandello (sixteenth century) and one enclitic cluster in Alfieri (eighteenth century).

Objectives of the study   

   5

alternation has emerged between acc-dat and dat-acc. A variety of issues regarding these Florentine clusters remain unresolved, among which are the following: 1. Why did the dat-acc order emerge in the first place? 2. Compare the clusters of the type lo mi to the types mel, me ’l, me lo: why did the vowel of the dat clitic lower to /e/ when it preceded the acc clitic? 3. Why did the two clitics sometimes merge and the acc clitic undergo apocope (e.g. mel) exclusively in clusters with a first or second person dat clitic and the 3sg.m.acc clitic? 4. Was there any pattern to the usage of variants once the two orders were available? 5. Why did the order eventually change from acc-dat to dat-acc? The present study focuses primarily on issues (3)–(5), with particular emphasis on issues (4) and (5). We consider actuation (issue (1)) to be unknowable, or extremely problematic at best. For example, Pescarini (p. c.) suggests that the switch to dat-acc was a realignment so that the element marking gender and number (the acc clitic) would be cluster final, like the desinences of adjectives and nouns. Additionally, a common proposal is that the dat clitic, being animate, is more topical and thus moves to first position. However, it is unknowable whether analogy or dat topicality were triggers for the emergence of the dat-acc order or, rather, were among a variety of pressures pushing the system toward the new order once the dat-acc alternate had already appeared. This is true for most proposed theories regarding the emergence of the new clitic order. For this reason, we prefer to focus on issue (5) and identify the multiple influences in the final shift to the dat-acc order rather than on the issue of its emergence. Since D’Ovidio (1886) there have been many theories regarding the vowel change in dat-acc clusters (issue (2)). We deal with this problem only as it impacts the discussions of cluster formation, and refer the reader to Maiden (1995) for an overview of past proposals and to Pescarini (2013) for a formal interpretation. The area that has received no attention in the literature is issue (4): the nature of the alternation between the two cluster orders. Although alternations may be random, we find it unlikely that morphosyntactic variation would be non-functional. Moreover, variation is at the heart of language change and when it emerges it demands exploration. As Berruto (2004: 318) points out, “variation represents anything but a remainder that cannot be organized, least of all an obstacle for serious theoretical and descriptive linguistic research. Its importance within the general understanding of linguistic phenomena clearly emerges, whichever way we approach the topic.” To date, the comments regarding this alternation have been limited to the observation that it reflects hesitation between the two order types (Hetzron [1976]; Lombard [1934]; Melander [1929]).

6   

   Introduction

Wanner (1974: 165) asserts that clitic order could not have been exploited for stylistic purposes “[g]iven that the clitic elements constitute a rather unexpressive area of syntax.” However, he goes on to point out that in modern Italian there is a distinction between clusters comprising third personal reflexive dat and third person acc clitics (6a) and clusters consisting of third person acc clitics and impersonal passive si (6b): (6)

a. Marco se lo compra ‘Mark buys it for himself’

[lo = il libro] [it = the book]

(3refx-3acc)

b. Spesso lo si fa dopo cena [lo = fare una passeggiata] ‘One often does it after dinner’ [it = to take a walk]

(3acc-imp/ pass)

These two clitic orders are functionally distinct even though clitics are atonic elements. The same distinction is found between the impersonal/passive in (6b) and emphatic or intensifying pleonastic pronouns that indicate a subject’s increased or intense participation in the action (7a), structures that refer to parts of the body (i.e., inalienable possession) (7b), and dressing or removal of clothing from one’s person (7c, d). (7)

a. Mi mangio una pizza ~ Me la mangio ‘I eat the pizza all up’ ~ ‘I eat it all up’

[la = la pizza] [it = the pizza]

b. Mi soffio il naso ‘I blow my nose’

~ Me lo soffio ~ ‘I blow it’

[lo = il naso] [it = my nose]

c. Mi metto le scarpe ‘I put my shoes on’

~ Me le metto ~ ‘I put them on’

[le = le scarpe] [them = my shoes]

d. Mi tolgo il cappello ‘I take my hat off’

~ Me lo tolgo ~ ‘I take it off’

[lo = il cappello] [it = my hat]

The two constructions, reflexive/emphatic vs. impersonal, have different functions, but they are also iconically distinct. That is, in the former priority is given to the referent of the reflexive who either is the subject of the verb or is coreferent with the subject of the verb and affected by the action. This high involvement in the action is reflected in the appearance of the reflexive/emphatic clitic in the first slot of the cluster. In contrast, in the latter impersonal constructions, the subject/agent is anonymous and thus is backgrounded by placing the impersonal clitic in the second slot in the cluster. We examine the development of this clitic order distinction in Chapter 5 (§ 5.4).

Objectives of the study   

   7

There have been a few studies regarding issue (5), the ultimate switch from acc-dat to dat-acc in Italian (see Chapter 2 for the studies in the Romance languages). Early interpretations, such as Parodi (1886) and Lombard (1934ff), argue for analogy, whereas Melander (1929) and Castellani (1952) propose borrowing from surrounding Tuscan dialects. These proposals are examined in Chapter 5. Santangelo and Vennemann (1976) suggest that the relative order changed from dat-acc in Latin, to acc-dat in Old Italian, and back to dat-acc. They begin with the premise that early Latin was an OV language and, according to the universal natural order that they establish, whereby in OV languages clitic order is expected to be dat-acc and precede the verb, dat-acc was the natural pronominal serialization. They argue that as Latin was developing from an OV language to a VO language, in which complements follow the verb and have the order acc-dat, clitic pronouns became enclitic to the first constituent, that is, the verb, and switched from dat-acc to acc-dat. Enclisis was supported by patterns established by the Tobbler-Mussafia (TM) law and produced phrases such as: fatelmi venire dinanzi ‘make him come in front of me’ (Novellino; 21, p. 180), and feceli una lettera e dieglile ‘he wrote (lit. made) him a letter and gave it to him’ (Novellino; 77, p. 305). This pattern was very common, as it arose whenever there was no subject on the surface, as predicted by the TM law. The acc-dat pattern was then generalized to preverbal position. Santangelo and Vennemann (1976) believe that the third person clusters, which were invariant and ending in -e, appearing as gliele, lile, glile, etc., were to be interpreted as dat-acc as a direct reflex of the Latin pattern. They also argue that since, unlike the other clusters, gliele/lile/lele/lili were usually spelled without spacing, they were not analyzed as being generated from two constituents (dat and acc), but rather as a single morphological unit signaling the presence of two third person pronouns. For this reason this cluster did not change to acc-dat in Old Italian. Pescarini (2012: fn. 4) suggests that this interpretation of the dat-acc order may be plausible, since the grapheme , which usually appeared first in the cluster, represented a palatal lateral from /l/ before /i/ and could have derived from dative illi. However, in Santangelo and Vennemann’s (1976) model the suggestion that the third person clusters were dat-acc all along is problematic, since this would be exceptional in Old Italian enclisis when all the other forms were acc-dat. In order to explain the change back to dat-acc, Santangelo and Vennemann (1976) argue that it was a consequence of the change from enclisis to proclisis when the TM law was lost. That is, before the verb, clitic clusters were naturally realized as dat-acc according the principle of natural serialization, which predicts that VO languages will have preverbal dat-acc and postverbal acc-dat. Later, this proclitic order was generalized to enclitic position.

8   

   Introduction

Later studies support the notion that the shift from syntactic enclisis to syntactic proclisis may have played a role. The argument proposed by Maiden (1995) and Russi (2008) is that reordering of the dat and acc clitics might have been a response to the rise of proclisis with finite verbs. The acc, being the sister of V, appears closer to the verb, while the dat occupies a more peripheral position. Thus, the earlier stage in which clitics were primarily enclitic to the finite verb generates acc-dat and later, when proclisis became the predominant pattern, the result is dat-acc. Pearce’s (1991) interpretation is slightly different in that she argues that there was a switch from ‘phonological’ enclisis to proclisis. That is, in Old French (and Italian) clitics (or the first clitic in a cluster) were enclitic to the preceding element, usually negation or an adverb, and underwent apocope: (8)

A czo no s voldret concreidre li rex pagiens to that not rflx want-3sg.plperf believe-inf the king pagan ‘that, the pagan king did not want to believe’ (Eulalie, 21; from Pearce [1991: 254])

At the same time, throughout Old French, when the proclitics preceded a vowelinitial verb, they were elided. She states that “[t]he loss of enclitic effects and the continuation of the pro-clitic effects could be indicators of an alternation in the syntactic characteristics” (Pearce 1991: 255). Once clitics are proclitic to the verb, since the acc is the immediate complement of the verb and the dat is more peripheral, the order became dat-acc. Antinucci and Marcantonio (1980) have a slightly different, but related, interpretation. They attribute the order acc-dat to the period of enclisis. They propose that first the acc clitic was positioned between the subject and the verb, becoming enclitic to the former. Once the dat was processed, the only location available was between the verb and the acc clitic, to which it encliticized. In this way, the medieval Italian acc-dat order is due to the process of enclisis. During the evolution of the language, there is a shift to proclisis. Again, the acc clitic is processed first, and thus becomes proclitic to the following verb. Once the dat is realized, it can only appear between the subject and the acc clitic, which results in the new order, dat-acc. They refer to Meyer-Lübke’s (1890) observations regarding Portuguese to demonstrate that in medieval Italian pronouns were enclitics by pointing out that clitics never appeared phrase initially; in this context they were postverbal and enclitic to the verb. The evidence for modern proclisis is that clitics now appear phrase-initially. They add that this change goes hand-in-hand with the shift from Latin OV phrase structure to Italian VO structure, since affixes tend to be suffixal in OV languages, but prefixes in VO languages.

Texts and tokens in our Florentine corpus   

   9

These arguments support Galambos’ (1985: 102, 106) position that the dat migrated to the first slot because it “is more topical than the acc and less essential to the process,” which allowed the acc to be placed next to the verb, “since it is less topical than the dat and semantically more closely associated with the verb.” This hypothesis is supported by Pearce’s (1991) observation that the order switch began in proclitic position and spread later to enclitic position. Indeed, our data on enclitic clusters, presented in Section 1.2 below, confirm Pearce’s (1991) observation. More recently, Pescarini (2012) takes a formal approach to the order change. Firstly, he dismisses the variation between the two clusters as free variation. He then goes on to build on Kayne (1994) and Cardinaletti (2008) and propose that the change to dat-acc in Italo-Romance is due to the movement and left adjunction of the dat clitic, which references a higher internal argument, to the acc clitic, as shown in (9). The result is a ‘true’ rather than ‘split’ cluster. (9)

a. [

la [mi]]

b. [me-la [tme]] (from Pescarini [2012: 1]) This model, like the others described above, does not investigate the actual alternation between the two order types (dat-acc vs. acc-dat) for clues to the reasons for the ultimate order change. Moreover, Pescarini’s formal approach is an elegant, formal description of the order change, but is in direct contrast to the cognitive/functional approach taken in this study, which strives to identify all possible influences in the restructuring of clitic order.

1.2 Texts and tokens in our Florentine corpus The present analysis of proclitic clusters with dat and acc clitics is a refinement and significant expansion of Aski (2011) and Aski and Russi (2010).⁸ Aski (2011) examined only tokens from the first five days of the Decameron (50 stories, 44 tokens), with supporting evidence for the patterns uncovered in the Decameron from Paolo da Certaldo’s Il Libro di Buoni Costumi (first decades of the second half of the fourteenth century), Francesco da Barberino’s Reggimento e Costumi di Donna (1318–1320), and Il Libro dei Sette Savj di Roma (end of thirteenth century-

8 The manuscript for Aski (2011) actually precedes Aski and Russi (2010) by approximately four years due to a lag in publication.

10   

   Introduction

beginning of fourteenth century) written by an anonymous author. Aski and Russi (2010) examined 12 texts from six different genres and expanded the data set to 205 tokens. In addition, the analysis in Aski (2011) was significantly modified.⁹ The corpus of data analyzed for the present study consists of a total of 382 double object proclitic clusters, 209 acc-dat and 173 dat-acc, which were collected from the 24 texts listed in Tables 2 and 3. Some texts from Aski and Russi (2010) were eliminated because they were not labeled exclusively as ‘Florentine’ in the OVI and others, marked with an asterisk in the tables, are additional texts not considered in the previous studies. The tokens were retrieved through the OVI online database and are all from Florentine texts which were categorized as ‘prose’ and ‘mixed’ (i.e. a mixture of prose and verse). However, in texts that were a mix of prose and verse, we collected only clusters that appeared in the prose sections, since it is possible that syllable counts in verse impacted cluster order. Table 2: Florentine texts 1311–1350

Date

Author/Title

1310–1330 *Paolino Pieri, La Storia di Merlino 1311–1350 *Lettere e istruzioni della prima metà del secolo XIV dettate dai Cancellieri [di Firenze] in lingua volgare 1321–1330 *Domenico Cavalca, Cinque vite di eremiti dalle “Vite dei Santi Padri” 1334 *Anonymous. L’Ottimo Commento della Commedia, t. I Inferno 1334 *Anonymous. L’Ottimo Commento della Commedia, t. III Paradiso 1336–1338 *Giovanni Boccaccio, Filocolo 1341–1342 *Giovanni Boccaccio, Comedia delle ninfe fiorentine (Ameto) 1343–1344 *Giovanni Boccaccio, Elegia di Madonna Fiammetta 1350 Filippo Ceffi, Dicerie 1350 1350

Total

*Anonymous. Commento all’Arte d’Amare di Ovidio (Volgarizzamento B) *Anonymous. Deca prima di Tito Livio volgarizzata

Genre

acc-dat dat-acc

narrative documents

 6  7

10  2

lives

 7

 3

commentary

 1

 1

commentary

 2

 2

narrative narrative

46  2

36  5

narrative

11

11

epistles/ orations commentary

 2

 1

 2

 2

 7

 5

93

79

chronicles/ statutes

9 See Chapter 4 (§ 4.2) for a detailed discussion of the present analysis and categorization process.

   11

Texts and tokens in our Florentine corpus   

Table 3: Florentine texts 1355–1394 Date

Author/Title

Genre

acc-dat dat-acc

1355 1358 1362 1370 1373 1374

narrative documents narrative narrative didactic/religious commentary

  4   2   2  50  13   2

 9  1  4 58 15  4

lives

  1

 1

commentary

  4

 5

commentary

  5

 5

letters

  4

 8

1380 1385

Giovanni Boccaccio, Il Corbaccio Ricordanze del Provveditore Filippo Marsili Pucci, Antonio. Libro di varie storie Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron *Diatessaron toscano *Giovanni Boccaccio. Esposizioni sopra la Commedia di Dante *Anonymous. I Miracoli di Caterina di Iacopo da Siena di Anonimo Fiorentino *Anonymous. Chiose dette del falso Boccaccio, Purgatorio *Anonymous. Chiose dette del falso Boccaccio, Paradiso Lettera di Gherardino di Niccolò Gherardini Giani a Tommaso di Piero di messer Rodolfo de’ Bardi  Frammenti del libro segreto di Simone Rinieri Cronaca fiorentina (Marchionne di Coppo Stefani)

 1  3

1394

Giovanni dalle Celle, Lettere

documents   3 chronicles and   1 statutes Letters 32 and 34   3

 2

116

94

1374 1375 1375 1375

Total

We selected only texts in which neither order was highly dominant, where ‘highly dominant’ means higher than 75 % of the total tokens. We excluded texts from our corpus for one or more of the following reasons: (i) they do not include acc-dat tokens; (ii) the number of acc-dat tokens is significantly higher than the number of dat-acc; (iii) they are not prose texts. The scope of this investigation is limited to proclitic double object clitic clusters composed of first and second person singular and plural dat clitics and third person singular and plural acc clitics. In order to isolate the constraints influencing the development of these clusters, the following clusters that would introduce competing variables shown in (10) were not taken into consideration: (10)

Clusters excluded from the present study a. Clusters with the locative clitics, ci/vi, and the clitic ne b. Clusters with a reflexive pronoun

12   

   Introduction

c. Clusters with 3rd person dat clitic pronouns d. Enclitic clusters¹⁰ Clusters involving the locative clitics ci and vi, which are homophonous with the first and second person plural acc and dat clitics (see Chapter 2, § 2.3.2), were not included in our corpus because, as pointed out in Aski (2011), they only appear with acc clitics. The clitic ne, on the other hand, could be combined with both acc and dat pronouns. However, the variety of usages/meanings of ne in the thirteenth century and today, as shown in the examples in (11) (from Cardinaletti [2010: 429–431]), distinguishes this clitic from the clitics under examination. (11)

Usages/Functions of ne¹¹ a. Locative complements e del fumo che n’ uscìa oloravano le and of.the smoke that ne come.out-3sg.ii smell-3pl.ii the camere loro chambers theirs ‘and their chambers smelled of the smoke that was coming from there’ (Novellino (ca. 1300); 80, p. 132) b. Prepositional complements introduced by di ‘of/about’ or da ‘from’ se tu hai perdute le ricchezze e la gloria if you have lost the riches and the glory del mondo, non te ne dovresti crucciare, ma of.the world not 2sg.rflx ne should worry-inf but esserne allegro be-inf.ne happy ‘if you lost the worldly riches and glory, you should not worry but be happy about it’ (Giamboni, Libro de’ vizî e delle virtudi (1292); cap. 5, p. 15)

10 For example, Rohlfs (1968: 176–178) points out that the acc-dat order is rare in Dante’s Commedia (1308–1321), but much more frequent in Boccaccio’s Decameron (1350–ca.1353). However, all the examples he gives from the Commedia are enclitic. Similarly, Melander (1929) finds 50 acc-dat clusters and 60 dat-acc in the first four giornate of the Decameron, but he must have included enclitics, since we found 50 acc-dat and 61 dat-acc proclitic clusters in the entire text. 11 In the thirteenth century ne is also attested as a first person plural in the following Tuscan vernaculars: Aretino, Florentine, Pistoiese, Pratese, Senese, and Toscano (see Chapter 2, § 2.3.2.1).

Texts and tokens in our Florentine corpus   

   13

c. Quantified nominals (partitive function) i. Tu mi ne darai tre you 1sg.dat ne give-2sg.fut three ‘You will give me three [of them]’ (Novellino (ca. 1300); 53, p. 242) ii. sì che di pochi capelluzzi ch’ egli avea so that of few tiny.hairs that he have.3sg.ii non li ne rimase uno in capo not 3sg.dat ne remain.3sg.past one in head ‘so that of the few thin hairs that he had not a single one remained on his head’ (Fiori e vita di filosafi e d’altri savi e d’imperadori (1275); 7, p.118) Moreover, Aski (2011) shows that in the Decameron, clusters involving ne and first and second person dat clitics consistently appear as dat-ne (e.g., me ne, te ne, etc.), and that ne predominates in first position when combined with a third person dat or acc, both in proclitic and in enclitic clusters. However, data from the supporting texts are not consistent. She suggests that the variegated semantic load of ne may have contributed to the prolonged textual confusion over its position in clitic clusters, which Boccaccio resolved by (almost) consistently placing ne in the first slot in clusters with third person clitics, and in the second slot in clusters with first and second person clitics. Clusters with a reflexive clitic are analyzed separately from clusters with dat and acc clitics. The contrast between clusters involving a reflexive and an impersonal pronoun were still being sorted out in this period. Moreover, since reflexive pronouns are co-referent with the subject of the verb, they are significantly distinct from dative pronouns. The patterns identified in clusters with reflexives and impersonals are examined in Chapter 5 (§ 5.4) for their possible role in the resolution of the alternation between the two order types. Clusters comprising two third person clitic pronouns, the forms of which are given in Table 4, were also excluded from this study because since the acc and

Table 4: Third person clitic pronouns in Old Tuscan vernaculars

masculine

sg pl

feminine

acc

dat

acc

dat

lo, il, el, ’l li, i, gli

li, gli, igli, lgli, i i, li

la le

le, li le, li

14   

   Introduction

dat clitics may have had the same form it is difficult (if not impossible) to determine their actual order in the cluster. As pointed out above, these clusters were invariable, appearing as gliele/lile/ lele/lili. In contrast to Santangelo and Vennemann (1976) and Pescarini (2012), we suggest that the cluster order was indistinguishable, and suggest that this ambiguity may be related to Haiman’s (1983) proposal that the linguistic distance between expressions corresponds to the conceptual distance between them. That is, in the first two persons, the distance between the dat and acc is great because the datives are interlocutors, actually present on the scene, whereas the acc is an anaphor of an element in context. In the third person this distance is absent, since both the dat and acc are anaphors of discourse elements. In Old Italian the clitics merge into a cluster in which the dat and acc are indistinguishable, possibly because there is more conceptual independence between me and lo and te and lo than between two third-person pronouns. In short, we do not explore third person clusters in this study because of this ambiguity. Finally, unlike previous analyses, we distinguish between proclitic and enclitic clusters, and have found that they have a different evolutionary trajectory. We collected 80 enclitic tokens from the same thirteenth-century Florentine texts from which we collected the thirteenth-century proclitic clusters discussed above and shown in Table 1, and 137 from the same 24 fourteenth-century texts from which we collected the proclitic tokens (given in Tables 2 and 3 above). All of the thirteenth-century enclitic tokens were acc-dat, but the fourteenth century displays alternation between the two order types, as exemplified in (12). (12)

a. Adomanda ciò che tu vuoli e ask-2sg.imp that which you want-2sg.pi and daro-ttelo give-1sg.fut-2sg.dat.3sg.m.acc ‘Ask for what you want and I will give it to you’ (Anonymous, Diastessaron toscano (1373); cap. 80, p. 255) b. Se tu se’ Cristo, di-lloci apertamente if you are Christ tell-2sg.imp-3sg.m.acc. 1pl.dat openly ‘If you are Christ, tell it to us openly’ (Anonymous, Diatessaron toscano (1373); cap. 135, p. 311)

However, of the 137 fourteenth-century enclitic clusters, 39 (or 28.5 %) are dat-acc whereas 98 are acc-dat. These data support Pearce’s (1991) observation that the order switch began in proclitic position and spread later to enclitic position. This

Organization of the book   

   15

pattern is expected in a cognitive-functionalist approach (cf. Chapter 3, § 3.1), since initial position is more salient, particularly for information processing.

1.3 Organization of the book This study is a fine-grained analysis of the change in clitic order within a cognitive/functionalist framework, which means that we attend as much as possible to the data available to us, to a multitude of factors that potentially impacted the switch, and to the order alternation that occurred during the transition. We begin our study by looking at the larger picture, both chronologically and geographically. Chapter 2 reviews the origins and earliest attestations of Romance personal clitic pronouns, the different forms of the personal clitic pronouns available in old Tuscan vernaculars (in particular the first and second person plural clitics, given that different forms of these clitics were available in some of the vernaculars under consideration), then summarizes the order patterns of double object clitic clusters that consist of a third person singular/plural acc clitic and a first or second person singular/plural dat clitic in Old Romance languages and the dialects of Italy during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In Chapter 3, we introduce and discuss the cognitive/functional approach we adopted, which puts speakers and their cognitive mechanisms center stage. The concepts of iconicity and analogy, which are central to our analysis, and the role each plays in our analysis of clitic order are examined in detail. This is followed by a discussion of the grammaticalization of clitic order, which is driven by an array of factors, some of which support pragmatically functional clitic order alternation, others that push the system towards resolution of the alternation in favor of the dat-acc order, and still others that maintain the acc-dat status quo. Finally, we justify our approach in terms of explanation in historical linguistics. Chapter 4 is dedicated to the analysis of the alternation between the dat-acc and acc-dat orders in fourteenth-century Florentine, which has been ignored in the literature. After introducing the discourse pragmatic features, empathy and urgency, that may have triggered the placement of either the dat or acc clitic in the first slot of clitic clusters, we describe our methodology, discuss two structural features that our data suggest impact clitic order (i.e., a preceding negative particle non and following compound verb forms with the vowel-initial auxiliary avere ‘to have’), offer a general illustration of how exophoric pragmatic iconicity conditioned the dat-acc or the acc-dat order, and provide a detailed analysis of a number of examples. Chapter 5 is devoted to examining the factors that may have been involved in bringing about the loss of the alternation and the disappearance of the acc-dat

16   

   Introduction

order. The order patterns in three compound constructions (causatives of the type fare ‘to make’ + infinitive, convenire ‘to suit; to be adviseable’ + infinitive, and parere ‘to seem’ + infinitive) are considered, and iconic pattern replications at the local structural level, as well as more general iconic language patterns are highlighted. Furthermore, we discuss how analogy may have impacted clitic order by investigating analogical relationships between (1) the masculine singular definite article and the masculine, singular third person acc clitic (which have the same structural origins, the same allomorphs, and similar functions), and (2) clusters comprising dat and acc clitic and clusters with a reflexive pronoun and with impersonal si. Finally, we return to a traditional argument often invoked in language change, borrowing (or contact-induced change), presenting a perspective that is informed by the data collected from the Tuscan dialects surrounding Florentine. Chapter 6 provides a general summary of our analysis, discusses its implications with respect to language change, iconicity, and analogy, and points out issues that deserve further research.

Chapter 2 Origins, earliest attestations and forms of the Romance personal clitic pronouns The goal of this chapter is to present an overview of the evolution of the double object clitic clusters consisting of first/second person dat and third person acc clitics in the major Romance languages, as well as in Florence and the surrounding areas, in order to enhance our understanding of the account of the alternation between the dat-acc and the acc-dat orders put forward in Chapter 4, and of the ultimate restructuring from the acc-dat order to the opposite dat-acc order proposed in Chapter 5. More specifically, insights regarding the forms appearing in other areas helped identify the variants to search in Florentine, and the analysis of cluster order in these areas is significant for assessing the hypothesis that the establishment of the dat-acc order was the result of borrowing. The chapter is organized as follows. We begin by providing a brief summary of the origins and earliest attestations of Romance personal clitic pronouns (§§ 2.1 and 2.2). This is followed by a survey of the forms of the personal clitic pronouns available in old Tuscan vernaculars, since different forms were available in some of the vernaculars under consideration (§ 2.3). The chapter continues with a review of the order patterns of double object clitic clusters in the Old Romance languages and vernaculars as described and discussed in the previous literature (§ 2.4), followed by an overview of the order patterns of clitic clusters in Tuscan vernaculars during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries according to our data from the OVI database (§§ 2.5 and 2.6).

2.1 Origins The sources of first and second person Romance clitic pronouns are, from a formal point of view, the acc and dat forms of first and second person singular and plural Latin personal pronouns given in Table 5.¹²

12 In Italian, the original (i.e., etymological) forms of the first and second person plural clitics no (< Lat. nos) and vo (< Lat. vos) are attested only in the oldest stages of Tuscan vernaculars and were replaced early by ne (< Lat. inde ‘from there’) and ci/ce (< Lat. hinc ‘from here’), which is the only form that will continue in Italian, and vi/ve respectively (Rohlfs [1968: 158–159, 161]; see also Tekavčić [1980: 241]). The distribution of no, ne and vo in Old Tuscan vernaculars is discussed in Sections 2.3.2.1 and 2.3.2.2.

18   

   Origins, earliest attestations and forms of the Romance personal clitic pronouns

Table 5: Latin personal pronouns

1sg 2sg 1pl 2pl

acc

dat

mē tē nōs vōs

mihi ~ mī tibi ~ tī nōbīs vōbīs

The forms of the third person clitics, on the other hand, derive (with some exceptions; see below fn. 14) from the acc and dat forms of the Latin distal demonstrative ille ‘that’, as shown in Table 6, whereas the form of the third person of the reflexive/reciprocal pronoun (si) comes from the Latin reflexive pronoun sē (acc)/sibi (dat). Table 6: Latin ille ‘that’

sg

dat acc

pl

m

f

n

m

f

n

illī illum

illī illam

illī illud

illīs illos

illīs illas

illīs illa

Table 7: Personal clitic pronouns in modern Romance languages: First and second person and third person reflexive/reciprocal¹³

1sg 2sg 1pl 2pl 3rflx

French

Italian

Portuguese

Rumanian

Spanish

acc/dat

acc/dat

acc/dat

acc

dat

acc/dat

me te nous vous se

mi, me ti, te ci, ce vi, ve si, se

me te nos vos si

mă te ne vă şi

mi, îmi ți, îți ni, ne vi, vă şi

me te nos os se

However, the Romance outcomes of the Latin sources do not retain their etymological case function. In fact, “[i]n the majority of instances the two Latin case forms are fused or one of them is dropped from usage altogether” (Wanner

13 The first and second person forms of the reflexive/reciprocal clitic pronouns are identical to the non-reflexive/reciprocal forms given in Table 7.

Origins   

   19

[1987: 75]; see also Rohlfs [1968]). This is displayed in Tables 7 and 8, which report the personal clitic pronouns found in the modern standard varieties of the ‘major’ Romance languages, that is, those languages defined as “state languages” by Posner (1996: 189). Table 8: Personal clitic pronouns in modern Romance languages: Third person

French

mas sg fem sg mas pl fem pl

Italian

Portuguese

Rumanian

Spanish

acc

dat

acc

dat

acc

dat

acc

dat

acc

dat

le la les les

lui lui leur¹⁴ leur

lo la li le

gli le [gli] [gli]

o a os as

lhe lhe lhes lhes

îl o î le

î, îi î, îi le, li le, li

lo la los las

le le les les

Table 7 shows that the paradigms of the first and second person are characterized by extensive case syncretism, with case distinction retained only in the Rumanian singular forms. Moreover, Rumanian displays two sets of allomorphs for the dat clitics, the first used in the context of clitic clusters (mi, ți, ni, vi ) and the second in isolation (îmi, îți, ne, vă). A similar allomorphy characterizes Italian, where the forms in -i occur in isolation and the forms in -e occur in clitic clusters.¹⁵ Table 8, on the other hand, shows that all languages are characterized by loss of a gender distinction in the dat forms of the third person, except Italian, where it is maintained in the singular forms. It should be pointed out that this distinction in Italian is de facto non-existent, given that the use of the singular masculine form gli for singular feminine referents is widespread in present-day Italian both in the spoken and written language (for more details on the use and distribution of gli as a feminine form see Russi [2008: 92–93, 100]). In addition, gli appears in brackets in the plural cells because the use of gli as third plural indirect object continues to have a somewhat controversial status and is still identified as a feature of sub- or non-standard registers in some grammars of Italian (e.g., Marinucci [1996]), which, following a longstanding traditional prescriptive position, would recommend use of the non-clitic invariable form, loro.¹⁶ In any

14 The French third person plural dat clitic leur derives from the Latin genitive illorum, which is also the source of the Italian non-clitic third person plural dat loro. 15 Note that the modern Standard Italian allomorphs in -e are homonymous with the corresponding tonic forms of the personal pronouns (e.g., lo ha dato a me, non a te ‘s/he gave it to me not to you’, odia te non me ‘s/he hates you not me’). 16 For a more detailed discussion on the actual distribution of gli as third person indirect object pronoun in Italian see Russi (2008: 49–51).

20   

   Origins, earliest attestations and forms of the Romance personal clitic pronouns

case, in Italian gender/number specification is neutralized in the environment of clitic sequences, where only gli is allowed and orthographic attachment of the two pronouns occurs: glielo diamo ‘we give it to him/her/them’ vs. te lo diamo ‘we give it to you’. At the phonological level, as well as in terms of members of the paradigms, the clitic pronoun systems of the five Romance languages considered in this section (and overall those of the other Romance languages and dialects) have not undergone dramatic changes, as will be demonstrated by examples of their earliest attestations.

2.2 Earliest attestations 2.2.1 Outside Italy The earliest attestations of Romance personal clitic pronouns date from the ninth century and come from the Strasbourg Oaths (842), which is considered to be the earliest written document in the French language (Rickard [2003: 20]) and the earliest attestation of Romance. (13)

a. Déus savír et podis me God knowledge and power 1sg.dat ‘God gives me knowledge and power’

dúnat give-3sg.pi

b. si io returnar non l’ int if I deter-inf not 3sg.m.acc from.that pois, ne io ne neuls cui returnar can-1sg.pi neither I nor no-one whom deter-inf int pois in nulla ajudha contra from.that can-1sg.pi in no assistance against Lodhuwig nun li iv er Louis not 3sg.dat there be-3sg.fut ‘if I cannot deter him from it, neither I nor anyone else whom I can deter from, will be of any assistance to him against Louis’ (Texts and translation from Ewert [1934]) Clitic pronouns are also found in The sequence of St. Eulalie (ca. 880), the only other ninth-century French work available to us in addition to the Strasbourg Oaths (Rickard [2003: 26]):

Earliest attestations    

(14)

   21

a. Voldrent la veintre li Deo inimi wish-3pl.pst 3sg.f.acc overcome-inf the God enemies ‘God’s enemies wanted to overcome her’ b. et a lui nos lais and to him 1pl.acc let-3sg.ps ‘and he [Christ] lets us go to him’

venir come.inf

As for Ibero-Romance, personal clitic pronouns are abundantly attested in late twelfth-century, early thirteenth-century Spanish texts, such as Disputa del alma y el cuerpo (15a), Cantar de Mio Cid (15b), and Auto de los reyes magos (15c). In Portuguese and Catalan, there are attestations from the thirteenth century, as illustrated in (16) and (17) respectively: (15)

a. lo que uos quiero dezir that which 2pl.dat want-1sg.pi tell-inf ‘what I want to tell you’ (from Sampson [1980: 31]) b. Yo lo veo I 3sg.m.acc see-1sg.pi ‘I see it’ (Cid, 16, 271) c. quin la trae o quin la tine who 3sg.f.acc carry-3sg.pi or who 3sg.f.acc govern-3sg.pi ‘who carries it [the comet] or who governs it’ (from Sampson [1980: 33])

(16)

a. me tarda 1sg.acc delay-3sg.pi ‘it delays me’ (King I (1185–1211); from Sampson [1980: 6]) b. E por istes tortos que li fecerũ and for these wrongs which 3sg.dat do-3pl.pst ‘and for these wrongs they did to him’ (An allegation of malfeasance (beg. 13th century); from Sampson [1980: 4])

22   

   Origins, earliest attestations and forms of the Romance personal clitic pronouns

(17)

que Dèus donat m’ avia,/ que-l vey that God give-pp 1sg.dat have.3sg.ii who-3sg.m.acc see-1sg.pi morir die-inf ‘[my son] who God had given me, whom I see dying’ (Augats, seyós qui credets Dèu lo Praye (mid-13th century); from Sampson [1980: 45])

Data for old Rumanian are less readily available due to the paucity of old Rumanian documents. In the earliest surviving Rumanian text, a letter from the boyar Neacşu of Cîmpulung from 1521 (Sampson [1980: 207]), a third person singular dat pronoun î is found: î va fi voia ‘it will please him (lit. the wish will be to him)’ (Sampson 1980: 208).

2.2.2 Italy: non-Tuscan vernaculars The earliest Italo-Romance attestations of single clitic pronouns are from central Italian non-Tuscan vernaculars. They are found in the Placiti cassinesi (960–963), four legal documents dealing with land-ownership issues relating to the Abbey of Montecassino and other neighboring monasteries, as shown in (18). (18)

a. kelle terre […] trenta anni le possete parte those lands thirty years 3pl.f.acc own-3sg.pst party Sancti Benedicti St. Benedict ‘those lands, …, the party [monastery] of Saint Benedict has owened them for thirty years’ (Placito di Capua (960); p. 59) b. Kella terra, […] trenta anni la posset parte that land thirty years 3sg.f.acc own-3sg.pst party Sancte Marie St. Mary ‘That land, […] the Monastery of Saint Mary has owned for thirty years’ (Placito di Teano (963); p. 61)

In the eleventh century, single clitic pronouns are attested in an anonymous religious text in the central vernacular of Norcia (Umbria), the Formula di confessione umbra (1065):

Earliest attestations    

(19)

   23

quelle penitentie k’ illi me puseru e those penances which they 1sg.dat give.3pl.pst and nno-ll’ observai not-3pl.f.acc abide.by-1sg.pst ‘those penances they gave me and I did not abide by’ (Formula di confessione umbra; p. 90)

Early attestations of single clitics in literary texts are found in an anomymous poem from the late twelveth–early thirteenth century (dated 1200 in OVI), the Ritmo su Sant’Alessio, probably from the region Marche in central Italy: (20) a. Questa bona cogitata/ emtro em cor this good thought inside in heart ‘This good idea was born inside his heart’ (Ritmo su Sant’Alessio, p. 32)

li 3sg.dat

foe nata was born

b. Mo ll’ audite e scultate now 3sg.m.acc hear-2pl.pi and listen-to.2pl.pi ‘Now you hear and listen to it’ (Ritmo su Sant’Alessio; p. 21) The example in (20a) shows the archaic form of the third person dat li, originally unmarked for gender and number and homonymous to the third person plural masculine acc. Furthermore, in (19) and (20b) we observe raddoppiamento fonosintattico ‘phonosyntactic doubling’, and elision of the clitic final vowel in the context of a following vowel.¹⁷ Raddoppiamento can apply also to first and second person singular clitics (21), and vowel elision, although not obligatory, applies nearly consistently to all the clitic pronouns (22).

17 Raddoppiamento fonosintattico is a phenomenon of external sandhi that consists in the lengthening (gemination) of a word-initial consonant in the context of a preceding oxytone word and some specific monosyllabic and bisyllabic morphemes (e.g., parlò [b:]ene ‘he spoke well’; a [k:]asa ‘at home’). In modern Italian raddoppiamento fonosintattico is indicated orthographically only in cases of univerbation (e.g., cosiddetto ‘so-called’ < così detto ‘so said’) and in clitic pronouns enclitic to monosyllabic strong forms, typically second person singular imperatives (fallo ‘do it’ < fa lo). For more details on this phenomenon see, among many others, Marotta (1983–1986); Fanciullo (1986, 1997); Loporcaro (1988, 1997a, 1997b); Repetti (1991); Agostiniani (1992); Chierchia (1992); Formentin (1995).

24   

   Origins, earliest attestations and forms of the Romance personal clitic pronouns

(21)

si tti promette cossì if 2sg.dat promise.3sg.pi so ‘if he promises you so’ (Formule volgari (1250); p. 227)

(22)

mai no m’ enfido en ele never not 1sg.dat.rflx trust-1sg.pi in them ‘I never trust them’ (Proverbia que dicuntur super natura feminarum (1200); p. 550)

2.2.3 Tuscan vernaculars The earliest attestation of single clitic pronouns in Tuscan vernaculars comes from the formulary Postilla amiatina (1087), a brief annotation on a notary deed reporting a private donation to the San Salvatore Abbey on Mount Amiata: (23)

mal consiliu li mise bad advice 3sg.dat put-3sg.pst ‘he put bad advice in [his] body’ (Postilla amiatina, p. 103)

in corpu in body

The earliest Tuscan attestations from a literary text are found in Ritmo laurenziano, by an anonymous author and dated 1200 in OVI: (24)

a. Se mi dà caval balçano, if 1sg.dat give-3sg.pi horse white-footed monsterro-ll’ al bon toscano show-1sg.fut-3sg.m.acc to.the good Tuscan ‘If he gives me a white-footed horse, I’ll show it to the good Tuscan man’ (Ritmo laurenziano; p. 192) b. Lo vescovo Grimaldesco,/cento cavaler’ a the bishop G. one.hundred knights at desco/ d’ in un tenpo no table of in one time not lli ’ncrescono 3sg.dat displease-3pl.pi ‘One hundred knights at the table at the same time do not displease bishop Grimaldesco’ (Ritmo laurenziano; p. 192)

Forms   

   25

The next section provides an overview of the forms of the first and second person dat and third person acc clitic pronouns attested in proclitic position in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Tuscan vernaculars.

2.3 Forms The thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Tuscan vernaculars represented in the OVI which were searched to collect our data are listed in Tables 9 and 10. Table 9: Thirteenth-century Tuscan vernaculars (180 documents)

Vernacular

Number of texts

Time period

Aretino Coltibuono Florentine Lucchese Montieri Pisano Pistoiese Pratese Sangimignanese Senese Toscano

 3  2 58 18  1  7  8 11 23 36 14

1231–1282 1200 1211–1298 1211–1298 1219 1231–1298 1200–1297 1235–1299 1228–1298 1221–1299 1200–1299

Table 10: Fourteenth-century Tuscan vernaculars (891 documents)

Variety

Number of texts

Time period

Amiatino Aretino Fiorentino Lucchese Pisano Pistoiese Pratese Sangimignanese San Sepolcro Senese Toscano Volterrano

 23  15 371  32  98  27  12  20   1  99 180  13

1348–1375 1300–1375 1300–1398 1300–1384 1300–1399 1300–1375 1305–1375 1300–1346 1369 1300–1378 1300–1399 1306–1353

26   

   Origins, earliest attestations and forms of the Romance personal clitic pronouns

Except for Florentine, we will refer to the Tuscan vernaculars by their Italian names as given in the OVI database. The vernaculars are named after a specific town or city, with the exception of Toscano, which is a cover term used in the OVI to label documents that could not be attributed to a precise geographical location in Tuscany.

2.3.1 Third person acc forms In old Tuscan vernaculars, the third person acc feminine clitic had the same two forms as in modern Italian: singular la and plural le. The third person acc masculine clitic, on the other hand, displayed extensive allomorphy (Monaci [1912: 301–302]; Rohlfs [1968: 151–152, 154–155, 162–163]; Cardinaletti [2010: 426]), as shown in (25): (25)

Allomorphs of 3m.acc in old Tuscan vernaculars a. lo, il, el, ’l (singular) b. li, gli, i (plural)

As mentioned above, clitic pronouns could undergo elision of the final vowel and/or raddoppiamento sintattico giving ll’, llo, l’ etc. All the allomorphs in (25) are attested in our thirteenth- and fourteenth-century data, although with unequal distribution across the different vernaculars and the two centuries. A systematic quantitative analysis of the patterns of distribution of the 3m.acc allomorphs was not carried out because they are homonymous with the allomorphs of the masculine definite article (see Chapter  5, § 5.3). Moreover, el was also the form of the third person masculine singular subject pronoun ‘he’, and the plural forms (li, gli, i) could have a dat function and were unspecified for gender and number.¹⁸ Consequently, searches of most of the forms would retrieve, particularly for the vernaculars represented by a large number of documents such as Florentine, Senese and Toscano, an exceedingly large number of occurrences (up to tens of thousands in some cases), which could not be sorted due to time constraints. Therefore, only general comments on the distribution patterns of the different allomorphs of the 3m.acc are offered. In the thirteenth century, el (which according to Rohlfs [1968: 151] was restricted to Aretino) was found in Aretino (four tokens, all from the same text, 18 Moreover, i could also be the apocopated form of the first person singular subject pronoun io (e.g., i’ paghai ‘I paid’, Libro del dare e dell’avere di Noffo e Vese (1300), p. 633) and of the preposition in ‘in’ (e.g., i llei ‘in her’, Conti morali d’anonimo senese (1300); 9, p. 64).

Forms   

   27

Ristoro d’Arezzo’s La composizione del mondo colle sue casioni (1282)) and Senese (24 tokens), as well as in some of the texts included under the label ‘Toscano’. In the fourteenth century, el is still attested in Aretino, Senese and Toscano, and is also found in Amiatino,¹⁹ Pisano, and Volterrano. Some examples are given in (26) and (27): (26)

3.sg.m.acc el in 13th-century Tuscan vernaculars a. tu el constringhi (Aretino) you 3sg.m.acc constrict-2sg.pi ‘you constrict it [air]’ (Restoro d’Arezzo, La composizione del mondo; L. II, dist. 8, cap. 23, p. 249) b. ricomprammo el nostro gatto quando el (Senese) buy.again-1pl.pst the our cat when 3sg.m.acc perdemmo lose-1pl.pst ‘we bought our cat again when we lost it’ (Lettera di Senese da Santa Flora ai Governatori della città di Siena, 2 dicembre 1365; p.100) c. quelli che teme Dio el truoverà (Toscano) the.one who fear-3sg.pi God 3sg.m.acc find.3sg.fut ‘the man who fears God will find him [a loyal friend]’ (Andrea da Grosseto, Trattati morali di Albertano da Brescia volgarizzati (1268); L. 3, cap. 16, p. 239)

(27)

3.sg.m.acc el in 14th-century Tuscan vernaculars a. subito el saprete (Amiatino) immediately 3sg.m.acc know-2pl.fut ‘you will know it immediately’ (Lettera di Senese da Santa Flora ai Governatori della città di Siena, 2 dicembre 1365; p.100)

19 The three occurrences of 3sg.m.acc el found in Amiatino come from the same document, Lettera di Senese da Santa Flora ai Governatori della città di Siena, 12 dicembre 1365, which suggests that el could represent a Senese influence in this text.

28   

   Origins, earliest attestations and forms of the Romance personal clitic pronouns

b. coloro ch’ e-lla croce el ponieno those who in.the cross 3sg.m.acc put-3pl.ii ‘those who put him [Jesus] on the cross’ (Anonymous, Ragione nova d’amore (1375); cap. 9, p. 25)

(Aretino)

c. il vizio el manda a basso (Pisano) the vice 3sg.m.acc send-3sg.pi to down ‘vice pushes it [the human soul] down’ (Francesco di Bartolo da Buti, Commento all’Inferno (1395); cc.30, 22–30, p. 766) d. gli occhi vostri el vedranno the eyes yours 3sg.m.acc see-3pl.fut ‘your eyes will see it [Christ’s honor]’ (Giovanni Colombini, Lettere (1367); 17, p. 20) e. vivo el volevano alive 3sg.m.acc want-3pl.ii ‘they wanted him [the one I love] alive’ (Armannino giudice da Bologna, Fiorita (1325), p. 329) f. el mandammo in alcun luogo 3sg.m.acc send-1pl.pst in some place ‘we sent him [our vicar] somewhere’ (Filippo Belforti, Lettere (1353); 48, p. 187)

(Senese)

(Toscano)

(Volterrano)

The allomorph il is attested in the thirteenth century in Florentine and Senese, where its distribution is comparable to that of lo, and to a lesser degree in Toscano. In the fourteenth century, on the other hand, il is attested in all vernaculars except Pratese and San Sepolcro, as illustrated by the examples in (28) and (29). (28)

3.sg.m.acc il in 13th-century Tuscan vernaculars a. il servono e ubbidiscono (Florentine) 3sg.m.acc serve-3pl.pi and obey-3pl.pi ‘They serve and obey him [their master]’ (Bono Giamboni, Delle Storie contra i Pagani di Paolo Orosio (1292): L. I, prol., p.2)

Forms   

   29

b. il padre il fece uccídare (Senese) the father 3sg.m.acc make-3sg.pst kill-inf ‘his father had him [the son] killed’ (Anonymous, Del reggimento de’ principi di Egidio Romano (1288); L. I, pt. I, cap. 8, p. 16) c. il terò ben celato (Toscano) 3sg.m.acc keep-1sg.fut well hidden ‘I will keep it [what you say] well hidden’ (Anonymous, Leggenda di messer Gianni di Procida (1299); p. 49) (29)

3.sg.m.acc il in 14th-century Tuscan vernaculars a. il cominciò a passare 3.sg.m.acc start-3sg.pst to cross-inf ‘he started to cross it [the ditch]’ (Anonymous, Conti di antichi cavalieri (1300); 7, p. 91)

(Aretino)

b. se il reggimento non ha if the regiment not have-3sg.pi ch’ il difenda who 3.sg.m.acc defend-3sg.ps ‘if the regiment does not have someone to defend it’ (Inghifredi da Lucca, Rime (1300); 7, p. 134)

(Lucchese)

c. molti altri Comuni il fanno many other municipalities 3.sg.m.acc do-3pl.pi ‘many other municipalities do it [give charity]’ (Polizze volterrane del 1329; 2, p. 10)

(Volterrano)

The allomorph ’l is overall well-represented in both centuries although not across all vernaculars. In the thirteenth century, no tokens were found in Aretino, Coltibuono, and Pistoiese (but these vernaculars are represented by few texts), whereas in the fourteenth century ’l is absent in Amiatino, Pratese and San Sepolcro (but again, few documents are available for the last two vernaculars). ’L is found primarily after no ‘not’ (often encliticizing to give nol, noll), some conjunctions like e ‘and’, che ‘that’, se ‘if’, perché ‘because/why; so that’, come ‘how’, and subject pronouns, as illustrated in (30):²⁰

20 See Chapter 5 (§ 5.3) for a discussion of the similar distribution of 3sg.m.acc ’l and the homonymous form of the masculine singular definite article in fourteenth-century Florentine.

30   

   Origins, earliest attestations and forms of the Romance personal clitic pronouns

(30) 3.sg.m.acc ’l in 13th- and 14th-century Tuscan vernaculars a. e s’ elli no-l pagassero and if they not-3sg.m.acc pay-3pl.is ‘and if they should not pay him’ (Anonymous, Breve di Montieri del 1219; p. 48)

(Montieri)

b. e ’l cominciaro a ferire and 3sg.m.acc begin-3pl.pst to wound-inf ‘and they began to wound him [Caesar]’ (Anonymous, Conti di antichi Cavalieri (1300); 7, p. 102)

(Aretino)

c. ti preghiamo che-l punisca 2.sg.acc pray-1pl.pi that-3sg.m.acc punish-2sg.ps ‘we pray you to punish him’ (Filippo Belforti, Lettere (1348–1353); p. 193)

(Volterrano)

d. se ’l truovi in alcun if 3sg.m.acc find-2sg.pi in some ‘if you find him in some place’ (Brunetto Latini, Il tesoretto (1274); p. 248)

(Florentine)

loco place

e. perché ’l truova disarmato (Senese) because 3sg.m.acc find-3sg.pi unarmed ‘because he [the devil] finds him [man] unarmed’ (Caterina da Siena, Libro della divina dottrina (1378); cap. 132, p. 289) f. E io come ’l so? (Florentine) and I how 3sg.m.acc know-1sg.pi E pognamo ch’ elli ’l faccia and assume-1pl.imp that he 3sg.m.acc do-3sg.ps ‘And how do I know it? And let’s assume that he does it’ (Fiori e vita di filosafi e d’altri savi e d’imperadori (1271–1275); 26, p. 201) The allomorph lo (llo) is also strongly attested in both centuries across all the vernaculars, except Coltibuono and Pistoiese. Finally, l’ appears to be the preferred form in the context of vowel initial verbs, particularly compound verb forms with the auxiliary avere ‘to have’, as discussed in more detail in Chapter 4 (§ 4.3) and Chapter 5 (§ 5.3). Concerning the plural allomorphs, li emerged as the most widespread form in both centuries, but gli is more widely attested during the fourteenth century, when we find it in all but four vernaculars (Amiatino, Lucchese, Sangimignanese and San Sepolcro).

Forms   

(31)

   31

3.pl.m.acc gli in 14th-century Tuscan vernaculars a. in cotal pena l’ inferno gli serra (Aretino) in such suffering the hell 3pl.m.acc lock-3sg.pi ‘in such suffering hell locks them [tyrants]’ (Mino Detaiuve, Sonetti sopra la prima parte di Dante chiamata Inferno (1355); 8, p. 23) b. di perfetto odio gli odiai (Pisano) of absolute hatred 3pl.m.acc hate-1sg.pst ‘I hated them with absolute hatred’ (Domenico Cavalca, Specchio de’ peccati (1340); cap. 3, p. 28) c. gli conducono alle navi (Pistoiese) 3pl.m.acc take-3pl.pi to.the ships ‘they take them to the ships’ (Mazzeo Bellebuoni, Storia della distruzione di Troia (1333); p. 452) d. niega che tu gli abbia veduti (Pratese) deny-2sg.imp that you 3pl.m.acc have-2sg.ps see-pp ‘deny that you saw them [these herds]’ (Arrigo Simintendi, Metamorfosi d’Ovidio volgarizzate (1333); L. 2, p. a089) e. quando gli ebbe when 3pl.m.acc have-3sg.pst ‘after he had raised them’ (Sei polizze volterrane del 1322; 7, p. 18)

allevati raise-pp

(Volterrano)

In the thirteenth century, the allomorph i was found only in Florentine and Senese practical documents, as illustrated in (32): (32)

a. i diede a Martello (Florentine) 3pl.m.acc give-3sg.pst to M. ‘he gave them to Martello’ (Libro d’amministrazione dell’eredità di Baldovino Iacopo Riccomanni (1272–1278); p. 463) b. sed eli i volese if he 3pl.m.acc want-3sg.is ‘if he wanted them’ (Lettera di Andrea de’ Tolomei da Tresi (1265); p. 403)

(Senese)

32   

   Origins, earliest attestations and forms of the Romance personal clitic pronouns

No tokens of 3pl.m.acc i were found in the fourteenth century in Amiatino, Aretino, Lucchese, Sangimignanese and Volterrano. The distribution of 3pl.m.acc i in the other vernaculars (i.e., Fiorentino, Pisano, Pistoiese, Pratese, Senese and Toscano) could not be assessed since it is homophonous with the masculine plural definite article and the queries produced too many tokens.²¹ We would like to conclude this section by pointing out that ten tokens of proclitic acc lgli were found in our thirteenth-century Florentine corpus, an example of which is shown in (33):²² (33)

dise Orlandino che lgli aveva avuti di say-3sg.past O. that 3pl.m.acc have-3sg.ii have-pp of due paia di buoi che vendé two pair of oxen that sell-3sg.pst ‘Orlandino said that he had had them [the denari] from selling two pair of oxen’ (Quaderno di riscossione dei crediti di messer Consiglio de’ Cerchi (1298), p. 616)

2.3.2 First and second person dat forms In thirteenth-century Tuscan vernaculars, the forms in -i (mi, ti, ci and vi) are the predominant forms of the first and second person singular dat clitic pronouns when they occur by themselves (i.e., when they are not in a clitic cluster), while the forms in -e have been claimed to be restricted to Aretino (Rohlfs 1968: 151).²³ No instances of mi and ti are in fact found in our thirteenth-century Aretino data, from which we retrieved four tokens of me and five of te.²⁴ In the fourteenth

21 For instance, a search limited to Florentine prose texts dated 1300–1310 yielded 2,601 tokens of i. 22 Pace Cardinaletti (2010: 427) who claims that this form was attested only with dat function in thirteenth-century Florentine. The total number of proclitic lgli found in our corpus amounts to 18 tokens, 8 dat and 10 acc furthermore, we found ten tokens of enclitic lgli, all with acc function (e.g., diedelgli a meser Consilglio ‘he gave them [gold florins] to sir Consilglio’; Quaderno di riscossione dei crediti di messer Consiglio de’ Cerchi; p. 616). 23 Castellani (2000: 365) identifies the clitic forms in -e as a unique feature also of the vernaculars of Anghiari, Borgo Sansepolcro and Cortona. Also, me is established as a tonic form of the first person pronoun already in the thirteenth century, as are the forms in -e of second person singular and first and second person plural pronouns (see fn. 15). 24 Our thirteenth-century me and te tokens all come from Restoro d’Arezzo’s La composizione del mondo colle sue casioni (1282), in which we also found seven tokens of ci and four tokens of ce

Forms   

   33

century, on the other hand, forms in -i are attested in Aretino; the singular forms me and te still have a wider distribution than mi and ti but the opposite holds for the plural forms ci and vi, as summarized in Table 11. Table 11: First and second person dat clitics in fourteenth-century Aretino

me

mi

te

ti

ce

ci

ve

vi

56

8

28

3

9

22

7

22

Instances of pronominal clitic forms in -e were also found in thirteenth-century texts from the following vernaculars: Lucchese, Fiorentino, Sangimignanese, Senese and Toscano. For comparison, we searched these vernaculars for the forms in -i. Our results reveal that in Lucchese and Sangimignanese the forms in -e are overall irrelevant in that they amount to one and two tokens, respectively. Our data for Florentine are overall insignificant as well, since the distribution ratios of the -i forms compared to the -e forms are 1:42 for the first person singular clitic and 1:138 for the second person singular (only one token of first person plural ce was found and no tokens of second person plural ve). As for Senese, our data reveal a distribution ratio of 1:18 for me/mi and of 1:15 for ce/ci, which is still skewed towards the forms in -i. In contrast, the second person singular forms are almost equally distributed with three tokens of te and four of ti. However, since all the seven tokens come from one text, Ruggieri Apugliese’s Rime (1255), this result is essentially irrelevant. Toscano displays a considerably larger number of forms in -e, as shown in Table 12, which summarizes the data extracted from 16 texts.²⁵ Table 12 shows that Guittone d’Arezzo features rather prominently in these data for Toscano. Guittone was indeed born in Arezzo, but he was exiled in 1265 when he was about thirty years old.²⁶ The possibility that his language was characterized by features typical of Aretino cannot be dismissed. If we exclude the

that all have a locative/existential function (e.g., e ci è lo leone ‘and there is the lion [constellation]’; ce sarea altri inconvenienti ‘there will be other inconveniences’). No instances of personal clitic pronouns are found in the other two texts in Aretino available in OVI for this century. 25 This is probably due to the larger number of texts available for Toscano (58 texts vs. 36 available for Senese), as well as their genre, given that, with the exception of Ruggieri Apugliese’s Rime and his laude, L’amore di questo mondo è da fugire, the Senese texts are either practical documents (mainly account books) or letters (also dealing with practical, business matters), whereas 45 of the texts in Toscano are poetry. 26 No explanation is given in OVI for why Guittone’s works are included under ‘Toscano’ rather than ‘Aretino’. Possible reasons could be the fact that he was exiled at a young age, as well as the fact that his works show a marked Provençal influence.

34   

   Origins, earliest attestations and forms of the Romance personal clitic pronouns

Table 12: Clitic forms in -e in comparison to forms in -i in thirteenth-century Toscano

Author/Text

Date

Various, five texts

1249– lyrics 1276 1268 philosophy

verse  18 361  6  25 0

21  1  81

prose   3  31  9 324 1

15  0  17

philosophy

prose   8   9  2   7 4

 1  6   6

 29 401 17 356 5

37  7 104

prose  16  29  1   7 0

 0  3  53

verse  56 242 38  27 0

 3  7  67

 72 271 39  34 0

 3 17 120

101 672 56 390 5

40 17 224

Andrea da Grosseto (three texts) Anonymous, Questioni 1298 filosofiche

Guittone d’Arezzo 1294 Lettere (testo in prosa) Guittone d’Arezzo (five 1294 texts)

Total

Genre

epistles, orations epistles, orations (1) lyrycs (4)

Form

me

mi

te

ti

ce ci

ve vi

data from Guittone’s works, the distribution of the forms in -e as opposed to those in -i appears to be negligible. In the fourteenth century, some occurrences of first and second person dat clitics in -e were found in all the vernaculars.²⁷ However, the distribution of these forms appears to be even more marginal than in the thirteenth century in all the vernaculars except in Aretino (as discussed above). To summarize, our data suggest that the first and second person forms in -e had a marginal status in vernaculars other than Aretino, which confirms Rohlfs’ (1968) observation.

2.3.2.1 First person plural no and ne According to Rohlfs (1968: 158–159, 161) and Tekavčić (1980: 241), the original (i.e., etymological) form of the first person plural clitic no (< Lat. nos), illustrated in (34a), is attested only in the oldest stages of Tuscan vernaculars and was replaced

27 In San Sepolcro, three tokens of the form cie were found; this form is also found in double object clitic clusters (see § 2.6).

Forms   

   35

early by ne (< Lat. inde ‘from there’), as in (34b), and ci/ce (< Lat. hinc ‘from here’), the ‘newer’ and only form that will continue in Italian (34c, d):²⁸ (34) a. no promise di pagare 1pl.dat promise-3sg.past of pay-inf ‘he promised to pay us’ (Libro di conti di banchieri fiorentini (1211), p. 25) b. il cibo ne solea essere addotto the food 1pl.dat used.to-3sg.ii be-inf brought ‘the food used to be brought to us’ (Dante Alighieri, Commedia (1321); Inferno XXXIII, 44; from Rohlfs [1968: 158]) c. la donna che tanto pietosa ci s’ the woman who so compassionate 1pl.dat 3sg.rflx hae mostrata have-3sg.pi show-pp ‘the woman who showed herself so compassionate to us’ (Dante Alighieri, Vita nuova (1293); 38, p. 150) d. e averemmo libero arbitrio di prendere e di lasciare and have-1pl.pc free will of take-inf and of leave-inf lo consiglio che ce fosse dato the advice that 1pl.dat be-3sg.is give-pp ‘and we would have the free will to take or to leave the advice that would be given to us’ (Andrea da Grosseto, Volgarizzamento del Liber consolationis et consilii (1268); p. 214) As seen in (34a), no is found with dat function in the oldest Florentine document currently available to us, Frammenti d’un libro di conti di banchieri fiorentini (1211). In this text, in fact, no occurs beside ne and ci, as shown in (35):

28 The forms no and vo have been claimed to be distinctive of the Senese dialect by Meyer-Lübke (1890: 113) and Lombard (1934: 21, fn.1), although neither author provides examples to corroborate this claim. On the other hand, Castellani (2000: 314–315) maintains that they are found also in Lucchese and Pisano in the late thirteenth century/early fourteenth century, and Grandgent (1940: 136) reports them in thirteenth-century Senese and Aretino.

36   

(35)

   Origins, earliest attestations and forms of the Romance personal clitic pronouns

a. e de-ne pagare and have.to.3sg.pi-1pl.dat pay-inf ‘and he must pay us’ (Libro di conti; from Rohlfs [1968: 158]) b. Ristoro ci à R. 1pl.dat have-3sg.pi ‘Ristoro gave us’ (Libro di conti, p. 25)

dato give-pp

We retrieved from OVI a total of 44 proclitic tokens of first person plural no for the thirteenth century, all of which carry dat function. Table 13 lists the texts in which no was found and gives its distribution in each text. Table 13: Thirteenth-century first person plural no in OVI

Vernacular

Author/Text

Date

Genre

Form

Florentine

Frammenti d’un libro di conti di banchieri fiorentini Brunetto Latini, Il Favolello Ritmo lucchese Libro di Mattasalà di Spinello Lettera di Vincenti di Adobrandini Vincenti e compagni, da Siena, a Iacomo di Guido Cacciaconti Denuncia d’estimo di mercanti pistoiesi a Bologna

1211

documents

prose 37

1266 1213 1233–1243 1260

didactic religious lyrics documents, letters

verse verse prose prose

1297

documents

prose  1

Florentine Lucchese Senese Senese

Pistoiese

Total

no

 1  3  1  1

44

We see in Table 13 that the great majority of first person plural no (37 out of 44) come from the Libro di conti, where it occurs in two types of (semi-fixed, formulaic) structures, namely: dover dare/pagare ‘to have to give/pay’ (31 tokens) and promettere di pagare/dare ‘to promise to pay/give’ (eight tokens), as illustrated in (36) (see also Castellani [1980b: 131]; Cardinaletti [2010: 428]). (36)

a. Iakopo […] e Simone suo fratello no diono I. and S. his brother 1pl.dat have.to-3pl.pi dare katuno lib.[libbre] Iii give-inf each pounds twelve ‘Iakopo […] and his brother Simone each have to give us twelve pounds’ (Libro di conti; p. 23)

Forms   

   37

b. no promise di pagare Angiolino Bottugni galigaio 1pl.dat promise-3sg.pst of pay-inf A. B. shoemaker ‘Angiolino Bottugnini shoemaker promised to pay us’ (Libro di conti, p. 29) c. no promise di dare per pena d.[denari] IIII 1pl.dat promise-3sg.pst of give-inf for fine pence forty ‘he promised to give us forty pence for the fine’ (Libro di conti, p. 39) As we will see below, these are also two of the contexts in which first person plural ne is most frequently found in this type of text (i.e., documents of a practical nature, such as account books, records of mercantile transactions, household books). Our OVI data for thirteenth-century Tuscan vernaculars, then, suggest that first person plural no did not have a wide distribution in Tuscan vernaculars other than Florentine, in which, however, no is frequent only in one of the thirty documents of a practical nature (such as account books, records of mercantile transactions, household books). And in fact, no appears to be somewhat restricted to practical texts in the other Tuscan vernaculars. Regarding the first person plural clitic ne, Rohlfs (1968: 158) states that it was already very frequent in the oldest stages of literary Tuscan,²⁹ by which he must mean the oldest stages of literary Italian, since the few examples he provides are taken from Dante’s Commedia (as, for instance, (34b) above) and from Petrarca’s works; hence, they are attestations from fourteenth-century Florentine. Cardinaletti (2010), on the other hand, remarks that first person plural ne is attested in thirteenth-century Florentine and reports three examples, one from Brunetto Latini’s La rettorica (1261) and two from Bono Giamboni’s Il libro de’ vizî e delle virtudi (1292) (Cardinaletti [2010: 427]).³⁰ Our OVI search revealed that in the thirteenth century first person plural ne was attested in the following Tuscan vernaculars: Aretino, Florentine, Pistoiese, Pratese, Senese, and Toscano. Our findings are summarized in Table 14. Table 14 shows that in Aretino ne is attested only in one text, La composizione del mondo colle sue cascioni (1282) by Restoro d’Arezzo, from which 20 proclitic tokens were retrieved. In this text, ne appears primarily with reflexive function (15 out of 20), as exemplified in (37):

29 “Nel toscano letterario più antico questo ne è assai frequente” (Rohlfs [1968: 158]). 30 See Chapter 1 (§ 1.2) for a review of the additional values of ne.

38   

   Origins, earliest attestations and forms of the Romance personal clitic pronouns

Table 14: Thirteenth-century first person plural ne in OVI

Vernacular Number of texts Chronology

Genre, Form (number of texts)

Aretino

 1

1282

geography, astronomy – prose

20

Pistoiese

 1

1297

documents – prose³¹

10

Pratese

 1

1288–1290 documents – prose

2

Senese

11

1255–1288 lyrics – verse (1)

1

philosophy – prose (1) letters – prose (4)

Toscano

 4

Florentine 15

4 40

documents – prose (5)

555

1260–1298 philosophy – prose (1)

2

lyrics – verse (1)

15

epistles, orations – prose (1)

11

documents – prose (1)

22

1261–1298 rhetoric – prose (1) epistles, orations – prose (1)

22 2

didactic, religious (3: 1 verse, 2 prose)

12

letters – prose (2)

15

documents – prose (4) Total

(37)

Tokens of ne

283 1,016

uno bagno d’ acqua calda e-llo quale ne bagnammo a pool of water hot in.the which 1pl.rflx bathe-1pl.past ‘[there was] a pool of hot water in which we bathed’ (La composizione del mondo; L. II, dist. 5, cap. 8, p. 129)

An example of non-reflexive ne is given in (38): (38)

le quali ne fanno maravelliare molto the which 1pl.acc make-3pl.pi marvel-inf much ‘which [things] make us wonder much’ (La composizione del mondo; L. II, dist. 6, pt. I, cap. 8, p. 143)

31 This text is Denuncia d’estimo di mercanti pistoiesi a Bologna (1297), where one token of first person plural no was also found in a cluster: no nd’è carta ‘lit. to us of it there is deed’ (p. 163).

Forms   

   39

First person plural ne appears to be sparsely attested in Pistoiese and Pratese. In Pistoiese, ten proclitic tokens were found in one text, Denuncia d’estimo di mercanti pistoiesi a Bologna (1297), eight of which occur in the same contexts in which first plural no was found in the Florentine text Frammenti d’un libro dei conti di banchieri fiorentini (34a), as shown in (39): (39)

Ser Balduino […] ne de dare sir B. 1pl.dat have.to-3sg.pi give-inf ‘Sir Balduino has to give us’ (Denuncia d’estimo; p. 162)

As for Pratese, only two tokens of first person ne were retrieved, also from one text, Ragionato di Cepperello Dietaiuti da Prato (1290). One of the tokens (40a) is once again found in the construction involving dovere ‘to have to’ identified above; the other occurs with the verb pagare ‘pay’ (40b): (40) a. i quali ne dee the which 1pl.dat have.to-3sg.pi ‘which [sum] the king has to give us’ (Ragionato di Cepperello; p. 167)

dare give-inf

messer lo re sir the king

b. Ugho de Rion ne paghoe nella U. of R. 1pl.dat pay-3sg.pst in.the ‘Ugo of Rion paid us at the above mentioned fair’ (Ragionato di Cepperello; p. 171)

detta said

fiera fair

Both the Pistoiese and the Pratese texts are practical documents (specifically, a declaration of appraisal and an account book).³² A total of 600 proclitic tokens of first person plural ne were retrieved for Senese from 11 texts. In this vernacular, first person plural ne is attested primarily in two types of texts: practical (mercantile) documents (555 tokens) and letters, which, however, also deal with practical business matters (40 tokens), with the great majority of tokens (469) coming from from one text: Libro dell’entrata e dell’uscita di una Compagnia mercantile senese del secolo XIII (1277–1282).³³

32 With the exception of one text (Però ch’ì non trovo posança (1286) a poem (serventese) by Giovanni da Prato), practical documents are the only type of text available in OVI for these two vernaculars in the thirteenth century. 33 The large number of tokens in Libro dell’entrata e dell’uscita di una Compagnia mercantile senese del secolo XIII is explained by the volume of the text (107,931 words).

40   

   Origins, earliest attestations and forms of the Romance personal clitic pronouns

Again, in the practical documents ne occurs regularly in the familiar construction dover dare/pagare ‘to have to give/pay’, as shown in (41): (41)

ne die dare xxiij staia di 1pl.dat have.to-3sg.pi give-inf twenty-three sesters of ‘he has to give us twenty-three sesters of wheat’ (Libro di Mattasalà di Spinello (1233–1243); p. 48r)

grano wheat

In the other texts, on the other hand, the distribution of ne is overall unrestricted in terms of verb hosts, although it is still found in the context of dover dare in the letters. Some examples are given in (42): (42)

a. avemo le lettere che tu have-1pl.pi the letters which you ‘we have the letters that you sent us’ (Lettera di Vincenti (1260); p. 265)

ne 1pl.dat

mandasti send-2sg.past

b. ne conviene sapere come noi ne 1pl.dat be.suitable-3sg.pi know-inf how we 1pl.dat dovemo contenere in amore ed in odio have.to-1pl.pi behave-inf in love and in hatred ‘it is suitable to us to know how we have to behave ourselves in love and in hatred’ (Anonymous, Reggimento de’ principi (1288); L. I, pt. 3, cap. 3, p. 88) For Toscano, we retrieved 50 tokens of first person plural ne from four texts; 22 of them are from Frammenti volgari di un libro di banchieri di Imola (1260) and all occur in the familiar context of dovere dare ‘to have to give’:³⁴ (43)

Iacomino de Çacheie ne dee dare lib.[libbre] X I. of C. 1pl.dat have.to-3sg.pi give-inf pounds ten ‘Iacomino of Çacheie has to give us ten pounds’ (Banchieri di Imola; p. 684)

The two instances of ne found in the philosophy text (Anonymous, Questioni filosofiche [(1298]) are reflexive, which reminds us of the tokens found in Aretino (see [37] above): ne delectaremo ‘we will delight ourselves’ (L. I, pt. 3, cap. 3,

34 Bertoni (1911) demonstrates that this text is written in a Tuscan vernacular and explicitly states that ne is the form of the first person plural clitic pronoun.

Forms   

   41

p. 46) and ne ’gnannamo ‘we deceive ourselves’ (L. V, pt. 1, cap. 5, p. 141). Finally, the tokens of ne found in the lyrics and in the epistles (both by Guittone d’Arezzo) occur in a variety of contexts.³⁵ A total of 334 proclitic tokens of first person plural ne were retrieved for Florentine from 15 texts of different types: two letters (dealing with practical, business related matters), three didactic religious texts, one treatise on rhetoric and one epistle/oration.³⁶ The great majority of our tokens (283 out of 334) were found in two practical documents, namely the two account books by Bene Bencivenni, Primo libricciolo (1275) and Secondo libricciolo (1277–1296), and they appear frequently in the context of dover dare ‘to have to give’: (44) a. ne de dare 1pl.dat have.to-3sg.pi give-inf ‘he has to give us forty soldi’ (Primo libricciolo (1275); p. 305)

s.[soldi] soldi

b. ne deono dare fiorini 1pl.dat have.to-3pl.pi give-inf florins ‘they have to give us gold florins’ (Secondo libricciolo (1277–1296); p. 373)

xl forty

d’ of

oro gold

Our data reveal that in thirteenth-century Tuscan vernaculars ne and no as first person plural clitic pronouns are abundantly attested in practical texts, especially account books (872 tokens of ne out of 1,016, and 37 tokens of no out of 44), in which they occur predominantly in the context of the semi-fixed expression comprising the modal verb dovere ‘to have to’ followed by a verb of giving, such as dare ‘to give’ (the most frequent by far), pagare ‘to pay’, or prestare ‘to lend’. Of the thirty thirteenth-century texts that feature first person plural dat no and/or ne only ten do not display occurrences of first person plural dat ci. The distribution no/ne, vis-à-vis ci in the texts in which both are found is summarized in Table 15.

35 Our data on Toscano may give the impression that first person plural ne is rather frequent in Guittone d’Arezzo’s work, particularly if we compare the number of ne found in Guittone’s work (36 tokens) to the number of ne found in Frammenti volgari di un libro di banchieri di Imola (22 tokens). However, this appears not to be the case if we consider the relative lengths of the texts; the Libro di banchieri is only 732 words long, whereas Guittone’s works in Table 10 comprise approximately 71,000 words. Also in Toscano ne seems to be attested primarily in practical documents. A similar scenario will emerge for Florentine, as explained below. 36 About twenty additional tokens of ne retrieved for Florentine were excluded from our count because they are not straightforward instances of first person plural clitic pronouns, rather, ne seems to carry one of the other pronominal functions discussed in Chapter 1 (§ 1.2).

42   

   Origins, earliest attestations and forms of the Romance personal clitic pronouns

Table 15: Distribution of no/ne vis-à-vis ci in thirteenth-century Tuscan texts

Vernacular Author/Text

Date

Genre

Form

Florentine Frammenti d’un libro di conti di banchieri fiorentini

1211

documents

prose  37

79³⁷

Florentine Brunetto Latini, La Rettorica

1261

rhetoric

prose  22

 7

Florentine Brunetto Latini, Il tesoretto

1274

didactic religious verse   2

 1

Florentine Lettera di messer Consiglio 1291 de’ Cerchi e messer Lapo de’ Cerchi, e compagni, in Firenze, a Giacchetto Rinucci, ed a Ghino ed agli altri compagni

letters

prose   2

 7

Florentine Lettera di messer Consiglio de’ Cerchi, e compagni in Firenze, a Giacchetto Rinucci, e compagni, in Inghilterra

1291

letters

prose  13

 7

Florentine Bono Giamboni, Delle Storie contra i Pagani di Paolo Orosio

1292

epistles, orations prose   2

13

Florentine Bono Giamboni, Il libro de’ vizî e delle virtudi

1292

didactic religious prose   9

14

Florentine Bono Giamboni, Il trattato di virtù 1292 e di vizi

didactic religious prose   1

 1

Florentine Libro d’amministrazione dell’eredità di Baldovino Iacopo Riccomanni

1272– documents 1278

no/ne ci/ce

prose   2

 6

Florentine Primo libricciolo di crediti di Bene 1275 Bencivenni³⁸

documents

prose  35

43

Florentine Il libro della Parte del Guelfo di Firenze

1279

mercantile docu- prose   4 ments

 3

Pistoiese

1297

documents

 1

Denuncia d’estimo di mercanti pistoiesi a Bologna

prose   1

37 In this document no and ci seem to be in complementary distribution; that is, no occurs systematically in the modal construction die/diono dare ‘he/they have to give’, whereas ci is found with the verb dare ‘to give’ in a past tense form in 76 cases (of the remaining three tokens, two occur with the verb soprapagare ‘to overpay’ and one with dover dare ‘to have to give’). 38 In Secondo libricciolo di crediti di Bene Bencivenni, however, 242 tokens of first person plural dat ne were found vs. no tokens of ci.

Forms   

Genre

Form

   43

Vernacular Author/Text

Date

no/ne ci/ce

Senese

Libro di Mattasalà di Spinello

1233– documents, 1243

prose  12

 7

Senese

Lettera di Andrea de’ Tolomei da Tresi a messer Tolomeo e agli altri compagni de’ Tolomei, in Siena

1262

letters

prose  18

10

Senese

Lettera di Andrea de’ Tolomei da Tresi a messer Tolomeo e agli altri compagni de’ Tolomei, in Siena

1265

letters

prose   7

 9

Senese

Lettera di Andrea de’ Tolomei da 1269 Bari sull’Alba a messer Tolomeo e agli altri compagni de’ Tolomei, al Castello della Pieve

letters

prose   1

 2

Senese

Dare e avere di Francia della Compagnia di Gentile Ugolini

1263

mercantile documents

prose  47

 2

Senese

Libro dell’entrata e dell’uscita di una Compagnia mercantile senese del secolo XIII

1277– mercantile 1282 documents

prose 469

38

Senese

Anonymous, Del reggimento de’ principi di Egidio Romano

1288

philosophy

prose 4

 2

Toscano

Anonymous, Questioni filosofiche 1298

philosophy

prose  2

 5

Thus, our thirteenth-century data reveal that even in practical documents no and/or ne are not the exclusive or even most prominent form of the first person plural dat. For the fourteenth century, searches for dat no and ne were conducted in Amiatino, Aretino, Lucchese, Pisano, Pistoiese, Pratese, Sangimignanese, San Sepolcro, Volterrano, and only one token was retrieved from Sangimignanese: (45)

avemo risposto che ciò ne piace have-1pl.pi answer-pp that this 1pl.dat please-3sg.pi ‘we answered that this pleases us (that we like it)’ (Lettera scritta dagli ambasciatori in Pisa al governo di San Gimignano l’8 giugno 1317; p. 91)

For Florentine, Senese and Toscano, searches for dat no and ne were limited to ‘documents’, since ne has several pronominal functions (see Chapter 1, § 1.2)

44   

   Origins, earliest attestations and forms of the Romance personal clitic pronouns

and was also a form of the preposition in, whereas no was a form of the negative particle non, so queries unrestricted for genre produced thousands of tokens. No occurrences of first plural dat no were found in these three vernaculars. As for first person plural ne, no tokens were found in Toscano. In Florentine, we found approximately 30 tokens of ne in the context of dover dare ‘to have to give’, but none of them is unambiguously a first person plural dat. Similarly, in Senese we retrieved 120 tokens of ne die ‘he gave’, but the function of ne is not unequivocally that of a first person plural clitic, since an overt indirect object is also present in the sentence (e.g., a noi ‘to us’).

2.3.2.2 Second person plural vo The second person plural clitic vo is attested only in three of the thirteenth-century vernaculars represented in OVI: Pisano, Senese, and Toscano, from which a total of 68 tokens was retrieved, as summarized in Table 16. Table 16: Thirteenth-century second person plural vo in OVI

Vernacular

Number of texts

Chronology

Genre – Form (number of texts)

vo

Pisano

1

1287–1288

didactic religious – prose

 9

Senese

7

1253–1279

letters – prose (6)

17

mercantile documents – prose (1)

 2

lyrics – verse (5)

38

epistles, orations – verse (1)

 1

narrative – prose

 1

Toscano

7

1249–1294

In contrast to first person plural dat no and ne, vo appears to be scarcely represented in texts of a practical nature, appearing only three times in one Senese text (Luca Buonsignore, Resoconto finanziario inviato da Provins alla compagnia Tolomei di Siena [1279]). However, the absence of vo in practical documents could be due to the nature of the texts, that is, account books typically do not include an addressee.³⁹ Second person vo is amply attested in a Lucchese text that is not available in the OVI corpus, Lettere dei Ricciardi di Lucca ai loro compagni in Inghilterra (1295– 39 For instance, no occurrences of second person plural clitics of any form were found in Libro di conti di banchieri fiorentini (1211). Also, only twelve tokens of second person plural vi were found in thirteenth-century documents across all the vernaculars.

Forms   

   45

1303) (Castellani 2005).⁴⁰ This document, which is considered the most important attestation of the late thirteenth-century Lucchese vernacular (Castellani 2000: xxxvi), consists of 16 letters written by members of the Ricciardi company (a company of merchants and bankers) to their partners in England. From the first six letters (which date from 1295 to 1298 and consist of about 59 pages of the 134 total pages) we retrieved 115 proclitic tokens of vo, with both acc (46a) and dat (46b) function.⁴¹ (46) a. vo preghiamo ci mandiate 2pl.acc pray-1pl.pi 1pl.dat send-2pl.ps ‘we pray you to send us also the other one’ (Castellani 2005: 6)

ancho also

l’ altra the other

b. lo simile vo dimo del debito di mastro Giuffredi the similar 2pl.acc say-1pl.pi of.the debt of master G. ‘the same we say to you about master Giuffredi’s debt’ (Castellani 2005: 27) The absence of the form vo in the Lucchese texts available in OVI may be due to the nature of the these texts. The OVI corpus contains only seven texts in Lucchese, four of which are in verse (three poems from three different authors and Bonagiunta Orbicciani’s Rime) and two in prose (a tomb inscription of only 49 words, and a juridical document). To sum up, our data for thirteenth-century Tuscan vernaculars appear to support to some extent the claim that vo was a typical form in the Senese (Castellani 1980b: 132, fn. 224; Castellani 2000: 314–315, 358; see also fn. 28) and Lucchese vernaculars. It should be noted that 40 of the 68 tokens of vo retrieved from OVI come from Toscano, which, as noted above, is the label used for texts that could not be attributed unequivocally to a precise geographical location. Furthermore, 26 of the 40 Toscano tokens are from the works of one author (Guittone

40 Castellani (2005) does not include a linguistic analysis of these letters, and personal pronouns are not mentioned in Castellani’s (1980a) article on Lucchese. 41 In this text second person plural vo occurs also in enclitic position (e.g., e preghiamvo ‘and we pray you’). Vi is also present in this text, but almost exclusively as a locative/existential pronoun (e.g., che vi vada ‘that he goes there [to England]’). In double object clitic clusters (all dat-acc), vo occurs before nde/mde [=ne] (e.g., chosì deve essere per molte ragioni vo nde dichiamo appresso ‘it must be so, for many reasons of which we will tell you later’), whereas only the form ve is found before third person acc clitics, which systematically show raddoppiamento (e.g., ve llo diremo ‘we will tell it to you’). First person plural no, on the other hand, is not attested in this text; the first person plural clitic pronoun only appears as ci.

46   

   Origins, earliest attestations and forms of the Romance personal clitic pronouns

d’Arezzo). Therefore, our OVI data do not provide strong evidence to characterize second person plural vo as a form typical exclusively of Senese. Note that no and vo never co-occur in our texts, whereas ne and vo do apppear within the same texts in Senese and Toscano. Moreover, in only one Senese text vo is the only form of the second person plural clitic pronoun. In the other texts featuring vo, second person plural vi is also present, typically with more tokens than vo. In the fourteenth-century texts available in OVI, second person plural vo is still attested in Pisano, Senese and Toscano, and two occurrences are found in Lucchese. In conclusion, our data overall suggest that, like no and ne, the clitic, vo, had a relatively marginal status across Tuscan vernaculars, possibly being restricted to individual authors and/or texts.

2.3.2.3 Forms found in clusters This section gives a summary of the different forms of the third person acc and first/second person dat clitics that were found in the double object clitic clusters collected from the OVI database in the thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries in Tuscan vernaculars. Among the third person singular forms, el appears to be the least attested 3m.acc form, with only three clusters (two from the thirteenth century and one from the fourteenth), each from a different vernacular: (47)

a. el ve daremo (Senese) 3sg.m.acc 2pl.dat give-1pl.fut ‘we will give it to you’ (Resoconto finanziario inviato da Provins alla compagnia Tolomei di Siena (1279); p. 298) b. el ve porgia 3sg.m.acc 2pl.dat bestow-3sg.pi ‘she bestows it to you’ (Guittone d’Arezzo, Lettere in versi (1294); 12, 137) c. elli el me vendeio he 3sg.m.acc 1sg.dat sell-3sg.pst ‘he sold it to me’ (Libro di Gerozzo degli Odomeri (1360); p. 166)

(Toscano)

(Aretino)

Forms   

   47

Lo, il and ’l, on the other hand, show a wider distribution (see Chapter 5, § 5.3 for a detailed examination of the distribution of these three allomorphs in double object clitic clusters in fourteenth-century Florentine).⁴² Plural i is not very prominent, as it is attested only in the thirteenth century and only in Florentine (7 tokens) and in Senese (12 tokens): (48) a. i ci diè Arrigo 3pl.m.acc 1pl.dat give-3sg.pst A. ‘Arrigo gave them to us’ (Libro di conti di banchieri fiorentini del 1211; p. 32)

(Florentine)

b. no cie i poteva ora dare not 1pl.dat 3pl.m.acc be.able.to-3sg.ii now give-inf ‘he was not able to give them to us now’ (Lettera di Andrea de’ Tolomei (1265); p. 403)

(Senese)

Regarding first and second person dat forms, those ending in -i (i.e., mi, ti, ci, vi) appear nearly systematically in acc-dat clusters during both centuries, whereas the forms ending in -e usually occur in dat-acc clusters. However, dat-acc clusters with dat forms in -i (both mi lo and mil types) were found in several vernaculars as summarized in Table 17 and exemplified in (49). Table 17: dat-acc clusters with dat forms in -i: Thirteenth and fourteenth centuries

Vernacular

13th century

14th century

Florentine Pisano Pistoiese Pratese Senese Toscano

2 0 0 0 0 1

 5  3  7  4  1 14⁴³

42 El and il are restricted to acc-dat clusters since after a dat apocope would occur, resulting in me ’l, etc.; ’l, on the other hand, can occur in both acc-dat (e.g., ’l mi/me) and dat-acc (e.g., me/mi ’l) clusters. 43 Twelve of the 14 tokens with a dat form in -i come from one text, Il Tristano Riccardiano (Anonymous, 1300).

48   

   Origins, earliest attestations and forms of the Romance personal clitic pronouns

(49) a. io til posso provare I 2sg.dat-3sg.m.acc can-1sg.pi prove-inf ‘I can prove it to you’ (Giovanni dalle Celle, Lettere (1378/81); 34, 448)

(Florentine)

b. vi lo ànno proferso 2pl.dat 3sg.m.acc have-3pl.pi offer.pp ‘they offered it to you’ (Lettera di Giovanni Borghetti (1323); p. 58)

(Pisano)

c. o se pure volessi che ti li mandassimo (Pistoiese) or if even want-2sg.is that 2sg.dat 3pl.m.acc send-1pl.is ‘or in case you wanted us to send them to you’ (Carteggio dei Lazzari (1322); 19, p. 71) d. che gl’ idiei mi ’l consentano (Pratese) that the Gods 1sg.dat 3sg.m.acc permit.3pl.ps ‘that the gods permit it to me’ (Arrigo Simintendi, Metamorfosi di Ovidio volgarizzate (1333); L.4, p. a184) e. quando mi l’ averai dato (Senese) when 1sg.dat 3sg.m.acc have-3sg.fut give-pp ‘when you will have given it to me’ (Ciampolo di Meo degli Ugurgieri, Eneide volgarizzata (1340); L. 4, p. 125) f. io ti lo faroe vedere I 2sg.dat 3sg.m.acc make-1sg.fut see-inf ‘I will make you see it’ (Anonymous, Il Tristano Riccardiano (1300); cap. 48, p. 79)

(Toscano)

Some occurrences of dat forms in -e in acc-dat clusters were also found. We retrieved four tokens in the thirteenth century (one in Senese, [47a], and three in Toscano, see [47b]), and four tokens in the fourteenth century, all in Aretino (see [47c]).⁴⁴ First and second person plural no and vo are marginal in double object clitic clusters, with one attestation of no (50) and two of vo (51):

44 For fourteenth-century Aretino, we retrieved only five acc-dat double object clitic clusters, only one of which has the dat clitic in -i: lo ci danno ‘they give it to us’ (Documenti per la storia della città di Arezzo nel medio evo (1337); 771, p. 657).

Forms   

(50) no-l fece venire mesere Pepo 1pl.dat-3sg.m.acc make-3sg.past come-inf sir P. ‘sir Pepo made it come to us’ (Libro di Mattasalà di Spinello (1233–43), 3v) (51)

   49

(Senese)

a. non vo l diviso così chiaramente (Senese) not 2pl.dat 3sg.m.acc describe-1sg.pi so clearly ‘I don’t describe it to you so clearly’ (Resoconto finanziario inviato da Provins alla compagnia Tolomei di Siena (1279), 298) b. vo lo dirano (Pisano) 2pl.dat 3sg.m.acc tell-3pl.fut ‘they will tell it to you’ (Traduzione di una lettera dell’Ilkhan di Persia a Filippo il Bello (1305); p. 37)

First person plural ne is attested in our data only during the thirteenth century in Florentine (in acc-dat clusters, 34 tokens) and in Senese (in dat-acc clusters, 11 tokens), as exemplified in (52): (52)

a. lli ne deono dare (Florentine) 3pl.m.acc 1pl.dat have.to-3pl.pi give-inf ‘they have to give them to us’ (Primo libricciuolo di crediti di Bene Bencivenni (1275); p. 300) b. ne li mandò (Senese) 1pl.dat 3pl.m.acc send-3sg.pst ‘he sent them to us’ (Libro dell’entrata e dell’uscita di una compagnia mercantile senese del secolo XIII (1287); p. 137)

Finally, five occurrences of first person plural cie were found in thirteenth-century Senese (see [48b]) in two letters by di Andrea de’ Tolomei (1262, 1265), and eight in fourteenth-century Senese (two tokens), Pisano (one token), and Fiorentino (five tokens).

50   

   Origins, earliest attestations and forms of the Romance personal clitic pronouns

2.4 Double object clitic clusters in Old Romance It appears that in Latin both the acc-dat and the dat-acc orders are attested for sequences of first/second person and third person object pronouns. For example, Lombard (1934: 38–39) reports that both hoc tibi, hanc tibi, and tibi illam, mihi illam are found in Terentius’ comedies. He states [P]ourtant tout porte à croire plutôt à une juxtaposition fortuite. Les groupements de illum (illos, etc.) avec mihi (tibi, sibi, etc.) auprès d’une même forme verbale semblent avoir été rares en latin, même dans les documents dont le style – dialogues, phrases courtes de langage courante – se rapproche de celui où, dans les langues romanes, nos combinaisons se plaisent surtout : on avait à sa disposition d’autres tournures (avec un substantif à l’accusatif etc.), et rien n’empêchait d’intercaler par exemple le verbe entre les deux régimes. […] L’ordre était libre, ou répondait à des considérations particulières, comme celle des rapports d’une accentuation plus ou moins marquée entre les différents membres de la proposition (39).⁴⁵

Galambos (1985: 100) argues that in literary and spoken Classical Latin the most common order of object pronouns in preverbal and postverbal position was datacc. However, she states that “it is important to keep in mind that word order was essentially free in both popular and literary pre-Classical and Classical Latin” (112, fn. 1) and she does not provide evidence supporting her claim that dat-acc was the most common order. Moreover, her argument is based entirely on Gaulish texts and therefore can be posited only for Old French. Santangelo and Vennemann (1976) (cf. Chapter 1) also suggest that the relative order was dat-acc in Latin, based on the premise that early Latin was an OV language and that, according to the universal natural order that they establish whereby in OV languages clitic clusters are expected to be dat-acc and precede the verb, dat-acc was the natural pronominal serialization. Once again, evidence is not provided for the dat-acc order of pronominal sequences in Latin texts. Given the relatively free word order of Latin and the absence of robust evidence supporting a preferred order in Latin pronominal sequences, few conclusions can be reached regarding possible Latin influence on the order patterns

45 ‘Yet all leads us to believe in a fortuitous juxtaposition. The groupings of  illum  (illos, etc.) with  mihi  (tibi, sibi, etc.) with a verb form  seem  to have been rare in Latin, even in documents whose style – dialogues, short phrases of current usage – comes close to that in which, in the Romance languages, our combinations are especially pleasing: one had at one’s disposal other constructions (with a noun in the accusative, etc.), and nothing prevented one from placing, for example, the verb between the two pronouns.... The order was free, or it was a reaction to particular considerations, such as the relationships between more or less marked stress among different members of the proposition’ (our translation; JA&CR).

Double object clitic clusters in Old Romance   

   51

of Romance double object clitic clusters. Therefore, the rest of this investigation focuses on the evolution of double object clitic clusters from the earliest attestations in the Romance languages outside Italy (§ 2.4.1) and in Italian (non Tuscan) vernaculars (§ 2.4.2). The evolution of double object clitic clusters in Tuscan vernaculars and Florentine is dealt with in Section 2.5.

2.4.1 Outside Italy De Kok (1985: 132) reports that in old French (i.e., ancien français, which in his chronology spans the second half of the twelfth century and the entire thirteenth century [de Kok 1985:15]), the order in clusters comprising a first or second person dat clitic and a third person acc clitic was acc-dat. Some of the examples he provides are given in (53): (53)

a. Il le me dunad á sun he 3sg.m.acc 1sg.dat give-3sg.past at his ‘He gave it to me at his pleasure’ (Les quatre livres des Rois, 6, 28; from de Kok [1985: 133])

plaisir pleasure

b. jó la te durrái I 3sg.f.acc 2sg.dat give-1sg.fut ‘I will give it to you’ (Le quatre livres des Rois, 6, 28; from de Kok [1985: 133]) c. si com la sainte Escripture le nos ensegne so how the holy scripture 3sg.m.acc 1pl.dat teach-3sg.pi ‘thus like the holy scripture teaches us’ (Sully, 80, 64; from de Kok [1985: 133]) According to Moignet (1973: 140), the dat-acc order was also attested in thirteenth-century French but it was rare (Moignet [1973: 140]):⁴⁶

46 Melander (1938: 114) concludes that the switch to the dat-acc order started in the middle of the thirteenth century; see also Marchello-Nizia (1979: 178). Lombard (1934: 36), on the other hand, claims that thirteenth-century dat-acc attestations are doubtful and maintains that the dat-acc order starts to be attested in French from the fourteenth century but will not triumph until the sixteenth century.

52   

(54)

   Origins, earliest attestations and forms of the Romance personal clitic pronouns

a. ne tel quier eskiever not 2sg.dat-3sg.m.acc desire-1sg.pi sneak-inf ‘I do not desire to take it away from you by stealth’ (Jue de S. Nicolas, 798; from Moignet [1973: 140]) b. ne tel celerai mie not 2sg.dat-3sg.m.acc conceal-1sg.fut not ‘I will not conceal it from you’ (Prise d’Orange, 1280; from Moignet [1973: 140])

De Kok (1985: 145) refers to the dat-acc order as a construction marquée ‘marked construction’ and finds no instances of dat-acc clusters in the texts he examines. He states that the dat-acc order (for the type of clusters considered here) is attested in French in the fourteenth century although only in proclitic position (de Kok [1985: 367]). The number of dat-acc clusters remains rather restricted until the fifteenth century (de Kok [1985: 372–373]) and the new order becomes established only in the sixteenth century, which suggests that the ultimate switch to dat-acc was a long process (see also Melander [1938: 110]). However, in French the switch to dat-acc affected only clusters comprising a first or second person dat clitic and a third person acc clitic. Clusters involving only third person clitic pronouns retain the acc-dat order (e.g., je le lui donne ‘I give it to him/her’), and the acc-dat order also remains in affirmative imperatives (e.g., donne-le-moi ‘give it to me’), although there is great variation across different dialects in this context (Morin [1979: 307], inter alia). Melkenborg (2013) examines the development of the order of clitics in double object clusters from old to modern French and states that in old French (i.e., the period from the ninth to the thirteenth century), the order was acc-dat. She maintains that the switch from acc-dat to dat-acc was a rather abrupt process that started in the fifteenth century and was completed by the sixteenth. She attributes the switch to analogy to reflexive constructions by showing that prior to the order switch in double object clitic clusters, the use of the reflexive was spreading to an increasing number of verbs, the majority of which were transitive. Since the subject, often a pronoun, was obligatory, the order subject-reflexive became increasingly frequent, even with intransitive verbs, so that it affected clitic clusters; that is, the increasing number of cases in which the subject was followed by the reflexive: je me, tu te, (il se), led to fronting of the reflexive in clusters, which, in turn, influenced cluster order in double clitic clusters without a reflexive (see also Brusewitz [1905]). Restructuring would have taken place only in the first and second person that have the same forms in the dat and the reflexive, which accounts for the lack of order change in the third person, since the third person

Double object clitic clusters in Old Romance   

   53

subject pronouns are il/elle/ils ‘he/she/they’ but the corresponding acc clitics are le/la/les ‘3sg.m.acc/3sg.f.acc/3pl.acc’.⁴⁷ Accounts of the order patterns of clitic clusters in old stages of the other major Romance languages – which would allow a systematic assessment of the evolution of the order patterns – are not easily found, since comprehensive studies comparable to de Kock (1985) are lacking and are, at best, only sketchy accounts found in historical grammars, histories, and linguistic introductions of the individual languages (e.g., Menéndez Pidal [1977, 1986]; Penny [2002]; Pountain [2002], for Spanish). However, Wanner (1974: 160), reports that in the thirteenth century, Spanish and Portuguese (and most northern and southern Italian dialects) already conformed to the modern dat-acc order. Melander (1929: 184 fn. 5) and Menéndez Pidal (1977: 25; 1986: 343) report three examples from Fuero de Avilés (1155) (two instances of los li ‘3pl.m.acc-3.dat’ and one instance of darlo-l ‘give.inf-3pl.m.acc-3.dat’) as the only known exceptions to dat-acc in old Spanish, but all three clusters consist of third person clitics.⁴⁸ There is some dispute over the old, ‘original’ order patterns in Catalan. Wanner (1974: 160) states that Catalan (as well as Provençal, French, and some northern and most central Italian dialects) displayed the acc-dat order, but Lombard (1934: 36–37) and de Dardel and de Kok (1996: 34) state that in Catalan (and Provençal) clusters involving the neuter acc clitic (o < Lat. hoc ‘this’) and a dat clitic have the dat-acc order.⁴⁹

2.4.2 Italy: non-Tuscan vernaculars There appears to be general consensus in the literature that in the Italian northern vernaculars the dat-acc order emerged early and soon became the predominant order (Melander [1929: 187, 190–192]; Lombard [1934: 34]; Rohlfs [1968: 176– 177]; Tekavčić [1980: 254]). Melander (1929: 191) reports two acc-dat clusters from the Piemontese text Sermoni gallo-italiani (twelfth century) but considers them 47 From a formal point of view, Melkenborg (2013) adopts Pescarini’s (2012) distinction between split and true clusters and suggests that in old French clusters were split clusters but in Modern French clusters with first and second person dat are true clusters. Thus, she posits that the change in order reflects the shift from a split to a true cluster. 48 Note that this text comes from a linguistic zone that was not Castilian, but rather AsturianLeonese. We thank an anonymous reviewer for pointing this out to us. 49 Rumanian is claimed to have always displayed only the dat-acc order (Melander [1929: 185]; Lombard [1934: 37]). We were not able to find additional information on the order of clusters in Old Rumanian. See Săvescu (2012) for information on the order of clitic clusters in modern Rumanian.

54   

   Origins, earliest attestations and forms of the Romance personal clitic pronouns

the result of Gallo-Romance influence, and adds that the two orders alternated in the works of some Bolognese poets.⁵⁰ Similarly, Castellani (1952: 100) claims that dat-acc prevails in northern vernaculars, although traces of acc-dat can be found in Piemontese, Ligure, Veneziano and Bolognese. A comparable scenario emerges for the central Italian vernaculars: the dat-acc order is the only order attested for Romanesco and it is predominant in most other vernaculars. Both orders can be found in the vernaculars of Umbria and Marche (Melander [1929: 197–200]; Lombard [1934: 34]; Rohlfs [1968: 176]; Castellani [1952: 99–100]). The southern vernaculars and Sardinian pattern like Central Italian dialects, displaying only the dat-acc order since their earliest stages (Melander [1929: 200–203]; Lombard [1934: 34, 37]; Rohlfs [1968: 176]; Tekavčić [1980: 254]; Castellani [1952: 100, 2000: 273]). The earliest attestations of dat-acc clitic clusters in non-Tuscan vernaculars in the OVI database are from texts dated 1200 and amount to the two tokens in (55), while the earliest acc-dat cluster, given in (56), comes from a text dated 1230: (55)

a. questi proverbi d’ amar me le (Venetian) these proverbs of love-inf 1sg.dat 3pl.f.acc defende preclude.3sg.pi ‘these proverbs preclude me from loving them [women]’ (Anonymous, Proverbia que dicuntur super natura feminarum; p. 533) b. se tte lo plaquesse de fare if 2sg.dat 3sg.m.acc please-3sg.is of do-inf ‘if it should please you to do it’ (Anonymous, Ritmo su Sant’Alessio; p. 24)

(56)

la ve rendo 3sg.f.acc 2pl.dat give.back-1sg.pi ‘I give it [your poem] back to you’ (Ugo di Perso, Rime; 3, p. 592

(Marchigiano, central Italy)

(Cremonese, northern Italy)

In summary, in thirteenth-century non-Tuscan vernaculars the predominant order of double object clitic clusters comprising a first/second dat and a third person acc clitic was dat-acc, although some alternation with the opposite, acc-dat order, is attested. The distribution of the two orders in thirteenth-century

50 The Bolognese texts taken into consideration by Melander (1929) are from Rime dei poeti bolognesi del sec. XII (Casini 1881).

Double object clitic clusters in thirteenth-century Tuscan vernaculars   

   55

Tuscan vernaculars, on the other hand, is characterized by a higher degree of variation, as discussed in the next section.

2.5 Double object clitic clusters in thirteenth-century Tuscan vernaculars This section offers an overview of the distribution patterns of the two orders of double object proclitic clusters in Tuscan vernaculars during the thirteenth century. After a summary of previous descriptions (§ 2.5.1), the patterns reconstructed from the data collected from the OVI corpus for Tuscan (§ 2.5.2) and Florentine (§ 2.5.3) vernaculars are presented. Whenever possible, the presentation and discussion of the OVI data is accompanied by a comparison with previous descriptions.

2.5.1 Previous accounts As mentioned above, previous studies unanimously agree that in Florentine acc-dat was the original and basically exclusive order of double object clitic clusters until about the end of the thirteenth century (D’Ovidio and Meyer-Lübke [1932/1906: 166]; Melander [1929: 169, 172, 179]; Lombard [1934: 36]; Grandgent [1940: 137]; Castellani [1952: 79]; Rohlfs [1968: 176]). Regarding other Tuscan vernaculars, the following claims are found in the literature: a. Melander (1929: 192–197) reports that both acc-dat and dat-acc were attested in Aretino, Lucchese-Pisano, Pistoiese and Senese. However, in Senese the dat-acc order is found since the first texts and appears to be the predominant order.⁵¹ b. Lombard (1934: 34) maintains that acc-dat was the predominant order in Lucchese, Pisano and Pistoiese, whereas dat-acc prevailed in Aretino and Senese. c. Rohlfs (1968: 176–177) claims that outside Florence “sin dalle origini le condizioni sono meno chiare, oppure vi troviamo, già assai presto, il tipo

51 Melander (1929: 194) considers Lucchese and Pisano one variety, “lucquois-pisan”, to which he ascribes the following authors/texts: Bonagiunta Orbicciani da Lucca, Rimatori pisani, Novelle antiche and Bestiario toscano.

56   

   Origins, earliest attestations and forms of the Romance personal clitic pronouns

moderno.”⁵² He notes that the earliest documents from Arezzo, Pistoia and Siena show a preference for (although not exclusive use of) the dat-acc order, while both orders can be found in later texts from Pistoia and Lucca. d. Castellani (1952: 96–98) maintains that acc-dat is the only order in Aretino,⁵³ and it is the prevalent order in Pratese, with some infiltrations of dat-acc.⁵⁴ He states that dat-acc is the only order found in Lucchese, Pisano and Senese, and that both orders are found in Pistoiese (but see fn. 54). However, Castellani (2000: 273, 315) points out that before the thirteenth century the acc-dat order may have been present also in Pisano and Lucchese. There appear to be contradictory positions about the orders of double object clitic clusters for most of the thirteenth-century Tuscan vernaculars. In fact, there seems to be consensus only on Florentine and Senese. It should be pointed out that the data considered in the studies reviewed above are essentially unreliable, having one or more of the following problems: (a) clusters involving first and second person dat and third person acc are grouped together with clusters comprising a third person acc clitic and the clitic si (reflexive, impersonal, passive), or ne (partitive, locative, etc.) (e.g., Melander [1929]); (b) enclitic and proclitic clusters are not considered separately (e.g. Melander [1929], Lombard [1934] and Rohlfs [1968]); (c) quantitative information about the distribution of the two orders tends to be approximate and claims are sometimes made on the basis of very few tokens (e.g. Castellani [1952]);⁵⁵ (d) the chronological classification of the texts is often unsystematic and the majority of the texts is from the fourteenth century (e.g., Rohlfs [1968]); and (e) the geographical classification of the vernaculars varies across accounts (see fn. 51). These problems will be discussed in more detail in the next section where our results are compared to those from the previous studies.

52 ‘Since the origins, the situation is less clear, or else we find the modern type very early’ (our translation; JA&CR). 53 Castellani (1952: 97–98, fn.1) refutes Melander’s (1929) statement that the typical order for Aretino was dat-acc, which Melander formulates on the basis of Guittone d’Arezzo’s works. According to Castellani, the order depends on the codice followed: the codice Laur.-Rediano 9 contains the Lucchese-Pisano order (dat-acc), whereas the codice Vat. 3793 gives the Florentine order (acc-dat). 54 Regarding Pratese, Serianni (1977: 92) concurs with Castellani (1952) that this vernacular shows a “situazione tipo fiorentino, con rare infiltrazioni del tipo mi lo e con una maggiore vitalità del tipo mi ne” (‘a situation similar to the Florentine one, with rare infiltrations of the type mi lo and a greater vitality of the type mi ne’; our translation, JA&CR). 55 For instance, Castellani (1952: 98) reports the acc-dat order for Pistoiese but only provides evidence from a single text referred to as “p. e. XIII”, which we were unable to identify.

Double object clitic clusters in thirteenth-century Tuscan vernaculars   

   57

2.5.2 OVI data for thirteenth-century Tuscan vernaculars This section presents a detailed overview of the distribution of the dat-acc and acc-dat orders in proclitic clusters in Tuscan varieties during the thirteenth century based on the data collected from the OVI corpus (see Table 9 for the vernaculars and number of texts considered). Table 18 summarizes the results of our searches. Table 18: Thirteenth-century Tuscan vernaculars displaying proclitic double object clitic clusters

Vernacular

dat-acc

acc-dat

Florentine Lucchese Pisano Pistoiese Pratese Sangimignanese Senese Toscano

  2   2  12   0   0   2  32  18

95  0  0  1  4  0  2 28

Total

130

67

Table 18 shows that very limited data were found for four of the seven vernaculars (Lucchese, Pistoiese, Pratese and Sangimignanese), which prevents us from formulating any meaningful generalizations or comparisons with previous accounts. However, the Pratese data do match the accounts by Castellani (1952) and Serianni (1977), who identify acc-dat as the prevalent order in this vernacular. Moreover, the Florentine data confirm the undisputed predominance of the acc-dat order in this vernacular during the thirteenth-century, since only two dat-acc clusters (given in Chapter 1, examples (3) and (4)) as opposed to 95 acc-dat clusters were found. Our data from Pisano are inconsistent with both Melander (1929), according to whom acc-dat was attested in this vernacular, and Lombard (1934), who claims that acc-dat was the preferred order in old Pisano, but consistent with Castellani’s (1952, 2000) observations. Our data from Senese, on the other hand, conform to both Lombard’s (1934) and Castellani’s (1952, 2000) observations but, again, are discrepant with Melander (1929), who maintains that both orders were present in this vernacular. This inconsistency derives from the type of data considered, since the acc-dat examples reported by Melander (1929: 194) for Pisano and Senese come either from texts that are not included in OVI or from fourteenth-

58   

   Origins, earliest attestations and forms of the Romance personal clitic pronouns

century texts,⁵⁶ while Lombard (1934) does not give examples and simply refers to Melander (1929). Our data for Toscano are interesting because they show that in this ‘category’⁵⁷ both the dat-acc and the acc-dat order are attested in proclitic position and their distribution is comparable, with 18 dat-acc vs. 28 acc-dat tokens. Most ‘Toscano’ texts employ one order or the other, but, as shown in Table 19, the two orders alternate in the texts of three authors, Giacomino Pugliese, Guittone d’Arezzo, and Andrea da Grosseto. Table 19: Thirteenth-century Toscano texts displaying both dat-acc and acc-dat order

Author/Text

Date Genre

Form

dat-acc acc-dat

Giacomino Pugliese, Morte, perché m’hai fatta sì gran Guerra

1250 lyrics

verse 1

1

Andrea da Grosseto, Trattati morali di Albertano da Brescia volgarizzati

1268 philosophy prose 3

2

Andrea da Grosseto, Volgarizzamento del Liber consolationis et consilii di Albertano

1268 philosophy prose 2

1

Guittone d’Arezzo, Rime

1294 lyrics

3

verse 7

Our data suggest that, with the exception of Florentine, the acc-dat order was more widespread in texts whose geographical origin according to the OVI is unclear, and that some of these texts are characterized by an alternation between the two orders comparable to the alternation observed in fourteenth-century Florentine. Thus, until it can be verified that the higher incidence of acc-dat in Toscano is due to Florentine influence on the authors who employ this order, it cannot be concluded that the alternation between the two orders was an exclusive feature of fourteenth-century Florentine.

56 Melander’s (1929: 194) acc-dat examples from Pisano are from Novelle del codice Panciatichiano 32 edited by Biagi (1880). This text is included in OVI but is labeled as Florentine and dated 1355. Also, none of the examples reported by Melander appear in OVI. The two acc-dat examples from Senese provided by Melander (1929: 195) come from Dodici conti morali d’anonimo senese del sec. XIII, which is dated 1300 in OVI. Similarly the dat-acc clusters reported by Melander for Pistoiese come from a fourteenth-century text, Carteggio dei Lazzari (1320–1322). This text appears to be characterized by alternation between the two orders, since it contains 23 dat-acc clusters (18 proclitic and 5 enclitic) and 22 acc-dat (18 proclitic and 4 enclitic) and is discussed in more detail with regard to the fourteenth-century texts in Section 2.6. 57 Recall that the label ‘Toscano’ does not refer to the vernacular of a specific single town or city and is employed to categorize texts whose exact geographical origin cannot be identified.

Double object clitic clusters in thirteenth-century Tuscan vernaculars   

   59

Finally, no clusters involving first/second person dat and third person acc clitics were found in the three Aretino texts available in OVI, La composizione del mondo colle sue cascioni by Ristoro d’Arezzo (1282) and two practical documents, Elenco di beni non rendicondati (1231) and Affitti della badia di Santa Fiora d’Arezzo (1240).⁵⁸ Regarding Aretino, Melander (1929) considers exclusively data from Guittone d’Arezzo and states that Guittone’s Rime show variation depending on the manuscripts. In Guittone’s prose, one acc-dat cluster is found but Melander concludes On est donc en droit de considérer me lo, te lo comme les types familiers au grand poète arétin. Faute d’autres documents du XIIIe siècle, il m’est impossible de dire si me lo est le type originaire de l’arétin ou s’il est sorti d’un lo me ou bien d’un lo mi, devenue d’abord mi lo sous l’action du principe syntaxique roman et ensuite me lo par suite de l’affaiblissement de l’i en e dans la syllabe protonique et posttonique, changement qui est caractéristique de l’arétin. (Melander 1929: 197)⁵⁹

However, as already mentioned, Guittone’s works are included under Toscano in the OVI, and so we do not consider them representative of Aretino (at least not without caution).⁶⁰ In short, on the basis of the data collected from the OVI, it can be concluded that in Tuscany during the second half of the thirteenth century the acc-dat order was attested in Pistoiese and in other general areas, but it was absent in Pisano and Senese. Overall, then, Castellani’s claim that the dat-acc order characterized Western Tuscan vernaculars while the acc-dat was typical of Eastern vernaculars is supported. The discrepancies/inconsistencies observed between previous accounts of the distribution of the dat-acc and the acc-dat orders in old Tuscan vernaculars and the scenarios that emerge from our data raise the issue of the relevance,

58 The following types of clusters were found in La composizione del mondo: li ne, where li is a locative clitic (i.e., stands for vi ‘there’) and ne is a 1pl direct object (e.g., ne li portarà ‘he will take you there’; II, 7, 3, 183) or a partitive (e.g., non li n’è mestieri più ‘there is no more need’; II, 2, 8, 100), 3acc-serflx (e.g., a ciò che· lla se possano vedere tutta ennanti ‘so that they can see it all in front of themselves’; II, 2, 1, 64), and li se, where li is a locative and se a reflexive/impersonal clitic (e.g., li se pò bene abetare ‘one can live there well’; I, 23, 39). 59 ‘So, one is correct to consider me lo, te lo as constructions that are typical of the great Aretine poet. Given the lack of thirteenth-century documents, it is impossible for me to say if me lo is the original order in Aretine or if it arose from lo me or even lo mi, which first became mi lo due to roman syntactic principles and then me lo after the weakening of the i to e in the protonic and posttonic syllable, a change that is characteristic of Aretine’ (our translation; JA&CR). 60 Castellani (1952) maintains that the dat-acc order was unattested in Aretino but he only considers data from the fourteenth century.

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in terms of completeness and consistency, of the data sets taken into account. Although no data set can be assumed to be complete, the one considered in this study appears to be more consistent from a diachronic, geographical, and typological/methodological point of view, in that it is limited to the thirteenth century, relies on a more recent and accurate (hence more reliable) geographical attribution of texts and/or authors, and takes into account only one type of cluster and only one linearization (proclisis).

2.6 Double object clitic clusters in fourteenth-century Tuscan vernaculars This section explores the distribution of the dat-acc and acc-dat orders in fourteenth-century Tuscany as it emerges from the data collected from the OVI database (see Table 10 for the vernaculars and the number of texts examined). Table 20 summarizes our results: Table 20: Fourteenth-century Tuscan vernaculars displaying proclitic double object clitic clusters

Variety

dat-acc acc-dat

Amiatino Aretino Fiorentino Lucchese Pisano Pistoiese Pratese Sangimignanese Senese Toscano Volterrano

  2   0 173  17 243  24   4   4 275 242  19

  0   5 209   0  22  22  18   0  10 144  0

We see in Table 20 that five vernaculars and Toscano (given in bold) display both orders, although they appear in comparable distribution only in Pistoiese and Florentine, and to some extent in Toscano. Aretino is the only vernacular that displays exclusive use of the acc-dat order, thus conforming to Castellani’s (1952) observation that acc-dat was the predominant order in this vernacular during the second half of the fourteenth

   61

Double object clitic clusters in fourteenth-century Tuscan vernaculars   

century.⁶¹ The acc-dat order appears to be the predominant order also in Pratese, with 18 acc-dat tokens vs. 4 dat-acc. In contrast, the dat-acc order is the only order found in Amiatino, Lucchese, Sangimignanese and Volterrano and clearly predominates in Pisano and Senese. It should be pointed out, however, that in the vernaculars in which both orders are attested, some texts are found in which the two orders appear with comparable (or equal) rates of distribution, as illustrated in Table 21. (Florentine is not included in Table 21 since it is treated separately.) Table 21: Fourteenth-century Tuscan texts displaying dat-acc and acc-dat in comparable or equal distribution

Vernacular Date

Author/Text

Genre

Form

dat-acc acc-dat

Pisano

1304

Anonymous, Breve dell’Arte della lana di Pisa

statutes

prose  1

 1

1350

Guido da Pisa, I fatti d’Enea

narrative

prose  2

 1

1342

Domenico Cavalca, Epistola di san epistles, Girolamo ad Eustachio volgarizzata orations

prose  3

 1

1342

Domenico Cavalca, Rime

lyrics

verse  1

 1

Pistoiese

1320– Carteggio dei Lazzari 1322

letters

prose 17

18

Senese

1300

Anonymous, Conti morali d’anonimo senese (ed. Segre)

narrative

prose  2

 2

1300

Anonymous, I fatti di Cesare

narrative

prose  3

 2

1300

Cecco Angiolieri, Rime

lyrics

verse  8

 5

1310

Meo dei Tolomei Rime

lyrics

verse  1

 1

1300

Anonymous, Libro dei Sette Savj di Roma

narrative

prose  9

17

1300

Anonymous, Il Tristano Riccardiano narrative

prose 24

31

1300

Anonymous, $Contrasto fra la Croce e la Vergine

didactic religious

verse  4

 1

1300

Anonymous, Rime

lyrics

verse  2

 5

1300

Onesto da Bologna, Rime

lyrics

verse  1

 2

Toscano

61 Castellani’s (1952) observations are made based on texts that are not available in the OVI.

62   

   Origins, earliest attestations and forms of the Romance personal clitic pronouns

Vernacular Date

Author/Text

Genre

Form

dat-acc acc-dat

1310

Anonymous, Trattato di virtù morali philosophy prose  2

 1

1310

ser Cione Baglioni, Sonetti

verse  1

 1

1314

Francesco da Barberino, Documenti didactic d’Amore religious

verse 14

 8

1320

Francesco da Barberino, Del reggimento e costumi di donna

didactic religious

prose  8

11

1325

Armannino giudice da Bologna, Frammento della Fiorita

narrative

prose  2

 3

1325

Anonymous, Laudario di Santa Maria della Scala

lyrics

verse 14

 9

1330

Giovanni Quirini, Rime

lyrics

verse  2

 1

1330

Nicolò de Rossi, Rime

lyrics

verse 18

 5

1333

Arrigo Simintendi, Metamorfosi d’Ovidio volgarizzate (libri VI-XV)

didactic religious

prose 10

 6

1336

Cino da Pistoia, Rime

lyrics

verse  1

 2

1343

Antonio Pucci, Sermintese e canzone sulla cacciata di Gualtieri duca d’Atene da Firenze

lyrics

verse  1

 1

1350

Anonymous, La inchiesta del San Gradale. Volgarizzamento toscano della Queste del Saint Graal

narrative

prose 23

12

lyrics

Thus, the fourteenth-century Tuscan data collected from the OVI reveal that both the acc-dat and the dat-acc orders were attested in Florentine as well as in Pisano, Pistoiese, Pratese, Senese and Toscano. Moreover, in Pisano, Pistoiese, Senese and Toscano both orders can both be found within the same text. In contrast, in the thirteenth century the alternation between the two orders in individual texts is attested only for Toscano.

2.7 Summary It appears uncontroversial that both the dat-acc and the acc-dat orders were available across Old Romance languages and vernaculars during the thirteenth century. Concerning the Tuscan vernaculars, the data collected from the OVI reveal that during the second half of the thirteenth century the acc-dat order was

Summary   

   63

attested in Pistoiese and in other general areas, but it was absent in Pisano and Senese, which supports Castellani’s claim that the dat-acc order characterized Western Tuscan vernaculars while the acc-dat was typical of Eastern vernaculars. However, in the majority of languages or vernaculars the two orders did not appear to alternate within the same text or author. However, in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Toscano the dat-acc/acc-dat order alternation is found in the same text and/or author. Over time the dat-acc order became increasingly widespread across the Romance languages and vernaculars, and it eventually ousted the acc-dat order in the great majority of them (Wanner [1974: 161, 1999: 262]; Melander [1929, 1938]; Lombard [1934]; Castellani [1952], among others). Thus, even though the chronology differs among individual languages and/or vernaculars, the switch from the acc-dat to the dat-acc order can be viewed as a pan-Romance phenomenon, whereas the inverse change (i.e., from dat-acc to acc-dat) is unattested (Wanner [1974]). Indeed, dat-acc is the most frequent order in the modern Romance languages and dialects, with the acc-dat order surviving in only a few dialects, namely Béarnaise, some Provençal dialects, the Aragonese dialect Hecho, Mallorquin, the majority of Corsican dialects, some dialects of western Piedmont, and western Liguria (Melander [1929: 184]; Lombard [1934: 37]; Castellani [1952: 100]; Wanner [1974: 174, fn. 2]; Manzini and Savoia [2005: 172-ff]).⁶² During the fourteenth century, both dat-acc and acc-dat are still present in some Tuscan vernaculars and the two orders alternate in the same text and/or author in Pisano, Pistoiese, Senese, Toscano and Florentine, and in Florentine we find that the alternation between the two orders is the most prominent since the first decade of the century.

62 According to Lombard (1934: 37), acc-dat is maintained also in some dialects of southern Lombardy, and northern Tessin, however, this claim is invalidated by Castellani (1952: 101, fn.1), who shows that it was based on misinterpreted data.

Chapter 3 The theoretical approach Having identified the forms of the clusters that were collected from the OVI database and the distribution of cluster orders in dialects surrounding Florence, throughout Italy, and in the Romance languages, we dedicate this chapter to a discussion of how the data are analyzed in this study of fourteenth-century Florentine double object clitic clusters. This non-formalist examination takes a cognitive/functional approach that puts speakers and their cognitive mechanisms center stage (§ 3.1). The aspects of human cognition that are explored in depth and applied are iconicity and analogy, two concepts that are considered to be central to language change. Although these concepts overlap in many ways, we tease them apart (§ 3.2) and then examine the role of each in our analysis of clitic order (§ 3.3). We explore how, in our cognitive/functional approach, the grammaticalization of clitic order is necessarily multifaceted, that is, it is driven by a multitude of factors (§ 3.4), some of which support pragmatically functional clitic order alternation and others that push the system towards resolution of the alternation in favor of the dat-acc order, and still others that help maintain the acc-dat status quo. We conclude by justifying this approach in terms of explanation in historical linguistics (§ 3.5).

3.1 The cognitive/functional aspects of variation and change Functional analyses are oriented toward processes going on outside of the head (communicative interaction), whereas cognitive analyses involve orientation toward mental structures and processes (Harder [1996]). The analysis presented here is functional in that speakers are considered the source of change because they have communicative goals. In the spirit of Mühlum (2006: 41) and Keller (1997: 14–15), the premise is that language itself does not change, but rather language users change their way of using it, thus change is a function of use. The factors that enable an explanation of language change are found in the social and intentional nature of human beings that use their language functionally.⁶³ This analysis is cognitive in that it appeals to the aspects of general cognitive processing that shape language usage and, ultimately, language change. Nuyts (2007) explores the differences and similarities between Cognitive Linguistics and Functional Linguistics. In terms of their object of investigation,

63 For a discussion of the question of teleology, see Section 3.5.

The cognitive/functional aspects of variation and change   

   65

they are essentially complementary in their concerns. Regarding the theoretical conceptions of language and grammar, both adopt a usage-based concept of grammar; in both models linguistic knowledge is ‘knowledge for use’ and both consider the linguistic system part of human cognition and not as a separate language faculty. A diachronic analysis in which the complexity of language is a result of the interaction of cognition and use is, of course, usage-based, such that grammar is emergent, based on linguistic experience. “In the usage-based model, properties of the use of utterances in communication also determine the representation of grammatical units in a speaker’s mind” (Croft and Cruse [2004: 292]). In the usage-based model, the storage capacity of the human brain is enormous, and variants are stored in the memory as exemplar clusters. In addition, language users are capable of identifying a multitude of patterns and making associations with established patterns (Bybee [2010]). Consider Bybee’s (1985, 1995, 2001) network model, in which elements sharing phonetic and semantic features are connected by degree of similarity. This assessment is true for adults as well as children. Slobin (1985: 1192) states that “[e]verything we know about child language points to the conclusion that children keep track of sequential orders of elements: order tends to be preserved in imitation, amalgams and formulas preserve order….Indeed order is so essential to human language that an organism unequipped to notice and store sequential information could hardly acquire such systems.” Differences between the cognitive and functional models emerge in their conception of grammar and cognition in general. The components that are handled by means of procedures and rules in functional models are handled in terms of constructional patterns in Cognitive Linguistics (Nuyts [2007: 555–556]). In the present analysis, true to both approaches, language structure is a product of usage. In terms of grammar, the cognitive approach, in which grammatical structure is understood as inherently symbolic, takes the fore. A central tenet of cognitive linguistics is that speakers construe situations or ‘images’ in a variety of ways. In all communicative interactions, speakers interpret situations based on their own mental experiences and identify which features of the message to single out for special prominence. Langacker (1987: 39) gives the example of dative shift to show how two roughly synonymous sentences, such as (57a) and (57b), that have the same words but different grammatical structures are actually distinct, even though they have the same truth value and can be used to describe the same event.⁶⁴ 64 There is a significant amount of research on dative alternation, particularly in English. For an overview, see De Cuypere (2008: 151–155).

66   

   The theoretical approach

(57)

a. He sent a letter to Susan b. He sent Susan a letter

According to Langacker (1987) these sentences differ semantically because (57a) employs the preposition ‘to’, which emphasizes the path that the letter traveled to Susan, the goal. On the other hand, (57b) emphasizes the resultant state of Susan possessing the letter. Langacker does not claim that the notion of path is lacking in (57b) or the notion of possession in (57a), rather, the relative salience of these two notions differs in each sentence. Therefore, one rather than the other will be used by the speaker depending on the meaning the speaker wishes to convey in a particular situation.⁶⁵ Similarly, Hopper and Thompson (1993) are convinced that discourse is central to the process by which grammars evolve and state that speakers assess the relative discourse significance of an entity and present it to hearers in such a way as to successfully foreground it. Perceptive construal means that different speech communities construe differently. Janda (2004: 16) compares how the case systems of Czech, Polish and Russian have been conventionalized differently in the three languages and finds that “[a] contrastive study offers us an opportunity to consider the different ways that people can interpret their perceptions of reality and then sanction these interpretations in their grammar. The choices are not entirely equal, since the selection of one case over another means that certain concepts are emphasized and others are ignored.” Since users within a speech community perceive communicative events differently, the universalist stance that accepts languages that do not undergo the same phenomena as counterexamples is void. That is, by saying that if X is useful, then it should be useful in all languages and all language users should make the same choice is inadmissible. In a cognitive model, it is impossible to predict which image will be selected for construal and ultimately conventionalized. Lass (1997: 362–364) is uneasy with methodological individualism, which is at the root of perceptual construal and inherent to a cognitive/functionalist approach. This issue brings to the fore the role of cognitive factors not only in the individual but within the speech community that hosts a change. Lass claims that positing social constraints such as age, sex, prestige, etc. as well as the constraint of arbitrary individuality on language change removes any ‘naturalistic’ (‘psycho-

65 Groefsema (2001) points out that the event expressed by the verb also dictates the construction chosen. For instance, the verb ‘to ask’ only allows one order: John asked Mary a question vs. *John asked a question to Mary, because in the second case John has no affect on the question, but in the first, he affects Mary.

The cognitive/functional aspects of variation and change   

   67

logical’) basis for the theory. He proposes that the ‘reasons’ for change cannot be functional if they are different for the initiator and the followers. The key to this controversy is the notion of ‘arbitrary individuality’. For Croft (2000: 112), communication is the result of joint construal; that is, the speaker and listener interact in such a way that they jointly construe the speaker’s meaning. Indeed, if a message is misconstrued, the interlocutors work together to create the appropriate message. Regardless of whether one posits individual or joint construal, a functionalist/cognitive approach accepts that speakers in a particular community with the same goal (successful communication) and presented with variants with particular pragmatic functions are likely to linguistically represent an image in similar ways, thus propagating the functional alternation. Speakers form their message based on the construal of an image, and if the message is understood, the construal or interpretation associated with the structure is passed on. Therefore, structural patterns are propagated through the community along with their meaning, which is based on interpretation of the image, pragmatics, stylistics, etc.⁶⁶ Two aspects of general human cognition that we propose play a significant role in the patterns of alternation in clitic clusters in medieval Italian are iconicity and analogy. The definitions of iconicity and analogy overlap to a great degree (Anttila 1989) because both are concerned with parallels of form and meaning (Harris [1984: 188]), both are defined as ‘structural similarity’ (Itkonen [1994, 2005]), and both are diagrammatic relations. Indeed, Antilla and Embleton (1995: 108) refer to analogy as an “indexical icon”. We ignore the debate over whether iconicity is a form of analogy (Itkonen [2005: 101]) or vice versa (Anttila [1989: 106]), and in the following section focus on teasing the two concepts apart and clarifying our use of these terms.

66 We assume that the patterns and directions of propagation are the same as those examined in the multitude of sociolinguistic studies that began in the 1960s with Brown, Levinson, Gilman, Labov, the Milroys, Chambers, Trudgill, to name a few. We will deal no further with the propagation of change throughout the speech community. For a few readings on the topic, we suggest Wanner (2006: 138–151) for a general account of the social dimensions of propagation in diachronic analyses, Croft (2000) for propagation as the establishment of convention and an overview of the concept of propagation, Denison (2003) for a discussion and critique of the Scurve for describing patterns of change, and Timberlake’s (1977) model that assumes two layers of structure in speakers’ grammar: a base grammar and a system of usage rules that include superficial categories, such as pragmatic, stylistic and sociolinguistic factors that enable speakers with dissimilar base grammars to more or less match community usage.

68   

   The theoretical approach

3.2 Analogy vs. Iconicity In order for analogy to apply, a cognitive link must be established between two elements that share features. The most common types of analogy are: A. Four-part or proportional analogy, whereby A : B as C : D, i.e., the pattern that is generalized is productive. Wanner (2006:44) gives the following example based on the morphologically driven analogy in Italian whereby the marker for the first person singular imperfect indicative restructures from -a > -o by analogy to the first person singular present indicative: A = (parl)-o 1sg.p

C = (parlav)-a > -o 1sg.ii

------

------

B = (parl)-a 3sg.p

D = (parlav)-a 3sg.ii

B. Analogical leveling, which eliminates morphophonemic alternations within paradigms. For example, Latin Ĕ in a stressed open syllable produced the diphthong /je/ in Italian. In the verb levare ‘to lift’, the diphthong is expected in the first three singular forms but does not appear by analogy to the infinitive. LĔVARE > levare LĔVO > levo LĔVAS > levi LĔVAT > leva C. Analogical extension, or extension of a feature to similar elements with the same context. For example, in Old Italian the desinence of the first person plural present indicative in all three conjugations does not have a diphthong. The diphthong in modern Italian is analogically extended from the first person plural present subjunctive: parlamo > parliamo ‘we talk’ scrivemo > scriviamo ‘we write’ sentimo > sentiamo ‘we feel’⁶⁷

67 For a complete catalogue of types of analogy, see Hock (2003).

Analogy vs. Iconicity   

   69

Similarity is a necessary condition in order for analogy to take place. The similarity may be based on the meanings of the terms involved or surface structure, that is, features of morphology and/or phonology. Fischer (2010: 282) argues that form and meaning are equally important in analogy: In analogy, form and function (or meaning) are equally important. Similarities between constructions, which may cause one construction to be used instead of another, are based on what they share in form as well as meaning. Because form and meaning form a whole, a meaning change may affect the form, but change may also be driven by formal requirements of the system.

To demonstrate her point, she cites Coats (1987), who gives folk etymologies (such as femele > female based on male) and states that they are analogical reformations that may be caused by similarities in form as well as by similarities in meaning. Fischer points out that Coats (1987) goes as far as to say that similarity of meaning is not a necessary precondition for analogy but that formal similarity is. Joseph (2013) makes a similar point when he laments the general neglect of a phonic basis for analogy in the literature and then examines a variety of cases at different levels of linguistic analysis (phonetics, morphology, syntax, semantics and the lexicon) of the sound effects of analogy, such as nuclear > nucular based on popular, particular and insular, and extraterrestrial > extraterrestiyəl based on celestial. He points out that although it is not possible to demonstrate conclusively that sound alone is responsible for change, the aggregate effect of so many examples in which sound seems to have been a relevant dimension to the analogical link demonstrates that “a phonic basis for analogy is a distinct possibility that cannot simply be dismissed and thus must be taken into consideration whenever analogy is invoked.” (11) The similarity may result in an analogical connection – the formation of a class or group of affected elements. In the case of femele > female only one word restructures, but in the restructuring of the Italian first person singular imperfect indicative all verbs are involved.⁶⁸ Although similarity is a necessary condition for analogy, it is not guaranteed to apply to all forms that are candidates for change. Wanner (2006: 129) identifies the conditions that make analogy likely: (1) the degree of similarity between the two elements, (2) the token frequency of the model – the number of elements that share the same or similar features, and (3) the type frequency – whether the model itself is frequent in linguistic practice. According to Wanner (2006: 123), analogy is not always consistent because it may be inhibited by inertia on the part of speakers, who find it easier to maintain an existing form than adjust to a new 68 In Section 3.3.2 we distinguish between analogy based on form and function and analogy based only on form and discuss how this distinction applies in our analysis.

70   

   The theoretical approach

model, especially when the conditions supporting analogy are relatively weak. Moreover, analogical processes may be interrupted by other changes in language, which make analogy appear inconsistent or random. Despite its inconsistencies, according to Wanner (2006: 127) analogical assimilation is the “prime motor of historical [language] developments,” and Itkonen (2005: 6) declares that analogy “is the central concept of language and linguistics” (original emphasis). Another cognitive process that we employ in our interpretation of varying order of clitic pronouns in double object clusters in medieval Italian is iconicity. It, too, can play a significant role in language change. Fischer (1999: 345), for example, states outright that “[i]t seems to be accepted by most linguists that the iconic drive or instinct is very strong in language users and that indeed language, both phylogenetically and ontogenetically, started/starts off iconically.” Icons are part of Charles Sanders Peirce’s (1839–1914) typology of the sign, in which he identifies the three ways in which the sign relates to its object: the symbol, the index and the icon. A symbol is a sign that denotes its object by convention or habit, such as a logo. The indexical sign indicates the object by a real or causal relation, such as smoke that indicates a fire. An icon is a sign that resembles or imitates its object. An icon can be an ‘image’ that represents the object in the world, such as a portrait or onomatopoeia, or a ‘diagram’, whereby the sign mirrors the object or action. Diagrammatic iconicity is pervasive in language. Common examples include Caesar’s dictum “veni, vidi, vici” in which the order of the verbs matches the chronology of events, or the addition of -s to mark the plural in English so that the morphologically ‘longer’ form represents plurality.⁶⁹ Over time, Peirce’s model has been refined and expanded and many of the concepts that have been developed overlap.⁷⁰ Haiman (1980: 515) defines iconic diagrams as “a systematic arrangement of signs, none of which necessarily resembles its referent, but whose relationship to each other mirrors the relationships of their referents.” He identifies two types of iconic diagrams: isomorphism (language internal) and motivation (language external). Isomorphism is the tendency in language for a single invariant form to have a single invariant meaning. For example, plural -s is now the most common plural marker. Motivation is a more

69 The concepts of icon, index and symbol may overlap. For example, Nöth (2001: 19) states that “[e]very verbal icon is not only an icon, but at the same time also a symbol, sometimes also with indexical elements.” 70 The following is a brief discussion of the prominent voices on iconicity and is not meant to be an exhaustive study of the origins, development and critiques of the concept, for which the reader is directed to De Cuypere (2008).

Analogy vs. Iconicity   

   71

loosely defined concept whereby linguistic form mirrors non-linguistic reality, as in Caesar’s dictum.⁷¹ In his analysis of the biological antecedents and biological motivation of the iconic-isomorphic aspect of human language, Givón (1991: 87–94) presents the main iconic principles in syntax, which are summarized in (58): (58)

Givón’s (1991) main iconic principles in syntax a. The quantity principle: larger chunks of information, more important information and less predictable information will be given more coding material. b. The proximity principle: functionally, conceptually or cognitively similar entities will appear closer together at the code level. c. The semantic principle of linear order: the order of clauses relates to the chronology of the actions (e.g., Caesar’s dictum). d. The pragmatic principle of linear order: more important/urgent, less accessible and less predictable information is placed at the beginning of the clause.

The exploration and expansion of the concept of iconicity is due in part to the Amsterdam-based Iconicity Research Project, which began in 1997. For example, Fischer and Nänny’s (1999: xxii) well-known outline of the different types of iconicity breaks the concept into two main types: imagic and diagrammatic, and divides the latter into structural and semantic iconicity, each of which include distinct phenomena. Nöth (2001: 22) also refines the notion of iconicity by breaking it into two types: exophoric iconicity, whereby the verbal sign relates to something beyond language (‘form miming reality’, another form of language external iconicity), and endophoric iconicity, which indicates relations of reference within language (‘form miming form’, another form of language internal iconicity).⁷² The latter is further divided into syntagmatic endophoric iconicity, or iconicity within the linearity of text or discourse (primarily in literary texts), such as repetition, parallelism, alliteration, rhyme and meter, and paradigmatic endophoric iconicity, which applies within the language system, in word formation and grammar paradigms. For example, children’s word formations, such as mama, papa, nana, 71 De Cuypere (2008: 92 fn. 4) points out that Hiraga (1994) makes a distinction similar to isomorphism vs. motivation using different terminology. 72 Johansen (1996) makes a similar distinction: first degree iconicity (representational) and second degree iconicity, and De Cuypere (2008: 103) finds endophoric iconicity similar to Haiman’s motivation.

72   

   The theoretical approach

create a paradigm of words designating close relatives of the infant. He also gives the example of the singular/plural opposition (e.g., cat/cats), and posits that it is the result of an iconic mapping of a form prescribed by a morphological rule applied to hundreds of nouns. De Cuypere (2008: 104) takes issue with using the application of a morphological rule as an example of iconicity and maintains that the application of a morphological rule results in an analogical pattern and is not iconically motivated.⁷³ Indeed, De Cuypere (2008: 104) limits the notion of iconic motivation by insisting that “[t]he observed similarity (iconic ground) can only qualify as iconicity when the similarity adds extra meaning to the utterance of [sic] text or when it determines the interpretation of linguistic structure.” De Cuypere (2008: 204) defines his use of ‘extra meaning’ by relating it to Coseriu’s (1994) level of textual meaning, or ‘sense’, that is added to the form-meaning pairing in the linguistic structure. For example, the question Don’t you think it’s cold in here? can be a question or be interpreted as a request to close the window. The ‘sense’ of the text is where iconic potential resides. De Cuypere (2008) accepts that pragmatic principles of linear order are iconically motivated, as well as the iconic choice for the agent/subject to precede the patient/object according to the personal hierarchy displayed in Siewierska (2005) that reflects the primacy of humans in the ego, their interlocutors and other humans over non-humans and inanimates.⁷⁴ In order to define iconicity in contrast to analogy, we refer to Haiman’s (1980: 515) definition of the iconic diagram, which is “a systematic arrangement of signs, none of which necessarily resembles its referent, but whose relationship to each other mirrors the relationships of their referents” (emphasis ours). For iconicity to apply, formal similarity is not necessary. Rather, relationships are mirrored. Nänny and Fischer’s (2006: 462) definition of iconicity in language highlights the same interaction between elements. They propose that iconicity applies when “…a ‘sign’ (which maybe a word or an assemblage of words) is said to mime the object or thought that the sign refers to when something in the sign (be it oral/ aural or visual) reflects something in the object that is figured by it (its ‘referent)” (emphasis ours). ‘Reflecting’ rather than ‘reproducing’ an element is one fundamental difference between iconicity and analogy. The second difference is related to De Cuypere’s (2008) proposal that iconicity adds extra meaning to the interpretation of the structure. While analogy is based on meaning and/or formal correspondences, iconicity relies on element A (a word or structure) reflecting element B (a

73 Neither author appears to be appealing to the quantity principle. 74 This is related to the animacy and topicality hierarchies discussed in Section 3.3.1.

Analogy vs. Iconicity   

   73

word or structure) such that the association creates a new level of interpretation of element A. In order to render the distinction between analogy and iconicity transparent, a contrast can be made to the notion of ‘automorphism’, which is defined (rather vaguely) by Haiman (1985b: 4) as denoting “a similar correspondence between two or more parts of the same system.” Haiman’s examples include Greenberg (1985) and Traugott (1985). For Greenberg the fact that time, space, and discourse deixis are mapped on to the same set of demonstrative words (e.g., the same form may signal first person; closeness to the speaker; immediate future) is a signal that these conceptual domains are thought of in the same way. Similarly, Traugott gives a diachronic account of conditional markers and finds that the lexical sources for the conditional marker share the semantics of the conditional; the conceptual domains of the lexical source and the conditional are similar.⁷⁵ A third example of automorphism in the literature is from McMahon (1994), who suggests that iconicity can involve broad conceptual connections. McMahon (1994: 160) finds a relation between heads and their modifiers, which should be the same across the constructions of a language; that is, “verbs are to objects as prepositions are to noun phrases or nouns to adjectives: in other words, the semantic relationship of all heads to their modifiers is the same.” She suggests that counter-examples may exist, but that iconicity represents a general tendency in language, such that if a perceptual problem arises, speakers might select a strategy that conforms to a broad, conceptually-based tendency.⁷⁶ In our model, automorphism is not a sub-type of iconicity. Traugott’s (1985) and Greenberg’s (1985) analyses draw attention to the fact that conceptual domains may overlap. This is not a case of iconicity unless one can demonstrate how the conceptual similarities add meaning to what would be claimed to be an iconic relationship. As De Cuypere (2008) points out, it is not enough for elements to be similar (or share an iconic ground). As for McMahon’s (1994) example, we see the relationship between the heads and their modifiers as a structural template to which diverse phrase structures may conform. We draw a 75 De Cuypere (2008) considers Traugott’s (1985) analysis of conditional markers isomorphic, not automorphic. 76 De Cuypere (2008: 106) objects to iconic relations among broad conceptual tendencies, stating that speakers need to be consciously aware of the similarity/difference between the headmodifier orders in order for them to be iconically motivated. Appealing to conscious awareness as a distinguishing feature of linguistic phenomena is dangerous, as the typical native speaker does not have awareness of most aspects of language processing. No one would claim that speakers are aware of the analogical extensions or levelings that they make or of the iconic principles that they apply when processing language. This does not mean that they do not exist, but rather that they are below the level of conscious awareness.

74   

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parallel to Aski’s (1995) analysis of suppletive verbs,⁷⁷ in which she demonstrates how person-number suppletive replacements follow language specific alternation patterns, or templates, which mark the positions of stem alternations shared by several verbs. These paradigmatic templates guide restructuring processes by serving as the base configuration. Thus, based on the model of iconicity presented in this study, we argue that the relation between heads and their modifiers is not a case of iconic automorphism, since this is a structural symmetry that does not add meaning to head + modifier constructions. In fact, we suggest refining the concept of automorphism so that it refers exclusively to (non-iconic) relations between structures that may share meaning, but whose connection does not enhance or modify meaning in any way.⁷⁸ In short, analogy relies on surface similarities in order to trigger formal restructuring, whereas iconicity relies on elements miming or reflecting underlying conceptualizations. Both analogy and iconicity contrast with automorphism, which, as Haiman (1985) suggests, refers to a correspondence between two or more parts of the same system. We argue that the correspondence is a conceptual link, but unlike iconic connections this link does not enhance the meaning or the function of the structures that overlap. At this point we have explored the foundations of the notions of analogy and iconicity and teased them apart. In the next section we build on these concepts in order to demonstrate their role in interpreting clitic order alternation and its resolution.

3.3 Cognitive/functional features of clitic order alternation and change 3.3.1 Iconicity In our analysis, we identify two main types of iconicity. The first type is exophoric pragmatic iconicity, which we consider a subtype of Nöth’s (1990, 2001) exophoric iconicity, but also related to Conradie’s (2001) notion of structural iconicity, which is an iconic relationship that “occurs when the structure of linguistic elements, as manifested in their ordering in particular, may be shown to reflect a process or state of affairs in extralinguistic reality or our perception of reality” (230). Exo-

77 Cf. also Maiden (1992). 78 In light of the definition of iconicity used here, we ignore Aski’s (1995: 427) proposal that suppletive verbs have an iconic relationship with the language template that their alternations reflect in a one-to-one manner.

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phoric pragmatic iconicity is a language external iconic relationship founded in similarity between linguistic structure and the conceptualization of reality (“form miming meaning,” Nöth [2001: 22]). We identify it as pragmatic because, in this case, clitic ordering does not simply imitate “external reality,” but rather mirrors “a subjective perception or, rather, conception of reality” (Müller [2001: 307], emphasis added); it is an instance of “miming emotion, acts of cognition, attitude, point of view” (Müller [2001: 311], emphasis added). Exophoric pragmatic iconicity can also be related to the notion of “experiential iconicity” in Tabakowska (1999: 410), according to whom “linguistic structures are the reflection of the world not as it is, but as it is perceived by a cognizant human being” (emphasis added). Furthermore, it can be related to the notion of subjectivity understood as a manifestation of “the involvement of a locutionary agent in discourse, and the effect of the formal shape on [...] the linguistic expression itself” (Finegan [1995: 1]), and as referring to the expression of self and the representation of the speaker’s perspective or point of view in discourse (Traugott [1989, 1995, passim]). Although we argue that subjectivity played a crucial role in determining the order of clitics in clitic clusters, it did not lead to subjectification, which is the diachronic process of a pragmatic-semantic nature that brings about the emergence or increase of subjectivity in linguistic forms. Subjectification is a process “whereby forms and constructions that at first express primarily concrete, lexical, and objective meanings come, through repeated use in local syntactic contexts, to serve increasingly abstract, pragmatic, interpersonal, and speaker-based functions” (Traugott [1995: 32]). A paradigmatic example of subjectification as a diachronic process is the development of present-day English while ‘although’ from Old English þa hwile þe ‘at the time that’ (Traugott 1989), which shows how “meanings with largely propositional (ideational) content can gain either textual (cohesion-making) and expressive (presuppositional, and other pragmatic) meanings, or both, in the order: propositional > ((textual) > (expressive))” (Traugott 1989: 31). Thus, in its temporal meaning, þa hwile þe has prepositional value because it “refers to a temporal situation viewed as a verifiable state-description” (ibidem); ‘during’, on the other hand, in addition to indicating a temporal relationship between two events, also links two clauses at the textual level; finally, the concessive meaning ‘although’ expresses the speaker’s attitude. Moreover, although we ascribe discourse pragmatic functionality to the variable order of clitic clusters, we are not dealing with a case of pragmaticalization as currently understood in the relevant literature. Italian clitic pronouns clearly have not become pragmatic markers because they have not passed through the diachronic process by which linguistic expressions acquire pragmatic functions and eventually develop into discourse markers (Aijmer [1997]; Traugott [1999, 2007]; Diewald [2011], inter alia).

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Given the nature of clitic pronouns, which lack true lexical semantic content, neither subjectification nor pragmaticalization as diachronic processes of semantico-pragmatic change are applicable. We use subjectification and pragmaticalization solely as communicative strategies that are available to the speaker/writer to express subjectivity and pragmatic meaning by means of clitic order before clitic ordering became fixed. We argue that the subjective perspective of the speaker is shaped by two key concepts: empathy and urgency. Following Kuno (1976a, 1976b, 1987) (but see also Kuno and Kaburaki [1977]), we interpret empathy as the speaker’s varying identification with a person or thing participating in an event. In Kuno’s work, the relation between empathy and topicality is formalized by means of hierarchies, in particular the Speech Act Empathy Hierarchy, which predicts that the speaker empathizes more with himself than with the addressee or a third person, and the Topic Empathy Hierarchy, according to which the speaker more easily empathizes with the discourse topic (the object or person that has already been discussed) than with a non topic (which has been introduced for the first time). Other hierarchies, such as Silverstein’s (1976) Animacy Hierarchy, Givón’s (1976, 1983a,b, 1988, 1992) Universal Hierarchy of Topicality, Yamamoto’s (1999) Hierarchy of Person, as well as Langacker’s (1991) interpretation of topicality within Cognitive Grammar also highlight the connection between empathy and discourse topicality by giving primacy to humanness, animacy, definiteness, agent, first person, and interlocutor/addressee. There is evidence of the effect of these hierarchies on the structures of a variety of languages,⁷⁹ and there are indications that these concepts can also account for phenomena in Italian. For example, Parry (1997: 261) reports that: 79 Deane (1987) applies Silverstein’s (1976) empathy hierarchy to English possessives and finds that the higher the possessor NP is on the hierarchy, the more acceptable are possessives with the suffix –’s or a pronoun, and the less acceptable are possessives with of. As pointed out by Yamamoto (1999), the results of Leech, Francis and Xu’s (1994) investigation of English genitives also demonstrates that animacy of the possessor is one of the most crucial factors responsible for the preference for the suffixed possessive rather than for the construction with of. Delancey (1981) explores the role of empathy in the split ergativity pattern in Australian languages. Cienki (1993) employs the animacy hierarchy and its relation to empathy in his discussion of possessive marking in Russian. Cook (1994) investigates the role of empathy in cliticization and the appearance of the -cia suffix in Samoan. Yamamoto (1999) gives several examples from the literature that demonstrate the effect of animacy, empathy, and person on word order. For example, in an Australian language, Gunqinggu, Siewierska (1988), following Oats (1964), shows that first or second person bound pronouns always precede third person noun phrases, so that in the sentences equivalent to I’ll hit them and They’ll hit me the first person pronoun always precedes the third, regardless of its role. Croft (1990) reports that in Navajo, the argument that encodes higher animacy always precedes a lower animacy argument, so that in the sentence The horse kicked

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[f]irst and second person clitic pronouns, in view of their salience, are particularly topical and hence liable to be included early in the discourse. In fact, a significant number of the examples of ‘clitic splitting’ show instances of a first or second person clitic raising to the finite verb, leaving a third person clitic on the lower verb.

Berretta refers to the topicality hierarchy in her interpretation of the tendency for dat rather than acc clitics to be raised from the infinitive to the main verb in speech. In (59) the dat is in pre-verbal position, instead of post-verbal position and enclitic to the infinitive (voglio farmi...). (59)

mi voglio fare una bella I want-1sg.pi make-inf a good ‘I want to have a good night’s sleep tonight’

dormita, sleep

stanotte tonight

The same is true in the following example, in which the dat-acc cluster appears before the finite verb instead of being attached to the infinitive (vorrei dargliela…). (60) gliela vorrei dare io, la risposta, 3.sg.dat-3sg.f.acc want-1sg.pc give-inf I the answer permette permit-3sg.pi ‘I would like to give him the answer, if you (formal) permit [me]’

se if

The notion of empathy adopted in this study, given in (61), focuses on the speaker and closely follows the definition of empathy put forward in Kuno (1975, 1976) and Kuno and Kaburaki (1977), but it also incorporates the notions of profiling and foregrounding/backgrounding (Langacker [1987,1991]). (61)

Empathy: The speaker’s (degree of) identification with the participants of an event or situation that s/he is describing, and his/her (degree of) affectedness by the event or situation, which results in the speaker assuming a perspective with respect to the described situation that profiles the identification/affectedness relation (by foregrounding the focus of empathy).

the man, it would be ungrammatical for the horse to precede the man. Ertel (1977) provides an example of empathy influencing word order. He found that in write-ups of football matches in (English) newspapers by local reporters, the home team players occupied subject position more often than opposing team players. Schwenter and Silva (2003) demonstrate that the interaction of the dimensions of animacy and specificity dictate the variable form of anaphoric direct objects in Brazilian Portuguese. Finally, Gerlach (2002) provides an interpretation of dat-acc clitic order in Optimality Theory that is based on similar hierarchies: person and argument hierarchies.

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Empathy often results in increased saliency of the referent of the dat clitic, but this does not mean that the referent of the acc clitic, most often an inanimate element, cannot be highly salient. The centrality or importance of an entity in a given situation may be highlighted by the element’s urgency or importance to the plot and/or the interlocutors. In reference to the pragmatic principle of linear order, Givón (1988, 1995) reports that urgency has been found to play a role in word order, in that urgent information tends to be string-initial, thus accounting for the clitic whose referent is the object or information desperately sought (the discourse topic) appearing in the first slot of clitic clusters (see also (58d) above). After examining languages with variable word order, Givón (1988: 276) reports that urgent information tends to be preposed as a means of attracting the attention of the readers/interlocutors. …the unifying factor in the pre-posing of urgent information – urgent for whatever reason – is attention…The pre-posing of more urgent information is simply a reflection of the temporal ordering of priorities by the task-driven organism. Given [the principle ‘attend first to the most urgent task’], one could expect the following consequences in attending to and storing linearly-ordered information: … The string-initial position invites the hearer to pay more attention, and thus to store and retrieve the information more efficiently (original emphasis).

To support his position, Givón (1988) cites research in psychology that demonstrates that paragraph-initial clauses and sentence-initial words are processed more slowly, or receive more attention, than non-initial elements. Moreover, accounts focusing on the linear quality of language identify clause-initial position as the location of the theme or topic. Gómez-González (2001) cites research in psycholinguistics and text linguistics that shows the functional relevance of clause (or message) initial position and thus supports its saliency. In a similar vein, Gundel (1988) proposes an information-based generalization about word ordering: the ‘first things first principle,’ which states that the most important information be provided first. Urgency results in a high degree of topicality at the discourse level but, unlike empathy, it triggers the order acc-dat because the referent of the acc clitic is an urgent element, i.e., a person, object or information that is highly sought and relevant to the described situation. The example in (62) demonstrates how urgency and empathy behave and interact.

Cognitive/functional features of clitic order alternation and change   

(62)

   79

«Egl’è credenza, sì ch’io nol vi dirò mai». Cresciuta la voglia ala madre di saperlo e non possendolo vincere né co’ lusinghe né con minacce, incominciollo a battere. Allora il garzone disse: «Non mi date più ch’io ve ’l dirò, ma fate che sia sotterra» (Antonio Pucci, Libro di varie storie (1362); cap. 36, p. 250) ‘«It is a secret, so I will never tell it to you.» The mother’s desire to know was growing and since she was not able to get her way with bribes or threats, she began to beat him. At that point, the boy said: «Don’t hit me anymore and I will tell you it, but be sure that you don’t tell anyone»’

The speaker in (62) is Papirio Avesore, the protagonist of the story, who as a child goes to a secret council meeting with his father. When he returns home, his mother asks what happened at the meeting. Papirio insists that it is a secret and that he will never tell her (nol vi dirò mai), but when she starts beating him, he gives in to her request (ve ’l dirò) in order to make her stop. In the first token the acc-dat order is justified by the fact that the referent of acc is the topic of conversation (the answer to the mother’s question) and the boy considers it significant, because it is a secret that he cannot reveal. The clitic order switches in the following cluster, as Papirio gives in to his mother’s request so that she will stop hitting him. In this case, empathy is at play since the speaker’s goal is to appease the referent of the dat.⁸⁰ Summing up, we propose that when the appropriate context for empathy arises, the dat-acc order is employed by the speaker/writer as a strategy to foreground the referent of the dat clitic; that is, placing the dat clitic in initial position in the cluster reflects a subjective construal or conceptualization of the event or situation that underscores the higher degree of participation and saliency of the referent of the dat. On the other hand, if the context does not call for empathy and the referent of the acc clitic is a salient, urgent element, the acc-dat order fulfills the function of foregrounding the referent of the acc clitic by placing it in initial position in the cluster, thus highlighting the higher relevance of the acc participant in the described event or situation.⁸¹

80 The role of the negative particle (non) in influencing clitic order is presented in Chapter 4 (§ 4.3) and Chapter 5 (§ 5.3). 81 As mentioned in Chapter 2, the acc-dat order was essentially the default order in Florentine going into the fourteenth century. As such, it could be argued that the acc-dat order is free of pragmatic constraints and that only the switch to the dat-acc order is triggered by pragmatics. We discuss this issue at length in Chapter 4, where we provide examples from the corpus of pragmatically induced alternations.

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In contrast to exophoric pragmatic iconicity, which highlights relations between language and the world (in our case the subjective perspective of the speaker), endophoric iconicity refers to language-internal diagrammatic iconicity, or reference relations within the language structure. In our analysis, this type of iconicity is exemplified by causative constructions of the type fare ‘to make’ + infinitive (63), and constructions that involve the verbs convenire ‘to suit; to be advisable’ (64), and parere ‘to seem’ (65). (63)

Causative constructions mel fé sapere 1sg.dat-3sg.m.acc make-3sg.pst know-inf ‘she let me know about it’ (Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron (1371); II, 5, 101)

(64) convenire ‘to suit; to be advisable’ te le converrà tutte rendere 2sg.dat 3pl.f.acc be.advisable-3sg.fut all give-back.inf ‘it will be in your best interest to give all of them back’ (Paolino Pieri, La storia di Merlino (1310–1330); 18, p. 18) (65)

parere ‘to seem’ mel parea vedere 1sg.dat-3sg.m.acc seem-3sg.ii see-inf ‘I seemed to see him’ (Giovanni Boccaccio, Il Corbaccio (1355); parr. 61–70, p. 48)

In causative constructions the dat-acc order is structurally iconic in that the dat clitic, which occupies the first position in the cluster, refers to the causee, which is both the object of the first verb and the subject of the second (the infinitive), whereas the acc clitic, which appears in second position, refers to the object argument of the infinitive. An analogous relationship applies to convenire and parere since the referent of the dat is the experiencer of the main verb and the subject of the infinitive, whereas the acc is the object argument of the infinitive. This structure reflects the enhanced participation of the referent of the dat, which, by fulfilling a dual role could be argued to be more salient to the event/situation than the acc participant. This is particularly true of constructions with convenire, in which the semantics of the verb itself foreground the referent of the dat, since it refers to actions that are in one’s best interest. Whereas clitic order reflects the distribution of arguments in these constructions, it is also iconic of SVO order in general, since the referent of the dat is

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the subject of the infinitive and the referent of the acc is the object of the infinitive. SVO structure, in turn, is iconic of the cognitively basic schema or template referred to by Conradie (2001) as the Event Model, such that SVO represents the trajectory of activity from the beginning (the subject as agent or initiator of the action), to the action, to the patient or goal, which is the target of the action.⁸² Van Langendonck (1995) also interprets the iconic principles at play in SVO (and SOV) order. He finds that SVO (and SOV) are ideal because the subject comes before the object and the subject is clause-initial, which relates to the principle of closeness to the prototypical speaker. Moreover, in SVO the relator is in the middle and both the subject and the object are adjacent to the verb. The iconic relation to SVO could be pushed to include all dat-acc clusters, since, like in SVO, the animate element precedes the inanimate element, as predicted by the topicality and animacy hierarchies discussed above. As Hopper and Thompson (1993: 366) point out, “grammars are astonishingly sensitive to the fact that topics of discourses overwhelmingly tend to be human, given information (thus pronominal), powerful, and first or second person.” One may argue that these iconic interpretations are not universal, and therefore invalid. However, studies such as Siewierska (2005),⁸³ who finds that ca. 45 % of languages are SOV, ca. 35 % are SVO, and ca. 15 % are VSO, demonstrate that in nearly 80 % of the world’s languages the subject precedes the object. On the other hand, orders in which the object precedes the subject (OSV, OVS, VOS) are nearly non-existent. Similarly, Ibbotson (2013) cites Tomlin (1986), who conducted a survey of 402 languages and found that the majority of languages favor either SOV (44.78 %) or SVO (41.79 %), whereas the other possibilities – VSO (9.20 %), VOS (2.99 %), OVS (1.24 %), or OSV (0.00 %) – are significantly less popular. Ibotson (2013) points out that the reason why a particular language adopts the order that it does is language specific and relates to historical antecedents and evolution. However, as Van Langendonck (1995) points out, VSO, VOS, OSV, and OVS are iconically disadvantanged, in that either the subject is not clause initial or the object precedes the subject. In medieval Italian, word order is shifting from primarily SOV to SVO and it appears that clitics in causative constructions as well as constructions with convenire ‘to suit; to be advisable’ and parere ‘to seem’ may be maintaining the iconic pattern.

82 Iconicity with higher-order language structure is not uncommon. Condradie (2001) proposes that the -s genitive is chosen over the of genitive because it is iconic of the full-fledged main clause (SVO). Fischer (2001) and Vincent (1986) suggest that adjective-noun order is iconic of theme-rheme syntactic linearity in Old English and Italian respectively. 83 Cited by De Cuypere (2008: 167).

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3.3.2 Analogy The concept of analogy falls squarely in a usage-based account, in that similarity to existing exemplars or schemas influences novel formations. Structures that are formally similar are highly connected, and this connection drives choices when alternate variants are available to speakers. In our study, two categories, the masculine singular definite article (sg.m.art) and the third person singular masculine accusative (3sg.m.acc) clitic are highly connected, since both have an anaphoric function and both derive from the same source, the Latin distal demonstrative ille, which produced parallel sets of the same four allomorphs in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries: lo, ‘l, l’, and il.⁸⁴ In Chapter 5 (§ 5.3), we argue that these overlapping forms and functions may have motivated the dat-acc order when the clitic was 3sg.m.acc preceding the auxiliary avere ‘to have’ in present perfect constructions, and the acc-dat order when the same clitic followed the negative particle non. The question addressed here is how to characterize the relationship between these two structures which, for speakers/writers, appear to be linked despite their distinct roles in the language system. Joseph and Janda (1999) question whether ‘same’ vs. ‘different’ is a binary option and employ the concept of ‘morphological constellations’ to characterize ten Modern Greek negative markers that have enough similarities among them to warrant unifying them, but also enough differences to prevent their being characterized as the same. They define ‘constellation’ as a group of elements which share at least one characteristic property of form but are distinguished by individual idiosyncrasies – of both form and function – that prevent their being collapsed with one another, whereby the identity of the shared formal elements is shown by [...] a meta-redundancy statement, or “(partial) meta-template”, which equates (or “parses”) all relevant instances of a particular formal configuration (343).⁸⁵

We argue that the sg.m.art and 3sg.m.acc form a morphological constellation (Janda and Joseph [1986]; Joseph and Janda [1999]) and that once they are in each other’s orbit (to continue the metaphor), one may influence the other by 84 All four forms of the definite article still exist in modern Italian, but the apocopated form is only heard in fast speech (e.g. mangiamo l dolce ‘we eat the cake’). In contrast, today there are only two forms of the clitic pronoun (lo and l’). Renzi (1993: 222) remarks that the reason why il was abandoned as a clitic pronoun while lo was maintained and extended is not clear. This is a topic for further investigation. 85 Wanner (2006: 151) identifies a similar concept, which he calls ‘linguistic classification’ or ‘form classes’: “Where it takes hold, analogy produces linguistic classification, form classes, constituents, and constructions.”

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analogy. We distinguish these two elements that share forms and a function, from elements in the language system that are connected by form only. In Chapter 5 (§ 5.4) we explore formal analogical connections between clitic clusters and the phonotactic system, as well as between the clitic clusters examined in this study and other clusters, such as those formed with the clitic ne. We also investigate the relationship between clusters with dat and acc clitics and clusters with reflexive and dat/acc clitics. Since reflexive clitics share the same forms and some functions with dat clitics, the order patterns in these clusters may be related. Once the iconic and analogical tensions in the medieval Italian language system are fleshed out, the groundwork is prepared for a more detailed examination of the grammaticalization process and the resolution of the dat-acc/acc-dat order alternation in favor of dat-acc.

3.4 Grammaticalization of the dat-acc order Frequency plays a key role in the cognitive/usage-based model because the storage of an element/exemplar is strengthened with each use. In the case of grammatical patterns, the patterns form schemas, which have positions that can be filled by different elements. For example, in the case of clitic clusters, two schemas were accessible to speakers, the dat-acc + verb and the acc-dat + verb. In the successive stages of grammaticalization when one schema was gaining ground over the other, a change in the relative frequencies of the clusters occurs as one schema (the dat-acc) generalizes to new contexts and is bleached of its original pragmatic motivation and, thus, becomes habitual. We suggest that our data represent a snapshot of a stage in the grammaticalization of clitic pronoun order in which different phenomena are at work. Exophoric pragmatic iconicity reflects a step in the grammaticalization process in which clitic order is pressed into service to reflect textual and extra-textual pragmatics, and thus clitic order alternation is maintained.⁸⁶ The fact that clitic 86 There is a parallel to Thompson’s (1995) iconic interpretation of dative alternation in English (reported by De Cuypere [2008]) that predicts that the more topical recipient will tend to occur earlier than patients, and that recipients that occur in the earlier (postverbal) position can be shown to be closer to the preceding discourse material than the recipients that occur later in the clause. De Cuypere (2008) concludes that the innovation by which the alternation emerged may have been iconically motivated and proposes that “the ensuing process of language change conventionalized this iconic motivation which resulted in two constructions with a symbolic formmeaning pairing” (155). Unlike dative alternation, the alternation in medieval Italian eventually resulted in the conventionalization of one variant which was bleached of its pragmatic discourse function.

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order can convey pragmatic meaning is consistent with recent reevaluations of the standard assumption that grammaticalization involves essentially loss of meaning, showing that semantic gains are possible (e.g., Traugott and Dasher [2002]; Traugott [2003]; also Sweetser [1990]). Specifically, new pragmatic meanings/functions may arise during the initial stages of grammaticalization, which originate from the speaker’s desire to seek more expressive linguistic forms (Traugott [1982, 1988, 1989]; Sweetser [1988]; also Hopper and Thompson [1994]). We argue that whereas this pragmatic function maintained alternation between the two clitic orders, ultimately, this pragmatic functionality was lost and the resultant cluster became a chunk without pragmatic meaning. Habituation and automatization are crucial to the grammaticalization process, during which cluster order is bleached of its pragmatic function. We suggest that there were a variety of forces that coexisted with pragmatically motivated alternations, which, for the most part, supported the shift toward the dat-acc order but sometimes promoted the opposite, acc-dat order, such as language-internal relations (endophoric iconicity and analogy) and language contact phenomena. Therefore, the ‘story’ of the grammaticalization of clitic cluster order is one of competition and conflict; in other words, there is a ‘tug-of-war’ between forces that push the language in different directions. Newmeyer (2003: 29) cites ‘competing motivations’ or ‘competing functional factors’ when he points out that “[i]ndividual languages are functionally motivated, even though neither individual languages nor language as a whole become more ‘functional’ over time”. ⁸⁷ The moral of the story of language change is that it is neither possible nor realistic to identify one cause of a particular linguistic change. Take, for example, the analogy presented by Harris and Campbell (1995) of a car that crashes into a tree and the following conditions apply: (1) it is dark and foggy, (2) the road is narrow and icy, (3) the driver is drunk, (4) the driver has several physical disabilities, (5) the car was not in good driving condition, (6) the driver was speeding, (7) the driver was not watching the road at the time of the crash, and (8) the tree was in the spot where the car went off the road. In this scenario, any number of the factors or all of the factors may have contributed to the crash and it is not possible to identify the degree of each factor’s role in the accident. However, any or all of the factors potentially could contribute to the event, and that is the key to comprehensive understanding. As in this crash, it is likely that there is not one cause of language change, rather there are multiple factors that compete for particular outcomes; therefore, it is not possible to predict how change will play out (or even

87 Newmeyer (2003) traces the idea of competing motivations back to Gabelentz (1891). See also DuBois’ (1985) classic paper on competing motivations.

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whether it will occur), but identifying the potential factors interacting during the change goes a long way toward understanding the process. In our cognitive/functional interpretation, the cornerstone for understanding language change is the notion of competing motivations. As Newmeyer (2003: 32–33) points out, “[t]he principle criticism of functional explanation is to claim that it is vacuous. Since for any functional factor there exists another factor whose operation would lead to the opposite consequence, the claim that some particular functional factor ‘explains’ some particular instance of language change has the danger of being empty.” There is a research imperative to seek all the factors that push and pull a structure in various directions as it restructures. Although it may be (nearly) impossible to identify all the factors involved, it behooves historical linguists to leave no stone unturned in their search for the ‘story’ of change.⁸⁸ Berg (1998: 14) suggests that “[i]n view of the heterogeneity of language, the slow pace of change, and the multitude of intervening factors, it is hardly surprising that all explanations must be tentative, preliminary, and on a less than firm footing.” However, we are convinced that a hermeneutic, cognitive/functional approach to change is the closest one can come to an interpretive explanation of language change that embraces the realities of human language. However, this position is not universally shared, as we will see in the next section.

3.5 Explanation of language variation and change in a cognitive/functionalist approach In order to clarify our position on explanation and language change, we compare it to a model that takes the opposite approach. Lass (1980, 1997) finds that explanation in linguistics is only ‘real’ or ‘true’ if it is deductive and, therefore, falsifiable. This approach leads to significant constraints on his idea of explanation in language change. For example, he challenges Antilla’s (1989) suggestion that variation in language is ironed out because ‘the mind shuns purposeless variety’ (referred to by Lass as “MSPV”). This concept is connected to the constraints on memory – the ultimate mental cause for simplifications – because there is a striving for communication with the least effort. Lass (1997: 334) contends that one cannot invoke MSPV only in those instances in which it can explain an outcome but then allow counterexamples to be non-realizations of what would be a tendential process. For Lass, the theoretical application of a process only in the occasions in which it appears to apply is simply ‘bad science’. He concludes that any 88 See Langacker (1987: 99–100) for a similar position on the importance of competing motivations in cognitive linguistics.

86   

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strategy for coping with change that invokes (non-nomic) ‘cognitive’, ‘psychological’ or semiotic motivations: one meaning one form, change due to maximization of iconicity, etc., are not deductive, thus not falsifiable and, moreover, are teleological, since everything that happens to cause change is explained by the desire for the new state (Lass 1997: 350). For Lass, language is not part of the individual nor part of the collective community, but rather is an area in “an abstract, vastly complex, multidimensional phase-space” (1997: 376–377). It is a system which, as such, allows him to talk about variation and change in the same way in which it is discussed with other replicating populations; that is, the population of linguistic variants moves through time and is subject to selection (1997: 377).⁸⁹ For Lass, this means that we don’t need speakers whose behavior has to be explained in human or personal terms, because once we include speakers, we have probabilistic explanations, which he contends are not explanations but rather post hoc recognitions of sets of conditions that fit certain generalizations and cannot account for the cases that do not fit. He contends that what must be selected is a set of norms represented in terms of populations of variants. Therefore, system evolution is medium-neutral and all change looks the same, following the same pattern of historical drift. This systemic process leads to order: “The crucial notion is that blind, non-teleological, dumb and boring processes can lead to order, design and even purpose” (Lass [1997: 380]). Lass’s approach to language change applauds deductive-nominological explanations (which he admits are actually not possible in linguistics) and avoids hermeneutic approaches that seek the human, emotional, cognitive perspective and are, therefore, tendentious and non-falsifiable. In contrast, we take a functional/cognitive approach in which speakers are the leading force of change. We agree that speakers’ engagement with variation is inconsistent, but not because a theoretical model relies on the arbitrary application of a tendency, but rather because speakers utilize variants as they become useful for achieving successful communication. Lass eliminates speakers from his model because falsifiable argumentation, the only type that he deems theoretically acceptable, cannot include the unverifiable behaviors of humans. This means that for Lass a hermeneutic approach that includes the interpretation of cognitive or social factors is not truly explanatory. According to Ritt (1999), Lass’ approach to language change is related to his stringent criteria for the evaluation of scholarship, which Lass deems necessary for fear that models will be considered successful based on enthusiasm, rhetoric 89 Lass views languages as populations of replicating systems, but does not describe the process of replication. This facet of his argument remains fragmentary (Ritt [1999]).

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or aesthetic appeal, which will result in the discourse of the discipline becoming obscure or manipulative. One can understand a desire to point out the limitations of historical linguistic analysis, but Lass has adopted an extreme that has been considered unnecessarily restrictive and theoretically untenable for dealing with language (Faarlund [2000]). It is unacceptable to eliminate speakers from analysis of the mechanism that defines, in part, communities and cultural traditions, and is employed exclusively by humans to communicate information in the name of theoretical refinement. Rather, the unique cognitive ability of humans to perceive and construe the world and relay these construals through language must be a feature of the analysis of language change. As Langacker (1987: 30) aptly points out: “[l]inguists are driven by esthetic considerations and by the dictates of scientific method to look for simple, elegant solutions to complex problems. This is proper and necessary, but only to the extent that such analyses are consistent with the reality of language.” Although a deductive explanation in a cognitive/functional account of language change cannot be achieved, a sound interpretation of change that avoids teleology is necessary. Andersen (1989: 7), following in the footsteps of Coseriu, states that the only true ‘causes’ of change are the speakers, and adds that this perspective acknowledges the intentional character of speaking. Once the intentionality of speaking is incorporated into the model, a certain teleology of change must follow. Andersen (1989) recognizes the teleology of language change when he states that “it is apparent that although all changes in some sense must be products of man’s free will, they still give evidence of a fair degree of determinism. This is not surprising, considering that all languages conform to definite universal principles of use and structure, which are not subject to human will” (8). One way that speakers innovate is to adapt their grammar to the demands of discourse: “[t]he unifying features of all adaptive innovations is their purposefulness (or goal-directedness–finality, as the philosophers would say, the fact that they are modifications of a speaker’s grammar aimed at achieving specific communicative ends)” (Andersen [1989: 14–15]). Nedergaard Thomsen (2006) adopts Coseriu’s perspective that language is primarily understood as a function and secondarily as a system. Languages do not function because they are a system, but rather language is a system in order to perform a function.⁹⁰ Thus, the motivation of change is to keep functioning. This leads Nedergaard Thomsen (2006: 311) (like Andersen [1989]) to conclude that language change is teleological in the sense that speakers tend to “remodel 90 Similarly, in Harder’s (1996: 440) functional grammar perspective, “[t]he structural organization of language, far from contradicting the functional aspect of language, can only be understood as structuring the functions themselves.”

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their language in order for it to be able to function to their satisfaction to cope with a changing ‘world’ (and possibly their changing conception of it).” Seiler (2006: 164) echoes this functional teleology when he points out that speakers do not select variants in order to change language, but rather to communicate successfully in the here and now. He goes so far as to state that variation in grammar can be tuned to functional factors established by the goals of the speech event. We propose that a cognitive/functional approach to language change that is driven by communicative efficacy or analogical restructuring is not teleological because speakers are not intentionally changing the language. Croft (2000: 66) defines teleological mechanisms as “those in which changing (or preserving) the linguistic system is the explanation of the innovations, either as the intended goal of the speaker in her behavior, or as some mysterious law that linguistic systems submit to in their evolution.” Examples of teleological arguments are: (1) that the deletion of intervocalic /s/ occurred in order to avoid a merger of present and future tense forms in Ancient Greek (McMahon [1994]) and (2) Martinet’s (1952/1972) pull and push chains to preserve vocalic symmetry in the Hauteville dialect of Franco-Provençal.⁹¹ Rather, the goal of speakers is to use and interpret language effectively. Croft (2000) puts a different twist on the functionality of language and suggests that over time syntagmatic isomorphism (Haiman 1980, 1985) often predominates.⁹² For Croft (2000: 141), language change is often the result of form-function reanalysis during communication, as the hearer tries to identify the meanings of the morphosyntactic structures in an utterance. He states that since reanalysis is unintentional it is not teleological, but it does lead to syntagmatic isomorphism. When confronted with variation, language users may also functionally adapt the variants in order to enhance the transparency of a message. Indeed, in a functional model, variation does not necessarily imply an impending change, but where selection and restructuring eventually occur, the variation is not random. Bergs and Diewald (2008) note that “[a]s early as 1968, Weinreich, Labov and Herzog claimed ‘Not all variability and heterogeneity in language structure involves change; but all change involves variability and heterogeneity’” (1968: 187). They point out that this sounds much more straightforward than it actu-

91 For additional examples, see Croft (2000: 66–70). 92 Croft (2000: 141) states that the form-function reanalysis does not predict that change will be in the direction of greater iconic motivation. However, he claims that “[i]f we hypothesize that speakers are doing more than just figuring out what part of meaning-in-context corresponds to what morphosyntactic unit of the utterance, then iconic motivation should follow from formfunction reanalysis.” He goes on to note that form-function reanalysis is only one of several functional motivations, such as economy, paradigmatic iconicity and paradigmatic economy.

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   89

ally is, since linguistic change usually does not arise from some kind of wild and random variability. Rather, it requires structured heterogeneity, such that change can be described as the generalization of one particular alternation, which means that it is characterized by some sort of directionality. Examples of synchronic, stable, structured, morphosyntactic heterogeneity are presented by Camp (1997) and Blas Arroyo (2011). Camp (1997) analyzes the alternation between the genitive case and von + noun in German. She presents examples in which only one or the other variant may be used and then looks at cases that would allow both. She finds that although there is variation, it is not as free as is generally claimed and that the meanings of the genitive and of von still dictate usage to a certain extent. Blas Arroyo (2011) studies the synchronic variation of deber (de) + infinitive in Castilian. Although the traditional explanation of the alternation is no longer valid (a contrast between epistemic and deontic usages), there are different constraints on the usage of each variant and the alternation is not random. It appears that the preposition tends to be used in constructions that are highly spontaneous or have expressive emphasis, whereas it is not used in attenuated comments or interrogatives.⁹³ Contrast these analyses with Wanner (2009), who provides a diachronic analysis that looks at the variation between enclisis and proclisis with infinitives in thirteenth-century Spanish texts. He finds that proclisis was approximately even with enclisis across contexts and texts. By the fifteenth century proclisis became the dominant option in many contexts but, by the sixteenth century its usage became weak and was eventually eliminated in favor of enclisis. For Wanner (2009) usage could not be systematized in medieval Spanish because clitics lack functionality, expressivity, and syntactic determination of the linearization, consequently the data could not be organized in language acquisition. He states that “[r]ather than unreliable, the data did not carry a discernible linguistic structure and were thus free to vary without visible effect for the speakers (thus unessential) or for their grammars (not even covered)” (Wanner [2009: 192]). He contextualizes the eventual stabilization of linearization in a flexible formal framework of constrained analogy, which provides an explanation for non-identical outcomes and non-linear paths of evolution. In Lass’ (1997) evolutionary account, this coming and going of structures is not at all peculiar because neither state is ‘preferable’ and the language gets along just fine without either; neither state is necessary in a model in which speakers are not the catalysts of variant selection and change. We maintain the truism that all diachronic change emerges from a pool of synchronic variation and agree 93 Blas Arroyo (2001) recognizes that other factors, such as sociolectal distribution, may be of interest and require investigation.

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with Bergs and Diewald (2008) that morphosyntactic variation that is eventually eliminated and results in restructuring cannot be ‘wild’ or random, but rather is systematized by speakers, and that the eventual selection of one variant implies ‘directionality’ of change.⁹⁴ The assumption that variation is random means that the ultimate variant selection is also random, which is inconsistent with a cognitive/functional approach that posits maximization of communicative efficiency as the premise for change. We suggest, then, that possibly the proclitic (and maybe enclitic) variation that began in Medieval Spanish according to Wanner’s (2009) study was constrained in some way that has yet to be identified. Indeed, the premise of the present study is that although clitics are atonic elements, their order may be pragmatically functional. It follows that a functional analysis based on speakers’ communicative interactions in pragmatically, socially and stylistically different contexts has a cognitive interpretation. Our hermeneutic approach is based on the following principles: (1) the speaker (and hearer) are central to the process of change; (2) language variation that results in change is rarely random; and (3) there is always more than meets the eye in language change because it is multifaceted and requires a fine-grained analysis of all potential factors impacting variation and restructuring. We agree with Janda (2006: 23–24) who states that [t]he most outstanding contributions made by cognitive linguists continue to be insightful analyses of intricate sets of naturally-occurring data performed by linguists with a subtle and detailed understanding of the languages they work on. Although theory is a crucial concern, it is treated as something that emerges gradually from and must be constantly verified against data.

We conclude by agreeing with Lass (1997: 384–385) when he states that “[a]nything complex enough to be interesting is multifaceted; one finds out different things by looking at different facets, without being obliged to claim (like the blind men and the elephant) that the facet is the whole gem.” However, although we do not claim to be in the “Truth Business” (Lass [1997: 385]), we endeavor to recreate the elephant as completely as possible. We work within the limitations of the field because it is not that we can’t ‘know’ at all, but that we must know as much as we can, and we are obligated to put the best proposal forward to create the most probable model. If we identify all the competing motivations that are accessible to us, therein lies the ‘Truth’ as close as we can come to it.

94 We make no claims about sound change, given the multitude of variants and the phonetic gradualness of restructuring. For a cognitive/usage-based account of phonological change in Italian, see Aski (2004).

Chapter 4 Pragmatic functionality of clitic order in fourteenth-century Florentine The focus of this chapter is to analyze the alternation between the dat-acc and acc-dat orders in fourteenth-century Florentine, which has been overlooked in previous studies. The proposed analysis is interpretive, seeking to identify the pragmatic features in the discourse (empathy or urgency) that may have triggered the appearance of either the dat or acc clitic in the first slot of clitic clusters. We begin by explaining why we did not adopt Givón’s (1983a) classic measures of discourse topicality and why we abandoned many of the ‘empirical’ measures that we used in Aski and Russi (2010) (§ 4.1). This is followed by a description of the methodology employed (§ 4.2) and by a discussion of two structural features that our data suggest impact clitic order: (a) a preceding negative particle non, and (b) following compound verb forms with the vowel-initial auxiliary avere ‘to have’ (§ 4.3). We then provide a general illustration of the role of exophoric pragmatic iconicity by way of empathy and urgency as conditioning the dat-acc or the acc-dat order (§ 4.4), followed by detailed analyses of a plethora of examples that demonstrate the validity of the approach (§ 4.5). We give special attention to two verbs whose semantics impact their analysis: dire ‘to say; to tell’ and credere ‘to believe’ (§ 4.6), and finally consider the fixed/idiomatic expressions, which appear to be unaffected by pragmatic, semantic, and structural factors because they are conventionalized (§ 4.7). Our analysis is fine-grained, because we examine the textual pragmatics as well as the structural pressures that may have interfered with or supported either order. This is the first installment of our account of the competing pressures that influenced clitic order. Additional pressures that created tension and most likely pushed the system toward the dat-acc order (and consequently led to loss of the acc-dat alternate) are discussed in Chapter 5.

4.1 Previous approaches The key to the viability of our analysis is the quality of the interpretation of the discourse pragmatics in which each cluster is embedded. In our analysis of clitic referents, we have chosen not to apply Givón’s (1983a) classic measures of discourse topicality: referential distance, or ‘look-back’, the potential ambiguity caused by other elements that could be interpreted as topics, and topic persis-

92   

   Pragmatic functionality of clitic order in fourteenth-century Florentine

tence, or ‘decay’. Referential distance assesses the gap between the current occurrence of an element and the immediately previous occurrence in the discourse by counting the number of clauses to the left with a limit of twenty; potential interference looks five clauses to the left of the element to find referents that could be interpreted as interfering topics; and topic persistence is a count of the number of clauses to the right in which the topic continues as an uninterrupted semantic argument (Givón [1983a: 13–15]). These measures may be effective for individual texts but the analysis becomes unwieldy when assessing tokens taken from a variety of texts of different genres and characterized by different structures. For example, in our prose narratives interspersed with dialogue, the intervening clauses are often reports of speaker turns (e.g., ‘the boy said …’, ‘the woman retorted …’), which interrupt the continuity of the discourse and therefore the count of referential distance. Furthermore, in some cases the narrative that intervenes between talking turns summarizes and condenses the events, so that the dialogue picks up from a new point in the discourse. Merchants’ documents, such as Frammenti di Simone Rinieri, exhibit a completely different structure, in that they may present information in a list-like fashion and repeat monetary sums or calculations, which are often the referent of the acc clitic. In addition, the notion of potential interference has been questioned. Myhill (1992: 36), for instance, finds that “it cannot be determined objectively what is ‘semantically compatible’.” Finally, persistence is not a valid measure if the clitic of the cluster is the last mention of a particular topic.⁹⁵ Aski and Russi (2010) sought an equally empirically objective method for interpreting the relationship between discourse pragmatics and cluster order and, in their analysis, they identified three sets of factors for determining topicality: (1) discourse-level factors, (2) sentence-level factors, and (3) syntactic/ valence factors. Two factors that signal an apparent lack of any relationship to the roles of the referents at the verbal, sentential or discourse levels, in that clitic order is the result of purely structural features, were also considered by Aski and Russi (2010): (a) fixed expressions and (b) pronominal copies of a previous relative pronoun. The discourse-level factors were similar to those employed in the present study, that is, the impact of the pragmatic concepts of empathy and urgency. The sentence-level factors considered by Aski and Russi (2010) depend on the location or role of the referent of the first clitic in the cluster. They are: (a) left dislocation, (b) ‘previous subject’, and (c) ‘previous indirect object (dat)’.

95 Similarly, referential distance is low if the cluster is relatively early in the discourse. Givón (1983a) points out that referential distance and topic persistence are related depending on where a topic appears in the discourse, but the problems with these measures noted above make them unreliable for this corpus.

Previous approaches   

   93

When the referent of the clitic occurring in first position is left-dislocated and the clitic is a pronominal copy of the dislocated element, as in (66), this referent is identified as the sentence topic (Chafe [1976]; Keenan [1976]; Li and Thompson [1976]; Vanelli [1986], for Old Italian; Sornicola [1981]; Lambrecht [1994, 2001]). (66) egli è morto, e per ciò he be-3sg.pi dead and for this [quello che non si dee poter that which not imp must-3sg.pi be.able-inf fare]i non so perché bisogni do-inf not know-1sg.pi why be.necessary.3sg.ps che io ili vi prometta that I 3sg.m.acc 2pl.dat promise.1sg.ps ‘he is dead, and therefore I don’t know why it is necessary that I promise you that which one should not be able to do’ (Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron (1370); X, X, p. 227) When the referent of the clitic occurring in first position is the subject of the verb immediately preceding the verb that hosts the cluster, as shown in (67), it is considered highly topical. (67)

Dovevan-ti ancora gli studi tuoi have.to-3pl.ii-2sg.dat yet the studies your dimostrare chi tui medesimo sii, demonstrate-inf who you yourself be-2sg.ps quando il naturale conoscimento mostrato when the natural understanding show-pp non tei l’ avesse not 2sg.dat 3sg.m.acc have-3sg.is ‘Your studies had yet to demonstrate to you who yourself are since natural understanding hadn’t shown [it to] you’ (Giovanni Boccaccio, Il Corbaccio (1355); parr. 271–280, p. 85)

Based on Myhill’s (1992) observations that subjects, datives and genitives are high(er) in topicality, whereas accusatives/direct objects, locatives and obliques are low(er), we rank referents that are indirect objects of the immediately preceding verb as relatively high in topicality, like subjects, and, if no other factors intervene, the expected clitic order is again dat-acc. An example illustrating this scenario is given in (68).

94   

   Pragmatic functionality of clitic order in fourteenth-century Florentine

(68) mii piace, poi che la reina comandato mei 1sg.dat please-3sg.pi thus that the queen command-pp 1sg.dat l’ ha 3sg.m.acc have-3sg.pi ‘It pleases me, thus that the queen has commanded me [to do] it’ (Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron (1370); III, I, p. 182) In Aski and Russi (2010), direct objects (69a) and immediately preceding clausal referents (69b) are classified as highly accessible and salient (Harold 1995: 141), but no claim is made regarding their topical nature. (69) a. Se tu di’ che dicevano [ogni cosa if you say-2sg.pi that say-3pl.ii every thing essere comune per legge di carità]i io be-inf common for law of charity I ili ti concedo 3sg.m.acc 2sg.dat grant.1sg.pi ‘If you claim that they said that everything was common because of the laws of charity, I believe you’ (Giovanni dalle Celle, Lettere (1378–1381; 34, p. 442) b. Ora sputeraii quando ili ti now spit-2sg.fut when 3sg.m.acc 2sg.dat ‘Now you’ll spit when I’ll tell you’ (Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron (1370); VII, I, p. 449)

dirò tell-1sg.fut

According to Ariel’s (1990, 2001) accessibility theory, referring expressions mark varying degrees of mental accessibility. “The basic idea is that referring expressions instruct the addressee to retrieve a certain piece of Given information from his memory by indicating to him how accessible this piece of information is to him at the current stage of discourse” (Ariel [2001: 29]). However, it is the discourse salience of the entities that determines the degree of accessibility. Thus, although unstressed pronouns are high accessibility markers, and high accessibility markers usually refer to discourse topics (Ariel [1988: 81]), in this study the referent of the first clitic is topical only when it is the subject or indirect object of the previous verb, while the direct object and the immediately preceding clause are identified as highly accessible. In terms of syntactic/valence factors, Aski and Russi (2010) distinguish four types of non-canonical constructions shown in (70), in three of which the dat functions as a marker of high involvement/affectedness of the participant and,

Previous approaches   

   95

since its referent is a high-profile discourse participant, the dat clitic tends to occupy the first slot of the cluster. (70)

Non-canonical datives a. Benefactives and malefactives, denoting participants who benefit or suffer (respectively) from a situation. b. Emphatic datives, which signal enhanced participation of the subject of the host verb. c. dat linked to multiple semantic and syntactic roles, such as those found in causative constructions (e.g., fare/lasciare ‘to make/to let’ + infinitive) and in the constructions convenire ‘to suit; to be advisable’ + infinitive and parere ‘to seem’ + infinitive. d. dat that appear with credere ‘to believe’, since the dat constituent is not part of the syntactic and semantic frame of this verb (e.g., *I believe this to you vs. I believe this/you), it tends to occupy the second slot of the cluster, in contrast to dat clitics referring to high-profile discourse participants.

The last category considered by Aski and Russi (2010) includes fixed expressions, or expressions of a formulaic nature that cannot be interpreted literally and resemble fixed or idiomatic expressions (such as come Dio vel dica in [71a]), and clusters in which the referent of the acc is a pronominal copy of a relative pronoun that occurs earlier in the sentence (shown in [71b]). According to Benincà (1986), the latter type was a consistent feature of medieval Italian. Aski and Russi (2010) observe that the order of clitics in both of these clusters seems to lack any relationship to the roles of the referents at the verbal, sentential or discourse levels, since the order is the result of purely structural features. (71)

a. … non faceva altro che batter la moglie, sì che io dissi una volta male di lui alli parenti della moglie, sì gran pietà mi venne di quella cattivella, la quale egli, ogni volta che bevuto avea troppo, conciava come Dio vel dica ‘He did nothing but beat his wife, such that I once spoke ill of him to the relatives of his wife, such the pity that I felt for that poor woman, who he, every time he drank too much, mistreated her as only God knows’ (Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron (1370); I, I, p. 33)

96   

   Pragmatic functionality of clitic order in fourteenth-century Florentine

b. la quale se tu nieghi, io la ti raddomando the which if you deny-2sg.pi I 3sg.f.acc 2sg.dat ask.back-1sg.pi ‘that which, if you deny [the fact that I gave it to you], I will ask back’ (Filippo Ceppi, Epistole eroiche di Ovidio Nasone volgarizzate (1330); p. 116)⁹⁶ Although the results were impressive, we believe the study can be improved. Despite the fact that the majority of tokens analyzed in our previous study (i.e., 137 tokens out of 208, or 65.9 %), were resolved, in that one or more factors were assigned to the first clitic in the cluster and the second clitic had no factors, many tokens (42 tokens out of 208, or 20.2 %) were ‘conflictual’ in that they displayed one (or more) factor(s) expected to trigger the actual order and one (or more) factor(s) that predict the opposite order. In addition, in three resolved clusters, both clitics were assigned multiple factors, which meant that the referent of the clitic that had the most factors was designated the topic. This, of course, is essentially a random assessment of topicality, because the relative strength of each factor is not measureable. Finally, 21 (10.1 %) tokens were exceptions, since the first clitic had no factors and the second had one or more, and five (2.4 %) tokens had no factors assigned to either clitic. If we combine the conflictual tokens with the three tokens in which both clitics had multiple factors, the exceptions and the tokens with no factors, the total number of essentially uninterpretable tokens is 71 out of 208 (34.1 %). Finally, the sentence-level factors for measuring topicality (left dislocation, ‘previous subject’, and ‘previous indirect object (dat)’) are a mode for measuring topicality based on one previous mention of the referent of the first clitic, but ignore any previous mentions that may be just as significant in terms of topicality. These issues prompted a revision of the analysis, which is described below.

4.2 The methodology of the present study In the present study we have refined significantly our (2010) analysis. Since, in retrospect, the relatively large number of factors could not be meaningfully interpreted, we chose to abandon most factors, such as the sentence level factors and the pronominal copy of a previous relative pronoun. As noted above, we consider the sentence-level factors too reductive for identifying topicality. We no longer consider pronominal copies of relative pronouns in clitic clusters a structural feature that lacks pragmatic significance since, although the pronominal copy 96 This text is not considered in the present study because the data are skewed; it contains three dat-acc clusters vs. 14 acc-dat.

The methodology of the present study   

   97

was required in this context, it is not specified that in double object clitic clusters the acc clitic had to occupy the first position. However, since the relative clause elaborates on the referent of the acc, which would increase its discourse prominence/salience, it may be likely (cf. § 4.3.2 on Fiammetta) that it does so. We no longer distinguish benefactives/malefactives from canonical dat (i.e., recipients) and consider them indicators of higher involvement because their saliency must be determined by the context (cf. § 4.3.5 on Bardi’s letters).⁹⁷ Tables 22 and 23 display the breakdown of the present analysis by factor. Notice that the categories are consistent. Factors (a) and (b) in both tables predict the dat-acc order, whereas factors (c) and (d) in Table 22 predict the opposite order.⁹⁸ This is not the case, however, for clusters involving dire ‘to say; to tell’ or clusters preceded by non, which both support the acc-dat order but do not trigger it consistently. These two factors are examined for their impact on cluster order, but they are not considered separate categories into which tokens are placed for analysis. Table 22: Factors considered in the overall analysis

1311–1350

1355–1394

acc-dat

dat-acc

acc-dat

dat-acc

a

Before auxiliary avere ‘to have’

 1

11

 4

30

b

Pragmatic foregrounding dat

 0

32

 1

45

c

Pragmatic foregrounding acc

80

12

82

 9

d

Credere ‘to believe’

 1

 0

 5

 0

e

Fixed expressions

 2

 1

 6

10

Table 23: Endophoric iconicity

1311–1350

1355–1394

acc-dat

dat-acc

acc-dat

dat-acc

a

Causatives

3 (1)

8

1

12

b

Convenire/Parere

8 (3)

4

1

 9

97 An addition to the present analysis is an examination of clusters with reflexive clitics, which is incorporated into our discussion of the possible analogical influences that could have impacted the resolution of clitic order alternation (cf. Chapter 5, § 5.4). 98 Fixed phrases do not have a single expected order.

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In our calculations, tokens are categorized according to the factors indicated, even if they belong to multiple categories. For example, in (72), the order is acc-dat because the referent of the acc clitic, the words of God that Jesus was sent to deliver, is salient. However, the cluster appears before the auxiliary avere, which predicts the dat-acc order. (72)

Ma chi non m’ama, non serva le mie parole. E la parola che voi avete udita, non è mia, ma è del Padre che m’à mandato. Queste cose io le v’ò parlate, stando con voi. ‘He who doesn’t love me has no need of my words. And the word that you have heard is not mine, but is of my Father who sent me. These things I have told you while being with you.’ (Diatessaron toscano (1373); cap. 158, p. 337)

Tokens like that displayed in (72) are recorded in two categories; that is, the cluster in (72) is registered as one of the expected acc-dat tokens in category (c) of Table 22 but it is also recorded as an exceptional acc-dat token in category (a) of the same table. Even though this token is exceptional to category (a), it is not exceptional to the analysis since the acc-dat order is justified by the fact that the referent of the acc is salient, which accounts for the placement of the acc clitic in the first slot. In the first half of the century eight of the 12 unexpected acc-dat outcomes are justified by saliency of the referent of the accusative (precisely, one token with the auxiliary avere, two tokens in causative constructions, and four tokens with convenire and one token with parere). In the second half of the century, all of the unexpected outcomes before the auxiliary avere (four tokens), with a causative construction (one token), and with convenire (one token) are justified because another factor, saliency of the acc, triggers the appearance of the acc in the first slot. Indeed, it is worth pointing out that few tokens are truly exceptional in the sense that they contradict the order of the category to which they are assigned and, unlike the example we have just seen, no other factors justify the clitic order. In the first half of the century the true exceptions are four acc-dat (three with convenire/parere and one with a causative construction), and 12 dat-acc clusters in which the referent of the acc is indeed salient (category c), thus the reverse order would be expected. In the second half of the century, the true exceptions are the one acc-dat cluster in which the dat is salient (category b), and the nine dat-acc clusters in which the acc is salient (category c). Thus, a total of 26 tokens (16 in the first half of the century and ten in the second half, given in in bold in Table 22) were truly exceptional.

The methodology of the present study   

   99

As shown in Table 24 a handful of tokens could not be categorized because they cannot be accounted for by any of the factors in Tables 22 and 23, whereas others cannot be interpreted in a pragmatic analysis, which identifies the saliency of the first clitic, because the referents of both clitics are salient. Table 24: Unanalyzable tokens

1311–1350

1355–1394

acc-dat

dat-acc

acc-dat

dat-acc

No factors

2

 5

1

1

Referents of both clitics are salient

5

 7

0

8

Total

7

12

1

9

Item (73) displays a token in which neither the dat nor the acc clitic have any particular salience in the discourse. (73)

E anche se niuno tuo amicho tornase di qua, ed e’ facia quella via, e tu mi volia mandare lettera niuna, avisalo che me la dia ‘And if a friend of yours returns here and takes that route, and you want to send me a letter, tell him to give it to me’ (Lettera di Gherardino (1375); p. 175)

In this general description of how one can get a hypothetical letter to the speaker, neither the recipient nor the letter carry any particular salience. On the other hand, in examples (74a) and (74b) both clitics are relatively salient in the discourse. (74)

a. e diceano: In che podestade fai tu queste cose? E chi ti diede questa podestade? E egli rispuose e disse: Domandovi d’una parola, la quale se voi me la direte, e io dirò a voi in che podestade io faccio queste cose ‘and they said: by what authority do you do these things? And who gave you this authority? And he answered and said: I will ask you one word, which if you say it to me, I will tell you by what authority I do these things’ (Diatessaron toscano (1373); cap. 124, p. 298)

100   

   Pragmatic functionality of clitic order in fourteenth-century Florentine

b. E io vi dico la veritade: a voi è bisogno che io vada; inperò che, se io non anderò, il Paraclito non verrà a voi, ma se io anderò, io ve lo manderò ‘And I tell you the truth: You need me to go, however, if I don’t go, the Paraclete [the Holy Spirit] will not come to you, but if I do go, I will send it to you’ (Diatessaron toscano (1373); cap. 160, p. 340) In (74a), the speaker has authority over his interlocutor. At the same time, the information is significant because if the speaker does not receive it, he will not explain the nature of his authority. Similarly, in (74b) the needs of the interlocutors are foregrounded, whereas the referent of the acc clitic, the spirit is highly desired. Two structural features stand out in the data and appear to impact the order of clitics: (a) the preceding negative particle non, and (b) compound verb forms with the auxiliary avere ‘to have’, which begins with a vowel. In the next section we examine these structures and their patterns of usage, but the relationship with the definite article that we suspect triggers these usages is explored in depth in Chapter 5 (§ 5.3).

4.3 Significant structural features As shown in Table 22 above, throughout the century 41 dat-acc and five acc-dat tokens appear before the auxiliary avere ‘to have’.⁹⁹ However, all five exceptional acc-dat tokens are justified because the acc is salient, which suggests that dat-acc is a relatively stable order in compound verb forms. If we take into consideration other verbs that begin with a vowel (such as intendo ‘I intend’ or osservi ‘you observe’), the data are not as clear cut, as shown in Table 25. Therefore, we limit our observations to compound structures with avere. Table 25: Tokens with vowel-initial verbs other than avere

acc-dat

dat-acc

1311–1350

0

2

1355–1394

3

3

Total

3

5

99 In one case the auxiliary involved is a form of essere ‘to be’ that begins with a vowel (era ‘be.3sg.ii’) and in another avere is a lexical verb.

Significant structural features   

   101

Similarly, the data in Table 26 suggest that the presence of the negative marker non supports the opposite, acc-dat, order in the second half of the century. Table 26: Tokens preceded by non

acc-dat

dat-acc

1311–1350

11

13 (1)

1355–1394

18

9 (5)

Total

29

22 (6)

Although we have not created a category for ‘preceding non’ as a trigger for the acc-dat clusters, and we recognize that these clusters have other factors that support the acc-dat order, it is likely that preceding non was involved in clitic order for two reasons: 1. Of the ‘unexpected’ dat-acc clusters preceded by non in the first half of the century, only one is truly exceptional in that there is no other factor that justifies the dat-acc order. Five tokens are in the context of a compound verb form, one is in the context of a vowel initial verb, and six tokens are accounted for pragmatics. In the second half of the century, only five are true exceptions. Two tokens appear before the auxiliary ‘avere’, one occurs before a causative construction, and two are accounted for by pragmatics. Thus, overall, there are only six exceptional dat-acc tokens as opposed to 29 expected acc-dat outcomes. These adjustments appear in parentheses in Table 26. 2. When the acc clitic is the 3sg.m.acc lo, in most cases the clitic undergoes apocope and fuses with the preceding non, as shown in Table 27. This feature is related to the analogical connection to the m.sg definite article (cf. Chapter 5, § 5.3) and enduring enclitic structural tendencies (cf. § 5.3 and Chapter 6, § 6.1). Table 27: Clitic morphology after non

nol

non lo

1311–1350

 1

0

1355–1394

12

2

Total

13

2

Structural features appear to have an impact on clitic order, and we will return to this topic in Chapter 5 (§ 5.3). In the next section we examine the role of exophoric

102   

   Pragmatic functionality of clitic order in fourteenth-century Florentine

pragmatic iconicity by way of empathy and urgency as conditioning the dat-acc or the acc-dat order.

4.4 Exophoric pragmatic iconicity: Empathy vs. Urgency In our cognitive-functionalist approach, extensive variation is not ignored as random, but rather demands investigation for possible patterns of distribution. In this section, we explore how the pragmatics of the discourse in which the cluster is embedded possibly dictates alternation patterns. We employ the concept of exophoric pragmatic iconicity to demonstrate how the author’s subjective perception of the topicality or saliency of the referent of either the dat or acc clitic dictates clitic order, such that the clitic with the more topical/salient referent in the discourse occupies the first slot in the cluster (categories (b) and (c) in Table 22). We refer the reader to Chapter 3 (§ 3.3.1) for a complete discussion of the concept but review the major points here. Exophoric pragmatic iconicity is a language external iconic relationship between linguistic structure and one’s perception of reality, where ‘reality’ is the discourse. Hence, the interpretation is highly subjective since it depends on the speaker’s perspective or point of view in the discourse. We argue that the subjective perspective of the speaker is shaped by two key concepts that highlight the importance of a person or object in an event: empathy and urgency. Empathy for a participant in an event is based on a number of topicality, empathy and person hierarchies that predict that speakers empathize more with themselves and their interlocutor than a third person, and that discourse topicality is often assigned to humans and animates. When empathy predominates, the speaker/writer experiences empathy for the referent of the dat, which appears before the acc clitic in the cluster.¹⁰⁰ At the same time, we argue that the referent of the acc clitic, be it an animate or inanimate entity, may attract significant attention and be considered topical depending on its ‘urgency’ or importance to the plot and/or the interlocutors. We argue that both orders reflect a subjective construal, or conceptualization of the event or situation; the dat-acc order underscores the higher degree of participation and saliency of the referent of the dat in the described event or situation, whereas the acc-dat order foregrounds the referent of the acc clitic. As pointed out by an anonymous reader, one could argue that the acc-dat

100 Aski and Russi (2010) make a distinction between self-empathy, which is manifested as overt lamentation or complaining about one’s own state of affairs, and censure empathy, which is manifested as a reprimand to the addressee/audience. We do not make this distinction in the present analysis.

Exophoric pragmatic iconicity: Empathy vs. Urgency   

   103

order, being the original, stable cluster order, was the base form and that only the dat-acc order was pragmatically triggered. However, our interpretations of the pragmatic motivation for each cluster order suggest that the referent of the acc often carries discourse salience in the contexts in which it appears cluster initially. Indeed, Table 22 shows that in the first half of the century 80 out of 92 tokens are categorized as having a salient or foregrounded referent of the acc clitic and in the second half of the century, 82 out of 91 acc-dat tokens have a salient referent of the acc clitic Thus, throughout the fourteenth century, there are only 21 out of 183 (11.5 %) exceptional cases in which the order is dat-acc. We found that the salient, foregrounded element in the discourse of the medieval texts in our corpus can only be determined through careful examination of the context in which the token appears. We acknowledge that determining the discourse topic is not straightforward (Brown and Yule [1983]). Gómez-González (2001: 31) reviews the findings of research based on semantic interpretations of the topic, which view it as a phrase representing the object or matter about which text is written. She finds that “aboutness cannot be regarded as an objectively identifiable unique category, but as a clearly intuitive, and therefore, subjective concept, since ‘what is being talked about’ may be judged differently at different points in discourse, and participants themselves may not have identical views of ‘what is being talked about’…” (original emphasis). Literary texts pose a particular challenge. Lotfipour-Saedi and Rezai-Tajani (1996: 234) point out that the lack of topics in theme positions or the occurrence of intervening secondary themes unrelated to the text topic may be employed by the author to divert the attention of the reader to create a particular effect (e.g., imagination). They compare modes of thematization in literary and scientific texts and find that in scientific texts the relation between the individual sentences and the central topic is indicated explicitly by many direct and indirect references to the topic. Since this is often not the case in literary texts, they observe that identification of the central topic in a literary text may involve inferences. In order to reduce the subjective component of this examination and avoid subconscious interference of the hypothesis, both authors examined each token independently and discussed and resolved conflicting interpretations. In the next two sections we provide examples of how empathy, which results in foregrounding the dat clitic, and urgency, which results in foregrounding the acc clitic, are assigned in order to give the reader a clear idea of the methodology employed.

104   

   Pragmatic functionality of clitic order in fourteenth-century Florentine

4.4.1 Empathy Example (75) is an excerpt from one of our earliest texts, Vite di eremiti dalle “Vite dei Santi Padri”, by Domenico Cavalca (1321–1330). (75)

Pregovi, Madonna, che sie mia pagatrice appo Dio, e che ’l prieghi che mi lasci entrare cogli altri a vedere e adorare lo venerabile legno della Santa Croce, …; e io ti prometto, Madonna, dinanzi a Dio, che da ora innanzi non macolerò la mia carne, ma incontanente che io averò veduto lo salutifero legno della Croce, e adoratolo, se tu me lo permetti, rinunzierò al secolo e a tutte le sue opere, e andrò dovunque tu mi mostrerai per cercare la salute mia ‘I pray you, Virgin Mary, that you be my guarantor to God, and that you pray him to let me enter [the temple] with the others to see and worship the revered wood of the Holy Cross, …; and I promise you, Virgin Mary, in front of God, that from now on I will not taint my flesh, and as soon as I will have seen the salutary wood of the Holy Cross, and have worshipped it, if you allow me, I will renounce the secular world, and I will go wherever you will show me to seek my wellfare.’ (Domenico Cavalca, Vite di eremiti (Maria Egiziaca) (1330); cap. 2, p. 204)

The excerpt in (75) is from the life of Saint Maria Egiziaca (Saint Mary of Egypt), who is narrating her past life of depravity and corruption. At this point in the story, she has just arrived in Jerusalem (having paid ‘in nature’ for her trip), where she wanted to see the Holy Cross. She is wandering through the streets of the city following a crowd of fervent pilgrims, when she is suddenly taken by an overwhelming feeling of self-deprecation and remorse and burts into tears and starts hitting her chest fiercely. While she is crying, the Virgin Mary appears to her and Maria starts to implore her compassion and fervently asks her to intercede with God, so that she be allowed to visit the temple and worship the Holy Cross, which she sees as her only possibility for redemption. Thus, the context for (self-) empathy, which triggers the dat-acc order in the cluster, is established. Another example of how empathy can be taken to justify the dat-acc order is found in an anonymous vulgarization, Deca prima di Tito Livio volgarizzata, dated 1350. (76)

se ti falla alcuna cosa, li Romani te la compiranno largamente; e di ciò io ti son tenuto ‘anything you may lack, the Romans will provide you largely; and for this I am committed to you’ (Deca prima di Tito Livio; L. 2, cap. 2, p. a126)

Exophoric pragmatic iconicity: Empathy vs. Urgency   

   105

In (76), the referent of the dat clitic (the addressee) is foregrounded by empathy since the speaker is reassuring him that all his needs will be taken care of; the speaker is committed to making sure he lacks nothing (di ciò io ti son tenuto). The referent of the acc is important, being anything that is lacking to the addressee, but its lack of specificity decreases its salience in comparison to the speaker’s commitment to the addressee. The excerpt in (77) is from a story about Alexander the Great from the Libro di varie storie (1362). At this point in the story, Alexander has arrived at a very high mountain, at the very top of which is situated a sumptuous palace made of pure gold. Alexander enters the palace and finds lying on a luxurious bed an old man who takes him to two trees that have the power to reveal the future. What Alexander wishes to know is if he will be able to go back to Macedonia and become a victorious ruler. (77)

e una boce si mosse dal’albero del sole, che disse: “Tu sarai signore del mondo, ma tu non tornerai in Macedonia.” E l’altro disse: “Già è in compiuta età chi ti dee uccidere e nol ti pensi”.¹⁰¹ E Allexandro disiderava di sapere chi fosse quelli, e la boce disse: “S’io te ’l dicessi, tu l’uccideresti, …” ‘and a voice came from the tree of the sun, which said: “You will be lord of the world, but you will not go back to Macedonia.” And the other [tree] said: “The one who is to kill you is already of age and you don’t think of it.” And Alexander wanted to know who the man was, and the voice said: “If I were to tell you it, you would kill him, …” (Antonio Pucci, Libro di varie storie (1362); cap. 9, p. 89)

Even though the referent of the acc is salient information (the name of Alexander’s killer) and the semantic nature of the verb dire ‘to say’ suggests that the information to be imparted is more salient than the person to whom it is being told,¹⁰² Alexander will most likely not receive it, as suggested by the improbable hypothetical construction. Moreover, the dat appears in the first slot as a reflection of the high degree of Alexander’s participation in the event, that is, the focus is on the course of action Alexander would most likely undertake if the name of his future killer were revealed to him.

101 The ti proclitic to pensi ‘you think’ is an emphatic reflexive pronoun, which is discussed in Chapter 5 (§ 5.4). 102 We find this to be a trend in our data even though it can be overruled depending on the pragmatics of the context. The patterns that emerge with verba dicendi (verbs of saying) are discussed at length in Section 4.6.

106   

   Pragmatic functionality of clitic order in fourteenth-century Florentine

In (78), from the Decameron, the distraught protagonist complains about the time she wasted with the lover who has left her. The dat clitic refers to her and occurs before the acc, which refers to the six months of her life that she has lost. The protagonist’s distress and self-pity take precedence over the amount of time that has been lost. (78)

Che fo io? Perché perdo io la mia giovanezza? Questi se ne è andato a Melano e non tornerà di questi sei mesi e quando me gli ristorerà egli giammai? ‘What do I do? Why do I waste my youth? He has run off to Milan and will not return for six months, and when will he ever be able to give them back to me?’ (Decameron; III, 5, p. 211)

In the next example of empathy (79), also from the Decameron, the addressee is highly (and negatively) affected because he is being reprimanded by a priest for his actions: repeatedly visiting a woman after she has told him she is not interested. The focus on the referent of the dat is supported by the fact that he is carrying out the displeasing actions and is the subject of two verbs in the reprimand (fai tu ‘you do’ and ti vai provando ‘you try to’), whereas the referent of the acc is not a specific element but rather the abstract notion of the woman’s displeasure. (79)

Niuna cosa è al mondo che a lei dispiaccia come fai tu: e tu pur ti vai riprovando! In verità, lasciamo stare che ella te l’abbia in molte cose mostrato ‘There is no other thing in the world that is more displeasing to her than your behavior: and you nonetheless keep trying! In truth, let’s ignore that she has shown it to you in many ways’ (Decameron; III, 3, p. 200)

The advantage of a less rigid interpretation of topicality/saliency that does not rely on factors that are limited to the immediately preceding verb is that it allows us to add to the interpretation of the context the type of verb structure, such as the hypothetical construction in (77), and the type of referent, such as the generic/ abrastract referents of the acc clitics in (76) and (79).

4.4.2 Urgency Urgent elements include any entity that is crucial to the story and/or desired by the interlocutors/participants. Elements that are overtly and insistently requested

Exophoric pragmatic iconicity: Empathy vs. Urgency   

   107

are often topical (Smith 1985: 197). In our corpus, desired information is a significant trigger of the order acc-dat. One example is given in (80):¹⁰³ (80) neentedimeno poiché tu pure vuogli, io lo ti dirò ‘nonetheless, since you also want, I will tell you it’ (Vite di eremiti (Maria Egiziaca); cap. 2, p. 201) The example in (80) comes from the same text as example (75). The speaker is again Maria Egiziaca and the addresse and referent of the dat clitic is Zosima, a venerable monk Maria met in the desert and to whom she is telling the story of her shameful life as a young woman. The referent of the acc clitic is Maria’s story, which is salient because it is necessary that Zosima knows about it in order to grant Maria forgiveness and absolution, and urgent because it is directly requested. The desired element may also be animate/human. In (81), the young woman, Gostanza, is dragged to the side of the ship by Saracens who slaughter her and throw her body into the sea before the eyes of her lover, who has come to save her. (81)

Togli, noi la ti diamo qual noi possiamo e chente la tua fede l’ha meritata ‘Take [her], we give her to you since we can, and because your faith has made you deserve her’ (Decameron; IV, 4, p. 293)

Elements that are central features of the narrative as a whole are also included in this category. For example, acc-dat tokens were found in which the referent of the acc clitic is an element that is crucial or central to the plot of the story, such as the falcon in the ninth novella of the fifth day of the Decameron. In this story Federigo Alberighi has a beloved falcon that he kills in order to prepare a fine breakfast for the woman that he loves. However, when the woman’s son falls ill and asks his mother to obtain the falcon for him, she finds out the sacrifice that Federigo made for her. In the excerpt in (82), the ill son has requested the falcon and his mother promises that she will bring it to him first thing in the morning.

103 This is an example of the trend referred to in footnote 102. However, as we saw in (77) above, this pattern is not completely consistent in the corpus and may be overturned depending on the pragmatics of the context.

108   

(82)

   Pragmatic functionality of clitic order in fourteenth-century Florentine

«Figliuol mio, confortati e pensa di guerire di forza, ché io ti prometto che la prima cosa che io farò domattina, io andrò per esso e sì il ti recherò.» ‘My son, take comfort and think of getting better, because I promise you that the first thing I will do tomorrow morning is that I will go for it [the falcon] and I will bring it to you.’ (Decameron; V, 9, p. 387)

In (83) from Diatessaron toscano (1373), which recounts the passion of Christ, we encounter two tokens in Jesus’ speech. His followers ask him to tell them openly if he is Christ, and Jesus responds that they do not believe him and his works because they are not his sheep. He continues by describing the behavior of his sheep and his relationship with them, and in both acc-dat clusters the referent of the acc clitic is his sheep. (83)

Se tu se’ Cristo, dilloci apertamente. Rispuose Gesù a lloro e disse: Io vi parlo, e non mi credete. L’opere, che io faccio nel nome del Padre mio, elle danno testimonanza di me; ma voi non mi credete, però che voi non siete delle pecore mie. Le mie pecore odono la voce mia; e io le conosco, e elle mi seguitano. E io dò loro vita eterna, e non periranno in eterno, e niuno le mi torrà di mano. Il Padre mio, che le mi diede, è maggiore di tutti ‘If you are Christ, tell us openly. Jesus responded to them by saying: I tell you and you don’t believe me. The works that I do in the name of my father are evidence of me; but you don’t believe me, because you are not my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will not perish in eternity, and no one will take them from me. My father, who gave them to me, is greater than all’ (Diatessaron toscano; cap. 135, p. 311)

The following excerpt is from letter 32 from the collection of Giovanni dalle Celle’s letters to Luigi Marsili in 1378–81. Here, the Christian brother asks the wise man what to do if he has little oil; should he give it away? In this discourse context, the focus is clearly on the oil that the speaker/writer does not want to part with and will not pull out unless ordered to do so by a prophet.

Empathy and urgency: Token analysis by text   

   109

(84) Ma s’io non ho se none un poco d’olio del quale io m’ungo, pensi tu ch’io il ti debba dare e rimanere voto? Io il serbo a me, e nol caverò fuori se non se al comandamento del profeta. ‘But if I only have a little oil for anointing myself, do you think I have to give it to you and be without? I preserve it for myself and I will not pull it out unless by order of a prophet’ (Giovanni dalle Celle, Lettere; 32, p. 340) Although according to the topicality/person hierarchies (cf. Chapter 3, § 3.3.1) discourse topics typically tend to be animate, human, and first or second person, our examples demonstrate how the role of an inanimate entity may be significant enough to control the order of double object clitic clusters. In the next section we provide further examples of empathy and urgency by examining multiple clusters from individual texts.

4.5 Empathy and urgency: Token analysis by text In the following sub-sections (§§ 4.5.1–4.5.7), we illustrate exophoric pragmatic iconicity by discussing pairs or sets of tokens from seven texts: two from the first half of the fourteenth century – Il Filocolo (1338) and Elegia di Madonna Fiammetta (1344), and five from the second half – Libro di varie storie (1362), Il Corbaccio (1355), Decameron (1370), Lettera di Gherardino di Niccolò Gherardini Giani a Tommaso di Piero di messer Rodolfo de’ Bardi (1375), and Frammenti del libro segreto di Simone di Rinieri (1380). All the data sets considered have one or both of the following characteristics: (i) the referent of the acc or that of the dat, or the referents of both clitics are constant, and/or (ii) the host verb is constant. Each text is discussed separately, since the motivation for clitic order is pragmatic and therefore text/context specific.

4.5.1 Il Filocolo (Giovanni Boccaccio, 1338) Five tokens in which both the referent of the acc and the referent of the dat clitics are constant were selected from Il Filocolo: two are dat-acc and three are acc-dat. The referent of the acc clitics is Biancifiore, the girl with whom Florio, the male protagonist and referent of the dat clitics, is deeply in love. Florio’s father, however, disapproves of his son’s love for a girl of lower social status and sends him away to school in order to separate him from Biancifiore. The excerpts selected are presented in the order in which they appear in the story.

110   

   Pragmatic functionality of clitic order in fourteenth-century Florentine

In (85), Florio’s father is (falsely) promising Florio that he will send Biancifiore to him in Montoro once his mother, for whom Biancifiore is caring, recovers. (85)

Ma acciò che tu seguiti lo studio, io in questa parte, ancora che io conosca che manifesto biasimo ti sia menarti dietro per le strane scuole quella che tu sconciamente ami, ne seguirò il tuo volere; e sì tosto come tua madre, la quale alquanto non sana è stata, come tu puoi vedere, avrà intera sanità ricuperata, io la ti manderò a Montoro; e ora teco la ne manderei, se non fosse che sanza lei tua madre in cotale atto non vuol rimanere ‘As long as you continue to study, for my part, although I know that it is unacceptable that you take along with you to foreign schools the one [Biancifiore] you indecently love, I will follow your desire: and as soon as your mother, who has not been well, as you can see, has completely recovered, I will send her to you in Montoro: and I would send her with you now, if it weren’t for the fact that your mother doesn’t want to be without her’ (Filocolo; L. 2, cap. 14, p. 141)

In the cluster in (85), the acc clitic appears in the first slot since Biancifiore and her return to Florio is Florio’s utmost desire (il tuo volere ‘your wish’). Moreover, she is central to the ruse that Florio’s father is perpetrating on him. Florio’s father knows that he can calm his son by pretending he will send his lover to him. In the excerpt given in (86), Florio is pondering two possible scenarios: (i) what he will do if his father does not send Biancifiore to him, and (ii) what he will do if he does. Consequently, both tokens appear in hypothetical constructions of the probable type. In the first cluster, the arrival of Biancifiore (the referent of the acc) is urgent, thus foregrounded, because her not arriving is the impetus (legittima cagione ‘legitimate reason’) Florio needs to take action by confronting his father and telling him that he has not sent the promised gift (lo ’mpromesso dono) without whom he cannot live. In addition, the cluster follows the negative particle, non, which also appears to favor the acc-dat order (cf. § 4.3). In the second cluster, the focus of the apodosis is Florio’s contentment at being able to live with her far from his father and how the quality of his own life will be improved. In this case, his preoccupation with his well-being takes precedence, creating the context for self-empathy, which motivates the use of dat in the first slot in the cluster.

Empathy and urgency: Token analysis by text   

   111

(86) Egli m’ha impromesso di mandarlami¹⁰⁴ se elli non la mi manda, io avrò legittima cagione di venirmene dicendo: “Voi non m’atteneste lo ’mpromesso dono: io non posso più sostenere di stare lontano da lei per ubidire voi”. E da quella ora in avanti mai più un tal sì non mi trarrà della bocca, quale egli ha oggi fatto. Se egli me la manda, molto sono più contento d’esser con lei lontano da lui che in sua presenza stare, e più beata vita mi riputerò d’avere ‘He promised to send her to me: If he does not send her to me, I will have legitimate reason to come to him saying: “You did not give me the promised gift: I can’t stand to be far from her in order to obey you.” And from that moment on he will never drag another ‘yes’ out of my mouth again, as he has done today. If he sends her to me, I will be so much happier to be with her far from him than in his presence, and I will have a more blessed life’ (Filocolo; L. 2, cap. 18, pp. 147–148) In (87), despite the fact that Biancifiore remains a salient element in the discourse, Florio is clearly upset with himself and laments (Oimè ‘Oh my’) the fact that his father has not sent Biancifiore to him, and that he did not realize that his father was tricking him and sending him away only to get Biancifiore off his mind, even though he had been forewarned by Biancifiore. Like the second token in (86), Florio’s own feelings take center stage and self-empathy motivates the dat-acc order. This clitic order is also supported by another pattern identified in our corpus. When the host verb is in a compound tense with the auxiliary avere ‘to have’, the dat-acc is used almost consistently (cf. § 4.3). (87)

Egli m’impromise più volte di mandarlami sanza fallo qua brievemente, e mai mandata non me l’ha. Oimè, che ora conosco il manifesto suo inganno e truovo che vere sono le parole che Biancifiore mi disse, dicendo che mai non ce la manderebbe e che egli qua non mi mandava se non perch’ ella m’uscisse di mente ‘He promised me several times that he would send her to me shortly without fail and he never sent her to me. Oh my, now I know his obvious deceit and I find that what Biancifiore told me is true: that he would never send her here and that he sent me here only to get her out of my head’ (Filocolo; L. 2, cap. 26, p. 163)

104 The fact that the enclitic cluster has the order acc-dat most likely does not impact the following cluster order since data from our corpus indicate that enclitic order was nearly invariable acc-dat (cf. Chapter 1, § 1.2).

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   Pragmatic functionality of clitic order in fourteenth-century Florentine

The last cluster (88) is parallel to the first cluster in (86), in that it is a probable hypothetical construction and Biancifiore and her removal from Florio are the reasons for Florio’s actions in the apodosis. Florio is stating that he and Biancifiore are one and the same and if his father acts against her, he acts against him too, so if she is taken from him, he will defend her with force. In this case, the urgency of the referent of the acc, Biancifiore, is reflected in the fact that the speaker, Florio, intends to defend her with force if she is taken from him. In addition, nominal and pronominal references to Biancifiore are made throughout the scene (and are highlighted), reinforcing her significance. (88) per questo si volesse opporre alla vita di Biancifiore, egli s’opporrà ancora alla mia: niuna cosa opererà verso di lei, che io come lei nol senta. Se egli per forza la mi vorrà torre, e io con forza la difenderò ‘for this if he wants to interfere in Biancifiore’s life, he will interfere in mine: nothing will interfere with her that I don’t feel just as much as her. If he has to take her from me, I will have to defend her’ (Filocolo; L. 3, cap. 7, p. 248) To conclude, the examples from Filocolo highlight how the discourse elements are perceived and prioritized in a discourse in which the focus of attention frequently switches between the two protagonists. The second token in (86) and the token in (87) reflect Florio’s preoccupation with himself or his state of being. The acc-dat tokens, on the other hand, foreground Florio’s lover, Biancifiore, who is either being given to or taken from him.

4.5.2 Elegia di Madonna Fiammetta (Giovanni Boccaccio, 1344) This novel, written in the form of a first person confessional narrative and intended to be a warning to all women about the dangers of love, recounts Lady Fiammetta’s intense and tragic love affair with the Florentine merchant Panfilo. When Panfilo has to go back to Florence, he vows eternal love to Fiammetta and promises that he will return to Naples as soon as possible. As time goes by and he does not come back, Fiammetta’s distrust of Panfilo grows stronger, until she eventually finds out that he has another lover in Florence. The leitmotifs of the novel are Fiammetta’s jealousy and despair caused by the realization that Panfilo’s love was untrue, and the narrative tone is tragic and self-lamenting. A total of seven clusters with the verb dare ‘to give’ as the head verb were collected from this text: three clusters are dat-acc and four are acc-dat. One element that the dat-acc tokens presented in (89)–(91) have in common is that they occur

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in improbable hypothetical clauses referring to events that are unlikely to happen (as indicated by the fact that the verb of the protasis is in the imperfect subjunctive). (89) Ma se egli attenuta non te l’ha,¹⁰⁵ niuno giudice si trovò mai che di ciò tenesse ragione, né di ciò più si puote che dire: ‘Male ha fatto’, e darsi pace, sappiendo che a lui sia da fare, se mai a tal partito la fortuna tel desse a quale ella ha te a lui conceduta ‘But if he has not kept his word to you, no judge is ever to be found who would hold him responsible, and the only thing that can be done about this is to say, “He did wrong” and then to rest in peace, knowing what could be done to him, if ever fate should give him to you so that you can do to him what he did to you’ (Fiammetta; cap. 6, par. 15, p. 192) In (89) the speaker is Fiammetta’s old nurse. She is very worried about her lady since Fiammetta has been talking about committing suicide and she is trying to comfort her. The nurse is referring to Panfilo’s promises of eternal fidelity and of coming back to her, remarking that nobody is ever going to blame him for not having kept his promises. The only thing to do is to acknowledge that he has behaved wrongly, make peace with it, and think about what she (Fiammetta) could do to him should fate give her the chance for revenge. The nurse is empathizing with Fiammetta in an attempt to dissuade her from thinking that death is the only solution to her situation and urging her to endure and overcome her sorrows. Empathy for Fiammetta supports the use of the dat in the first slot, whereas placing the acc in the second slot backgrounds the referent of this clitic (Panfilo), who is presented as unlikely to be ‘obtained’ by Fiammetta. In (90) the referent of the acc is a new pain the Gods may send to Fiammetta as punishment for her sin (i.e., the fact that she became Florio’s lover). However, Fiammetta does not expect to receive this pain because she does not believe that the gods are actually angry with her and want to punish her.

105 This token is another example of two structural factors that are in conflict. We expect the acc-dat order after the negative particle, non, but the opposite order that is used here before the auxiliary avere. For a discussion about factor conflicts (see Chapter 5).

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(90) è un dolore nuovo e diviso dagli altri, […]. Il quale ancora se per lo peccato commesso mel dessero gl’iddii, essi fariano contro al loro diritto giudicio e usato costume ‘it is a new pain and different from the others; which, if the gods were to give it to me as punishment for the sin I committed, they would act against their right judgment and customary ways’ (Fiammetta; cap. 8, par. 9, p. 241) Placing the dat clitic in the first slot highlights Fiammetta’s self-empathy and foregrounds her state as she perceives it, i.e., the fact that she is not to blame and that the Gods are on her side. At the same time, the referent of the acc, which is unlikely to be given (as indicated by the improbable hypothetical construction) and therefore not salient in the discourse, is backgrounded. In (91) the referent of the dat clitic is a book of memoirs that Fiammetta has just finished writing and to which she is speaking, and the referent of the acc clitic is the abito altramente fatto ‘garment made in a different fashion’, that is, the cover of the book. (91)

A te non si richiede abito altramente fatto, posto che io pure dare tel volessi. Tu déi essere contento di mostrarti simigliante al tempo mio, il quale, essendo infelicissimo, te di miseria veste come fa me ‘You are not required to have a garment made in any other fashion, even assuming that I would want to give it to you. You should be happy to show yourself similar to my disposition, which being most unhappy, clothes you with misery as it does me’ (Fiammetta; cap. 9, p. 253)

Once again, empathy obtains, manifested as a gentle reproach, an exhortation to the book to be sympathetic with Fiammetta, and motivates the use of the dat in the first slot. At the same time, by placing the acc in the second slot, the referent of the acc, which Fiammetta does not intend to give to the book, is backgrounded because of its lack of importance in the discourse. One of the four acc-dat tokens also occurs in a hypothetical construction, but in this case it is a probable hypothetical (the verb with the clitic cluster in the protasis is in the indicative mood). In (92), the referent of the acc clitic is ‘death’, which Fiammetta (the speaker and referent of the dat) intends to find at all costs.

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Venga adunque, e déalami: ella non mi fia pena, anzi diletto, però che io la disidero […]. Se egli non la mi dà, o ella da sé non viene, il mio ingegno da sé la troverà, però che io per quella spero ogni mia doglia finire ‘That he may come, then, and give her [=death] to me: she does not cause me sorrow, indeed she brings me pleasure, since I desire her [...]. If he does not give her to me, nor does she come by herself, my cleverness will find her, because I hope that she will end all my pains’ (Fiammetta; cap. 6, par. 14, p. 188)

The use of the indicative mood and Fiammetta’s pronouncement that she will succeed in finding death (il mio ingegno da sé la troverà ‘my cleverness will find her’) underscores the attainability of the referent of the acc clitic as well as its saliency and urgency, thus motivating the acc-dat order. In contrast to the preceding tokens, the remaining three acc-dat clusters occur in clauses denoting actual events that occurred in the past. In addition, they are all preceded by a relative pronoun co-referential to the acc clitic. In (93) and (94) the cluster is embedded in the relative clause, whereas in (95) the relative clause precedes the phrase in which the cluster appears. In all three cases, the relative clauses serve to elaborate upon the referent of the acc, which highlights its saliency in the discourse and justifies the use of the acc clitic in the first slot of the cluster. (93)

Or ecco, se a te, forse più che  io non credo crudele, di me, la quale per tua elezione non isforzato hai amata e ami, sì poco ti cale, che tu vogli pure al mio amore preporre la  pietà perduta del vecchio padre, il quale è tale quale il ti diè la fortuna ‘So look, if you, who are perhaps more cruel than I believe, care so little about me (whom you loved and do love unconstrained and of your own free will) as to place ahead of your love for me this useless compassion for your old father, who is just as destiny gave him to you’ (Fiammetta; cap. 2, par. 6, p. 61)

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(94) Carissime donne […], quali le mie opere più sollecite fossero ascolterete; né di ciò piglierete ammirazione, se furono nuove, perciò che non quali io l’avrei volute, ma quali Amore le mi dava, seguire le mi conveniva¹⁰⁶ ‘Dearest ladies […], you will hear about my most urgent activities; and do not marvel if they are not novel, since they were not as I wanted them to be, but since Love gave them to me, it was advisable for me to follow them’ (Fiammetta; cap. 3, par. 7, p. 81) (95)

Manifesta cosa è l’umana bellezza essere fiore caduco […]; la quale se di sé dà fidanza ad alcuna, miseramente a lungo andare se ne trova prostrata. Quegli che la mi diede, […], se l’ha ritolta, possibile a renderlami, quando gli pur piacesse ‘It is a known thing that beauty is an ephemeral flower […], which, if some women should derive confidence from it, in the long run they find themselves wretchedly cast down by it. He who gave it to me […] has reclaimed it, and he can give it back to me whenever it pleases him’ (Fiammetta; cap. 5, par. 33, p. 162)

In summary, the contrast between the contexts in which the two cluster types are found justifies the order change. In the three dat-acc clusters, empathy for the referent of the dat motivates the use of the dat in the first slot. In addition, all three clusters are embedded in improbable hypothetical constructions, which highlight the fact that the referent of the acc clitic is unlikely to be obtained. Since the referent of the acc is unlikely to be obtained, it lacks discourse saliency and is thus backgrounded in the second position of the cluster. On the other hand, none of the acc-dat clusters appear in improbable hypothetical constructions, and the referents of all the acc clitics are sought and obtained. In addition, three of the four acc-dat clusters appear in or are preceded by a relative clause in which the relative pronoun is co-referential to the acc clitic. We argue that the relative clause further describes or elaborates upon the referent of the acc clitic, which increases its saliency. This increased saliency in turn justifies the use of the acc clitic in the first slot. In one case, item (90), there is a clash of strategies. For this cluster, we show that the dat is used first because it is triggered by self-empathy and the acc clitic appears second because, since the cluster appears in a hypothetical construction the referent will never be obtained and it has comparatively less discourse saliency. However, this cluster is also embedded in a relative clause. We argue 106 The acc-dat order in the cluster hosted by the convenire construction illustrates another case of pragmatics overturning structural features.

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that one of the two strategies must win out and that in this case the salience of the referent of the acc clitic that is generated by the relative clause is overshadowed by the fact that it will never be obtained in the hypothetical situation. In addition, empathy for the referent of the dat clitic trumps the role of the acc in the discourse. We accept that conflicts between strategies and constraints are bound to occur, but this does not affect the integrity of the overall argument. For further discussion about conflicting strategies and constraints, see Section 4.8.

4.5.3 Il Corbaccio (Giovanni Boccaccio, 1355) Two tokens with the verb mostrare ‘to show’ were selected from this text, which is a harsh, satirical, misogynistic novel about the evil nature of women. The excerpt in (96) comes from the beginning of the story where the protagonist/narrator is reminiscing about his unfortunate love affair, and he is feeling so wretched and distraught that he starts to think about committing suicide. As he is languishing and self-commiserating, his personified pensiero ‘mind’ bursts out in an aggressive monologue meant to bring him back to reality. (96) Mostrami dov’ella venisse a isforzarti che tu l’amassi. Mostrami con quali armi, con qual giurisdizione, con qual forza ella t’abbia qui a piagnere e a dolerti menato, o ti ci tenga! Tu nol mi potrai mostrare, per ciò che egli non è ‘Show me where she forced you to love her. Show me with what weapons, with what authority, with what power she led you here to cry and feel sorry for yourself, or how she keeps you here. You cannot show it to me, because it is not so’ (Corbaccio; parr. 11–20, p. 41) In (96), the focus of the discourse is on the referent of the acc, which are all the things that the woman purportedly did to make the protagonist miserable. These actions are highly salient because as soon as the lover admits that she never really did them, he will be able to overcome his misery. Moreover, once again the cluster is preceded by the negative particle, non, which also attracts the acc to the first slot (cf. § 4.3). In contrast, in (97) the dat-acc order prevails because the referent of the acc is not highly salient; it is information that has already been given and is supposed to be known. Instead, the focus is on the referent of the dat, the lover, who fails to understand on his own that love is a terrible thing.

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(97)

   Pragmatic functionality of clitic order in fourteenth-century Florentine

E se le dette cose esser vere la tua filosofia non ti mostrasse, […], le dipinture degli antichi tel mostreranno, le quali lui per le mura, giovane, ignudo, con ali e con gli occhi velati e arciere, non senza grandissima significazione de’ suoi effetti, tutto il dì vi mostrano ‘And if your philosophy did not show you that the things I said are true [that love is a terrible thing], […], the paintings of the ancients will show it to you; which a young man [Love], naked, with wings and veiled eyes and as an archer, with the greatest significance of his effects will show you all day on the walls’ (Corbaccio; parr. 191–200, p. 71)

The focus is on the addressee, the referent of the dat clitic, who needs to understand the messages the speaker/narrator has been conveying and, since he is having difficulty, must now rely on the paintings of the ancients to understand the truths that are obvious to the speaker. In addition, the referent of the acc clitic is an abstract concept (the truth about love being a terrible thing), not a concrete object. This abstraction decreases the focus on the referent of the acc, which helps to foreground the referent of the dat clitic.

4.5.4 Decameron (Giovanni Boccaccio, 1370) The Decameron, a collection of 100 short stories, is the most famous text written by Giovanni Boccaccio. The frame of the book is that each of ten storytellers, who have absconded from Florence to a villa in the countryside to avoid the plague, recounts one story to the group each of ten days. The stories vary from highly moralistic to exceptionally irreverent. The first three clusters from the Decameron in (98) and (99) come from last story of the eighth day, in which the speaker, a Sicilian woman in Palermo, has tricked a Florentine merchant out of his money. Distraught at having been cheated, the merchant leaves Palermo to plot his revenge and comes back with even more money. The woman is trying to make up for not having paid him back and for snubbing him after she took his money. Here, she is lying to him to ingratiate herself as she tries to justify why she did not send the money to him once she acquired it.

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(98) Ma io gli ebbi poco appresso la tua partita: e se io avessi saputo dove mandargliti, abbi per certo che io te gli avrei mandati; ma perché saputo non l’ho, gli t’ho guardati¹⁰⁷ ‘But I got it [the money] shortly after your departure: and if I had known where to send [you] it, be sure that I would have sent it to you; but since I didn’t know, I kept an eye on it for you’ (Decameron; VIII, 10, p. 580) The money owed is the topic of discussion, since the woman opens by stating that she got it shortly after the merchant’s departure. However, the first cluster is a dat-acc that appears in the apodosis of a impossible hypothetical statement. In this statement, the woman is manipulating the merchant (who is the referent of the dat) by reassuring him (abbi per certo ‘have for certain’) that she would have sent the money if she had known where he was, but she never did send the money (the referent of the acc clitic). In her attempt to ingratiate herself, which is a manifestation of empathy, the speaker puts the clitic whose referent is the listener in first position and the clitic referring to the money, which was never sent, in second position. In the following cluster, the acc-dat order signals a switch back to the topic of conversation, the money, which she highlights as she reassures him that she has indeed kept it safe. There is another token from this story in which the referent of the acc is money. Now, the man is tricking the woman and asking her to lend him money. She desperately wants to help because if she helps him now she thinks she will get more money off him in future. (99) «Dio il sa che ben me ne incresce per tuo amore: ma che giova il tribolarsene tanto? Se io avessi questi denari, sallo Idio che io gli ti presterei incontanente, ma io no’ gli ho ‘God knows that I am sorry because I love you: but why worry so much? If I had this money, God knows I would lend it to you immediately, but I don’t have it’ (Decameron; VIII, 10, p. 581) In this impossible hypothetical construction, according to the pattern that we have seen thus far, we would expect the dat-acc order, since the money, the referent of the acc, will never be loaned, and the woman is trying, again, to ingratiate 107 Both tokens appear before the auxiliary avere, but the second has the unexpected acc-dat order, which suggests a conflict of strategies, that is, the pragmatics of the context overrides the structural mandate of dat-acc before the auxiliary avere.

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herself. However, it appears that the salience of the money, that God knows she would give if she could, has taken the fore.¹⁰⁸ A second pair of tokens selected from the Decameron comes from the first story of the first day, which recounts the tragic fate of Ghismonda, daughter of Tancred, prince of Salerno. After discovering that his beautiful and beloved daughter has taken as lover a young servant, Tancred, who of course deeply disapproves of his daughter’s immoral conduct, has the young man slain, and his heart placed in a gold chalice and presented to Ghismonda. Devastated, Ghismonda puts poisoned water in the chalice to kill herself. The excerpt in (100) is part of Ghismonda’s last address to her lover before she takes the poison. (100) “Ahi! dolcissimo albergo di tutti i miei piaceri, [… ] Tu hai il tuo corso fornito, e di tale chente la fortuna tel concedette ti se’ spacciato: venuto se’ alla fine alla qual ciascun corre: lasciate hai le miserie del mondo e le fatiche […]. Niuna cosa ti mancava a aver compiute essequie, se non le lagrime di colei la qual tu vivendo cotanto amasti; […] e io le ti darò ‘Ah! most sweet sojourn of all my joys, […] You have run your course, and of what fortune conceded to you, you are done with: you have reached the end toward which all run: you have left behind the miseries and weariness of the world […]. Nothing was missing to you to have your obsequies celebrated, except the tears of her whom, while you lived, you did so dearly love; […] and I will give them to you’ (Decameron; IV, 1, p. 274) In the first token, the dat-acc order is triggered by the speaker’s empathy for the referent of the dat clitic, Ghismonda’s dead lover, whom she addresses as she laments the end of his life. In the following token, the switch to the acc-dat order is prompted by the high saliency of the referent of the acc clitic, Ghismonda’s tears, which are the only element missing from the proper funeral rite that her lover deserves.

108 In our corpus there are 17 clusters embedded in improbable/impossible hypotheticals, only two of which are true exceptions with the acc-dat order. For further discussion, see Chapter 6 (§ 6.1).

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4.5.5 Lettera di Gherardino di Niccolò Gherardini Giani a Tommaso di Piero di messer Rodolfo de’ Bardi (1375) This text consists of a letter written by Gherardino Giani to his old friend Tommaso Bardi. Both the Giani and Bardi families held prosperous companies in Florence and had been in a friendly relationship for a long time. In fact, the Bardis had been one of the biggest magnate families in the city, but their company went bankrupt in 1345. At the time Gherardino wrote the letter, Tommaso was still quite wealthy and he was probably employed in a branch of a Florentine company in Burges. Gherardino, on the other hand, was unemployed (iscioperato); he and his brother had a modest fortune but they were definitely no longer counted among the wealthiest in Florence. The letter is rather long and extremely verbose, revolving around the issue of how Gherardino was going to invest the 350 florins that Tommaso entrusted to him. Gherardino must have felt touched by and highly appreciative of Tommaso’s trust and wanted to make sure that his gratitude was highlighted throughout the text by repeatedly emphasizing his loyalty and devotion toward his friend. The letter contains 12 double clitic clusters, eight dat-acc and four acc-dat. In eight of the clusters, the acc clitic refers to Tommaso’s money, which is unquestionably the salient element of the letter. Of these eight tokens, six are dat-acc and two are acc-dat. The alternation between the two orders appears to be governed entirely by empathy as a manifestation of the speaker’s perspective on the events. The excerpt in (101) is representative of all six of the dat-acc clusters, and shows how the dat-acc order categorically obtains whenever Gherardino is speaking to Tommaso, and Tommaso is the referent of the dat clitic (which, in this case, bears the semantic role of benefactive). In these tokens, empathy leads to a construal of the events from Gherardino’s perspective, which foregrounds the prominence of Tommaso in the discourse (the person to whom he is grateful) while backgrounding the relevance of the money.¹⁰⁹ (101) A dì 23 di questo ricievetti una tua lettera ... per la quale mi mandi ... fiorini treciento cinquanta d’oro, i qua’ so’ tuoi propi danari e vuogli ch’io te gli pongha in sul Monte ‘On day 23 of this [month] I received a letter from you, in which you sent me ... three hundred gold florins, which is your own money, and you want me to invest them for you on your behalf in the Monte’ (Gherardino; p. 171) 109 Two of the dat-acc tokens found in this text are in the context of a compound tense with auxiliary avere, which could influence the order (cf. § 4.3).

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   Pragmatic functionality of clitic order in fourteenth-century Florentine

In (102) the order switches to acc-dat because the situation is still construed from Gherardino’s (the speaker’s) perspective, but this time Gherardino, not Tommaso, is the referent of the dat. The dat/recipient is now backgrounded in order to characterize Gherardino as a less prominent discourse participant compared to the money. (102) e ò molto charo che tu gli m’abia mandati¹¹⁰ prima ch’io vada nell’Alpe ‘and it is very important to me that you have sent them to me before I leave for the Alps’ (Gherardino; p. 174) Finally, in (103) the acc-dat cluster is embedded in reported speech: the speaker is now Tommaso, who is also the referent of the dat clitic. (103) E se vuo’ dire: “O perchè no’ gli mi metti in chotesto, che se n’à magiore provesione?” dirotti la chagione ‘And if you mean: ‘Then why don’t you invest them for me in this [fashion], which would give more gain?’ I will tell you the reason’ (Gherardino; p. 174) Once again there is a shift in perspective. Since the situation is presented from Tommaso’s point of view, the salience of the referent of the acc clitic (the money) outweighs the benefactive status of the referent of the dat clitic (himself). This is overtly expressed by placing the clitic referring to the money, gli, in the first slot of the cluster.

4.5.6 Frammenti del libro segreto di Simone di Rinieri (1380) This text, which differs significantly from those considered thus far in that it belongs to the category of merchants’ documents and is essentially a list of accounts and sales, nonetheless employs patterns similar to those discussed in the preceding sections. A total of four double object clusters were found in Frammenti: three are acc-dat and one is dat-acc. In three of the clusters, which are

110 This is another case in which pragmatic functionality overrides the dat-acc order in the context of a compound tense.

Empathy and urgency: Token analysis by text   

   123

nearly identical to the token in (104),¹¹¹ the referents of both clitics are constant; the referent of the acc clitic is a sum of money that Simone, the author, lent to someone and that has yet to be returned to him. The referent of the dat clitic is Simone himself. (104) dì 2 di giungnio 1379 mi mandò a ricievere Piero di Bonaventura e chompangni fior. 200 d’oro […]. E mandolli a Dino d’Iachopo e chompangni a Perugia che lli mi dessero ‘on day 2 of June 1379, Piero di Bonaventura and his associates sent to me 200 gold florins …, and he sent them to Dino d’Iachopo and associates in Perugia, so that they could give them to me.’ (Frammenti di Simone; p. 524) The use of the acc-dat order in these clusters, which highlights the money owed, stands in stark contrast to the one cluster with the opposite order in a completely different context. In this case, Simone states that he will write his version of a series of events in order to clear the air. He points out that he should write a great deal, but he does not believe this is a good idea because a scandal may ensue and, he states: la mia choscienzia non me lo patiscie ‘my conscience does not allow me to do that [write so much]’. Despite the conflict with the preceding negation which predicts an acc-dat cluster (cf. § 4.3), the dat is foregrounded in this context, which expresses Simone’s personal conflict. In addition, when both the dat and the acc are present, the semantics of the verb highlight the person who is not allowed to carry out the action. The Vocabolario della Crusca reports that patire is similar to sopportare ‘to put up with’ and gives the following example: Il cuore non mi patirebbe per niuna maniera di vederti ‘My heart would not put up with [i.e., endure] seeing you in any way’ (our translation, JA&CR). Similarly, in this example, Simone’s conscience is not allowing him to carry out the action.¹¹² To summarize, in this merchant’s document, when the context revolves around money paid/delivered, the ACC clitic, referring to the money, occupies the 111 The other two are: (i) e mandolli a Dino d’Iachopo e chompangni li mi dessono ‘and he sent them to Dino of Iachopo and the partners gave them to to me’ (Frammenti di Simone; p. 523) (ii) mandolli a Dino detto che lli mi desse ‘he sent them to Dino and told him to give them to me’ (Frammenti di Simone; p. 523) 112 A similar token is found in the Decameron: (i) né mai mel sofferse il cuore ‘my heart has never permitted [endured] it to me’

(Decameron; VII, 2, p. 453)

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   Pragmatic functionality of clitic order in fourteenth-century Florentine

first slot of the cluster. In contrast, when the concerns of the conflicted merchant are debated, the clitic referring to the merchant, the dat, takes the fore.

4.6 Clusters with dire ‘to tell, to say’, dirò ‘I will tell you’ and credere ‘to believe’ As we have seen in example (80) the acc-dat order is often used in the context of dire and verbs of saying in general, such as significare ‘to say/tell’, dichiarare ‘to declare’, raccontare ‘to recount/tell’, promettere ‘to promise’, commandare ‘to command’. Moreover, this pattern appears to predominate in particular with the first person singular future tense form of dire: dirò ‘I will say/tell’. The semantics of these verbs support this order, since the information to be communicated is quite likely significant and is often directly requested by the interlocutor. In fact, the phrase, lo ti dirò ‘I will tell you it’ appears to be quasi formulaic since, when information is requested, the interlocutor often begins his/her response with this phrase, as shown in (105). (105) Disse allora donna mestola: “E chi ve ne gastigò così?” Disse frate Alberto: “Io il vi dirò.” ‘The woman of the ladle then said: “And who beat you like this?” Brother Albert said: “I will tell you [it]”’ (Decameron; IV, 2, p. 278) Another example is from Gherardino’s letters discussed above (§ 4.5.5) in which three of the six dat-acc tokens which foreground empathy for Tommaso (the person to whom Gherardino is grateful) and background the money that Gherardino is investing appear in the same context: te gli avrei messi ‘I would have put them [there] for you’, te gli avre’ rimessi ‘I would again have put them [there] for you’, te gli metterò ‘I will put them [there] for you’. However, when the topic changes and Gherardino wants to tell a funny story, the order changes:

However, when preceded by non the order changes: (ii) il cuore nol mi patirebbe per niuna maniera di vederti o di sentirti tralle mani a niuno ‘my heart would not permit me [endure] to see you in the arms of another’ (Decameron VII; 9, p. 492)

Clusters with dire ‘to tell, to say’, dirò ‘I will tell you’ and credere ‘to believe’   

   125

(106) Vo’ti dire una chosa, che sono cierto te ne riderai, e però lo ti dirò solo per farti ridere ‘I want to say one thing that I am certain you will laugh at, and I only tell you it to make you laugh’ (Gherardino; p. 174) Table 28 displays the total number of tokens in our corpus in which a form of dire or a semantically related verb and dirò are the head verb. Table 28: Fourteenth-century Florentine clusters whose host verb is a form of dire (or a semantically related verb) and dirò

dat-acc

acc-dat

dire

dirò

dire

dirò

1311–1350 1355–1394

13 31

 8  5

10 23

12 15

Total

44

13

33

27

Throughout the century, the use of the acc-dat order predominates with dirò (with 27 clusters vs. 13 dat-acc), but its use with other forms of dire is lower than that of the dat-acc (33 acc-dat vs. 44 dat-acc). However, these data do not take into account conflicting pressures. In Tables 22 and 23 above, we have seen that certain factors favor the dat-acc order: (i) clusters followed by avere, (ii) clusters followed by convenire/parere, and (iii) causative constructions. In addition, any clusters with dire/dirò in fixed or conventionalized expressions must also be eliminated from this analysis of clusters with verba dicendi. Table 29 displays the number of clusters with a verb of ‘saying’ whose order is dictated exclusively by pragmatics.¹¹³ Table 29: Fourteenth-century Florentine clusters involving dire or dirò whose order is motivated by pragmatics dat-acc

acc-dat

dire

dirò

dire

dirò

1311–1350 1355–1394

 5 12

1 3

 6 23

12 15

Total

17

4

29

27

113 Table 29 does not consider the influence of the negative particle non.

126   

   Pragmatic functionality of clitic order in fourteenth-century Florentine

As shown in Table 29, for the entire fourteenth century, a total of 46 clusters were collected in which the host verb is dire or a verb of saying: 17 (37 %) are dat-acc and 29 (63 %) are acc-dat. The total number of clusters found in the context of the verb form dirò ‘I will tell/say’ is 31: we find that four (12.9 %) are dat-acc and 27 (87.1 %) are acc-dat. These results indicate a preference for the acc-dat order in the context of dire, independently of the specific verb form dirò. The trend is the same if we look separately at the first and second half of the century. In the first half of the century we have a total of 24 tokens in the context of dire/dirò, of which 6 (25 %) are dat-acc and 18 (75 %) acc-dat, whereas in the second half we have a total of 53 tokens, 15 (28.3 %) dat-acc and 38 (71.7 %) acc-dat. Since cluster order can be governed by discourse pragmatics, it is unlikely that completely consistent patterns will be found, that is, that the acc-dat order occur with all forms of dire. We have already seen in item (77) and item (62), how the acc-dat order with a form of dire and dirò can be overturned in contexts in which empathy is at work and the needs of the referent of the dat are perceived as particularly salient. Further evidence demonstrating the pragmatic functionality of the order of clitics in clusters with a form of the verb dire comes from La storia di Merlino. From this text we selected a ‘minimal’ set made up of four clusters; all the tokens involve the verb dire ‘to tell’ and the referent of the dat clitic is constant, a bishop with whom the protagonist, Merlino, is engaged in conversation. The tokens under analysis come from the story about a judge, who has been asked to intervene in a case that had been overlooked by the bishop, that of a priest who violated a girl. The judge seeks Merlino’s advice on how to deal with the situation. The judge wants to have the priest’s penis cut off, and Merlino agrees, telling the judge that he should have already done so. When word of the judge’s decision reaches the bishop, he is outraged, summons both the judge and Merlino, and asks Merlino why he gave the judge permission to overstep his power and punish a cleric. Merlino justifies his position, ultimately saying that there is no justice if some wrong-doers go unpunished. After some discussion, the bishop gives in and dismisses the judge; then he asks Merlino why he didn’t let him know about the situation before it happened. This question provokes Merlino and he furiously answers that the bishop should have discussed the issue with the priests who had given false testimony and should have excommunicated them, but instead his malvagia gola ‘evil throat’ (i.e., his gluttony) let him wield injustice. The bishop is taken by Merlino’s use of the expression ‘evil throat,’ which Merlino had used in a previous conversation but never explained, and asks for an explanation in (107a), which is followed by Merlino’s response in (107b).

Clusters with dire ‘to tell, to say’, dirò ‘I will tell you’ and credere ‘to believe’   

   127

(107) a. Allora disse il vescovo a Merlino: “L’altrieri mi dicesti l’altrettali parole e non mi dicesti perché, ma lo terminasti, a dire un’altra volta: ma ora ti priego che me lo dichi” ‘And the bishop said to Merlino: “Two nights ago you said the same words and you didn’t tell me why, but you stopped, to say it another time: but now I beg that you tell me”’ (Storia di Merlino; 25, p. 28) b. E Merlino disse: “Andate a desinare, e io lo vi dirò dopo mangiare” ‘And Merlino said: “Go have dinner, and I will tell it to you after you eat”’ (Storia di Merlino; 25, p. 28) In (107a) the dat-acc order obtains due to the speaker’s (i.e., the bishop, who is the referent of the dat) apprehension, which we view as a form of self-empathy, at learning why he has an ‘evil throat’. In (107b) the acc-dat order applies since the dat clitic, whose referent is again the bishop, follows the acc in order to highlight how Merlino is in no rush to appease his interlocutor, i.e., how he is detaching himself from the situation and constructing it objectively. In addition, the acc-dat order reflects how Merlino’s attention is directed toward the information that he has been asked to give. Merlino knows that earlier in the day the accused priest had brought the bishop a goat in order to win his support in the case, and that the goat will be served to the bishop for dinner, so Merlino sends the bishop off to eat it. The bishop stuffs himself at dinner and then returns immediately to the church where he had left Merlino because he is eager to hear what Merlino is going to say. When Merlino sees him coming, he takes a small basket and places it outside the church. He tells the priest that he is not worthy to enter the church and orders him to vomit all the food that he has eaten into the basket. The bishop does so and then enters. Now, Merlino is eager to explain to the bishop why he has an ‘evil throat’, hence the use of the acc clitic in the first slot:¹¹⁴ (108) Cattivo e male aventurato, non t’ho io detto che tu hai malvagia gola? E ora lo ti dirò d’una parte ‘You bad and wretched man, didn’t I tell you that you have an evil throat? And now I will tell you one reason why’ (Storia di Merlino; 25, p. 28)

114 In (108), the referent of the dat is still the bishop, but Merlino switches from formal vi to informal ti as he expresses his anger.

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   Pragmatic functionality of clitic order in fourteenth-century Florentine

Merlino goes on to chastise the bishop by saying that he makes so much money that instead of accepting a goat as a bribe for a cover-up, he could have bought the goat himself and given the priest the punishment he deserved. While Merlino and the bishop are talking, a fight breaks out between two boys and the bishop asks what they are fighting over: (109) “Se Dio ti salvi, che potrebbe esser questo: che questi due fanciugli non fanno altro che azzuffarsi …”. […] E Merlino disse: “Io lo vi dirò: or vedete che l’uno di loro fu nato in Babillonia e l’altro in Gaules; e la zuffa che fanno significa la gran guerra che sarà tra quegli di Galbai e gli pagani d’oltremare” ‘“God bless you, what could this mean: that these two boys are constantly fighting …” […] And Merlino said: “I will tell you: now see that one of them was born in Babylon and the other in Gaules; and their fighting means the great war that will happen between the people of Galbai and the overseas heathens”’ (Storia di Merlino; 26, p. 28) In (109), the information requested by the bishop has nothing to do with the bishop himself or Merlino. However, it is particularly salient since it has been requested, and also because Merlino reveals that their fighting is the omen of an imminent war. Two other dat-acc tokens with dire were found in this text and they are given in (110) and (111). (110) Io ve lo dirò dacché a voi piace, e di questo guadagnerete e non perderete ‘I will tell you it, since it pleases you, and from this you will gain and not lose’ (Storia di Merlino; 12, p. 13) In (110) Merlino, who is the speaker and subject of dirò, overtly expresses his belief about the effect that revealing the information would have on the addressee, a judge who has imprisoned Merlino’s mother and threatens to have her killed. He knows that the addressee will be pleased and positively affected by what he is going to hear, which is the true identity of the judge’s father, whom the judge wants dead, as well as what the judge has to do to make his father die. The reason why Merlino is willing to reveal this information to the judge is to gain his trust and obtain grace for his own mother. In this case, then, the dat-acc order reflects Merlino’s perspective on/perception of a state of affairs in the extralinguistic reality, specifically the positive effect that the information he will provide will

Clusters with dire ‘to tell, to say’, dirò ‘I will tell you’ and credere ‘to believe’   

   129

have on the judge and how this positive effect will in turn be beneficial to Merlino himself. As in (110), in the example in (111) Merlino is the speaker and subject of dire and again he voices his view on the effect the information that he is requested to disclose will have on the addressee. In fact, Merlino’s concern is stated as the reason why he is reluctant to reveal the requested information. (111) Se credessi che voi non l’avessi per male, io ve lo direi incontanente ‘If I believed that you wouldn’t take it badly, I would tell it to you immediately’ (Storia di Merlino; 40, p. 44) The recipient of the information in this case is a king and the referent of the acc (i.e., the information sought by the king) is the meaning of two dragons, one red and one white, that were fighting against each other, thus preventing the construction of a tower the king wanted to build. At this point in the story, the dragons are both dead: the red one was killed by the white, and the white died five days later from the wounds suffered in the fight, so the tower can finally be built. Since the king begs him again, Merlino explains that the red dragon symbolizes the king and the white one represents enemies of the king who will in fact kill him. After killing the king, one of his enemies will die after having been wounded by the king. Alarmed by Merlino’s prophecy, the king asks for advice and Merlino suggests that he make peace with his enemies and abandon the construction of the tower. When Merlino has given his advice, the king finally gives him permission to leave the kingdom, which is what Merlino was trying to achieve. Once again, the dat-acc order reflects Merlino’s perspective on/perception of a state of affairs in the extralinguistic reality, i.e. how the information he has to impart will affect his listener. Moreover, we see again how the hypothetical construction presents a situation in which it is unlikely that the speaker will actually give the information, the referent of the acc, which motivates the backgrounding of the acc and its placement in the second slot of the cluster. Concern over how the listener will respond to information is a form of empathy, which appears to overturn the expected acc-dat order that is typically found with forms of dire and dirò. Two more examples of how empathy for the referent of the dat may affect cluster order are from Il Corbaccio and are shown in (112).

130   

   Pragmatic functionality of clitic order in fourteenth-century Florentine

(112) a. Ben so che alcuno dire potrebbe  questa non essere nuova cosa, […]; e certo io non la dico per nuova, ma per viziosa e spiacevole e cattiva, e per mostrare che ella non è separata da’ costumi dell’altre, e perché più pronta fede sia da te restata a quello che resultava di questi modi, quando tel dirò ‘I know that someone could say that this is nothing strange, […]; and I am certainly not telling it as something strange, but rather as something disgusting, corrupt, and evil, in order to show that her habits are not different from those of the others, and so that you may more readily believe the results of these habits when I tell you them’ (Corbaccio; parr. 331–340, p. 99) b. Forse che il tacerlo sarebbe più onesto; ma non potendolti negare, poi ne domandi, tel pur dirò ‘Perhaps not revealing it would be more honest; but since I cannot deny it since you ask me, I will tell it to you’ (Corbaccio; parr. 161–170, p. 65) In (112a), the speaker is a spirit who appears to the protagonist in his sleep. He is explaining how the woman that the protagonist loves is no different from other women in her vanity and her preoccupation with her physical appearance, in particular when her youth begins to fade. This, he proclaims, he is not presenting as something strange, but rather as disgusting, corrupt and evil, because he wants the protagonist to be ready to understand the results of these behaviors, which he will tell him soon. The speaker’s primary concern is to teach the lover a lesson; he is preparing him for information that he intends to give. The dat in the first slot foregrounds the lover who is being prepared for information that has not been given yet, the referent of the acc clitic that is backgrounded in the second slot of the cluster. In (112b), the speaker is now the lover, who is addressing the spirit who has come to him and has asked what induced him to desire death over this love affair that is now finished. The protagonist/lover responds that it would be more proper not to talk about it, but he cannot refuse a request of the spirit. It is because the spirit has asked that he is required to give an answer to him. This sense of obligation to the spirit is foregrounded in this exchange. Although the overall data count in Table 29 demonstrates that the acc-dat order prevails with dirò, as we have seen in the previous examples, pragmatics can intervene and overturn the expected order. In addition, usages can appear to be systematic for certain authors. There are two texts in which clitic order in

Clusters with dire ‘to tell, to say’, dirò ‘I will tell you’ and credere ‘to believe’   

   131

the context of dire appears to be systematic; that is, the acc-dat order with dire appears to be similar to a fixed expression.¹¹⁵ In Chiose dette del falso Boccaccio, Purgatorio (1375), we found a unique pattern. Three acc-dat clusters appear with a form of dire and one with a form of mostrare ‘to show,’ and there are three dat-acc clusters that also appear with a form of mostrare or descrivere ‘to describe’ (which we take to be near synonyms). The four clusters with the verbs mostrare and descrivere, illustrated in (113), are also nearly identical (except for (113d) with the acc-dat order) and occur in a similar context. (113) a. te lo mostra per una similitudine ‘he shows it to you through a simile’

(Chiose Purgatorio; c.11, p. 350)

b. te lo mostra a ssimilitudine (Chiose Purgatorio; c. 30, p. 489) ‘he shows it to you through a simile’ c. te lo discrive in quella similitudine ‘he describes it to you in that simile’

(Chiose Purgatorio; c. 12, p. 352)

d. llo ti mostra per astrologia (Chiose Purgatorio; c. 4, p. 307) ‘he shows it to you through astrology’ The three clusters that appear with dire in Chiose Purgatorio have exactly the same form: (114) llo ti dicie ‘he (the author) tells you it’ These data strongly suggest that, for this (anonymous) author, acc-dat is always used when the narrator announces that the author of the text under discussion is telling (dicie) the reader something, whereas the opposite order is used in constructions that convey that the author demonstrates his point with a simile. A similar, albeit somewhat more complex, situation is found in a parallel text, Chiose dette del falso Boccaccio, Paradiso (1375). The one token with dirò has an acc-dat cluster (llo ti dirò). In addition, the same order is found in the three clusters that occur with raccontare ‘to narrate; to recount.’ All of these tokens with raccontare occur in the same context; the speaker is conveying the fact that

115 For other examples of the use of dire in fixed expressions, see Section 4.7 below.

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   Pragmatic functionality of clitic order in fourteenth-century Florentine

the information he would like to give is inexplicable because of its extraordinary nature, or the fact that it is too long to list one by one.¹¹⁶ (115) a. no lo ti saprebbe ricontare ‘he would not know how to tell you it’ (Chiose Paradiso; c. 14, p. 587) b. no llo ti posso dire né contare ‘I can neither tell nor recount it to you’ (Chiose Paradiso; c. 23, p. 644) c. no lle ti posso racontare a una a una per nome ‘I cannot tell you them one by one by name’ (Chiose Paradiso; c. 32, p. 703) On the other hand, the opposite dat-acc order is used in two clusters appearing with dichiarare ‘to declare,’ both of which express the fact that the author is giving clarification or an explanation, as shown in (116). (116) a. me ’l dichiara ‘[the author] declares it to me’ (Chiose Paradiso; c. 26, p. 611) b. vuogli ch’io te lo dichiari ‘you want me to declare it to you’ (Chiose Paradiso; c. 11, p. 569) Finally, the cluster with dicie ‘he says’ follows the pattern identified in Chiose dette del falso Boccaccio, Purgatorio: (117) te lo dicie per una similitudine ‘he tells it to you through a simile’ (Chiose Paradiso; c. 9, p. 561) There is also an interesting contrast in the Diatessaron Toscano (1373) in which there are 11 clusters with dire/dirò: eight dat-acc and three acc-dat tokens. Of the eight dat-acc tokens, five appear before the auxiliary avere and have the same form: ve l’ho detto. In addition, all have the same meaning: to indicate that

116 In addition, each cluster is preceded by the negative particle, which favors the acc-dat order (see § 4.3).

Clusters with dire ‘to tell, to say’, dirò ‘I will tell you’ and credere ‘to believe’   

   133

the writer has already imparted the desired information to the interlocutor, thus the information (which is already known) is backgrounded in favor of the interlocutor who is essentially being chastised as in (118). (118) Egli che ti fece? come t’ aperse gli occhi? E quegli rispuose a lloro e disse: Io ve l’ò detto, e avetelo udito; dunque perchè il volete più udire? ‘How did he do it to you? How did he open your eyes? And he answered them and said: I (already) told you and you heard it; therefore why do you want to hear it again? (Diatessaron toscano; cap. 133 p. 309) In summary, the semantics of the verb ‘to say/tell’ and related verbs renders them likely hosts for the acc-dat order, since the information to be given, which is usually requested, is more salient than the interlocutor. Constructions with dire are not, however, free from the influence of discourse pragmatics and the relative salience of the referents of the clitic pronouns. The examples provided demonstrate how the referent of the dat may be construed as salient, which results in the dat-acc order. On the other hand, some authors appear to distribute cluster orders in a formulaic way, associating the acc-dat order with certain verbs of saying in certain contexts and the dat-acc with other semantically related verbs in other contexts. Another verb that deserves particular attention is the verb credere ‘to believe’, of which there are five tokens in our corpus: nol mi credere (Corbaccio), il mi pur crede, il vi credo, nol mi crederà, nol mi credevi (Decameron). In modern Italian, credere has transitive and intransitive usages. As in intransitive verb, one believes someone or something, which appears as an indirect object (dat), as shown in (119a) and (119b): (119) a. Credo agli UFO ‘I believe in UFOs’ b. Credo a te (= Ti credo) ‘I believe you’ When it is used transitively, it appears in passive/impersonal constructions, especially with an undetermined agent, as shown in (120).¹¹⁷

117 http://www.treccani.it/vocabolario/credere.

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   Pragmatic functionality of clitic order in fourteenth-century Florentine

(120) è inutile che io parli, tanto non sono creduto (= tanto non mi si crede) ‘it is worthless that I speak, I am not believed anyway’ (= no one believes me anyway) In contrast, the argument structure of this verb appears to be unresolved in medieval Italian. In medieval Italian, clitic clusters with credere constructions were double object constructions with an ‘emphatic’ reflexive pronoun (121), or with an acc and dat clitic (122): (121) e tu tel and you 2sg.rflx-3sg.m.acc ‘And you believe it’ (Giovanni dalle Celle; p. 47)

credi believe-2sg.pi

(122) mogliema nol mi crederà e se ella wife.my not.3sg.m.acc 1sg.dat believe-3sg.fut and if she il mi pur crede, io non 3sg.m.acc 1sg.dat even believe-3sg.pi I not avrò uguanno pace con lei have-1sg.fut all.the.same peace with her ‘my wife won’t believe that/me and even if she does, I will have no peace with her in any case’ (Decameron; VIII, 6, p. 531) In (122) both clusters have the acc clitic l/il, which refers to a clausal complement denoting what is believed, and a first person singular dat clitic which, however, is not an actual indirect object (i.e., a recipient) nor a benefactive, since credere is not a ditransitive verb. Thus, the dat clitic in (122) actually functions as a second theme, leading to the emergence of ambivalence as to what the real object of belief is. That is, in (122), what exactly will Calendrino’s wife not believe: ‘it/that’ (which refers to the disappearance of a recently slaughtered pig) or Calandrino himself? All five clusters involving credere exhibit a similar scenario, in that the referent of the acc (i.e., the fact to be believed) is salient, or urgent, for the story, whereas the referent of the dat is the individual who conveys the important news, which justifies the acc-dat order. The presence of the dat clitic is conceptually unjustified because it is not an actual event participant. However, its appearance

Clusters with dire ‘to tell, to say’, dirò ‘I will tell you’ and credere ‘to believe’   

   135

in the cluster seems to bring the person delivering the information (i.e. the source of the information) or his/her credibility, to the attention of the listener.¹¹⁸ It is unlikely that analogy to the morphology of the reflexive emphatic construction is at play, since in our corpus there are six reflexive emphatic structures like those shown in (121), and only two have the acc clitic in the first slot, as shown in (123):¹¹⁹ (123) a. la si credette 3sg.f.acc rfl believe-3sg.pst ‘[the woman] believed it [the villania]’ (Decameron; V, 7, p. 374) b. no llo si credendo egli not 3sg.m.acc rflx believe-ger he ‘not believing he was doing it’ (Chiose Purgatorio; c. 21, p. 432)

fare do-inf

It is more likely that the negative particle non had an influence on the acc-dat clusters with credere, since it precedes three of the five clusters in our corpus. Given the complexity of human discourse, perfect compliance to the pragmatic principles of salience triggered by empathy or urgency is unlikely. Moreover, a variety of factors, such as whether the head verb begins with a vowel, or the cluster is preceded by the negative particle, as well as the semantics of the verb (dire and credere), interact by conflicting with or supporting particular cluster orders. It is our goal to see the ‘forest’, or the larger picture of the change, while at the same time identifying all the ‘trees’, or intervening factors. In Chapter 5 we identify even more factors that affected clitic order and complicate the ‘story’. The next section, however, describes the types of clusters that appear to be immune to pragmatics and structural factors because they were conventionalized.

118 Battaglia (1961: 945) gives examples of an indirect object with credere in texts dating from the 15th to the 19th century and suggests that the function of the indirect object is to indicate that the information is taken to be true and that the listener trusts the words of the speaker. However, since 3 of the 5 tokens in our corpus occur in negated statements, it appears that the more generic interpretation of the function of the indirect object presented here applied in the medieval period. 119 Emphatic reflexives are examined in more detail in Chapter 5 (§ 5.4).

136   

   Pragmatic functionality of clitic order in fourteenth-century Florentine

4.7 Formulaic and/or idiomatic expressions Idiomatic or fixed expressions, which Bybee (2010: 34–35) refers to as ‘chunking’, are extremely frequent in languages, with more than literally thousands in any given language (Langacker [1987: 35]). Although marginalized in formal approaches, they are a significant feature of a cognitive framework that does not separate lexicon, morphology, and syntax, but rather unites them to represent speakers’ grammar. In the usage-based model, chunking is established in communities as a result of repetition. Bybee (2010) points out that repetition is necessary, but extremely high token frequency is not, since chunking can occur after several repetitions. In our corpus, there are three types of expressions that we characterize as formulaic and/or idiomatic, most of which have religious overtones. The first type, which consists of the two tokens in (124), involves the verb concedere ‘to concede; to allow’. In both cases, the referent of the acc is not an actual entity but a fact/ event (‘that’), and the phrases can be loosely translated as ‘if God wishes’: (124) a. Se il mio Dio il ti concede, if the my God 3sg.m.acc 2sg.dat concede-3sg.pi statti, che io non ti caccio stay-2sg.imp that I not 2sg.acc send.away-1sg.pi ‘If my God concedes that to you, stay, I won’t send you away’ (Vite di eremiti (Vita di Ilarione); cap. 8, p. 178) b. io ho troppo maggior cosa pensata, I have-1sg.pi much greater thing think-pp se gli Dii lo mi concedono if the Gods 3sg.m.acc 1sg.dat concede-3pl.pi ‘I have thought of a much bigger thing, if the Gods concede that to me’ (Deca prima di Tito Livio; L. 2, cap. 12, p. a141) The second type of formulaic/idiomatic expressions is also situated in a religious context and displays the acc-dat order, as illustrated in (125). (125) e il Padre tuo, che vede in ascondito and the Father your who see-3sg.pi in secret il ti renderà 3sg.m.acc 2sg.dat give.back-3sg.fut ‘and your Father, who sees unseen, will reward you [lit. give it back to you]’ (Diatessaron toscano; cap. 34, p. 226)

Formulaic and/or idiomatic expressions   

   137

The phrase in (125) is from Diatessaron toscano (1373), a religious didactic text. This text contains two other statements of this type, which differ from (125) only in having the phrase in ascondito (lit. ‘in secret’) replaced by the close synonym in occulto (also ‘in secret’). We attribute a formulaic-idiomatic nature to these sentences for three reasons: first, they are nearly identical in form. Second, they are found at the end of paragraphs in which the appropriate way to perform an act of devotion (i.e., giving alms, praying, fasting) is stated in direct, explicit contrast to the inappropriate one. The excerpt in (126), for example, explains the correct way to pray. (126) Quando voi orate non siate come gli ipocriti, che amano d’orare nelle congregazioni e ne’cantoni delle piazze  per essere veduti dagli uomini. Ma tu quando orerai, entra nel letto tuo, e chiuso l’uscio ora il Padre tuo, e il Padre tuo che vede in occulto il ti renderà ‘When you pray, do not behave like hypocrites do, who love to pray in congregations and on street corners to be seen by people. Rather when you will pray, climb in your bed, and after closing the door pray to your Father, and your Father who sees unseen, will repay you’ (Diatessaron toscano; cap. 32, p. 226) Finally, in these idiomatic expressions the verb rendere means ‘to reward (someone).’ This usage is in direct contrast with the use of rendere in the sense of ‘to give back (something to someone)’ from the same text, as shown in (127). (127) tolse due denari, e diegli all’albergatore e disse: Abbi cura di costui; e ciò che tu spenderai in lui sopra questo, sì te lo renderò quando sarò tornato ‘he took two coins and gave them to the innkeeper and said: Take care of this man; and what you will spend on him in addition to this, I will give it back to you when I return’ (Diatessaron toscano; cap. 129, p. 303) Rendere ‘to reward’, then, is not a canonical ditransitive in that it does not select a direct object (the transferred entity) and an indirect object (the recipient of the transferred entity) argument; rather, it selects only a direct object (the person being rewarded). In the cluster in (127) with rendere ‘to give back’, the acc clitic has a referential pronominal function, its referent being the direct object ciò che tu spenderai in lui sopra questo ‘what you will spend on him in addition to this’. The referent of the dat is the person who has done the speaker a favor and needs to be repaid, which is likely to be the reason why the dat clitic appears in the first slot. In contrast, in the clusters in (125) and (126), although the acc clitic il does

138   

   Pragmatic functionality of clitic order in fourteenth-century Florentine

not actually pronominalize any constituent, it is related conceptually to the cause of the reward and, as such, it occupies the first slot. The last group of formulaic idiomatic expressions that we found in our corpus comes from the Decameron. This group involves the verb dire and includes two subtypes. The first has the dat-acc order and consists of the three tokens in (128). (128) a. quando io andai a Fiesole […], una di quelle romite, che è, Gianni mio, pur la più santa cosa che Iddio tel dica per me, vedendomene così paurosa, m’insegnò ‘when I went to Fiesole […], one of those hermits who is, dear Gianni, the holiest thing that God alone can tell you, saw how fearful I was and taught me’ (Decameron; VII, 1, p. 449) b. sì gran pietà mi venne di quella cattivella, la quale egli, ogni volta che bevuto avea troppo, conciava come Dio vel dica ‘such great pity came to me for that poor woman, whom he, every time he drank too much, beat as God alone can tell you’ (Decameron; I, 1, p. 33) c. qui Paganino tutta la notte mi tiene in braccio e strignemi e mordemi, e come egli mi conci Dio vel dica per me ‘here Paganino all night holds me in his arms, hugs me, bites me, and how he makes love to me God alone can tell you for me’ (Decameron; II, 10, p. 171) In all three cases, reference is made to God and the expression is akin to the English expression, ‘as God is my witness’. The second subtype differs from the first by having the acc-dat order and not having God as subject of the host verb. Both phrases are identical in form, and both mean ‘I told you so’: (129) a. il 3sg.acc.m

ti 2sg.dat

diceva say.1sg.ii

bene well

(Decameron; IX, 3, p. 600)

b. il vi 3sg.acc.m 2pl.dat ‘I told you so’

dicea say.1sg.ii

bene well

(Decameron; VII, 8, p. 485)

Despite the fact that both sets of expressions come from the same author and are constructed with dire, they have two different clitic orders. If the acc-dat order in

Summary of results and other considerations   

   139

(129) can be ascribed to the semantics of the host verb, dire, as discussed above, the use of the dat-acc in (128) appears to be arbitrary, due to the fixed/idiomatic nature of the expressions.

4.8 Summary of results and other considerations In this chapter, we have demonstrated that the alternation between dat-acc and acc-dat orders displayed by double object clitic clusters in the fourteenth century may be dictated by the subjective perspective of the author, whose manipulation of clitic order reflects the author’s construal of the situation by foregrounding or backgrounding the situation participants in order to express their degree of relevance in the discourse. By placing the dat clitic first, empathy for the state of being or the needs of the referent of the dat are foregrounded. On the other hand, placing the acc first suggests that the recipient’s affectedness or role is not a priority, but rather that the acc clitic has a degree of saliency or urgency in the situation that brings it to the foreground. We have discussed in detail a variety of tokens whose orders are motivated by empathy or urgency. Table 30 displays the total number of tokens that are analyzed in this manner in our corpus. Table 30: Total number of tokens whose clitic order is motivated by discourse empathy or urgency

1311–1350

1355–1399

dat-acc acc-dat

32 80

 45  82

Total

54

137

Overall, the relatively insignificant number of true exceptions (21 dat-acc and five acc-dat) discussed in Section 4.2 attests to the reliability of our approach. However, one text from the second half of the century stands apart from the rest of the corpus and deserves mention. From the collection of letters by Giovanni delle Celle (1394), only two letters were selected for analysis because they had significant alternation in clitic order and deal with the same topic: the Christian brothers (fraticelli) and problems of orthodoxy. One of the letters, numbered 32, has five clusters, two dat-acc and three acc-dat (all but one of which are justified pragmatically). The other, letter 34, however, has a total of seven clusters (three dat-acc, four acc-dat) in which the clitic order does not appear to be motivated

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   Pragmatic functionality of clitic order in fourteenth-century Florentine

by the factors that we have taken into account. Moreover, there are two groups of minimal pairs, i.e. clusters that appear with the same host verb in similar contexts but have different clitic orders, as shown in (130) and (131): (130) a. til posso provare 2sg.dat-3m.sg.acc can-1sg.pi prove-inf b. vel possiamo provare 2pl.dat-3m.sg.acc can-1pl.pi prove-inf c. il 3m.sg.acc

ti 2sg.dat

voglio provare want-1.sg.pi prove-inf

d. no not

llo vi 3m.sg.acc 2pl.dat

pruovo prove-1sg.pi (two tokens)

(131) a. vel concediamo 2pl.dat-3m.sg.acc concede-2.pl.pi b. il 3m.sg.acc

ti 2sg.dat

concede concede-3.sg.pi

This anomaly suggests that this author did not apply pragmatic functionality consistently, if at all.¹²⁰ Despite the inconsistencies in this letter with religious overtones, we have shown that pragmatically motivated clitic order is found throughout our corpus in a variety of different text types. Not surprisingly, narrative texts in general and particularly those from the second half of the century are relatively consistent. As indicated in Table 31, a total of 235 tokens, amounting to 61.5 % of our data set, come from narrative texts by Giovanni Boccaccio.¹²¹ The Decameron is the latest in this set of narratives and, as such, displays a significant degree of consistency. There are 14 dat-acc and 43 acc-dat tokens that are motivated by discourse pragmatics, and there are six fixed/idiomatic expressions, three for each order. The comparatively higher number of acc-dat tokens

120 There is, however, one consistent pattern: acc-dat after non. The two clusters that are preceded by negation (130d) above and no lle ti reco in volgare ‘I won’t translate them into the vernacular for you’ are acc-dat. 121 In this calculation, we do not include tokens from Boccaccio’s Esposizioni sopra la comedia di Dante (1374), since, unlike the other texts by Boccaccio, this is a commentary on/reading of another text, namely the first 17 canti of Dante’s Commedia.

Summary of results and other considerations   

   141

and lower number of exceptions may be attributed to the number of clusters with dire/dirò (excluding fixed expressions) shown in Table 32. Table 31: Tokens from Boccaccio’s narrative texts

Title/Date

dat-acc

acc-dat

Filocolo (1336–1338) Commedia delle ninfe fiorentine (Ameto) (1341–1342) Elegia di Madonna Fiammetta (1343–1344) Il Corbaccio (1355) Decameron (1370)

 36   5  11   9  61

 46   2  11   4  50

Total

122

113

Table 32: Number of pragmatically motivated constructions in which the host verb is a form of dire or dirò in the Decameron

dat-acc

acc-dat

dire dirò

2 0

13 10

Total

2

23

Throughout this chapter, we have given numerous examples of how exophoric pragmatic iconicity influences the order of clitic pronouns in double object clusters. This is possible because pragmatic functionality applies in a significant portion our data set overall (191 out of 382 or 50 %). Moreover, there is a limited number of exceptions to this pragmatic analysis overall (26 out of 382 or 6.8 %), which supports this approach. However, language is complex and pragmatics or the semantics of the verb are not the only mechanisms functioning within the text that dictate morphosyntax. In this chapter we have identified two contexts that also appear to influence which clitic appears in the first or second slot: whether the head verb begins with a vowel, most frequently the auxiliary avere, and whether the negative particle non precedes the cluster. Certain tokens are affected by both pragmatic and structural pressures, which may or may not be in conflict. In cases of conflict, we argue that the speaker/author has a choice and that the feature that is most salient in the discourse prevails. During a period of change, competing influences are to be expected. This does not, however, undermine the larger picture, which clearly displays the significant role that pragmatic,

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   Pragmatic functionality of clitic order in fourteenth-century Florentine

semantic and structural factors play in controlling clitic order in double object clitic clusters overall. In the next chapter, we explore why preceding negative markers and a following vowel are particularly influential contexts. In addition, we examine a variety of other pressures that were also competing to govern clitic order. In the end, we will see which factors prevail and eventually push the system toward the invariable dat-acc order.

Chapter 5 The demise of the acc-dat order and the fixation of the dat-acc cluster 5.1 Introduction The transition from the acc-dat to the dat-acc order in medieval Florentine was, as expected, characterized by a period of alternation when both orders were available. The goal of the previous chapter was to demonstrate that the alternation was not random, but rather was pressed into service to reflect the pragmatics of the discourse in which the clusters were imbedded. However, we know that this alternation eventually came to an end, and that the order settled upon was datacc. The present chapter is dedicated to exploring the factors that may have influenced the loss of the alternation and the ultimate demise of the acc-dat order. The next section (§ 5.2) examines the clitic orders employed with three compound constructions: causatives (fare ‘to make’ or lasciare ‘to let’ + infinitive), convenire ‘to suit; to be adviseable’ + infinitive, and parere ‘to seem’ + infinitive, and highlights iconic pattern replications at the local structural level, as well as more general iconic language patterns. The following two sections are dedicated to the role of analogy, one of the most powerful forces in language change. First, in Section 5.3, we explore how the relationship between the masculine singular definite article and the masculine, singular third person acc clitic, which have the same structural origins, the same allomorphs, and similar functions, may have impacted clitic order. This is followed, in Section 5.4, by an overview of theories of analogical forces that have been presented in the literature since the turn of the twentieth century. To this we add another, as yet unexplored, possible analogical pressure: clitic clusters with a reflexive pronoun and clusters with impersonal si. We conclude by returning to a traditional argument often invoked in language change: borrowing, and offer a perspective that is informed by the data collected from surrounding Tuscan dialects, which are presented and discussed in Chapter 2. As we pointed out in Chapter 3, this diachronic study examines the development of clitic cluster order by examining all possible influences on the change in order to create as complete a picture as possible. We may not know every factor involved or its relative degree of influence, but the goal is to leave no stone that is accessible to us unturned. In this approach, language change is a tug-of-war between a multitude of factors, some of which work together and others that support change in the opposite direction, thus accounting for the slow pace of change.

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   The demise of the acc-dat order and the fixation of the dat-acc cluster

5.2 Endophoric structural iconicity: Causatives, convenire ‘to suit; to be advisable’, parere ‘to seem’ In contrast to exophoric pragmatic iconicity (cf. Chapter 4), which highlights relations between language and the world (in our case the subjective perspective of the speaker within the discourse), endophoric iconicity refers to language internal diagrammatic iconicity. Nöth (2001) identifies two subtypes of endophoric iconicity: syntagmatic and paradigmatic. The former refers to iconicity within the linearity of text or discourse, whereas the latter is characterized as a type of diagrammatic iconicity, but is limited to paradigms of grammar and word formation (see Chapter 3, §§ 3.2 and 3.3.1). Neither of the subtypes of endophoric iconicity proposed by Nöth (2001), however, suits our purposes. In our analysis, clitic order replicates the order of arguments in the following verbal constructions: (a) the causatives fare ‘to make’/lasciare ‘to let’ + infinitive, and (b) convenire ‘to suit, to be suitable; to be advisable’/parere ‘to seem’ + infinitive. In causatives, the referent of the dat clitic is both the object/patient (or ‘causee’) of the causative verb (fare/lasciare) and the subject/agent of the infinitive (i.e., the main verb), while the referent of the acc clitic is the object of the infinitive.¹²² In constructions with convenire/parere the referent of the dat is the experiencer of both convenire/parere and the subject/agent of the infinitive, whereas the referent of the acc clitic is the object of the infinitive. The examples given in Chapter 3 (§ 3.3.1) are reproduced in (1)–(3) for the reader’s convenience, and the reader is referred to that section for additional information. All the examples in (a) illustrate the relevant constructions, which correspond to the paraphrases in (b) that exemplify the syntactic roles of the verbal arguments.¹²³

122 According to Cerbasi (1998) the causee is a ‘hybrid semantic role’ (both patient and agent). 123 Paraphrases for causatives and constructions with convenire are found in Medieval Italian. The following examples were taken from the Decameron: (i) Causatives: fa che noi ceniamo ‘make (it so) that we eat’ (V, 10, p. 397), la cui potenza fa oggi che la tua signoria non sia cacciata d’Ischia ‘whose power makes (it so) that today your woman is not thrown out of Ischia’ (V, 6, p. 371), and the peculiar: Prenderai quel cuor di cinghiale e fa che tu ne facci una vivandetta la migliore e la più dilettevole a mangiar che tu sai ‘You will take that boar heart and make (it so) that you make a meal (that is) the best and the most delicious that you know’ ( IV, 9, p. 316). (ii) Convenire: conviene che noi altressì mentiamo ‘it is advisable to us that we also lie’ (VIII, 10, p. 580).

Endophoric iconicity   

   145

(132) Causatives a. mel fé sapere 1sg.dat-3sg.m.acc make-3sg.pst know-inf ‘she let me know about it’ (Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron (1371); II, 5, 101) b. she made it so that I [= mi] came to know it [= lo] (133) Convenire ‘to suit; to be advisable’ a. te le converrà tutte rendere 2sg.dat 3pl.f.acc be.advisable-3sg.fut all give.back-inf ‘it will be in your best interest to give all them back’ (La storia di Merlino; 18, p. 18) b. it is advisable to you that you [= ti] give back all [= le] (134) Parere ‘to seem’ a. mel pareva vedere 1sg.dat-3sg.m.acc seem-3sg.ii see-inf ‘I seemed to see him’ (Corbaccio; parr. 61–70, p. 48) b. it seemed to me that I [= mi] saw him [= lo] An example of how the dat-acc order is favored in these structures is the minimal pair of tokens from Boccaccio’s Esposizioni sopra la Comedia di Dante (1373–1374) given in (135), which displays an order switch from acc-dat to dat-acc with the convenire + infinitive construction. In both clusters the referent of the acc clitic is la moglie ‘the wife,’ which is the topic of the discourse context and predicts the appearance of the acc clitic in the first slot, as it does with manda ‘it sends’. However, in the following construction with convenire, which appears in the same context, the order switches. (135) E aggiugni alle cose predette che delle mogli non si può fare alcuna elezione, ma tale chente la fortuna la ti manda, tale te la conviene avere ‘And add to the things mentioned above that as for wives one cannot make any choices, but rather that which fortune sends to you, that is what is best for you to have’ (Esposizioni; c. XVI, par. 32, p. 694)

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   The demise of the acc-dat order and the fixation of the dat-acc cluster

As shown in Tables 33–35, the correlation between causative constructions and dat-acc order is the strongest and most consistent throughout the fourteenth century.¹²⁴ As for convenire ‘to be suitable’ and parere ‘to seem’, our results improve in the second half of the century. However, it should be pointed out that seven out of eleven acc-dat ‘exceptional’ clusters collected for the first half of the century and all in the second half of the century are justified by the salience of the referent of the acc clitic, which makes it a strong candidate for the first slot, so they are not true exceptions. Table 33: Causative constructions

dat-acc

acc-dat

1311–1350 1355–1394

 7 12

3 1

Total

19

4

dat-acc

acc-dat

1311–1350 1355–1394

3 6

4 1

Total

9

5

dat-acc

acc-dat

1311–1350 1355–1394

1 3

4 0

Total

4

4

Table 34: Convenire

Table 35: Parere

Whereas these three constructions share structural features, there are differences between causatives, on the one hand, and convenire and parere constructions

124 We include one construction that is technically not a causative: ve l’ho udito dire ‘I heard you say it’, since the referent of the 2pl clitic (vi) is both the object of the verb udire ‘to hear’ and the subject of the verb dire ‘to say’.

Endophoric iconicity   

   147

on the other. The causal predicate is conceptually dependent on the affected predicate, that is, causal predicates necessarily evoke the idea of another action or state (Kemmer and Verhagen [1994: 118]). In a similar vein, Langacker (2010: 169), referring to constructions with laisser ‘to let’ + infinitive in French, notes that even though there are two separate verbs, the composite clausal predicate profiles a complex process construed as a single event. Norberg (1974) and Chamberlain (1986) suggest that causatives with a greater degree of fusion of the predicates (monoclausal structure) may have developed in the latest period of Latin and the structure consolidated in Latin texts and texts of the old Romance languages.¹²⁵ However, there are vestiges of biclausal causatives in Medieval Italian, as displayed by the following excerpts from the Decameron in which the verb fare ‘to make’ is separated by the infinitive by the direct object of the infinitive (the ‘affectee’) (136a) and the causee (136b), (136c). (136) Evidence of biclausal causatives in the Decameron a. a lui ti fa i tuoi to him 2sg.dat make-3sg.pi the your ‘he makes him bring your wash to you’ (Decameron; VIII, 7, p. 545)

panni wash

recare bring-inf

b. Io mi ricordo che io feci al fante I rflx remember-1sg.pi that I make-1sg.pst to.the servant mio, un sabato dopo nona, spazzare la casa my one Saturday after prayers sweep-inf the house ‘I remember that I made my servant, a Saturday after the hour of prayer, sweep the house’ (Decameron; I, 1, p. 33) c. la feci a un mio famigliare uccidere 3.sg.f.acc make-1sg.pst to a my family.member kill-inf ‘I made one of my family members kill her’ (Decameron; II, 9, p. 163) Despite the primarily monoclausal syntactic status of causative constructions, Bartos (2011) points out that monoclausality does not entail mono-eventivity since there are still two events that are conceptualized, thus the causee is a complex element that straddles both predicates.

125 Reported by Soares da Silva (2012: 538).

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   The demise of the acc-dat order and the fixation of the dat-acc cluster

Kemmer and Verhagen (1994) analyze causatives from a cognitive perspective in terms of the conceptual structure of events and argue that causatives are extensions of simpler structures. As shown in (137), causatives with intransitive verbs are modeled on two participant simple clauses, which have a subject and direct object:¹²⁶ In intransitive causatives the causee (or subject of the infinitive) appears in the acc case, which is made evident in the equivalent Italian phrases with a clitic pronoun that is marked for case. (137) Causatives with intransitive verbs a. Causative: I made Terry cry I made him cry Ho fatto piangere Terry (acc) L’ (acc) ho fatto piangere b. Simple clause: I ate the cake Ho mangiato la torta (acc)

I ate it L’ (acc) ho mangiata

Causatives with transitive verbs, on the other hand, are modeled on simple threeparticipant clauses, as shown in (138). In this case, the causee surfaces as a dat, which is displayed in the equivalent Italian phrases with clitic pronouns that are marked for case. (138) Causatives with transitive verbs a. Causative: He had the servant taste the food¹²⁷ Ha fatto assaggiare il cibo (acc) al servo (dat) b. Simple clause: I gave Mary a flower Ho dato un fiore (acc) a Mary (dat)

He had him taste it Gliel’ (dat-acc) ha fatto assaggiare I gave her it Gliel’ (dat-acc) ho dato

Despite the structural parallels, Kemmer and Verhagen (1994) point out that there is a mismatch in the semantic roles of the participants. For example, in (137a) Terry is patient-like in some respects, but he has some degree of initiative capacity being the animate subject of an intransitive verb. However, the event schema

126 The examples are taken from Kemmer and Verhagen (1994) and the translations in Italian demonstrate that the same argument applies to Italian. 127 In English there are degrees of directness of causation in different causative constructions that do not exist in Italian. Italian has the most direct fare ‘make’ causative and the most indirect lasciare ‘let’ causative, but not the inducive have-causative found in English. For this reason we use the fare causative for the translation.

Endophoric iconicity   

   149

in both constructions is similar. In the prototypical transitive (or two-participant) event the agentive participant exerts energy on a second participant who absorbs the energy and changes state. ¹²⁸ Similarly, in intransitive causatives one participant initiates the event and there is a second participant that is primarily affected; that is, one participant exerts force on another entity, and that is why the subject of the infinitive (or causee) appears in the acc case. The same argument is made for causatives of transitive verbs and their simpler, parallel clause. The causee in a transitive causative is not the same as a beneficiary or recipient (dat). However, the causee and the indirect object are both animate. Moreover, recipients/beneficiaries have experiencer-like properties that make them similar to a causee, which justifies the dat marking. Kemmer and Verhagen (1994) argue that in the most basic structure (intransitive causatives) the causee takes the acc case because the acc is the most integrated in the event. They argue that the causee in transitive causatives is the least integral in the event in comparison to the causer and the affectee, but it is still a participant in the event, just like indirect objects are in simple predicates. However, in our model, the fact that the causee has multiple roles suggests that it has a higher degree of involvement regardless of whether the construction is transitive and the affectee is present, since it remains directly affected by the causer and is the subject of the infinitive verb, or the main event. In contrast to Kemmer and Verhagen (1994) we argue that the case assumed by the causee directly reflects the base structure on which it is modeled, not its degree of involvement in the action. We suggest that in Italian causatives the dat case marks high involvement and degrees of diminished involvement are marked in one of two ways. Instead of the dat case, the causee can surface as an agentive, which is the same case used in passive constructions. Compare, for example, two realizations of ‘I make Mario write a letter’: Faccio scrivere una lettera a Mario, in which Mario is marked with the preposition a, the dative marker, versus Faccio scrivere una lettera da Mario, in which Mario is marked with the preposition da, the agentive marker in passive constructions.¹²⁹ Robustelli (1992: 87) highlights the distinction between these two phrases by reporting the observations of Lepsky and Lepsky (1986: 188) (emphasis ours): Col soggetto al dativo essa (l’azione) è vista come completata; il dativo indica anche il carattere improvviso o inaspettato dell’azione e che il soggetto del verbo reggente è in qualche modo partecipe, coinvolto emotivamente nell’azione a cui si riferisce l’infinito; quando il 128 Givón (1984) devised the prototypical transitive event, which is “an integrated conception that was claimed to underlie the grammatical category of transitivity in human language” (Kemmer and Verhagen [1994: 126]). 129 The examples are taken from Robustelli (1992:86).

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soggetto dell’infinito è all’agentivo, l’attenzione è concentrata sull’oggetto dell’infinito e sul processo che esso subisce.¹³⁰

Lepsky (1978: 48) also points out that “[l]’agentivo […] mette in luce non il soggetto (come fanno l’accusativo e il dativo), ma l’oggetto (il che indica un qualche rapporto con la costruzione passiva), o piuttosto il progesso subito dall’oggetto.”¹³¹ The causee marked as an agentive is penultimate in terms of degrees of diminished involvement. We propose that signaling the least involvement is accomplished by simply leaving the causee out, as shown in (139c): (139) a. High involvement of the causee: b. Less involvement of the causee: c. Least involvement of the causee:

Faccio scrivere la lettera a Gianni¹³² Faccio scrivere la lettera da Gianni Faccio scrivere la lettera

Once the causee is removed (139c), the phrase is interpreted as passive like (139b), and the causee as event participant is completely marginalized. For the present study, the focus is on double object clitic pronouns that consist of dat and acc clitics, the former referring to the causee and the latter to the direct object of the infinitive (the ‘affectee’). Although the referents of both clitics are involved in the event, we suggest that the referent of the dat clitic is characterized by a higher degree of involvement because it has a dual role, and we argue that the higher involvement of the causee compared to the affectee triggers the placement of the clitic whose referent is the causee (the dat) in the first slot. In this respect we follow De Cuypere (2008) who points out that iconicity cannot be merely an observed similarity, but rather the iconic ground must add meaning to the text/utterance. In this case, we argue that clitic order is iconic of the involvement of the causee. In addition, it is iconic of SVO structure, thus adhering to the cognitively basic schema or template referred to by Conradie (2001) as the

130 ‘With the subject in the dative case, it (the action) is considered completed; the dative indicates also the improvised or unexpected nature of the action and that the subject of the main verb is in some way participating, emotionally involved in the action of the infinitive; when the subject of the infinitive is in the agentive, the attention is concentrated on the object of the infinitive and on the process that it undergoes’ (our translation; JA&CR). 131 ‘The agentive does not highlight the subject (as the accusative and the dative do) but the object (which points to a relationship with the passive construction), or rather the progress undergone by the object’ (our translation; JA&CR). 132 If the recipient of the letter is included (i.e., if the verb becomes trivalent), it takes the dat and the causee must surface as an agentive: Faccio scrivere la lettera a Sara da Gianni ‘I make Gianni write the letter to Sara’. However, when the referent of the causee appears as a pronoun it is a dat: Gli faccio scrivere la lettera a Sara.

Endophoric iconicity   

   151

Event Model, which is a functional interpretation of the cluster (Itkonen [2002, 2005]). That is, the SVO order represents the trajectory of an activity/event from its beginning (the subject as agent or initiator of the action), to the action/event, to the patient or goal, which is the target of the action/event. The expectation is that these structures favor the dat-acc order in order to mirror the trajectory of the event at the ‘local’ level as well as SVO structure in general, since Italian was restructuring toward SVO in this period. Despite the fact that the data for convenire ‘to suit; to be advisable’ and parere ‘to seem’ are less notable than those for causatives, the development of these structures in modern Italian takes the progression toward mirroring the SVO order and the Event Model structure in the distribution of their arguments another step further. In modern Italian these structures are biclausal and no longer permit climbing of the acc clitic. Thus, SVO is replicated because the subject of the infinitive (the dat clitic) may only occur before the conjugated verb whereas the acc is enclitic to the infinitive to which it is a complement, as shown in (140). (140) Parere and convenire constructions in modern Italian a. mi pare vederlo (*me lo pare vedere) 1sg.dat seem-3sg.pi see-inf-3sg.m.acc ‘I seem to see it/him’ b. mi conviene farlo (*me lo conviene fare) 1sg.dat be.advisable-3sg.pi do-inf-3sg.m.acc ‘it is in my best interest to do it’ Evidence that in medieval Florentine these structures were showing a tendency toward biclausality, which is similar to that of causatives, is shown in (141), where convenire and parere are separated from the infinitive by the direct object of the infinitive (141a), (141b), or a locative (141c). (141) a. e se vi conviene questi altri fare and if 2pl.dat be.advisable-3sg.pi these others do-inf per forza for necessity ‘and if it is advisable to you to do these things necessarily’ (Deca prima di Tito Livio; L. 6, cap. 41, p. b141) b. vi conviene tutte le cose 2pl.dat be.advisable-3sg.pi all the things ‘it is advisable to you to tolerate everything’ (Deca prima di Tito Livio; L. 6, cap. 18, p. b110)

sofferire tolerate-inf

152   

   The demise of the acc-dat order and the fixation of the dat-acc cluster

c. E quasi mi pare intorno al cuore avere and almost 1sg.dat seem-3sg.pi around to.the heart have-inf uno amarissimo fiume delle sue lagrime a bitter.sup river of.the her tears ‘And it almost seems to me to have a very bitter river of her tears round my heart’ (Filocolo; L. 3, cap. 4, p. 242) However, in medieval Italian the majority of convenire/parere constructions with double object clitic clusters place the cluster at the beginning of the structure, as shown in (133) and (134) above, which suggests monoclausality. From 1330–1395 we found only two tokens from Florentine texts, shown in (142), in which clitic position follows the modern biclausal pattern. Only token (142a) is from a text included in our corpus.¹³³ (142) a. mi pare 1sg.dat seem-3sg.pi ‘I seem to see [her] leaving them’ (Fiammetta; cap. 8, par. 3, p. 233)

vederli see-inf-3pl.m.acc

lasciare leave-inf

b. poi vi conviene saperla mantenere then 2pl.dat be.suitable-3sg.pi know-inf-3sg.f.acc keep-inf ‘then is advisable that you know how to keep it’ (Rosaio della vita; cap. 44, p. 59)¹³⁴ As demonstrated above for causatives, regardless of the original mono/biclausal status of convenire/parere + infinitive constructions, the subject of the infinitive has a dual role, as it is also the experiencer of convenire/parere. Like in the case of causatives, the dat clitic, whose referent is the participant with a dual role, tends to occupy the first slot of the double object clitic cluster in medieval Florentine. Unlike causatives, however, convenire/parere + infinitive structures have settled on a biclausal construction and in this shift iconicity is enhanced.¹³⁵

133 An investigative search of mi/ti/ci/vi +fa ‘do/make.3sg.pi’/fece ‘do/make.3sg.past’ in the Florentine texts in OVI dated 1330–1395 did not produce tokens with the separation of clitics that is characteristic of modern convenire and parere. 134 Corsini, Mattero (1373), Rosaio della vita (edited by Filippo Luigi Polidori; Firenze: Società Poligrafica Italiana, 1845.) 135 We do not claim that iconicity is the trigger for the shift to a biclausal structure, but rather that after the change endophoric iconicity is enhanced (c.f. Chapter 6, § 6.1). The question as to why causatives did not become biclausal but convenire/parere constructions did is beyond the

Endophoric iconicity   

   153

In order to discover whether the primacy of the dat is due to endophoric iconicity exclusively, we examine our data for the number of proclitic clusters of each order Table 36: Clusters with verb + infinitive constructions

dat-acc 1311–1350 13 (12) non te ’l posso furare (non) non te ’l potrei dire (non) non tel puote dare (non) non me lo voleste dire (non) non te lo dee aver celato (non) tel venisse a dire in singular grazia te ’l dei tenere dare tel volesse me la potrà mai trarre dal cuore mel sappia chiarire tel dee manifestare ve ’l volesse torre

acc-dat 6 (4) donare la mi volessero rendere la mi volessero la mi vorrà torre il ti mandi a dire mostrare non la vi possiamo (non) non la mi potrai per guardia torre (non)

te l’ho penato a dire (before auxiliary avere) 1355–1394 14 (13) ve la potrei far baciare ve lo intendo di dimostrare ve lo intendo dimostrare te gli possa ancor servire ve la poteva lasciare ve le volessi tutte contare me la può radomandare te ‘l voglio donare me la può torre til posso provare vel possiamo provare ve l’oso dire tel sono venuto a significare

11 (5) il ti debba dare il ti voglio provare il vi voglio mostrare il vi vo’ dire il ti so dire no lo ti saprebbe ricontare (non) no llo ti posso dire né contare (non) No lle ti posso racontare (non) nol ti potrei dire (non) donar nol vi possa (non) nol mi potrai mostrare (non)

mai me l’hanno potuto trarre (before auxiliary avere)

scope of this study. However, it is possible that since convenire expresses the best interest of the subject of the infinitive and parere expresses the perspective of the subject of the infinitive, the emotional link of experiencer to these verbs sets it apart from the event expressed by the infinitive and its direct object.

154   

   The demise of the acc-dat order and the fixation of the dat-acc cluster

type that appear before any verb + infinitive construction. The results are shown in Table 36. In the context of verb + infinitive constructions, we found 13 dat-acc clusters and 6 acc-dat clusters for the first half of the fourteenth century and 14 dat-acc clusters and 11 acc-dat clusters for the second half, that is, 27 dat-acc clusters and 17 acc-dat clusters throughout the century. These results do not appear to be significant until we look at the nature of the constructions for patterns, such as clusters before the auxiliary avere, which we have shown is a context that favors the dat-acc order (cf. Chapter 4, § 4.3 and § 5.3 below), and clusters following the negative particle, non, which appear to favor the acc-dat order (cf. Chapter 4, § 4.3). Among the dat-acc clusters, there is one token in each half of the century that occurs in the context of a compound past tense with the auxiliary avere. Throughout the century, eight acc-dat clusters appear after the negative particle, non, two in the first half and six in the second half. Since the order of these clusters could have been influenced by competing features, they cannot be included in the number of clusters that appear in verb + infinitive constructions.¹³⁶ Without these tokens and focusing exclusively on structure while ignoring any pragmatic interference, we find 25 dat-acc clusters and 9 acc-dat clusters in verb + infinitive constructions throughout the century, which supports the observation that in any constructions comprising a verb followed by an infinitive (not just verbal constructions comprising fare/lasciare/convenire/parere + infinitive), the dat clitic appears to be favored in first position. Therefore, whereas a possible role of endophoric iconicity in determining cluster order cannot be ruled out, it may also be the case that there is a tendency for dat clitics in clusters to move left in complex clauses. Indeed, leftward movement of the dat is a feature of modern Italian, as shown by research on clitic climbing. Berretta (1986: 78) refers to the topicality hierarchy in her interpretation of the tendency for dat rather than acc clitics to be raised from the infinitive to the main verb in speech as discussed in Chapter 3 (§ 3.3.1). Our data suggest that the tendency for leftward movement of a dat clitic as well as of the dat within the cluster in complex constructions may have begun in medieval Italian. Proclitic clusters with fare/lasciare/convenire/parere + infinitive favored the dat-acc order, and this pattern is endophorically iconic in three ways: (a) the dat in the first slot reflects the primacy of the causee who has a dual role in the event; (b) the dat-acc order reflects the fact that in these constructions the causee/subject precedes the direct object of the infinitive; and (c) at the more 136 In the first half of the century only one cluster with convenire appears in the context of non and it is acc-dat. In the second half, on the other hand, no clusters with convenire/parere and only one causative is preceded by the negative particle, and it is dat-acc.

Morphological constellations and analogy   

   155

general level of language structure, which in this period is tending toward SVO, subject preceding object is also respected. At the same time, there are indications that the dat-acc order may be favored in all verb + infinitive constructions. Thus, our data demonstrate two possible avenues toward the resolution of the alternation between dat-acc and acc-dat ordering in favor of the former. The next section examines some tendencies that may have supported the trajectory toward the dat-acc order and others that interfered with it.

5.3 Morphological constellations and analogy: The relationship with the masculine singular definite article As we have pointed out, analogy is a powerful mechanism in language change. This and the following section are devoted to identifying all the possible analogical connections that may have influenced clitic order in double object clusters. In this section we focus on two elements, the masculine singular definite article (sg.m.art) and the third person singular masculine accusative (3sg.m.acc) clitic, which are linked by form and function. Since both structures have an anaphoric function and share the allomorphs given in Chapter 3 (§ 3.3.2) and reproduced in (143) for the reader’s convenience, we have argued that these connections resulted in a morphological constellation (Janda and Joseph [1986]; Joseph and Janda [1999]). (143) a. lo (the original form) b. ’l (< lo via apocope) c. l’ (< lo via elision) d. il (the latest form to appear) The distributional patterns of the definite article and the clitic pronoun are also similar. Vanelli (1992), Renzi and Vanelli (1993) and Renzi (1993) have suggested that the original form of the definite article was and that elision gave before a word beginning with a vowel.¹³⁷ They find that elision was an obligatory, 137 Maiden (1995) considers the non-reduced forms of the definite article in Tuscan dialects that are presented in Rohlfs (1968): ill’oca ‘the goose’, ell’amore ‘the love’, and proposes that the definite articles lo, la, li, le come from the second syllable of ille, and that the allomorphs il and ‘l may derive from the stressed first syllable of ille. He makes the same argument for the origin of acc clitics. Vanelli (1992), Renzi and Vanelli (1993), and Renzi (1993) argue that it would be unlikely that il and lo both derive from ille.

156   

   The demise of the acc-dat order and the fixation of the dat-acc cluster

exceptionless rule that applied when the article was proclitic to the following element, as shown in (144). (144) l’imperatore disse ‘the emperor said’ We find the claim that elision was an obligatory, exceptionless rule to be somewhat of an exaggeration. Table 37 displays the results of a search of l’ and lo before a vowel-initial noun or adjective in the Corbaccio, which verifies that elision was not exceptionless, primarily before i-. Table 37: Elision in Corbaccio

l’ lo

a

e

i

o

u

33 1

3 0

0 11*

4 0

23 0

*Nine tokens undergo aphaeresis

We found no tokens of l’ before i- in this text, only lo, an example of which is shown in (145a), and we found that initial i- often underwent aphaeresis, as shown in (145b). (145) Lack of elision of lo before ia. sotto lo importabile giogo ‘under the unbearable yoke’ (Corbaccio; parr. 291–300 p. 89) b. lo ’mpiccarti ‘the hanging (of you)’ (Corbaccio; parr. 31–40 p. 43) The examples in (146) from the Cronaca Fiorentina display the same variation before i- and also show lack of elision before other vowels, such as a- and e-. (146) Elision and aphaeresis in Cronaca Fiorentina a. lo imperio ‘the empire’ (Preambolo, p. 1) b. lo ’mperio

‘the empire’

(Rubr. 24, p. 13)

c. lo ’nbasciadore

‘the ambassador’

(Rubr. 66, p. 30)

Morphological constellations and analogy   

d. lo imbasciatore

‘the ambassador’

(Rubr. 66, p. 30)

e. lo Arcivescovo

‘the archbishop’

(Rubr. 645, p. 236)

f. lo edificatore

‘the builder’

(Preambolo, p. 1)

   157

These data allow us to make a more precise observation, that is, that elision of the sg.m.art lo was nearly consistent before nouns and adjectives beginning with all vowels except i-, and that lo before initial i- behaved uniquely, often being maintained and sometimes triggering aphaeresis of i-. ¹³⁸ Our data on the 3sg.m.acc in double object clitic clusters preceding a host verb that begins with a vowel display a distributional pattern similar to that of the sg.m.art. As we see in Table 38, the dat-3sg.m.acc order with an elided acc clitic (l’) is nearly categorical preceding the auxiliary avere ‘have’ in compound tenses, appearing in 30 out of 31 tokens. Throughout the century dat-acc is also the only order when the 3sg.m.acc precedes any verb that begins with a vowel. There are seven (out of 53) exceptions to the dat-acc order. Six occur with acc clitics other than 3sg.m.acc: three appear before the auxiliary avere (e.g., mostrate le m’hanno ‘they showed them (3pl.f.acc) to me’, Filocolo; L. 2, cap. 44, p.  190) and three before any other vowel-initial verb. Only one of the seven acc-dat tokens found in the context of a vowel-initial verb involves the 3sg.m.acc clitic. Moreover, two of the four instances of lack of elision of the final vowel of the cluster before a vowel-initial verb that is not avere occur in clusters in which the acc clitic is not 3sg.m (e.g., ve li assegno ‘I assign them to you’ [Deca Prima L. 5, cap. 44, p. b60]).¹³⁹ Appearance of the acc in the second slot of the cluster before most verbs that begin with a vowel and categorical elision before the auxiliary avere lead to the conclusion that the formal relationship with the sg.m.art, which displayed a similar pattern, may have motivated the dat-acc order in this context. However, the same conclusion cannot be reached for the context of apocope.

138 This selection of examples reflects the pattern observed in the data and, at this point, serves to demonstrate that elision of the definite article before vowel-initial nouns was not entirely exceptionless. An investigation into the possible justifications for the predominant pattern of lack of elision before i- is beyond the scope of this study. 139 Note that the order of some clusters may also be justified by another feature, which we are ignoring in this purely structural analysis.

158   

   The demise of the acc-dat order and the fixation of the dat-acc cluster

Table 38: Distribution of the two orders in the context of vowel-initial verb and avere

3sg.m.acc

Other acc clitic

dat-acc

acc-dat

dat-acc

acc-dat

10 20

0 1

3 8

0 3

30

1

11

3

1310–1350 Any vowel-initial verb

0

0

1355–1394 Any vowel-initial verb

3 (2 without elision)

0

2 1 (without elision) 0 2

3

0

2

1310–1350 Auxiliary avere 1355–1394 Auxiliary avere Total

Total

3

The allomorph that appeared orthographically as was the result of apocope when the sg.m.art was enclitic to the preceding word that ended with a vowel (or was a vowel, e.g., e ‘and’, as in: e ’l re disse ‘and the king said’). Apocope was sporadic, and later was created by a rule of prosthesis, or insertion of a vocale d’appoggio ‘prosthetic vowel’. Renzi (1993: 222) points out that the forms of the 3sg.m.acc clitic in Old Italian had the same evolution as that of the article in the same conditions (V + lo > V’l > il) and cites the Disciplina Clericalis, a text from the end of the thirteenth century that displays an abundance of il as both article and pronoun. Our corpus contains a total of 199 clusters with the 3sg.m.acc clitic, 63 of which have il always occurring in the first position of the cluster.¹⁴⁰ For definite articles, the most frequent context for apocope was after a preposition, although apocope was also found after complementizers, conjunctions, adverbs and verbs. Vanelli (1992) cites the examples in (147) from the Northern Italian medieval text Proverbia. (147) Examples of apocope of the definite article (from Vanelli [1992: 37]; our translations, JA&CR) a. Prepositions: al ‘at/to.the’, del ‘of.the’, dal ‘from.the’, col ‘with. the’, el (= nel) ‘in.the’ b. Conjunction:

e l mal ‘and the evil’

140 We found two occurrences of til, one in Giovanni dalle Celle’s letters and one in Commento all’Arte d’Amare di Ovidio, and one occurrence of vi ’l in Lettere e istruzioni della prima metà del XIV secolo dettate dai Cancellieri di Firenze in lingua volgare, which could be interpreted as having the form il in second position.

Morphological constellations and analogy   

   159

c. Complementizer:

que l marito ‘that the husband’

d. Adverbs:

nè l core ‘nor the hearth’, sovra l çovene mese ‘on the young month’, soto l capelo ‘under the hair’

e. Verbs:

guasta l formento ‘it spoils the wheat’, pensa l bo ‘thinks the ox’

Clitic pronouns do not share all these contexts, but Vanelli (1992: 40) notes that the most numerous cases of apocope with clitic pronouns in Northern Italian dialects are found when the 3sg.m.acc is preceded by another clitic element, such as another pronoun (e.g., me lo > mel, ve lo > vel), or the negative particle non (e.g., non > no l or nol). She points out that this context is phonologically similar to that of a preposition followed by a definite article in that in both cases there are two atonic elements that are phonologically restructured as one unit. The data from our corpus, shown in Table 39, confirm that apocope of the 3sg.m.acc was frequent when it followed the dat clitic. Table 39: dat-acc tokens with the apocopated form of 3sg.m.acc

mel and me ’l types

me lo type

1311–1350 1355–1394

37 43

10 10

Total

80

20

However, in contrast to elision before a vowel, it does not appear that apocope to the preceding clitic was a guiding factor in the transition toward the dat-acc order. Table 40 displays the distribution of dat-acc with apocope and all acc-dat clusters with 3sg.m.acc (allomorphs lo, ’l and il), and shows that the distribution is relatively equal, even if all clusters with dirò ‘I will tell you’, which typically favors the acc-dat order, are eliminated (cf. Chapter 4, § 4.6). Table 40: Distribution of 3sg.m.acc clitics

dat-acc (mel, me ’l types)

acc-dat

1311–1350 1355–1394

37 (– 7 dirò = 30) 43 (– 4 dirò = 39)

51 (– 9 dirò = 42) 63 (– 14 dirò = 49)

Total

80 (69)

114 (91)

160   

   The demise of the acc-dat order and the fixation of the dat-acc cluster

We have already seen in Tables 26 and 27 that the presence of the negative marker, non, appears to support the acc-dat order. If we examine only clusters with 3sg.m.acc clitics, eliminating tokens that are justified by a context that favors the dat-acc order, we once again find a prevalence of the acc-dat order, as shown in Table 41. Table 41: Clusters with 3sg.m.acc clitics preceded by non

dat-acc

acc-dat  1

1355–1394

10 (– 3 before avere) (– 6 pragmatics) = (1) 6 (– 2 before avere) (– 2 pragmatics) (– 1 causative) = (1)

Total

16 (2)

16

1311–1350

15

Throughout the century all but two of the unexpected dat-acc clusters are justified by another feature. Moreover, the majority of the acc-dat clusters with a 3sg.m.acc clitic appearing after the negative particle non undergo apocope, as shown in Table 42. Table 42: Apocope of 3sg.m.acc clitic in acc-dat clusters preceded by non

non lo-dat

nol dat

1311–1350 1351–1394

0 3

 1 12

Total

3

13

The sg.m.art and the 3sg.m.acc share a function (anaphoric reference) and at this point in time shared the same allomorphs. The connection between them, which we have characterized as a morphological constellation, appears to have been strong enough to influence the order of clitics in double object clitic constructions. These data suggest that apocope, when the dat clitic preceded the acc (e.g., the type mel), was not a guiding factor in the transition toward the dat-acc order, but that the following context (the vowel-initial matrix verb) may have been. An opposing force, attraction of the acc clitic to the first slot after non,

Morphological constellations and analogy   

   161

particularly if the acc clitic was masculine singular, may have acted as a counter force, encouraging the maintenance of the acc-dat order. As pointed out in Chapter 1 (§ 1.1), Pearce (1991) examines similar data, finds this pattern in Old French and Old Italian, and proposes that it reflects the shift that was underway from ‘phonological’ enclisis to ‘syntactic’ proclisis; that is, clitics were originally enclitic to the preceding element in the phrase but evolved into elements that were proclitic to the verb host (see also Antinucci and Marcantonio [1980]; DeKock [1985]). According to this approach, keeping the acc, which is semantically more closely related to the verb, structurally closer to the verb was the priority and justifies the switch to the dat-acc order. As discussed in Chapter 1 (§ 1.1), the fact that in medieval Italian clitics could not appear phrase initially (because there was no element to which they could be enclitic) but do so in modern Italian attests to a shift from enclisis to proclisis (Meyer-Lübke [1897]). Further support for the theory that this shift was in progress in fourteenth-century Florentine is found in the eventual loss of apocopated clusters with 3sg.m.acc clitics (e.g., mel, tel, etc.). In modern Italian this structure no longer exists, leaving only unapocopated forms, such as me lo, te lo, me l’, te l’, etc., for all clusters with first and second person dat clitics and all third person acc clitics. Finally, elision of the acc clitic before the auxiliary avere (but not consistently before all following verbs that begin with a vowel) suggests movement toward proclisis.¹⁴¹ We have seen how the structure of the event as well as the evolution toward SVO (endophoric iconicity) support the shift to the dat-acc order. In addition, analogy to a functionally and morphologically similar element (the sg.m.art) generates competing pressures that support the shift (attraction of the acc clitic to the second slot before the auxiliary avere) and resist this shift (attraction of the acc clitic to preceding non). The next section explores additional analogical pressures that may have played a role in the transition.

141 De Kock (1985) presents the debate that took place in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries over whether clitic pronouns were proclitic to the following element or enclitic to the preceding element. He concludes that in old French clitics were proclitic to the following element and admits one exception: when the pronoun contracts with the preceding stressed element, as for instance in sil fist tut de fine or cuvrìr ‘and so he had it all covered in fine gold’ (our translation; JA&CR) (Le quatre livres des Rois; 136, 18).

162   

   The demise of the acc-dat order and the fixation of the dat-acc cluster

5.4 Other analogical pressures: Phonotactics, morphological structure, and clusters with reflexives Identifying analogical connections is sometimes considered ad hoc and essentially unverifiable. Nevertheless, our understanding of how the human brain sorts and organizes information based on similarities (e.g., prototype theory: Rosch and Mervis [1975], inter alia; network models: Aitchison [2003]; Bybee [2006], inter alia; and paradigmatic alternation patterns/templates: Aski [1995]; Maiden [1992], to name a few) suggests the notion that connections based on ‘sameness’ or ‘resemblance’ are possible and plausible sources of analogy, particularly if, as Wanner (2006: 129) suggests, the elements share a high degree of similarity and type and token frequency. In this section we identify other forms of analogical pressure pushing cluster order toward dat-acc that have already been identified in the literature, as well as additional connections that we found in our corpus. Lombard (1934: 41) suggests that the establishment of dat-acc may have been due to the high incidence of words in which -lo, -la, -li, -le are the second of two consecutive atonic syllables, such as angelo ‘angel’, piccoli ‘small, adjective, masculine plural’, favola ‘fable’, tavole ‘tables’. He finds these terms much more numerous than those in which -mi, -ti, -si, -ci, -vi appear in the same position. Lombard makes it clear that this pattern may not have caused the switch but rather facilitated the triumph of dat-acc which was imposed from surrounding dialects. Maiden (1995: 176) adds that this is not implausible if we consider Tuttle’s (1974) proposal that endings such as these may have played a role in a major reorganization of the Tuscan atonic vowel system. Along morphological rather than phonotactic lines, Pescarini (p.c.) proposes that the switch to dat-acc was an analogical realignment so that the gender and number marker (the acc clitic) would be cluster final, like the desinences of adjectives and nouns. Finally, others (e.g., Parodi [1886]) argue for analogy to clusters with ne ‘of/about/from it/them’, such as me ne, te ne, etc.¹⁴² As pointed out above, although analogical effects are not verifiable, it is plausible to suspect any degree (small or large) of influence of each structure, noting that if taken together, pressure builds from a variety of sources. Another source of analogy could be constructions involving reflexive verbs, as proposed by Melkenborg (2003) in her interpretation of the evolution of French double object clitic clusters (see Chapter 2, § 2.4.1). Melkenborg (2003) suggests that in Old French there was an increasing number of cases in which first and second person subjects were followed by a reflexive clitic (e.g., je me, tu te, (il

142 The /e/ in me lo etc. would be due to analogy to ne in me ne, etc.

Other analogical pressures   

   163

se)), which was homophonous with the dat clitic. This fronting of the reflexive influenced the order of clitics in double clitic clusters by supporting fronting of the dat before the acc clitic (see also Brusewitz [1905]). In Italian, the same degree of similarity between reflexives and datives does not exist, since reflexives and datives not followed by an acc clitic are not homophonous; they have a different vowel (-i): mi, ti, ci, vi vs. me lo, te lo, etc. In addition, the number of subject pronouns followed by a reflexive clitic is insignificant in medieval texts, as shown in Table 43, which displays a comparison of the occurrences of subject pronouns and subject pronouns + reflexive clitics in 224 prose Florentine texts from 1300–1400 in the OVI. Table 43: Subject pronouns and subject pronouns + rflx clitic: Florentine prose texts (1300–1400)

Subject pronoun

Subject pronoun + clitic

io tu noi voi

io mi tu ti noi ci voi vi

2217 1176 500 599

58 26 7 9

In addition, a search of the same texts for a sample of subject pronouns followed by a clitic cluster with a reflexive pronoun strongly suggests that double object clitic clusters of the type reflexive-acc rarely appeared after a subject pronoun. Table 44 displays the number of first and second person subject pronouns followed by a cluster consisting of a reflexive clitic-3sg.m.acc clitic (lo) yielded by our search. Table 44: Subject pronouns followed by rflx-3acc cluster: Florentine prose texts (1300–1400)

io me lo io mel io me la io me li io me le

1 3 5 0 0

tu te lo tu tel tu te la tu te li tu te le

0 3 1 0 0

noi ce lo noi cel noi ce la noi ce li noi ce le

0 0 0 0 0

voi ce lo voi vel voi ve la voi ve li voi ve le

0 0 0 0 0

These data strongly suggest that neither reflexive clitics nor double object clitic clusters with a reflexive appeared after subject pronouns with any frequency. Thus, it is highly unlikely that, as in Old French, the number of cases in which first and second person subjects were followed by the reflexive led to fronting of the reflexive which, in turn, influenced cluster order in double clitic clusters

164   

   The demise of the acc-dat order and the fixation of the dat-acc cluster

without a reflexive. However, double object clitic clusters consisting of a reflexive clitic may have analogically influenced clusters with a dat and an acc clitic, since the morphological, phonological and functional overlap between these two cluster types is significant. The first and second person forms of reflexive clitic pronouns are the same as the non-reflexive dat and acc clitics (i.e., singular mi, ti; plural ci, vi), whereas the third person reflexive clitic is si. When reflexive clitics occur in first position in a cluster with an acc clitic they undergo the same vowel change as dat clitics: me lo, te lo, se lo, etc. In terms of function, reflexives can be divided into two categories: (a) true reflexives, which are coreferential with the subject of the verb but also instantiate the role of acc or dat, and (b) lexical reflexives, which are also coreferential with the subject but do not correspond to an argument of the verb and have an unaccusative/middle function. The subject of the verb is inanimate or not agentive, and the event denoted by the verb is involuntary, uncontrolled, or a spontaneous reaction. An example of a true reflexive with the role of acc from our corpus is provided in (148).¹⁴³ (148) mi si mostrava 1sg.dat 3sg.rflx.acc show-3sg.ii ‘he showed himself to me’ (Corbaccio; parr. 101–110, p. 54) True reflexives that are dat assume a variety of functions. The rflx.dat may be a canonical recipient, as shown in (149a), a possessive (149b), a locative (149c), a benefactive (149d), or an emphatic (149e)–(149g). (149) a. la si sottopuosero 3sg.f.acc 3sg.rflx.dat subject-3pl.past ‘they subjected it to themselves’ (Ottimo Commento della Commedia, Paradiso; c. 6, p. 145)

(recipient)

b. ella il si recò in braccio (possessive) she 3sg.m.acc 3sg.rflx.dat carry-3sg.past in arm ‘she carried it in her arms’ (Libro di varie storie; cap. 15, p. 123)

143 The examples are given with the reflexive either in first or second position for each type. In the corpus the position of the reflexive was not consistent; below we examine the data to identify the more frequent patterns.

Other analogical pressures   

c. me lo avrei […] levato da 3sg.rflx.dat 3sg.m.acc have-1sg.pc take.away-pp from dosso body ‘I would have taken it off of me’ (Decameron; III, 6, p. 214)

   165

(locative)

d. se alcuno non le si puote (benefactive) if someone not 3pl.f.acc 3sg.rflx.dat can-3sg.pi apropriare take-inf ‘if someone cannot take them for himself’ (Ottimo Commento della Commedia, Inferno; c. 6, p. 145) e. se ’l piagne 3sg.rflx.dat 3sg.m.acc cry-3sg.pi ‘he cries for it’ (Filocolo; L. 4, cap. 161, p. 547)

(emphatic)

f. tu te l’ abbia you 2sg.rflx.dat 3sg.m.acc have-2sg.ps ‘you have it’ (Corbaccio; parr. 151–160, p. 63)

(emphatic)

g. se la crede aver trovata (emphatic) 3sg.rflx.dat 3sg.f.acc believe-3sg.pi have-inf find-pp ‘he believes to have found it’ (Decameron; VIII, 3, p. 514) Emphatic reflexives do not necessarily have a translation in English, but rather appear to indicate additional focus on the subject of the verb, much like modern Italian expressions, such as me lo mangio tutto! ‘I eat it all up!’. In some cases, as shown in (150), the distinction between a benefactive reflexive and an emphatic reflexive is difficult to establish. For this reason, we group tokens with emphatic and benefactive reflexives together and analyze them separately below. (150) tu te la griferai you 2sg.rflx.dat 3sg.f.acc steal-2sg.fut ‘you will steal it (for yourself)’ (Decameron; IX, 5, p. 609)

166   

   The demise of the acc-dat order and the fixation of the dat-acc cluster

The items in (151) exemplify lexical reflexives. In each case the referent of the reflexive is inanimate and the accompanying clitic is a dat, indicating the person affected by the situation. (151) a. tutta la cotta pelle le s’ aprisse all the burned skin 3sg.f.dat 3sg.rflx open-3sg.is ‘all the burned skin opened (to her)’ (Decameron; VIII, 7, p. 549) b. tutte mi si pararono davanti agli occhi all 1sg.dat 3pl.rflx appear-3pl.past in.front of.the eyes ‘all appeared in front of my eyes’ (Filocolo; L. 2, cap. 48, p. 202) c. mi si scoperse 1sg.dat 3sg.rflx reveal.3sg.past ‘the small space revealed itself to me’ (Ameto; cap. 32, p. 777)

il the

picciolo small

spazio space

An analysis of clitic orders in clusters comprising a reflexive show a preference for a dat clitic in the first slot. Table 45 displays the distribution of clitic orders in clusters with a reflexive that is either a dat, acc, or unaccusative/ middle reflexive. Table 45: Clusters with true and lexical reflexives

rflx.dat-acc acc-rflx.dat dat-rflx.acc rflx.acc-dat dat-rflx.un/ rflx.un/ mid mid-dat 1311–1350 13 1355–1395 13

 3  9

 40  68

2 3

 42  59

16  5

Total

12

108

5

101

21

26

The data in Table 45 reveal that the clitic that has the role of dat, whether reflexive or not, tends to occupy the first slot in the cluster. This may be due to the overlapping functions of the dat and reflexive pronouns, since both can be possessives, locatives, benefactives, or emphatic (e.g. ethical datives). In addition, it is worth pointing out that lexical reflexives, in which the reflexive is an inanimate, also tend to prefer the animate dat clitic in the first slot. Clusters with reflexive benefactives or reflexive emphatics show a similar pattern in the second half of the century, as shown in Table 46.

Other analogical pressures   

   167

Table 46: Clusters with reflexive benefactives or reflexive emphatics

rflx.emph/ben-acc

acc-rflx.emph/ben

1311–1350 1355–1395

 8 60

11 24

Total

68

35

That is, the reflexive with the benefactive or emphatic role occupies the first slot, since its referent is highly impacted by the situation, either by standing to benefit from it or being directly affected.¹⁴⁴ The significance of these results is intensified by comparing them to the patterns of clitic order in clusters with impersonal si (which is homophonous with the 3sg and pl reflexive clitic) and an acc or dat clitic. As discussed in Chapter 1 (§ 1.1), in modern Italian double clitic clusters comprising an impersonal, the impersonal always occupies the second slot. In our model this is predictable, since an impersonal clitic marker references no one in particular, and therefore is not contextually salient. Two examples from our corpus are given in (152), and evidence that this pattern was already being established in fourteenth-century Florentine is shown in Table 47. (152) a. questo, […] non mi this not 1sg.dat ‘and it cannot be hidden to/from me’ (Filocolo; L. 3, cap. 25, p. 93)

si imp

può celare can-3sg.pi hide-inf

b. né gli si possono […] occultare nor 3pl.m.acc imp can-3sg.pi hide-inf ‘nor can they be hidden’ (Esposizioni sopra la Commedia; c. V(ii), par. 9, p. 327)

144 The results from causative constructions are less clear. Of the nine causative constructions with an acc and a reflexive dat recipient, benefactive or emphatic, five have the reflexive in the first slot, and four have the acc in the first slot.

168   

   The demise of the acc-dat order and the fixation of the dat-acc cluster

Table 47: Clusters with impersonal si¹⁴⁵

imp-dat

imp-acc

dat-imp

acc-imp

1311–1350 1355–1395

0 2

1 0

16 30

 5 10

Total

2

1

46

15

The patterns of clitic order in clusters with a true or lexical reflexive suggest a tendency for the dat to occupy the first slot. It appears that a type of template was forming, in which dat preceded acc in clusters with reflexives. Since the impersonal clitic, which is a generic, referentless element, almost consistently occupied the second slot, it appears that the concrete, animate dat clitic came be associated with the first slot in all clusters that included a reflexive or impersonal clitic. We suggest that this may have been a significant source of analogical pressure toward the dat-acc order.

5.5 Language external factors: Borrowing from Tuscan vernaculars As mentioned in Chapter 1, Melander (1929) notes the vowel change that accompanied the order switch (lo mi > me lo) and argues that the order change must have been due to the influence of surrounding dialects which had already undergone the switch (see Chapter 2 for a discussion of the patterns in the Italian dialects) and did not have raising of atonic [e] to [i]. Castellani (1952: 104) also maintains that the order change was probably due to borrowing from surrounding vernaculars, such as Pisano and Lucchese that, according to him, had a strong influence on Florentine after the first decades of the fourteenth century.¹⁴⁶ However, he argues that the vowel change in Florentine was due to analogy to clusters with ne (e.g., me ne). The goal of this section is to evaluate the viability of the hypothesis that the establishment of dat-acc as the only order of double object clitic clusters in Florentine resulted from borrowing from neighboring vernaculars. Current research on borrowing defines it as “a cover-term for the adoption of a structural feature into a language as a result of some level of bilingualism

145 Impersonal si also appears in second position in the four causative constructions with double clitic clusters in our corpus. 146 Castellani (1952) suggests that Pisano and Lucchese had acquired the dat-acc order from northern dialects.

Language external factors: Borrowing from Tuscan vernaculars   

   169

in the history of the relevant speech community” (Matras and Sakel [2007b: 1]) or “replication of a form or structure that is normally reserved for communication in language L-X … while communicating in L-Y” (Matras [2011a: 207]). Concerning contact-induced language change, Thomason (2003: 688) proposes that “contact between languages (or dialects) is a source of linguistic change whenever a change occurs that would have been unlikely, or at least less likely to occur outside a specific contact situation”, and Heine and Kuteva (2005: 14) define it as “a regionally confined process resulting from specific historical events”. As for the type of linguistic material that can be borrowed, there appears to be general consensus that, even though numerous universals and general principles of borrowing have been put forward none of them has been proven to be exceptionless. Thus, Campbell (1993: 103–104) states that “[t]he moral for wouldbe constrainers of grammatical borrowing, then, is that given enough time and intensive contact, virtually anything can (ultimately) be borrowed”. Similarly, Thomason and Kaufman (1988: 14) conclude that “as far as the strictly linguistic possibilities go, any linguistic feature can be transferred from any language to any other language” (emphasis ours, JA&CR). Contact-induced change can involve both transfer of linguistic features (borrowing) and innovations (change proper) (Thomanson [2003: 6888]). According to Matras and Sakel (2007a), language contact can bring about “replication of linguistic matter” (829), that is, copying of morphological and phonological material, as well as “re-shaping of language-internal structures”, in which case “the formal substance or matter is not imported but is taken from the inherited stock of forms of the recipient or replica language (i.e. the language that is undergoing change) […] it is the patterns of distribution, of grammatical and semantic meaning, and of formal-syntactic arrangement at various levels (discourse, clause, phrase, or word) that are modelled on an external source” (829–830). In other words, language contact can trigger change at various levels, including language internal changes, that is, changes that “involve an adaptation to the function, meaning or distribution of an inherited structure …[which] are triggered by replication of a model that is external to the language under scrutiny, one that is found in a contact language” (Matras [2011b: 279]). Essential conditions enabling borrowing are (a) protracted use of two languages, and (b) some degree of bilingualism, which is typically unidirectional (i.e., restricted to speakers of the recipient language) (Matras [2007: 206]). According to Thomason (2012: 34) the following are crucial conditions to be met in order for contact-induced change to be assumed: (a) the model (donor or source) language must be identified and proven to be/have been in sufficient intimate contact with the replica; (b) shared features must be identified in the model and

170   

   The demise of the acc-dat order and the fixation of the dat-acc cluster

replica language, and these features represent an innovation in the replica (i.e., they did not exist prior to contact). Gap and prestige are commonly recognized as leading motivations for borrowing. Matras (2011a: 209–210) considers these two factors in relation to the question “when are bilingual speakers more likely to generalize a single item across the linguistic repertoire …, and why?”. He proposes that the gap that borrowing is intended to fill “means that the speaker prefers the convenience of a single representation over the creativity that is needed to accommodate to an audience by inventing a new term”, whereas prestige means that speakers exploit “the status of one of the languages in the multilingual setting and expect the listener to accept the generalization of forms from this language in all interaction contexts” (Matras [2011a: 227]). In view of the current positions on borrowing and contact-induced change that we have briefly reviewed, the fundamental issues to be addressed in order to assess the viability of the hypothesis that the ultimate switch to the dat-acc order is to be attributed to borrowing or that it was a case of contact-induced change would be the following: 1. The reality of the bilingual/multilingual setting, that is, whether and/or to what extent a situation of bilingualism/multilingualism can be assumed to have existed across fourteenth-century Tuscan vernaculars, or proof of sufficient contact and information about the nature of this contact. 2. Finding proof that the dat-acc order was not present in Florentine prior to contact. 3. The actual status of the dat-acc order in fourteenth-century Tuscan vernaculars, that is, it should be determined (unequivocally) that the dat-acc order had become the only order in the vernaculars surrounding Florentine. 4. Determining the motivation for borrowing, that is, identifying the factors that would have prompted Florentines to adopt the dat-acc order from neighboring vernaculars. Even if, for example, contact with Pisa and Lucca, which is suggested by Castellani (1952), could be verified, the nature of the infiltration of these dialects among speakers has not been described in detail. Although Castellani (1952: 104) states that after the first decades of the fourteenth century Tuscan vernaculars exerted considerable pressure upon Florentine, the only evidence he provides in support of his claim amounts to a handful of words, but he does not describe the type of contact between Florentine and its neighboring dialects. Moreover, aside from referring to a period of prestige for Lucca and Pisa, a convincing motivation for borrowing has not been presented by proponents of this hypothesis.

Summary and conclusions   

   171

All we do know with a certain degree of confidence, is (1) that the dat-acc order appears to have been non-existent or extremely rare in thirteenth-century Florentine (see Chapter 1), and (2) the dat-acc order existed in surrounding dialects, as discussed in Chapter 2 (§ 2.6). In the fourteenth century the dat-acc order is the only order found in Amiatino, Lucchese, Sangimignanese and Volterrano but both the acc-dat and the dat-acc orders are attested in Pisano, Pistoiese, Pratese, Senese and Toscano, although the dat-acc clearly predominates in Pisano and Senese. We conclude that borrowing due to contact cannot be excluded as possible source of the dat-acc order in Florentine. However, we cannot offer strong evidence to support the idea that influence from surrounding dialects is responsible for the ultimate loss of the acc-dat cluster order.

5.6 Summary and conclusions Every linguistic change includes a period of variation between the old and new structure. In our cognitive/functional approach, it is unlikely that this variation is random. For a brief period in the fourteenth century the order of clitic pronouns in clitic clusters was dictated by the semantics of the host verb (dire), the valence of the host verb (credere), or the phonological structure of the host verb (vowelinitial avere). The pragmatic context also triggered the appearance of the acc or dat clitic in the first slot depending on the relative salience of the referents in the discourse. The present chapter examined why these triggers were lost, the pragmatic function of the alternation bleached away, and one order, dat-acc, grammaticalized. It is no surprise that sufficient ‘digging’ uncovered multiple pressures that worked toward, or even against, the grammaticalization process. Whereas we saw in Chapter 4 that exophoric pragmatic iconicity contributed to functional order alternation, endophoric structural iconicity with certain constructions, such as causatives/convenire/parere + infinitive, supported fixation of the dat-acc order. As expected, analogy most likely played a significant role in the grammaticalization process. Analogy to the phonotactics and morphological structure of the language, analogy to the forms and syntactic behavior of the masculine singular definite article, as well as analogy to other double object clusters, such as clusters with ne, reflexives, and impersonal pronouns were forces contributing to the resolution of the alternation. Indeed, the data suggest that clusters with reflexives were already structured according to a ‘template’ whereby the dat clitic always occupied the first slot of the cluster.

172   

   The demise of the acc-dat order and the fixation of the dat-acc cluster

Our research has uncovered limited support for the borrowing hypothesis, suggesting that attributing the loss of clitic order alternations to the influence of surrounding dialects, many of which also displayed variation in clitic order in the fourteenth century, impossible to prove with any degree of certainty. In other words, evidence supporting the influence of the other factors discussed in this chapter is stronger.

Chapter 6 Conclusions 6.1 Summary of the analysis and issues for further research Previous studies conclude that in the thirteenth century, double clitic order in French was primarily acc-dat and the opposite order was rare, whereas in Spanish, Portuguese and the northern, central and southern dialects of Italy (but not the dialects of Tuscany) the dat-acc order appears to already predominate. Our thirteenth-century data from Tuscan dialects suggest that in the west (Pisa, Siena) the dat-acc order was prevalent whereas in the east (Pistoia) the acc-dat order predominated. However, in the fourteenth-century documents from the Tuscan dialects that we searched, alternation between the two orders is present, so absolute claims regarding the thirteenth century cannot be made. Moreover, we consider reports on the clitic orders in the Italian dialects suggestive, since, like the present study, these reports were based on a limited number of tokens. One notion that appears to be uncontested is that all the Romance languages and dialects had a stage in which acc-dat was the consistent order, and most Romance languages and dialects made the switch to dat-acc, albeit at their own rate. Little research has been done on how this order change occurred, and no previous research has examined the nature of the alternation between the two orders during the transition. We chose to focus on the origin of standard Italian, fourteenth-century Florentine. Unlike previous studies, we have a considerable number of tokens from medieval Florentine (197 proclitic clusters [130 acc-dat and 67 dat-acc] for the thirteenth century and 382 proclitic clusters [209 acc-dat and 173 dat-acc] for the fourteenth century) that permit a fine-grained analysis and, although we cannot make any absolute claims about medieval speakers’ behavior, we can infer that behavior from our data because they are collected from a variety of text types (religious, merchant, account books, prose texts, letters). Our analysis tackles two aspects of the change: the alternation during the transition and the ultimate cessation of the alternation in favor of the dat-acc order, and employs a cognitive/functional approach whereby the locus of change is the language user with all of her cognitive mechanisms and socio-psychological constraints. We accept that an empirical method cannot be used to solve this historical problem, and embrace an approach that explores every possible process that may have played a role in the change. Our interpretation of the order alternation is based on the notion of exophoric pragmatic iconicity; that is, cluster order is functional in that the first slot of the cluster is reserved for the clitic whose

174   

   Conclusions

referent is more salient in the discourse, and the order is, therefore, iconic of the narrator’s construal of the discourse pragmatics. Identifying discourse saliency is challenging. However, by not limiting the analysis to the immediate context and looking at the ‘bigger picture’ of the narrative for themes or significant elements, the process is facilitated. In addition, this approach allows us to consider the type of construction in which the cluster is embedded, such as hypothetical constructions, that may impact the interpretation. Throughout the fourteenth century, improbable/impossible hypotheticals tend to favor the dat-acc order. We argue that this is the case since in these scenarios it is unlikely that the referent of the acc clitic will be obtained, so it is backgrounded in the discourse and the cluster. In our corpus we found 17 clusters in the context of improbable/impossible hypotheticals, of which only four are acc-dat. Of these four, one was with the verb credere ‘to believe’, which consistently triggers the acc-dat order in our corpus, and one was with dire ‘to say/tell’, with which the acc-dat order predominates. We are confident of the reliability of this analysis, since even the clusters with unexpected orders support the transition from acc-dat to dat-acc. That is, there are 21 dat-acc tokens and five acc-dat tokens that are truly exceptional, in that the clitic with a discourse-salient referent appears in the second slot instead of the first and no other feature justifies the order. In addition, there are 20 dat-acc and eight acc-dat tokens that are unanalyzable because they do not fall into any of our established categories. This means that 41 dat-acc and 13 acc-dat tokens are unexpected or essentially randomly assigned. The essential point is that these data demonstrate that the dat-acc order was on its way to becoming the default order. Moreover, the fact that only 47 out of 382 (12.3 %) tokens were exceptional or unanalyzable means that this analysis is more successful than Aski and Russi (2010), in which 34.1 % of the corpus were exceptional/unanalyzable (cf. Chapter  4, Section 4.1). We argue that during the grammaticalization process, when cluster order was temporarily employed to represent discourse pragmatics, topicality became a significant factor in cluster organization. Ultimately, the ‘urgency’ of the referent of the acc clitic was abandoned as an influential factor in clitic cluster organization and topicality of the referent of the dat, recognized as the most topical on animacy and topicality hierarchies, came to dominate in the first position. Thus, the resultant dat-acc order remains an icon of the fundamental patterns highlighted in topicality and person hierarchies: animate precedes inanimate, topic precedes non-topic, subject (animate) precedes object (inanimate), as well as general sentence structure whereby topic/theme precedes comment/rheme, all of which are fundamental features of Italian phrase structure. It is also possible that Meyer-Lübke (1890) was on the right track when he pointed out that the referents of the first two persons of the dat clitics have a

Summary of the analysis and issues for further research   

   175

certain immediacy, since they are present as interlocutors, whereas the referent of the acc clitic is somewhat less accessible as it is embedded in the discourse. Eventually, the pragmatic functionality of the order of double object clitic clusters was lost and the order grammaticalized as dat-acc. This grammaticalization process is characterized as a tug-of-war between a variety of pressures that either pushed the system toward the dat-acc order or hindered the shift by supporting the acc-dat order. Early studies on the evolution of Italian clitic order focus heavily on analogy and borrowing, which were the traditional ‘go to’ approaches in late nineteenth- to early twentieth-century Italian philology. This is not to say that these studies are not valuable.¹⁴⁷ On the contrary, it is likely that analogy played a significant role in the shift from acc-dat to dat-acc and, indeed, its role in the change has been expanded in this analysis. The possibility of borrowing, on the other hand, stands on less firm ground in terms of verifiability. New avenues were forged in the 1970s when the transition from phonological enclisis to syntactic proclisis in medieval Florentine was identified. We point out that the masculine singular definite article and the masculine singular third person acc clitic had the same allomorphs and similar functions, and their analogical links may have supported similar syntactic behaviors, such as encliticizing to a preceding negative particle (non) and eliding before a following vowel. The tendency toward proclisis encouraged the dat-acc order when the following context was a vowel-initial verb (particularly a compound verb form with the auxiliary avere ‘have’), whereas remnants of enclitic tendencies proved to be an opposing force, attracting the masculine singular acc clitic to the first slot after non. Another possible source of analogy, besides those already identified in the literature (cf. Chapter 5, § 5.4), were clitic clusters containing a reflexive clitic. Since dat and reflexive clitics had (and have today) the same allomorphs in the first and second person singular and plural, clusters consisting of a 1sg/pl or 2sg/pl dat and an acc or a 1sg/pl or 2sg/pl rflx and an acc clitic were identical. Our data on clitic clusters comprising a reflexive, which include all persons of reflexive clitics that combined with acc or dat clitics, demonstrate clearly that the dat clitic tended to occupy the first slot of clusters whether that dat clitic was a reflexive or not. This suggests that a type of template ([dat-acc]) had formed in medieval Florentine that strongly supported the new dat-acc cluster order but, at the same time, generated some alternation in clusters with reflexives that did not 147 Indeed, the early studies are impressive because all tokens were gathered by hand, without the assistance of technology. It is expected that today we are well-placed to deepen and refine our understanding of the problem and explore additional aspects of the change.

176   

   Conclusions

have the (dat) function. This alternation eventually ended and the reflexive clitic, regardless of function, now occupies the first slot. It is likely that this rflx-acc/ dat order was influenced by the contrast with clusters comprising impersonal si, which was/is homophonous with the third person singular and plural reflexive clitics. In medieval clusters with impersonal si, the impersonal clitic already tended to occupy the second slot. We argue that there was an analogical link between these two clusters types. However, in clitic placement, the first slot was reserved for the reflexive clitic with an identifiable and therefore comparatively more salient discourse referent and the second slot for the generic impersonal clitic. The result is another exophoric-pragmatic iconic ordering pattern whereby cluster order reflects the relative discourse saliency of the referents of these two clitics. Like analogy, it is clear that iconic principles are a significant feature of the interpretation of the change in clitic order. Besides exophoric pragmatic iconicity, by which clitic order reflects the pragmatics of the discourse, we also identified a type of structural iconicity: endophoric iconicity. A preponderance of dat-acc clitic clusters before causative constructions (fare/lasciare + infinitive) and convenire/parere + infinitive was found in our corpus, and this order is iconic of the argument structure of the compound constructions, since the referent of the dat is the agent of the infinitive whereas the referent of the acc clitic is the direct object of the infinitive. Moreover, the referent of the dat clitic is more involved in the action since it has multiple roles, that is, it is also the patient of fare/lasciare and the experiencer of convenire/parere. Although it is not clear whether the dat-acc order was the predominant order with all compound structures (i.e., all verb + infinitive constructions) or whether argument structure patterns played a role in clitic placement, the possibility of the latter cannot be ignored, particularly in an approach in which no stone is left unturned in identifying all possible aspects of the change. This analysis of clitic order alternation and the resolution of the alternation in fourteenth-century Florentine is exhaustive. However, there are several issues related to the change that are beyond the scope of this study and remain unresolved. Two phonetic issues are 1) the lack of elision of the m.sg.art and the 3m.sg.acc clitic primarily before nouns and verbs (respectively) with initial and 2) vowel lowering of the dat clitic in clusters (me lo vs. *mi lo). A morphological problem is the loss of the 3m.sg.acc clitic allomorph, il. Finally, our analysis of fourteenth-century Tuscan texts revealed significant clitic order alternation (shown in Table 20, Chapter 2, § 2.6), which calls for an extension of the present analysis.

Implications of this analysis: Language change, iconicity, and analogy   

   177

6.2 Implications of this analysis: Language change, iconicity, and analogy The analysis proposed in this study tells the ‘story’ of a historical linguistic change by collecting as many pieces of the puzzle as are available to us. Although the pressures building in the system were varied and often in conflict, the data demonstrate that the cards were stacked in favor of the dat-acc order. The alternation between dat-acc and acc-dat clusters appears to have been constrained by contextual pragmatic principles, and the resulting patterns, dat-acc and the contrast between rflx-dat/acc and dat/acc-imp, strongly suggest that pragmatics, in terms of topic and person hierarchies that are well-attested in the literature, was a factor that guided the change. The resulting clitic orders are iconic of these pragmatic forces and, we suggest, remain as proof of the pragmatic forces that predominated during the change. We do not argue that iconicity was the guiding force in the change, since it would be teleological to claim that any language strives toward iconicity. Rather, each language has certain mechanisms that are replicated over and over and iconic structuring attests to the influence of these forces. In the case of Italian, topicality and person hierarchies and principles of phrase structure are replicated in clitic clusters, which (usually) consist of one animate and one inanimate element. Although analogy is considered by some to be a post hoc interpretive crutch, it is recognized by others as one of the most significant features of language change. Indeed, empirical proof that analogy has been employed is not obtainable. However, it is unlikely that speakers would not establish a cognitive link between two morphemes with overlapping formal and functional features, such as the masculine singular definite article and the third person masculine singular acc clitic, and this link could dictate similar usage patterns and ultimately influence cluster order. Even though double clitic clusters that include a third person singular or plural reflexive and clusters that include impersonal si were formally identical, pragmatics intervened to establish cluster order, which today is also iconic of person/topic hierarchies and phrase structure. This study has demonstrated that analogy and iconicity are intertwined. Analogy is a force that instigates language change and restructuring, whereas the iconicity of the final structure reflects those factors (underlying conceptualizations) that were at work during the change.

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Index accessibility theory 94 accusative 1, 50, 82, 93, 150, 155 – referent of 98 actuation 5 allomorph 16, 19, 26, 28–31, 82, 143, 150, 155, 158–160, 175–176 allomorphy 19, 26 analogy 5, 7, 15, 16, 52, 64, 67–74, 82–84, 89, 135, 143, 155, 161, 162, 168, 171, 175, 176, 177 animate 5, 81, 102, 107, 109, 148–149, 166, 168, 174, 177 apocope 5, 8, 47, 101, 155, 157–160 atonic elements 6, 90, 159 – syllables 162 – vowels 162, 168 avere, auxiliary 15, 30, 82, 91, 97–98, 100–101, 111, 113, 119, 121, 125, 132, 141, 154, 157–158, 161, 171, 175 backgrounding 77, 121, 129, 139 benefactive 95, 97, 121, 122, 134, 164–167 borrowing 7, 16, 17, 143, 168–171, 172, 175 Catalan 21, 53 causative 16, 80–81, 95, 97–98, 101, 125, 143, 144–149, 151, 152, 154, 167, 168, 171, 176 construal 66–67, 79, 87, 102, 121, 139, 174 contact 84, 169–171 – contact-induced change 16, 169 convenire 16, 80, 81, 95, 97, 98, 116, 125, 143, 144,–146, 151–154, 169, 171, 176 conventionalized 66, 83, 91, 125, 135, – conventionalization 83 credere 91, 95, 97, 124, 133–135, 171, 174 dative 1, 7, 13, 14, 65, 83, 93, 95, 149, 150, 163, 166 diagrammatic 67, 71 – iconicity 70, 80, 144 dire 91, 97, 105, 124–129, 131, 135, 138–139, 141, 146, 171, 174 direct object 59, 77, 93, 94, 137, 147, 148, 150, 151, 153, 154, 176

discourse, elements 14, 112 – markers 75 – participants 95, 122 – pragmatics 15, 83, 91, 92, 126, 133, 140, 174 – pragmatic functionality 75 – referent 176 – topic 76, 78, 94, 109 – topicality 76, 91, 102, 103 – salience 94, 97, 99, 103, 116, 174, 176 elision 23, 26, 155, 156, 157 empathy 15, 76–79, 91, 92, 102–106, 109, 110, 111, 113, 114, 116, 117, 119, 120, 121, 124, 126, 127, 129, 135, 139 emphatic 6, 97, 105, 134–135, 164–167 empirical 91, 173, 177 enclitic 1, 4, 8, 9, 12, 13, 14, 23, 32, 45, 56, 58, 77, 90, 101, 111, 151, 158, 161, 175 enclisis 7, 8, 89, 161, 175 event model 81, 151 fare 16, 80, 95, 143, 144, 147, 148, 154, 176 French 8, 18, 19, 20, 50–53, 147, 161, 162–163, 173 foregrounding 77, 79, 97, 103, 139 formulaic 36, 95, 124, 133, 136–138 genitive 19, 76, 81, 89, 93 hierarchy, animacy 76 – empathy 76 – person 72, 76 – topicality 76, 77, 154 hypothetical constructions 106, 129, 174 – impossible 119, 120, 174 – improbable 105, 113, 114, 116, 120, 174 – probable 110, 112, 114 iconicity 15, 16, 64, 67, 70–74, 81, 83, 86, 150, 152, 176, 177 – diagrammatic 70, 80, 144 – endophoric 71, 80, 84, 97, 144–154, 161, 171, 176

192   

   Index

– exophoric 71, 74 – exophoric pragmatic 15, 74, 75, 80, 83, 91, 101–107, 109, 141, 144, 171, 173, 176 – paradigmatic 88 – structural 74, 176 – syntagmatic 71, 144 idiomatic expressions 91, 95, 136–139, 140 image 65–67, 70 impersonal 6, 13, 16, 56, 59, 133, 143, 167–168, 171, 176, 177 indicative mood 114, 115 indirect object 19, 44, 92, 93, 94, 96, 133, 134, 135, 137, 149 lasciare 95, 143, 144, 148, 154, 176 Latin 7, 8, 17, 18, 19, 50, 68, 82, 147 locative 11–12, 33, 45, 56, 59, 93, 151, 164, 165, 166 look-back 91 malefactive 95, 97 multiple, categories 98 – factors 84, 96 – influences 5 – roles 95, 149, 176 – pressures 171 non 15, 79, 82, 91, 97, 101, 110, 113, 117, 124, 125, 135, 140, 141, 154, 159–161, 175 parere 16, 80–81, 95, 97–98, 125, 143, 144–146, 151–154, 171, 176 passive 6, 56, 133, 149–150 phonotactics 162, 171 Portuguese 8, 18, 19, 21, 53, 77, 173 potential interference 92 pragmatics 67, 79, 83, 91, 101, 102, 105, 107, 116, 119, 125, 126, 130, 135, 141, 143, 176, 177 proclitic 2, 7–14, 25, 32, 36, 37, 39, 41, 45, 52, 55–58, 60, 90, 105, 153, 154, 156, 161, 173 proclisis 7–8, 60, 89, 161, 175

raddoppiamento fonosintattico 23, 26, 45 recipient 83, 97, 99, 122, 129, 134, 137, 139, 149, 150, 164, 167, 169 referential distance 91–92 reflexive 1, 2, 6, 11, 13, 16, 18, 37, 40, 52, 56, 59, 83, 97, 143, 162–168, 171, 175–176, 177 – emphatic 6, 105, 134, 135, 165–167 – lexical 164, 166 Rumanian 18, 19, 22, 53 salience 66, 77, 94, 97, 99, 103, 105, 117, 120, 122, 233, 135, 148, 171 saliency 78, 79, 97, 98, 99, 102, 106, 115, 116, 120, 139, 174, 176 semantics 69, 73, 80, 91, 123, 124, 133, 133, 135, 139, 141, 171 Spanish 18, 19, 21, 53, 89, 90, 173 syntagmatic, endophoric iconicity 71, 144 – isomorphism 88 template 73–74, 81, 82, 150, 162, 168, 171, 175 Tobbler-Mussafia’s Law 7 topic persistence 92, topicality 5, 72, 76–78, 81, 91–93, 96, 102, 106, 109, 154, 174, 177 true exceptions 98, 101, 120, 139, 146 unaccusative 164, 166 urgency 15, 76, 78, 91, 92, 102–123, 135, 139, 174 usage-based 65, 82, 83, 90, 136 valence 92, 94, 171 variation 5, 9, 52, 59 – and change 64–67, 85–90, 102, 156, 171, 172 vowel, of dative clitic 5, 163, 176 – change 164, 168 – vowel-initial noun/adjective 156, 157 – vowel-initial verb 8, 30, 100, 101, 135, 141, 157, 158, 160, 161, 175