Structures of the early vernaculars of Italy
Strutture degli antichi volgari d'Italia (SAVI)
FUNDING BODY: The Arts and Humanities Research Board
AWARD: £351,000 (£225,000 to the University of Manchester and £126,000 to the University of Bristol)
PROJECT DIRECTORS: Professor Nigel Vincent (Linguistics and English Language, University of Manchester), Dr Delia Bentley (Italian Studies, University of Manchester), Professor Mair Parry (Department of Italian, University of Bristol)
RESEARCH ASSISTANTS: Dr Alessandra Lombardi, Dr Roberta Middleton
The Project
The project runs for four years in the first instance, from 2000 to 2004 and its direction is shared between the Universities of Manchester and Bristol. In addition to the personnel named above, the research team includes also four Ph.D. students (two at Manchester and two at Bristol) and a number of academic advisors and consultants, both in the UK and in Italy.
The aim is to write the first comparative morphosyntax of the Romance vernaculars of medieval Italy other than Tuscan. The project may be seen in the context of the Grammatica dell'italiano antico currently in preparation under the direction of Professor Lorenzo Renzi of the University of Padua. Renzi's grammar will tell only a small part of the linguistic story of Italy in the Middle Ages. It intentionally limits itself to an in-depth analysis of Florentine texts of the 13th century on the grounds that modern Italian grew out of the Florentine dialect. While this decision is entirely defensible from the perspective of the modern language, it means that Renzi's grammar cannot (and has no intention to) present a balanced and objective picture of the linguistic variety of the Italian peninsula and islands during the medieval period.
Outside Florence there existed at that time different traditions in the use of the vernacular for both literary and administrative purposes. The aim of the SAVI project is to study the language of these centres and produce the first ever integrated and comparative description of their grammatical structures. To that end the research team is in the process of describing and analysing a broad sample of the syntactic patterns of the vernaculars of Italy before the 15th century as evidenced in the surviving texts.
The outcome will be a substantial reference grammar of the early vernaculars of Italy. The approach is mainly synchronic. The kaleidoscopic range of structures attested in Italian dialects means that the work will make a valuable contribution not only to our knowledge of the vernaculars of medieval Italy, but also to typological linguistics in general. In addition, it will provide an important scholarly resource for textual philologists and students of medieval literature.