Abstract
This paper explores two peripheral Northern Italian dialects (NIDs), namely Lamonat and Frignanese, with respect to their genealogical linguistic classification. The two NIDs exhibit morpho-phonological and morpho-syntactic features that do not fall neatly into the Gallo-Italic sub-classification of Northern Italo-Romance, but resemble some of the core characteristics of the putative Rhaeto-Romance language family. This analysis of Lamonat and Frignanese reveals that their conservative traits more closely relate to Rhaeto-Romance. The synchronic evidence from the two peripheral NIDs hence supports the argument against the unity and autonomy of Rhaeto-Romance as a language family, whereby the linguistic traits that distinguish Rhaeto-Romance within Northern Italo-Romance consist of shared retentions rather than shared innovations, which were once common to virtually all NIDs. In this light, Rhaeto-Romance can be regarded as an array of conservative Gallo-Italic varieties. The paper concludes with a discussion of the geo-sociolinguistic properties of the two peripheral dialect areas under investigation that lead to a conservative linguistic behaviour within the Lamonat and Frignanese speech communities. Given the relatively similar historical and geo-political background of these speech communities, we attempt the formulation of a geo-sociolinguistic model of linguistic innovation diffusion that captures the conservative behaviour of Lamonat and Frignanese. We propose that those dialect areas that, in Bartoli’s (1945) geo-spatial linguistic typology, are both “lateral” and “isolated” deflect linguistic innovations. This proposal must be interpreted within a more general “gravity” and “wave” sociolinguistic model of diffusion of linguistic innovations, whereby “lateral” and “isolated” dialect areas give rise to a mechanism that we call “the pond rock effect” and that renders such dialect areas resistant to language change. Publisher's Note: A corrigendum relating to this article hass been published at http://doi.org/10.3828/mlo.v0i0.358 .
Highlights
In Italian dialectology, an ongoing debate concerns the status of the putative Rhaeto-Romance language family
Rhaeto-Romance has received considerable attention, culminating with the pivotal work of Heiman and Benincà in 1992. These scholars argue that Friulian, Ladin and Romansh lack a real basis for unity and autonomy, concluding that Rhaeto-Romance is more of a scholarly invention than an actual fully fledged language family
Data from Frignanese and Lamonat supports the view that Ladin, Friulian, Romansh and their peripheral dialect areas are conservative or ‘crystallized’ Northern Italian dialects (NIDs): they offer precious insights into the full array of the frozen developmental stages of Gallo-Italic
Summary
In Italian dialectology, an ongoing debate concerns the status of the putative Rhaeto-Romance language family. Rhaeto-Romance has received considerable attention, culminating with the pivotal work of Heiman and Benincà in 1992 These scholars argue that Friulian, Ladin and Romansh lack a real basis for unity and autonomy, concluding that Rhaeto-Romance is more of a scholarly invention than an actual fully fledged language family. The varieties of Frignanese spoken in the Province of Modena exhibit some distinctive characteristics within the Emilian Gallo-Italic sub-classification that resemble Rhaeto-Romance; this is rather peculiar considering the geographical location of these varieties with respect to the location of the bulk of Rhaeto-Romance dialects. These facts must be accounted for by reconsidering the notion of Rhaeto-Romance and by describing the socio-geographical status of the dialects under investigation
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