Italian Studies: Language and Linguistics

Abstract

gaetano Berruto and Massimo cerruti, La linguistica: un corso introduttivo, Turin, UTET Universita, 2011, x + 340 pp., is an extensively revised and expanded version of the same authors’ Corso elementare di linguistica generale (1997 and 2006), an introduction to general Linguistics. Two new chapters have been added: language change and variation, both diachronically and synchronically (chapter 7), and history of linguistics (chapter 8). The chapters on phonetics and phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics contain special boxes with more details on specific issues, or with summaries, a set of exercises and a commented bibliography. Andreas Michel, Einfuhrung in die italienische Sprachwissenschaft, Berlin, de gruyter, 2011, xx + 216 pp., is an introduction to Italian linguistics with a strong focus on the historical dimension of Italian and Italo-Romance varieties. The first chapter sketches the historical development of language philosophy and linguistics, followed by a chapter on historical linguistics, including a short history of the Italian language, and diachronic processes like phonetic and semantic change, which somewhat strangely precedes the chapter giving an introduction to phonetics and phonology. The order of other chapters is surprising (no motivation for this choice is given by the author): after phonetics and phonology we find an introduction to grammar theory and grammar writing and only then the other fields of what usually would be called grammar (morphology, syntax, in part also semantics) follow. The remaining chapters concern pragmatics, text analysis, dialectology, sociolinguistics and lexicography (in this order). While the coverage is wide, the subjects are not always treated in great depth. Anja Platz-Schliebs et al., Einfuhrung in die Romanische Sprachwissenschaft: Franzosisch, Italienisch, Spanisch, Tubingen, Narr, 2012, 334 pp., is a textbook on Romance linguistics which focuses, in the examples used for illustration, on French, Spanish and Italian, and on language acquisition data. It is first of all a useful and systematic introduction to general linguistics, illustrated by Romance examples, with only one chapter concerning specifically Romance, namely the sketch of the Romance languages and varieties presented in chapter 4 (strangely enough after the chapters on phonology and morphology but before semantics, syntax and pragmatics — the authors justify this order by the need for progression in terminological knowledge). An interesting addition consists in a further chapter on commonalities in linguistics and literary studies as well as a methodological chapter on working techniques for linguists. Andrea Monaldi, Saggi di linguistica italiana, Rome, Aracne, 188 pp., consists of three essays on three distinct topics. The first is devoted to a linguistic analysis of Benito Mussolini’s rhetoric in his public speeches, and in particular in the so-called ‘adunate oceaniche’. The second essay deals with a specific morphosyntactic phenomenon, namely, prepositional accusative; while the third and last essay is a concise description of the main phonetic, morphosyntactic, and