La didattica e la zona grigia della grammatica italiana

Abstract

We try to shed light on some problems of Italian school grammar, such as the difference between verbalpredicate and nominal predicate, the typology of complements according to traditional logical analysis andvalential grammar, the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs, the typology of parts of speech andother classifications (e.g. the distinction between nouns, adjectives, and pronouns, between conjunctions andadverbs, between coordinates and subordinates, etc.). Starting with the concept of the «grey area of thelinguistic norm» (Serianni 2006), we intend here to broaden the discourse to the grey area of grammar. Herewe mean by grey area all those cases in which the same phenomenon is treated in a very different way bydifferent grammars, or cases in which there are big differences between the grammatical treatment and theinterpretation of common speakers. These fluctuations in the treatment of school textbooks do not depend onthe weakness of the linguistic system, but are often the symptom of inadequate focus on certain themes,especially syntactic ones. Despite the diversity of grammatical traditions, the average Italian school grammaris still too tied to prescriptivism, to hyper-logical interpretations, to a merely nomenclatory perspective in thedescription of linguistic phenomena, rather than to analytical observation and the invitation to metalinguisticreflection. School tradition still seems intent on attributing an ontological value to classifications, when instead,in the light of the most up-to-date linguistic theories, categories once established have been radicallyreconsidered. Finally, proposals for updating grammar teaching will be made, in an attempt to bridge the gapbetween the latter and linguistic reflection, starting from the phenomena listed above.