Otto Jespersen (1860-1943) romanista: La rilevanza della sua analisi dei Passive tenses in italiano ed altre lingue

Abstract

Otto Jespersen (1860-1943) was a Danish linguist, best known for his studies of English, of phonetics and ofgeneral linguistics. In my paper, I introduce a lesser-known side of Jespersen, i.e. as an Italianist and aRomanist. A special focus is on how he deals with the passive tenses in Romance languages, in particular Italianand French. Drawing on the theory developed by the German Romanist Friedrich Diez (1794-1876), whonotably differentiated between perfective and imperfective verbs, and subsequently connecting thisdifferentiation to the general discussion of aspect and Aktionsart around 1900, Jespersen in a few pageselaborates a rather advanced analysis of the passive tenses in the Romance (and some other) languages. Isuggest that Jespersen's statement forestalls an important part of the description of the passive tenses in Italianelaborated by the Danish Italianist (and Romanist) Jørgen Schmitt Jensen (1931-2004) and published in acomprehensive Italian grammar (1990). I further propose that even though Jespersen’s text probably is not adirect source for Schmitt Jensen, it helps understanding the general frame of the latter's presentation of thesubject. Finally, I claim that the relevant pages in Jespersen (1924) are interesting concerning the historiographyof the concept of Aktionsart.