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From a semantic perspective the relation of concession can be defined as a specific type of contrast between two states of affairs, i.e. counterexpectative contrast, in which the conflict originates by the denial of an assumption, generated by the first state of affair or by the context. The semantic domain of concessivity has been investigated by a fair amount of studies that have explored the variety of connectives used to express concession in an Italian-Russian contrastive perspective (Biagini/Latos 2010; Biagini 2016; Biagini/Mazzoleni 2017; 2018). In this paper we focus on the Italian adverbial connective tuttavia and its Russian most frequent counterparts, i.e. odnako, tem ne menee and vsë že. The data are taken from the Italian-Russian and Russian-Italian parallel sub-sections of the Russian National Corpus. For our research we considered contemporary original texts (from 1945 until today) and we analyzed a total of 377 examples with their translations: 87 for tuttavia, 195 for odnako, 16 for tem ne menee and 79 for vsë že. The aim of this paper is to shed light on language-specific tendencies in relation to the semantic and textual expression of concession. The present Italian-Russian contrastive analysis, that exploits both qualitative and quantitative methods, investigates three different aspects: (a) the type of coding of the relation (full coding, undercoding or inferential bridging, in terms of Prandi 2004; 2006), (b) the syntactic distribution of connectives, and (c) the combination of connectives and punctuation (cf. Ferrari/Pecorari 2018; Pecorari 2019). Although interference can play a role in translation, we observed interesting differences in the data of the two languages. The results of the multi-perspective analysis show that Russian seems to assign a major semantic and textual relevance to the concessive relation than Italian, by using a richer semantic coding and by giving it a key role in the textual architecture.

The paper reviews Bulgarian conjunction bez da and Italian conjunction senza (che), introducing the subordinate clause with the relating to an unaccomplished action. The paper explores grammatical, syntactic, and semantic properties of these constructions in both languages. The similarity of semantic and functional potential of Bulgarian and Italian constructions as well as their intralingual specificity are shown.

The paper presents the initial findings of a research project that investigates the origins of Italian ATAP NNs, such as parolaN chiaveN (keyword) or luogoN simboloN (place.symbol — symbolic place). This study is based on a meticulously chosen sample of 1,924 NN types that include 47 different modifiers as their rightmost constituent, sourced from Google n-grams frequency lists (2020), which represent the most extensive diachronic linguistic data currently available. While recent literature suggests that Italian ATAP NNs emerged in the latter half of the 20th century and gained significant productivity only after 2000, our data indicate that this process occurred approximately 50 years earlier, particularly for a notable subset of N2-based semi-schematic constructions. With respect to the theoretical frameworks of Construction Morphology, Relational Morphology, and Diachronic Construction Grammar, the analysis of the data provides an insight into the interaction between the fully schematic ATAP NN construction and various semi-schematic constructions (N2-based families). Moreover, the study attempts to identify key diachronic stages in the development of the pattern.

This paper examines the hypothesis that, in the languages which developed articles and in those which have grammaticalized the verbal aspect, the two categories perform similar functions in the coding of referentiality. In particular, the research is focused on the construction [Verb - Object] referring to so-called typical and usual events; it takes “READ THE NEWSPAPER” as an example, both in Italian and Russian. The contrastive analysis, based mainly on the comparable corpora of the Araneum family and, due to the scarcity of data, only partly on the Russian-Italian parallel corpus of the NKRJA, confirmed the hypothesis, at least as regards the construction under study. The investigation showed that in Italian there is a very strong correspondence between the [-referential] interpretation of the object and the definite article, while Russian exhibits a rather strong correspondence between the [-referential] interpretation of the object and the imperfective aspect. The assignment of a [± referential] value to the object nouns in Russian, a language without articles, and to nouns with the definite article in Italian, which in constructions referring to typical events receive a [-referential] reading, was based on context. In fact, in both languages, in order to identify the [± referential] status of nouns, it was necessary to take into account the temporal, modal, and actional characteristics of the respective verbs, the typical or occasional nature of the event, and the role of other elements of the sentence, such as adverbs or nouns that refer to customs and habits. The generalization resulting from the research can be extended to other typical events, mainly those referring to activities involving information, entertainment, and leisure, which are similarly marked with the definite article in Italian and the imperfective aspect in Russian. However, the notion of “typicality” turns out to be elusive, as it is strongly culture-specific and determined by the verbal and situational context.

This article focuses on the anaphoric use of the demonstrative pronoun in Czech and in Italian. While the use of the Czech demonstrative ten is quite frequent and is perceived as neutral, the choice of the Italian demonstrative is influenced by various contextual factors. The purpose of this paper is to characterize the relevant factors that lead to the use of demonstrative pronouns questo and/or quello in Italian, and the possibility, or not, of replacing the personal pronoun by the demonstrative pronoun, either in Czech and in Italian. Attention is paid to the type of reference in which the omission of Czech demonstrative doesn’t seem to be possible. The research is based on Czech literary texts translated into Italian.