La microsintassi degli antichi volgari settentrionali : Articoli e pronomi personali nella prosa lombarda e veneta nei secoli XIII-XV

This thesis investigates the microsyntax of articles and personal pronouns in the medieval varieties of Lombardy and Veneto (13th–15th century). The study combines functionalism and grammaticalization theories with the principles of pragmatics and textual linguistics. The investigation draws upon a corpus of 47 texts selected to ensure representativeness across various diaphasic and diastratic varieties. The emergence of the article was analyzed based on syntactic, pragmatic, and semantic constraints. The analysis shows that syntactic instances exhibiting stronger diachronic resistance to the grammaticalization of the article are prepositional phrases, enumerations, and vocative phrases. Concerning pragmatic constraints, the definite article is generally required in the presence of universally known and unique referents as well as with inalienable possession. With respect to semantic constraints, there is greater fluctuation in the alternation between zero article and the definite article. The semantics of special noun classes (namely proper names, kinship terms, and abstract nouns) exerts greater resistance to the grammaticalization of the determiner. Overall, by the 14th century in both Lombard and Venetan varieties, the definite article exhibits an advanced functional stage along the cline of grammaticalization. With respect to the indefinite article, uno is fully grammaticalized as a marker of specific indefiniteness while still competing with other constructions for marking non-specific indefinite referents. Moreover, the analysis attests to the early instances of partitive nominal constructions and partitive articles. Regarding the personal subject pronouns, their microsyntax was analyzed with respect to three interdependent phenomena characterized by complex processes of polymorphism, polyfunctionality, and reorganization of syntactic systems. On the expression of pronominal subjects (PS), the quantitative analysis highlights that the rate of PS expression i