Mother Tongues and Other Reflection on the Italian Language - Couverture rigide

Lepschy, Giulio

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0802037291 ISBN 13 : 9780802037299

Editeur : University of Toronto Press, 2002

Synopsis

Italian is unique among modern European languages, for although it has a history going back eight centuries, it has only consolidated as a spoken national language during the twentieth century. Previously, it was a written, literary language, and people spoke regional dialects that were strikingly different from each other. This has intriguing implications for understanding notions such as mother tongue, native speaker, and literary language, and Giulio Lepschy discusses these and other issues in this collection of six scholarly essays on the Italian language.

Lepschy also explores a little understood aspect of Italian prosody (the system of secondary stresses), and analyzes a Venetian play of the Renaissance, La Veniexiana, in which a 'gendered' reading helps to clarify some grammatically controversial passages. These aspects of the play had been examined by Carlo Dionisotti, the eminent Italianist whose life and works are the subject of the final essay. Lepschy's approach combines the insights of modern linguistic theory and the findings of fresh and original philological investigations. His essays will be essential to anyone interested in the Italian language.

A propos du livre

À propos de l?auteur

Giulio Lepschy is Emeritus Professor, University of Reading, and Honorary Professor, Department of Italian, at University College London.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: University of Toronto Press
• Date d'édition: 2002
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0802037291
• ISBN 13: 9780802037299
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 152
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible