Not Only Anteriority in the Past: The Functions of the Pluperfect in Spoken Italian

Autor: Eleonora Morei
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2023
Předmět:
Zdroj: Languages, Vol 8, Iss 1, p 82 (2023)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2226-471X
DOI: 10.3390/languages8010082
Popis: Three distinct anaphoric functions and one deictic function are, with fair confidence, associated with the Italian Pluperfect in the existing literature. In recent studies, it has been hypothesized that the Italian Pluperfect may also have an aoristic use. The present study attempts to assess the semantics of the Italian Pluperfect, by a corpus-based methodology. It will be shown that the data do not support the hypothesis of an aoristic use of the Pluperfect: rather, they suggest the need to extend the analysis of the Pluperfect’s semantics to domains other than tense and aspect. It will be argued that (inter)subjectification may have a key role in describing the layered semantics of the Italian Pluperfect, especially concerning its possible modal-evidential developments.
Databáze: Directory of Open Access Journals