A Grammar of Piedmontese

A Minority Language of Northwest Italy

Series: 

Cerea, madamin, andoma bin? Less than a century ago, this was one of the most frequent greetings heard in Piedmont, a region in northwest Italy. Today, however, Piedmontese is severely endangered.
This volume presents the first widely accessible and comprehensive grammatical description of the contemporary koine, covering its phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, pragmatics and typology, and drawing examples from both oral and written sources. Data on the history of the language and the local dialects and notes on revitalization efforts are also included.
Copyright Year:
2023
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Published
ISBN:
978-90-04-54429-1
Publication:
05 Jun 2023
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Published
ISBN:
978-90-04-54405-5
Publication:
08 Jun 2023
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Mauro Tosco is professor of African Linguistics at the University of Turin. His main area of research is the Horn of Africa. He also works on the revitalization of minority languages and language policy and ideology.
Emanuele Miola is Associate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Bologna. His research interests include sociolinguistics, Italo-Romance and Piedmontese dialectology, and typology.
Nicola Duberti is Adjunct Professor of Piedmontese at the University of Turin. His main areas of research are the dialectology of Piedmontese varieties and the history of Piedmontese literature. He also works on the revitalization of minority languages in schools.
"This comprehensive, brilliantly clear, and fascinating description of Piedmontese is a real treasure, both for linguists and members of the Piedmontese community. In terms of organization and the breadth of topics covered, this volume can serve as a model for any scholar working to describe a minority language." - Prof. Aaron Rubin, University of Georgia
Conventions, Glosses and Symbols
Maps of Place Names in Piedmont Mentioned in the Grammar
List of Maps, Tables and Figures

1 The Language and Its History, Classification and Variation
 1.1 Overview: Language and Speakers
 1.2 Disentangling Classification and Ideology
 1.3 The Dialects of Piedmontese: Features and Classification
 1.4 The Internal Classification of the Piedmontese Varieties
 1.5 Social Varieties in Old Piedmontese
 1.6 The Speech of the Piedmontese Jews, Sinti and Waldensians
 1.7 A Short Linguistic History of Piedmont
 1.8 An Outline of the Piedmontese Literature

2 Phonetics and Phonology
 2.1 Default Articulation of Phonemes
 2.2 Loan Phonemes, Borrowing and Adaptation
 2.3 Previous Accounts of the Phonology of Piedmontese
 2.4 Phonetic Processes
 2.5 Positional Restrictions on the Occurrence of Phonemes
 2.6 Syllables
 2.7 Clusters
 2.8 Length
 2.9 Stress
 2.10 Pitch and Intonation

3 Writing System and Orthography
 3.1 Overview
 3.2 History
 3.3 Evaluation

4 Words, Word Constituents and Word Classes
 4.1 Roots, Stems, Words, Affixes and Clitics
 4.2 Morphological Mechanisms
 4.3 Suppletion
 4.4 Syncretism
 4.5 Word Classes

5 Nouns
 5.1 Overview
 5.2 Gender
 5.3 Number
 5.4 Derivational Morphology of Nouns

6 Adjectives
 6.1 Overview
 6.2 Semantics of Adjectives
 6.3 Morphology of Adjectives
 6.4 Comparative Constructions
 6.5 Adjectives as Nouns
 6.6 Derivational Morphology of Adjectives

7 Personal Pronouns
 7.1 Overview
 7.2 Independent Personal Pronouns
 7.3 Subject Personal Pronouns
 7.4 Non-subject Personal Pronouns: Object and Indirect Object
 7.5 Interrogative Subject Clitics
 7.6 Reflexive, Reciprocal and Impersonal Personal Pronouns
 7.7 Attributive Pronoun
 7.8 Lexicalized Verb-Clitic Constructions
 7.9 Post-Tonic Vowel Dropping
 7.10 Sequences of Clitics

8 Grounding and Deixis
 8.1 Overview
 8.2 Determiners and Classifiers
 8.3 Deixis
 8.4 Possessives

9 Quantifiers
 9.1 Numerals
 9.2 Generic Quantifiers
 9.3 Negative Quantifiers
 9.4 Interrogative Quantifiers
 9.5 Quantificational Quantifiers

10 Verbs
 10.1 Semantic Overview
 10.2 Morphological Overview
 10.3 Affixes, Allomorphy and Syncretism
 10.4 Historical and Comparative Notes
 10.5 Moods and Tenses
 10.6 Use of the Auxiliaries
 10.7 Verbal Derivation

11 Verbal Periphrases and Modalities
 11.1 Valency-Increasing Operation, 1: Causative
 11.2 Valency-Increasing Operation, 2: Permissive
 11.3 Valency-Increasing Operation, 3: Middle
 11.4 Modal Verbs
 11.5 Progressive and Continuous
 11.6 Imminential
 11.7 Inchoative
 11.8 Durative
 11.9 Terminative
 11.10 Immediative
 11.11 Iterative

12 Adverbs
 12.1 Overview
 12.2 Predicate Adverbs
 12.3 Degree Adverbs and Focalizers
 12.4 Sentence Adverbs
 12.5 Linking Adverbs
 12.6 Adverb Formation Rules and Productivity

13 Prepositions and Prepositional Phrases
 13.1 The Expression of Location and Movement
 13.2 Basic Prepositions
 13.3 Non-basic Prepositions
 13.4 Prepositional Use of Adverbs
 13.5 Attributive Phrases and Binominal Constructions

14 Phrases
 14.1 The Structure of the Noun Phrase
 14.2 Grounding and Ordering of Phrases
 14.3 Adjectival Phrases
 14.4 Temporal Phrases and Telling the Time

15 Clauses
 15.1 Non-verbal Predication
 15.2 Declarative Clauses
 15.3 Introducing the Ubiquitous che
 15.4 “Bare” che in Non-verbal Predication
 15.5 Relative Clauses
 15.6 Imperative Clauses
 15.7 Exhortative Clauses
 15.8 Mirative and Exclamative Clauses
 15.9 Questions
 15.10 The Expression of Atmospheric Events

16 Linkage
 16.1 Coordination
 16.2 Subordination

17 Negation
 17.1 Overview
 17.2 Sentence Negators
 17.3 Negation with Scope over Smaller Units
 17.4 Other Negative Items
 17.5 Negative Concord
 17.6 Holophrastic Negation

18 Pragmatics and Discourse
 18.1 Information Structure and Sentence Word Order
 18.2 Hanging Topics and Clefts
 18.3 Discourse Markers

19 Piedmontese in a Typological Perspective
 19.1 Genealogy and Overview
 19.2 Phonology
 19.3 Morphosyntax
 19.4 Lexical Typology
 19.5 Piedmontese, Standard Average European, and Other Romance Languages

20 Use, Contact and Care: Codeswitching, Endangerment, Enrichment and Standardization
 20.1 Language Ideology through Language Use
 20.2 The Long Road toward Resurgence
 20.3 Envoi

Appendix: Text
References
Index
The book will be of interest to post-graduate students and academics. Relevant subject areas will be Italo-Romance (and especially Piedmontese) linguistics, dialectology, sociolinguistics, typology, minor languages’ literature.
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