Cover not available

Article published In: Les prépositions complexes dans les langues romanes
Edited by Benjamin Fagard, José Pinto De Lima and Dejan Stosic
[Revue Romane 54:1] 2019
► pp. 141–175

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

Usage-based account of Italian Complex Prepositions denoting the Agent

 | Università Roma Tre
 | Università Roma Tre | UNINT
Published online: 22 July 2019
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/rro.00019.piu
Abstract
This paper takes into account a particular set of Italian Complex Prepositions signaling the agent of an action (e.g. da parte di ‘by’, a nome di ‘by’). Italian exhibits several types of complex prepositions revealing a different involvement of the Agent: in particular, these complex lexemes can introduce and distinguish the participants who (i) plan and intentionally conceive an action, (ii) perform it and/or (iii) have a coercive power over its performing.
The contribution aims to: (i) distinguish these Italian complex prepositions according to their functions, meanings, and the degree of involvement of the participant they introduce; (ii) analyze the collocational features and the syntactic environments where these lexemes occur; (iii) individuate possible correlations between their frequency of occurrence and the grammatical value; (iv) analyze their diachronic evolution across different historical phases; (v) put into relation the synchronic restrictions with the original syntactic environment within which the complex prepositions have been reanalyzed.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • 1.State of the art
  • 2.Data collection and methodology
  • 3.Complex prepositions and classes of agenthood in Contemporary Italian
    • 3.1Contemporary Italian performer
    • 3.2Contemporary Italian animated instrumental
    • 3.3Contemporary Italian instigator and conceiver
  • 4.Diachronic Analysis
    • 4.1Old Italian performer
    • 4.2Old Italian animated instrumental
    • 4.3Old Italian conceiver and instigator
  • Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
  • Corpora and dictionaries
References (40)
References
Baroni, M., S. Bernardini, F. Comastri, L. Piccioni, A. Volpi, G. Aston & M. Mazzoleni. (2004): Introducing the La Repubblica corpus: a large, annotated, TEI(XML)-compliant corpus of newspaper Italian, in: Lino, M. T., M. F. Xavier, F. Ferreira, R. Costa & R. Silva (eds.): Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation, (LREC 2004, Lisbon, May 26th-28th 2004). ELRA – European Language Resources Association, Paris, pp. 1771–1774.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bosque, I. (eds.) (2006): Diccionario combinatorio práctico del español contemporáneo. Las palabras en su context. SM, Madrid.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bybee, J. (2006): From Usage to Grammar: The Mind’s Response to Repetition. Language, 82,4, pp. 711–733. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2011): Usage-based Theory and Grammaticalization, in: Narrog, H. & B. Heine (eds.): The Oxford Handbook of Grammaticalization. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 69–78.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Casadei, F. (2001): Le locuzioni preposizionali. Struttura lessicale e gradi di lessicalizzazione. Lingua e Stile, 36,1, pp. 21–36.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Comrie, B. (1981): Language Universals and Linguistic Typology. Blackwell, Oxford.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1989): Language Universals and Linguistic Typology, 2nd ed. Blackwell, Oxford.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cruse, A. D. (1973): Some thoughts on agentivity. Journal of Linguistics, 91, pp. 11–23. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Diewald, G. (2002): A model for relevant types of contexts in grammaticalization, in: Wischer, I. & G. Diewald (eds.): New Reflections on Grammaticalization. John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam and Philadelphia, pp. 103-120. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dowty, D. (1991): Thematic proto-roles and argument selection. Language, 67(3), pp. 547–619. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fagard, B. (2010): Espace et grammaticalisation. L’évolution sémantique des prépositions dans les langues romanes. Éditions Universitaires Européennes, Sarrebruck.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fagard, B. & W. De Mulder. (2007): La formation des prépositions complexes: grammati- calisation ou lexicalisation?. Langue Française, 1561, pp. 9–29.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ganfi, V. & V. Piunno. (2017): Preposizioni complesse in italiano antico e contemporaneo. Grammaticalizzazione, schematismo e produttività. Archivio Glottologico Italiano, CII,2, pp. 184–204.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Garcia, D. D. & B. C. Dias da Silva. (2015): PrepNet.Br: a Semantic Network for Prepositions, in: Proceedings of Symposium in Information and Human Language Technology. Sociedade Brasileira de Computação, Natal, pp. 75–79.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Giacalone Ramat, A. (1994): Fonti di grammaticalizzazione. Sulla ricategorizzazione di verbi e nomi come preposizioni, in: Cipriano, P., P. Di Giovine & M. Mancini (eds.): Miscellanea di studi linguistici in onore di Walter Belardi. Il Calamo, Roma, vol. II1, pp. 877–896.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goldberg, A. (1995): Constructions. A construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structures. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2006): Constructions at work. Oxford University Press, Oxford.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hoffmann, S. (2004): Are Low-Frequency Complex Prepositions Grammaticalized? On the Limits of Corpus Data – and the Importance of Intuition, in: Lindquist, H. & C. Mair (eds.): Corpus Approaches to Grammaticalization in English. John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam and Philadelphia, pp. 171–210. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hofmann, S. (2005): Grammaticalization and English complex prepositions. A corpus-based study. Routledge, London and New York.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hopper, P. J. (1996): Some recent trends in grammaticalization. Annual Review of Anthropology, 251, pp. 217–236. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hopper, P. J. & Traugott, E. C. (2003): Grammaticalization. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Klégr, A. (2002): English Complex Prepositions of the Type in Spite of and Analogous Sequences. A Study & Dictionary. The Karolinum Press, Prague Charles University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lehmann, C. (1996): Control in Yucatec Maya, in: François, J. (ed.): La sémantique des relations actancielles à travers les langues. UMR du CNRS “LanDisCo” & Université des Sciences Humaines, Strasbourg, pp. 105–127.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2002): New reflections on grammaticalization and lexicalization, in: Wischer, I. & G. Diewald (eds.): New Reflections on Grammaticalization. Proceedings from the International Symposium on Grammaticalization. 17–19 June 1999, Potsdam, Germany (Typological Studies in Language, 49.). John Benjamins, Amsterdam and Philadelphia, pp. 1–18. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2017): Grammaticalization and automation, JournaLIPP, 51, pp. 33–48.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Quirk, R. & Mulholland, J. (1964): Complex prepositions and related sequences, English Studies (Supplement: Festschrift for R. W. Zandvoort), 451, pp. 64–73.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Piunno, V. (2016): CombiNet. A Corpus-based Online Database of Italian Word Combinations, in: Kernerman, I., I. Kosem, S. Krek & L. Trap-Jensen (eds.): GLOBALEX 2016. Lexicographic resources for human language technology. Portorož, 24 maggio 2016, Paris, ELRA – European Language Resources Association, pp. 45–51.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Quirk, R., S. Greenbaum, G. Leech & J. Svartvik. (1985): A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. Longman, London and New York.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ramat, P. (1992): Thoughts on degrammaticalization. Linguistics, 301, pp. 549–560. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Saint-Dizier, P. (2005): PrepNet: A framework for describing prepositions: Preliminary investigation results, in: Bunt, H., J. Geertzen & E. Thijsse (eds.) Proceedings of the Sixth International Workshop on Computational Semantics (IWCS’05). Tilburg, The Netherlands, pp. 145–157.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Simone, R. (2017): Word as a stratification of formats, in: D’Alessandro, R., G. Iannàccaro, D. Passino & A. M. Thornton (eds.): Di tutti i colori. Studi linguistici per Maria Grossmann. Utrecht University, Utrecht, pp. 335–347.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Simone, R. & D. Cerbasi. (2000): Types and Diachronic Evolution of Romance Causative Constructions, Romanische Forschungen, pp. 441–473.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Simone, R. & V. Piunno. (2017): Combinazioni di parole che costituiscono entrata. Rappresentazione lessicografica e aspetti lessicologici, Studi e saggi linguistici, LV1, pp. 13–44.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Veland, R. (2011): Le locuzioni preposizionali a(d) opera di, per opera di, per mano di in italiano contemporaneo: funzionamento sintattico e proprietà semantiche, Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, 128,3, pp. 537–552.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Voghera, M. (1994): Lessemi complessi: percorsi di lessicalizzazione a confronto, Lingua e Stile. 29,2, pp. 185–214.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2004): Polirematiche, in: Grossmann, M. & F. Rainer (eds.): La formazione delle parole in italiano. Max Niemeyer Verlag, Tübingen, pp. 56–69.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Corpora and dictionaries
Corpus La Repubblica: [URL]
Morfologia dell’Italiano in DIAcronia [URL]
Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini [URL]
Opera del Vocabolario Italiano [URL]
Cited by (6)

Cited by six other publications

Ursini, Francesco-Alessio & Yue Sara Zhang
2025. Syntactic Cartography meets semantic maps: charting the polysemy of Italian simple prepositions. The Linguistic Review DOI logo
Creissels, Denis
2024. Transitivity, Valency, and Voice, DOI logo
Ursini, Francesco-Alessio & Tong Wu
2024. On Italian spatial prepositions and measure phrases: reconciling the data with theoretical accounts. Linguistics 62:2 ► pp. 491 ff. DOI logo
Ganfi, Vittorio, Valentina Piunno & Lunella Mereu
2023. Body part metaphors in phraseological expressions. Languages in Contrast 23:1 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Piunno, Valentina
2020. Partially filled constructions in some Romance languages. Schematicity and semantic predictability. Romanica Olomucensia 32:1 ► pp. 143 ff. DOI logo
Piunno, Valentina & Vittorio Ganfi
2020. Synchronic and diachronic analysis of prepositional multiword modifiers across Romance languages. Lingvisticae Investigationes 43:2 ► pp. 352 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 30 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue