This paper is available for the academic year 2025-2026
Aims and objectives
This paper enables students to acquire an in-depth understanding of the complex linguistic landscape of the Italian peninsula. This will support the development of more accurate linguistic competence and, more broadly, foster a critical engagement with formal accounts of language variation and change, providing students with the tools and skills to critically evaluate what Italian and its related varieties can tell us about the language faculty. Through an exploration of key topics in Italian linguistics, including diatopic, diachronic, diastratic, and contact-induced variation in phonology, morphosyntax and lexis, students will:
- Gain an advanced empirical understanding of the linguistic structures and variation that shape Italy.
- Develop a theoretical understanding of general mechanisms of language variation and change.
- Engage with fundamental concepts from various branches of linguistics, such as syntax, historical linguistics, contact linguistics, and sociolinguistics.
Supervisions develop a range of skills, including essay writing, linguistic commentaries of written texts, transcription of recorded data, and data extraction from freely available online corpora. Basic knowledge of Italian and a basic grounding in linguistics (e.g., linguistics component in ITA3/IT1 or equivalent from other languages) are desirable but not essential.
IT2 and IT10: specific details
Students enrolled in IT2 and IT10 attend the same lectures. The overall aims and objectives for both papers are as outlined above. To reflect the differing levels of academic expertise, a different range of supervision activities and readings will be specified for the two papers in relation to a specific set of topics. In the final exam, there will be some differences in the questions set for IT2 and IT10 students: i.e. different selections of texts will be set for the commentary question; and where appropriate some essay questions will be specific to IT2 or IT10 students only.
Topics
This paper will typically cover some or all of the following topics:
Michaelmas Term – Mapping the linguistic landscape of Italy
- Pre-Roman Italy: languages and substrate theories
- From Latin to Italo-Romance
- Lexicon: change and stability
- Modern Italy: varieties of Italian, dialects and linguistic minorities
- The dialects of northern Italy
- The dialects of central Italy
- The dialects of southern Italy
- Popular Italian and the ‘neo-standard’
Lent Term – Aspects of Italian linguistics in focus
- Aspects of phonology (I): vowels
- Aspects of phonology (II): consonants
- Aspect of morphosyntax (I): emergence of auxiliary constructions
- Aspects of morphosyntax (II): synthesis and analysis
- Aspects of morphosyntax (III): sentential word order
- Aspect of language contact (I): historical contact in Italy
- Aspect of language contact (II): modern contact abroad
- Aspects of language contact (III): modern contact in Italy
Supervisions
Supervisions for this paper will be arranged centrally by the course convenor.
Preparatory readings
D’Achille, Paolo (2001). Breve grammatica storica dell’italiano. Roma: Carrocci.
Martin, M. (1995). A linguistic history of Italian. London: Longman.
Ledgeway, A. (2016). ‘Italian, Tuscan, and Corsican’. In A. Ledgeway and M. Maiden (eds), The Oxford Guide to the Romance Languages. Oxford: OUP, 206-227.
Lepschy, A.L. & G. Lepschy (1988). The Italian Language Today. London: Routledge.
Vincent, N. (1988). ‘Italian’. In M. Harris & N. Vincent (eds), The Romance Languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 279-313.
Full reading list
Teaching and learning
The course is taught through weekly lectures, 4 supervisions in Michaelmas, 4 in Lent and 2 in Easter Term.
For the It.2/It.10 Moodle site, please see here.
Assessment
The paper will be assessed by a 3-hour in-person written examination. Alternatively, IT2 students can choose to do this course in the Long Essay format.
Past exam papers are available on the Italian Past Exam Papers Moodle page.
Course Contact:
Dr Norma Schifano ns513@cam.ac.uk
