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Chapter 7. Vague stuff

Cose as a general extender from Latin to Italian
  • Ilaria Fiorentini and Chiara Zanchi
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Vagueness, Ambiguity, and All the Rest
This chapter is in the book Vagueness, Ambiguity, and All the Rest

Abstract

This paper investigates cose (pl. of cosa ‘thing’) as a general extender (GE) and marker of non-exhaustivity from Latin to contemporary Italian. The study employs three corpora: CODIT, LIP/VoLIP and KIParla. We show that the frequency of cose-GEs dropped in 16th c., when they started being perceived as colloquial. In Old Italian, cose-GEs already expressed non-exhaustivity in list constructions and, until late 17th c., were frequently specified by a nominal modifier, which however was uninformative to identify the category. Contemporary spoken Italian results confirm the role of spoken language in developing structures encoding non-exhaustivity, also in a dialogical sense. Moreover, recent data show an increase in frequencies of cose-GEs. Finally, we found more variability compared to the structure usually identified for GEs.

Abstract

This paper investigates cose (pl. of cosa ‘thing’) as a general extender (GE) and marker of non-exhaustivity from Latin to contemporary Italian. The study employs three corpora: CODIT, LIP/VoLIP and KIParla. We show that the frequency of cose-GEs dropped in 16th c., when they started being perceived as colloquial. In Old Italian, cose-GEs already expressed non-exhaustivity in list constructions and, until late 17th c., were frequently specified by a nominal modifier, which however was uninformative to identify the category. Contemporary spoken Italian results confirm the role of spoken language in developing structures encoding non-exhaustivity, also in a dialogical sense. Moreover, recent data show an increase in frequencies of cose-GEs. Finally, we found more variability compared to the structure usually identified for GEs.

Chapters in this book

  1. 日本言語政策学会 / Japan Association for Language Policy. 言語政策 / Language Policy 10. 2014 i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Chapter 1. Introduction 1
  4. Part I. Vagueness and ambiguity
  5. Chapter 2. The role of ambiguity and vagueness in language change 10
  6. Chapter 3. The role of ambiguity in intentional vagueness 29
  7. Chapter 4. Vagueness and ambiguity are very different (persuasion devices) 51
  8. Chapter 5. Ambiguity in discourse 84
  9. Part II. Vagueness and ambiguity in language change and use
  10. Chapter 6. Underspecification and ambiguity of voice markers 110
  11. Chapter 7. Vague stuff 148
  12. Chapter 8. Vagueness explored 177
  13. Chapter 9. Using ambiguity and vagueness to avoid problematic answers 208
  14. Chapter 10. Vagueness and ambiguity of perlocutionary effects in Prime Minister’s Question time sessions 234
  15. Chapter 11. Place names in legal texts 259
  16. Index 281
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.347.07fio

Chapters in this book

  1. 日本言語政策学会 / Japan Association for Language Policy. 言語政策 / Language Policy 10. 2014 i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Chapter 1. Introduction 1
  4. Part I. Vagueness and ambiguity
  5. Chapter 2. The role of ambiguity and vagueness in language change 10
  6. Chapter 3. The role of ambiguity in intentional vagueness 29
  7. Chapter 4. Vagueness and ambiguity are very different (persuasion devices) 51
  8. Chapter 5. Ambiguity in discourse 84
  9. Part II. Vagueness and ambiguity in language change and use
  10. Chapter 6. Underspecification and ambiguity of voice markers 110
  11. Chapter 7. Vague stuff 148
  12. Chapter 8. Vagueness explored 177
  13. Chapter 9. Using ambiguity and vagueness to avoid problematic answers 208
  14. Chapter 10. Vagueness and ambiguity of perlocutionary effects in Prime Minister’s Question time sessions 234
  15. Chapter 11. Place names in legal texts 259
  16. Index 281
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