IL PERCORSO EVOLUTIVO DEI TEMPI COMPOSTI CON L’AUSILIARE „AVERE“ NEI TESTI ITALIANI DEL XIII E DEL XIV SECOLO

Abstract

Complex changes actualized during the linguistic transformation of Vulgar Latin into modern Italian are often explained in terms of replacement of the synthetic structure of the former by the analytic form of the latter. Although defining any linguistic system as entirely analytic or synthetic could easily be deemed an oversimplification, it is reasonable to claim that the introduction of analytic structures into a system that had previously been void of them possesses the power to significantly modify the parameters of its morphosyntactic functioning. The genesis of innovative forms of Italian complex verb tenses has substantially transformed the primary aspects of phenomena such as word order and organization of clause constituents. This research aims to analyze the examples of complex tenses present in prose texts dating from the earliest developmental phase of the Italian system, in order to illustrate how the grammaticalization process which resulted in analytic verbal tenses influenced a wide array of changes in the Italian language system.