I verbi con particella in siciliano antico

The verb-particle constructions are formed by a verbal base (especially of motion) and a locative or direction marking particle and exist both in standard Italian than in regional varieties of Italian and dialects. In particular, the conspicuous presence of these verbs in the northern dialects has led to the hypothesis of their entrance into Italian through these dialects (cf. Schwarze 1985; Simone 1996). Nevertheless, more recent studies have demonstrated that the verb-particle constructions also existed in ancient Italian (cf. Iacobini 2009; Masini 2006 e 2012) and in other southern dialectal varieties, i.e. Sicilian (cf. Amenta 2008). Therefore, the aim of this paper is to analyse the presence and the syntactic and semantic features of the verb-particle constructions in old Sicilian to point out the endogenous origin of these complex predicates also in this dialectal variety. As empirical basis of data it will be used the scripta in Old Sicilian: a corpus of written texts dating from the 14th to the 15th centuries.