Verbi prefissati in a- del dialetto napoletano. Un confronto con l’italiano contemporaneo

Abstract

The present work concerns the analysis of 244 verbs of the Neapolitan dialect prefixed in a- as such as appreparà (‘to prepare’). The hypothesis underlying the research is that these forms are representative of a more conservative productivity of prefixation than the same prefix in Italian. In fact, for Italian, as for other Romance languages, this pattern of verbal formation was very productive until the 15th century. While in contemporary Italian the prefix a- is productive only for parasynthetic verbs, in Neapolitan, it is also active for forming prefixed verbs from other verbs (e.g., addivinare, ‘to guess’< divināre), the latter mechanism connotes Italian and Neo-Romance languages until the 15th century. Starting from the aspects that differentiate the prefixed verbs of Neapolitan from those of contemporary Italian, we will look for clues that bring these forms closer to those attested in Italian or other ancient Romance languages.