Some syntactic aspects of the causative construction in the late-medieval Florentine language

Abstract

In this work we analyse the causative construction within three late-medieval Florentine (Tuscan) texts, La novella del Grasso Legnaiulo, which dates back to the late 15th century, on the one hand; on the other hand two comedies of the early 16th century, i.e. Bernardo Dovizi da Bibbiena’s La Calandria and Niccolò Machiavelli’s La Mandragola. We investigate to what extent the three texts exhibit the typical properties found in the causative construction of the ancient Italian language, and also, whether they show innovative tendencies. The examples of the causative construction found in these texts are put sistematically in relation not only with the syntactic properties of Modern Italian, but also with two other medieval and late medieval works written in Florentine language, namely Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron and the Motti e facezie del Piovano Arlotto.