To the centenary of “L’Italia Dialettale”

Abstract

This paper is devoted to the centenary of L’Italia Dialettale and aims to highlight the journal’s success in combining a focus on empirical data – the central importance of which had already been emphasised by its founding editor, Clemente Merlo – with theoretical reflection and an approach that is open to the various trends in modern linguistics. To this end, a number of case studies are reviewed, ranging from analyses of the vowel systems of Italo-Romània to acoustic phonetics, sociolinguistics, formal syntax, and phenomena of linguistic interference and contact.