Clemente Merlo and the dialects of Apulia

Abstract

The dialects of Apulia hold a prominent place in Clemente Merlo’s scholarly production. Even before he founded L’Italia Dialettale, he dedicated a number of articles to them, which broke the ground for modern scientific studies on the dialect varieties of the region. This had previously received little attention, so that Merlo’s works mark a clear discontinuity. The article evaluates them by first placing them within the broader framework of C. Merlo’s oeuvre and then, after such a historiographical framing, goes on to illustrate with selected examples the impact these studies had on further research in Italian and Romance linguistics.