ADAPTED AND UNADAPTED TWIN GALLICISMS IN ITALIAN

Abstract

Words originating from French represent a significant segment of Italian vocabulary (approximately 7% of the basic lexicon, cf. Lorenzetti 1998), the most stratified over time and the best integrated component (Conti 2010). Our work focuses on a special subclass of Italian words borrowed from French (Gallicisms, Thibaut 2009), namely words that exist in two forms, thus forming lexical doublets. Our study of the doublets mentioned in Italian dictionaries (around 80, according to Garzanti) revealed the following situations: often, one of the two words is exactly the same as the French term (both in pronunciation and spelling), thus constituting an un-adapted Gallicism (a GNA). GNA doublets two categories of words: lexemes that already existed in Italian (generally of Latin origin, LA “homegrown lexemes”) or borrowings adapted to the phonetics and morphology of the target language (GA “adapted Gallicisms”). There is almost always a semantic transition between these word pairs, with the meaning of the GNA generally included in that of its adapted lexical doublet. There are also a few rare words that have developed meanings in Italian that do not exist in French (often hypernyms) or that have broadened the meaning of the French lexeme. Borrowing is often motivated by the appearance of a new semantic development of the word in French, a meaning that is often the only meaning of the GNA (such as soirée (doublet of serata) “social gathering”, baguette (alongside bachetta) “special type of bread”). Some Italian Gallicisms are ‘recovered’ words, i.e. words that entered French from Italian and returned in the form of Gallicisms (vedetta – vedette, piastrone – plastron, etc.).