Izvorni znanstveni članak
FREQENCY OF THE LOANWORDS FROM ITALO-VENETIAN LINGUISTIC INFLUENCE IN SPLIT ČAKAVIAN DIALECT
Radovan Vidović
; Split
Sažetak
Italian, more specifically the Venetian dialect, had the most important influence on the Croatian language and its dialects, particularly those spoken along the Adriatic coast.
Split was under the Venetian rulers for nearly four centuries (1420-1797). The inflence of the Italo-Venetian culture, however, was felt even before Venice became politically dominate in these parts along the coast. This influence does not stop with the end of the Venetian republic in 1797. Dalamtia was a part of the Lombardo-Venetian cultural zone even during the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Furthermore, Italian was the official language here until the last decades of the 19th century. Considering all of these factors we can say that the Venetian influence in Split lasted for more than five centuries.
In his study the author wants to answer the following question: What was the frequency of the loanwords from the Venetian dialect that were used in the colloquial language of Split from the 16th century until the present time. He applied the lexico-statistical method used in diachronic and synchronic studies. He attemped to compare the samples that were written in everyday colloquial style.
— He chose the texts from different periods of time.
— He examined those texts in order to establish the frequency of different grammatical words in them.
— He studied the mutual relationship of these words in some of the chosen texts. He stated their frequency of occurrence in percentages and then compared them with some other texts, first synchronically and then diachronically.
— This investigation was first done on the Split čakavian texts and then these were compared, synchronically, with some other local dialects (specifically Dubrovnik dialect).
The text are mainly from three different historical periods: 1) The texts from the 15th and the 16th centuries, i. e. from the period of first Venetian linguistic influence on the čakavian dialects on the Adriatic coast. 2) The texts from the last period of the Venetian linguistic influence from the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. 3) Finally the texts from the first half of the 20th century, i. e. from the period of gradual decline of this specific linguistic influence.
Nearly all of the texts underwent six different kinds of analyses in order to obtain the answers to the following questions:
1) What is the percentage of words belonging to different grammatical categories regardless to their origin. (i. e. grammatically different words are classified in groups regardless to the fact that they are of Croatian, Italian, or same other origin.)?
2) What is the ratio of declinable and non-declinable words (examined always on the whole material of the chosen text)?
3) What is the percentage of Venetian or Italian loanwords in comparison to the number of words of Croatian origin?
4) What is the percentage of Italian or Venetian words in each grammatical category?
5) What is the percentage of Italian or Venetian words belonging to the declinable group of words?
6) What is the percentage of nouns and verbs compared to the total number of Italian or Venetian loanwords in a particular text?
There were about 43.000 words in the whole corpus under analysis. More than 4.000 words were of Latin origin, the greatest percentage of these were Italo-Venetian loanwords. The analysis, however, was done on the corpus of 27,000 words, 3,000 of which were of Latin origin, i. e. Italo-Venetian loanwords.
Here are the answers to the above stated questions:
ad 1) Nouns are the most frequent grammatical category in the text of every writer from Marulić up to this century. Although the first texts, Marulić’s ones, are the most literary while the later texts are more colloquial, still nouns are most dominant in both kinds of texts. Their percentage varies from 24,5 to 28,7 percent. Secont frequent in all of the texts are verbs from 18% to 23,2%. Pronouns and conjunctions come third and forth percentagewise. In some texts there are more pronouns, in others more conjunctions but this oscillation is rather minimal. Then come (as fifth and sixth) loan prepositions and adverbs. Their percentage is about 10 percent. Other grammatical categories follow. The lowest and the highest percentage of the first four grammatical categories is 70,9% to 75,2%. In the examined texts the average percentage for nouns, verbs, pronouns and conjunctions is 72,5% of all the words.
ad 2) The percentage of declinable grammatical words of Croatian and Italo-Venetian origin is 64 to 71,7 percent.
ad 3) The percentage of Italo-Venetian loanwords varies in different texts. The lowest is in Marulić (1501) 1,46% and the highest in Dubrovnik texts (1938) in the »Štandarac«, 30 percent. There is an average of 15,6 percent the Split čakavian texts (1908-1912) in »Duje Balavac« while the highest percentage in »Duje Balavac« is 25%.
ad 4) The ercentage of Italo-Venetian loanwords according to the grammatical categories varies quite a lot in different periods as well as in different texts. The percentage of the nouns is the highest in Split čakavian texts, (specifically »Duje Balavac« 44,5%), the lowest we find in Marulić (5,8%). The Italo-Venetian loan verbs are most frequent in the Dubrovnik texts in »Duje Balavac« (30,7%) and the less frequent are again in Marulić (1%). The same holds true for the adjectives. The percentage of the pronouns is not of great significance. (In the three texts in which they appear, the percentage varies from 0,33 to 1%) The frequency of the numerals is only significant in the Dubrovnik texts and »Duje Balavac« where the percentage is 5%. The frequency of adverbs is much more interesting. They do not appear in Marulić and their percentage varies in other texts from 0,5% (Smoje 1972) to 19,4% (Dubrovnik text in »Štandarac«). The percentage of adverbs varies a little in the Split čakavian texts from the above-mentioned 0,5% in Smoje to 6,4% in »Duje Balavac«. The situation with prepositions is the following: we find 0% (in Marulić and Smoje) and 8,9% in the Dubrovnik texts in »Duje Balavac«. The percentage is also low in the čakavian texts of »Duje Balavac« (4,3%) and in Kovačić’s texts (0,6%). Conjunctions are not very frequent either. Their percentage is 0% in Marulić and 9% in the Dubrovnik texts of »Duje Balavac«. The frequency of conjunctions varies a lot in the Split čakavian texts from 0,6% in Kovačić to 7% in »Duje Balavac«. Interjections are the most interesting ones. The percentage of Italo-Venetian loan interjections is relatively high. We find 17% in Kovačić and the highest of 57% in the Dubrovnik texts in the »Štandarac«. We have to add a note here. Out of 27,000 words in the whole corpus there are 73 interjections. If we count all of the interjections together then Italo-Venetian ones form a group of 25-26%, but we have to remember the frequency of all the interjections together in the corupus of 27,000 words is only 0,27%.
ad 5) The group of declinable words of Italo-Venetian origin varies from 2,1% in Marulić (1501) to 29% in the Dubrovnik text of »Duje Balavac« (1908-1912). In the Split čakavian texts, after Mrulić, the percentage varies from 8,3% in Smoje to 23% in »Duje Balavac«. The frequency of non-declinable words is 0% in Marulić and 10,2% in the Dubrovnik texts of »Duje Balavac«. More recent čakavian texts from Split (1972) have 1,2% (Smoje) and 6% in »Duje Balavac«.
ad 6) Nouns, adjectives and verbs are most frequent in the whole corupus of the Italo-Venetian loanwords. The percentage of the nouns is the highest: from 52,2-89 percent. Verbs vary from 0-24,6 percent and the adjectives only from 1,9-11 percent. The percentage of these three grammatical categories is 93,5% in Marulić, 85,5% in the Split čakavian texts of »Duje Balavac«, 84,4% in the same newspaper »Duje Balavac« issued in Dubrovnik, 84,2% in the »Štandarac« from Dubrovnik, 89,8% in Kovačić, and even up to 91,9% in Smoje. Thus from those categories that Tagliavini mentions as showing »the most intimate penetration« of elements from one language into the other, only the adjectives are of some significance but their frequency varies quite a lot, from 1,9% to 11%. The average percentage for the three grammatical categories together is 88,2% while the percentage of nouns as such is 67,2%, the percentage of verbs is 14,9% and the adjectives 6,1%. As we have mentioned before the adjectives come seventh or ninth on the frequency list for all grammatical words studied in the corpus especially in the non-literary texts. Finally let us mention the adverbs. Their number is 1999 of which 161 or 8 percent are Italo-Venetian loan adverbs. Even their vivid presence in the texts is not enough to make their occurrence significant.
During five hundred years of intensive and varied relations that existed between the Croatian Adriatic čakavian regions (Split included) and Italy, Venice in particular, the number of Italo-Venetian loanwords increased ten times in average from pre-Marulić’s and Marulić’s times increased even 16 times if we take into consideration some exceptional speech of the educated people from towns, while in the speech of the peasants from the suburbs the number of loanwords is significantly lower, in average half of the number of loans found in the speech of the urban population.
Ključne riječi
Hrčak ID:
130091
URI
Datum izdavanja:
1.2.1974.
Posjeta: 1.596 *