Change from Above in a 16th-Century Corpus of Tuscan Correspondence: The Spread of the Codified Form of the Masculine Determiner
Eleonora Serra · 2022
Sixteenth-century Italy saw the codification of a literary variety based on archaic Florentine. This process was at first guided by non-Tuscans, and the codified variety did not entirely coincide with the variety spoken at the time in Florence, going back instead to the language of fourteenth-century Florentine authors. This archaising variety was at first rejected by Tuscan writers as inauthentic, but in the course of the century attitudes changed, and this variety was eventually promoted by the Accademia della Crusca. Whereas most attention has focused on the literary sphere, the reception of this archaising norm in Tuscany at the level of informal writings warrants further investigation. This paper examines the Buonarroti letter corpus, tracking the spread of the archaising form of the masculine determiner, a highly salient feature that distinguished archaic and contemporary Tuscan. The analysis shows a dramatic increase in the use of this form throughout the sixteenth century, with the change being led by high-ranking individuals and progressively adopted by the ranks below. Italian historiography has been criticised for the centrality usually attributed to change from above. The results presented here, however, suggest that, for a highly salient feature, change from above is detectable in the informal written language of sixteenth-century Tuscans.