Abstract

Given both the importance of the type of government of the democratic Ligurian Republic and the long duration of the Imperial administration of the Genovesato (1805-1814), the texts produced in those contexts offer a particularly fertile terrain for investigation of the «lexicon of the revolutionaries», and, more generally, of the lexis introduced in the period between the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century. The publication of this paper is a useful contribution (albeit partial and provisional, as are all endeavours of this nature) to the collective task of establishing the period in which Italian lexical items and expressions entered the language and became more widespread. However, it also shows that although certain lines of investigation might seem to have been dealt with exhaustively, they still provide important material for the study of historical linguistics.