Abstract

The paper analyses the diachronic evolution of Italian adverbs ending in -oni, e.g. “bocconiµ, “carponiµ, “cavalcioniµ, and a number of others referring to bodily movements and postures. Through a systematic analysis of all the occurrences of -oni adverbs in the main corpora of written Italian, the evolution of these forms is presented using a model of morphological description inspired by the prototype theory of Eleanor Rosch (1973) and adapted to the analysis of linguistic units in the works of Bybee & Eddington (2006) and Wilson (2009). This usage-based model allows us to consider the data relating to the first occurrence of the entries, to their frequency and semantic evolution. Furthermore, it allows us to explain some apparent anomalies of the forms, such as the existence of a variant (-one, e.g. “carpone/carponiµ) or the possible occurrence of these adverbs in bare form, in a PP introduced by a (“a carponiµ), or with reduplication (“carpon carponiµ).