Mood selection in Old Italian: the subjunctive and indicative in

complement clauses in non-literary Tuscan of the Quattrocento

Narelle McAuliffe, BA (Hons)

This thesis is presented for the degree of Master of Arts

of The University of Western Australia.

Discipline of European Languages and Studies

School of Humanities
2006
 ii
Abstract

This thesis explores mood selection in Old Italian, describing the use of the subjunctive and

indicative in complement clauses in non-literary Tuscan of the Quattrocento (1375-1499).

Using Wandruszka’s (1991) model of the subjunctive, and a Tuscan corpus of merchant

letters and ricordi, sermons and other religious writing, based on Tavoni’s (1992) hierarchy

of non-literary Quattrocento writings, I quantitatively assess the factors that influence mood

selection in complement clauses. I restrict my analysis to complement clauses so as to

compare the findings with those of Stefinlongo’s (1977) and Vegnaduzzo’s (2000) similar

corpus-based studies of mood selection in thirteenth-century Italian, where possible, in

order to suggest any trends in the use of the subjunctive. While I find that the semantics of

the governing lexical element still has the predominant influence on the mood of the

complement clause in fifteenth-century Italian, I also find that other factors, such as clause

type, person and number, and tense and aspect, have a significant role in the modal

outcome of complement clauses. However, the influence of these other factors is neither

categorical nor equal, and it may be collective in the case of co-present factors. By

conducting a quantitative comparison of mood selection in a variety of text types, my study

also investigates Stefinlongo’s hypothesis that subjunctive use is not influenced solely by

semantic or syntactic factors but also by features at the level of text type. However, I find

the modal influence of text type to be largely indirect, influencing the relative incidence of

different semantic contexts which in turn influences the incidence of subjunctive and

indicative in a text. The findings of this study serve to inform our understanding of the

evolution of the subjunctive in Italian.

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Contents

Abstract ii

Acknowledgements vi

Introduction 1

Chapter One: Approaches to the Italian subjunctive 5

1.1 Accounts of the Italian subjunctive 5
1.1.1 Syntactically-based accounts 6
1.1.2 Semantically-based accounts 7
1.1.3 Accounts that combine syntax and semantics 14
1.2 Studies of the subjunctive in complement clauses in Old Italian 17
1.3 A model of the Italian subjunctive 23

Chapter Two: The syntax of complement clauses 27

2.1 ‘Complement clause’ 27
2.1.1 Independent, governing and subordinate clauses 27
2.1.2 Subject vs. object complement clauses 30
2.2 Variable characteristics of complement clauses 34
2.2.1 Complementisers 35
2.2.2 Clause position 39
2.3 Other types of complement clause 40
2.3.1 Modal, and indirect interrogative, clauses 40
2.3.2 Dichiarative 42
2.4 ‘Governing lexical element’ 46

Chapter Three: Methodology 54

3.1 Corpus description 54
3.1.1 General description of corpus 54
3.1.2 Text typology 57
3.1.3 Presentation of corpus texts 67
3.1.3.1 Le lettere – Alessandra Macinghi Strozzi 67
3.1.3.2 Ricordi – Giovanni di Pagolo Morelli 70
3.1.3.3 Prediche volgari – Saint Bernardino da Siena 71
3.1.3.4 Le lettere – Saint Caterina da Siena 74
3.2 Complement clause demarcation 77
3.3 Coding categories 89
3.3.1 Semantics of governing lexical element 90
3.3.2 Grammatical class of governing lexical element 91
 iv
3.3.3 Type of complement clause 91
3.3.4 Clause position 92
3.3.5 Type of governing clause 92
3.3.6 Complementiser 93
3.3.7 Negation 94
3.3.8 Direct interrogation 94
3.3.9 Person and number 94
3.3.10 Tense and aspect 95
3.3.11 Mood of governing clause 95
3.3.12 Causative construction 96
3.3.13 Modal verbs 96
3.3.14 Adverbs and adjectives 96
3.3.15 ‘si’ impersonale 97
3.3.16 Other 97
3.3.17 Text type 97

Chapter Four: Analysis and discussion 99

4.1 Semantics of governing lexical element 99
4.2 Grammatical class of governing lexical element 106
4.3 Type of complement clause 109
4.3.1 Object vs. subject 110
4.3.2 Dichiarative 112
4.4 Clause position 113
4.5 Type of governing clause 115
4.6 Complementiser 117
4.7 Negation 122
4.8 Direct interrogation 124
4.9 Person and number 126
4.9.1 Person and number of governing clause 127
4.9.2 Person of complement clause 130
4.10 Tense and aspect 131
4.10.1 Tense of governing and complement clauses 131
4.10.2 Aspect of governing and complement clauses 134
4.11 Mood of governing clause 137
4.12 Causative construction 140
4.13 Modal verbs 142
4.14 Adverbs and adjectives 146
4.15 ‘si’ impersonale 148
4.16 Selected governing lexical elements 150
4.16.1 Bi-modal GLEs 150
4.16.1.1 sperare 152
4.16.1.2 considerare 152
 v
4.16.1.3 creder(si) 153
4.16.1.4 dire 155
4.16.1.5 parere 156
4.16.1.6 pensare 158
4.16.1.7 vedere 159
4.16.2 Uni-modal GLEs 160
4.16.2.1 fare 161
4.16.2.2 pregare 162
4.16.2.3 sapere 165
4.16.2.4 Multi-semantic group GLEs 166
4.16.3 Thematic GLEs 167

Conclusion 169

References 179

Appendix A: Modal outcome and frequency of governing lexical elements in corpus 183

Tables

1. Distribution of indicative and subjunctive within GLE semantic groups by text 101
2. Frequency of GLEs 105
3. Frequency of GLEs not followed by a complementiser 119
4. Incidence of mood by negation in epistemic contexts 122
5. Incidence of mood by person and number of governing clause in epistemic 127
contexts
6. Incidence of mood by tense of governing clause in epistemic contexts 132
7. Incidence of mood by tense of complement clause in epistemic contexts 132
8. Incidence of mood by tense of governing and complement clause in epistemic 133
contexts
9. Incidence of mood by aspect of governing clause in epistemic contexts 134
10. Incidence of mood by aspect of complement clause in epistemic contexts 135
11. Incidence of indicative and subjunctive for GLEs that are followed by both 151
moods
12. Incidence of indicative and subjunctive following creder(si) by text 153
13. Incidence of indicative and subjunctive of GLEs that occur ten or more times 161
 vi
Acknowledgements

I sincerely thank Associate Professor John J. Kinder for supervising this research. It has
been an honour to have his guidance and support. I also thank the staff and students of
Italian Studies, especially Professor Lorenzo Polizzotto, and of the School of
Humanities generally, for their encouragement and teaching opportunities. I extend
particular thanks to the Tresillian Community Centre and its students for Italian
teaching opportunities, and to Dr Susanna Iuliano and Associate Professor Loretta
Baldassar for the opportunity to assist with the Vite Italiane project, activities that
provided necessary relief from my study of the subjunctive. Special thanks are owed to
Mr Chris D. Gray, my brother-in-law, for the time and effort he volunteered to develop
my database. I also acknowledge the staff, facilities and fellow postgraduates of the
Scholars’ Centre, and the staff and services of Student Services, the Graduate Research
School and the Postgraduate Students’ Association. I gratefully acknowledge the
financial support provided by an Australian Postgraduate Award and a Jean Rogerson
Postgraduate Supplementary Scholarship without which it would not have been possible
for me to complete this degree. Finally, heartfelt thanks go to my family, especially my
parents, sister and brother, and to Laura, Duc, Serena, Erin, Liz, Holly, Suzie, Fiona,
Sarah W., Sarah P., Bec, Pam, Paul, Helen, Tony, St Augustine’s, St George’s and the
ASCM and CL crews for their care and support.
 1
Introduction

This thesis explores mood selection in Old Italian, describing the use of the subjunctive and

indicative in complement clauses in non-literary Tuscan of the Quattrocento (which here is

taken as the period 1375-1499). The thesis is motivated by the fact that a “detailed

diachronic study of the evolution of the subjunctive remains a major desideratum of Italian

historical linguistics” (Maiden 1995: 219). My study follows Stefinlongo’s (1977) study of

the subjunctive and indicative in largely non-literary Florentine texts of the thirteenth and

early fourteenth centuries, and Vegnaduzzo’s (2000) study of the use of the subjunctive in

subordinate clauses in literary and non-literary Florentine texts of the thirteenth century.

The thesis focuses on the Tuscan vernacular in non-literary contexts following the

fourteenth-century works of Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio but preceding the codification

of written Italian in the early sixteenth century according to the literary Florentine of those

three authors. The use of the subjunctive in Italian in this period has been little studied. It

was during this period that there was a significant increase in the use of the vernacular for

‘practical’ purposes. Yet it is only relatively recently that linguistic research has given more

attention to non-literary writing generally. The term ‘non-literary’ is not without

ambiguities, but is intended here to refer to such texts as merchant letters and ricordi,

sermons and religious writing. Using a Tuscan corpus compiled from four such texts, I

restrict my analysis to complement clauses so as to compare the findings with Stefinlongo’s

and Vegnaduzzo’s, where possible, in order to suggest any trends in the use of the

subjunctive.
 2
The study takes a corpus-based and quantitative approach that provides statistical

information on the use of the subjunctive and indicative in the Italian of the Quattrocento.

Such an approach is used by D’Achille (1990) in his diachronic study of Italian syntax and

is supported by Berruto (1987: 64 cited in D’Achille 1990: 11). The study follows

Stefinlongo’s and Vegnaduzzo’s (implicit basic) methods but provides greater quantitative

analysis of the data. My primary interest is in which factors determine the use of the

subjunctive and indicative in complement clauses. As well as calculating the frequency of

use of both moods for each text, I assess the modal outcome of each of the factors that other

studies have indicated as influencing the mood of complement clauses, e.g., clause type,

negation, tense and aspect. I assess each factor in turn across the corpus, though always

mindful of the co-presence of other factors in any one sentence.

My major focus is on the influence on mood selection of the governing lexical element

because other studies have found the semantics of the governing lexical element to have the

greatest influence on the mood of complement clauses. In fact, Stefinlongo and

Vegnaduzzo have both found that subjunctive use was primarily semantically-motivated in

thirteenth-century Italian. Vegnaduzzo has also found that the range of contexts in which

the subjunctive was used was more restricted in the thirteenth century than it is in Modern

Italian. He hypothesises that the spread of the use of the subjunctive in subordinate contexts

in Modern Italian has reflected its passage from being a mainly semantically dependent

element to being mainly a marker of syntactic subordination. The nature of my corpus has

not made it possible to verify Vegnaduzzo’s hypothesis exhaustively. However, it does

appear that the shift in subjunctive usage he foreshadowed had not occurred in the fifteenth

century.
 3
By conducting a quantitative comparison of mood selection in a variety of text types, my

study also investigates Stefinlongo’s hypothesis that subjunctive use is not influenced

solely by semantic or syntactic features but also by features at the level of text type. My

corpus verifies Stefinlongo’s hypothesis to some extent. However, I find the modal

influence of text type to be largely indirect, in that text type influences the relative

incidence of different semantic contexts which in turn affects the incidence of subjunctive

and indicative.

In Chapter One, I discuss various approaches in the literature to description of the Italian

subjunctive. Section 1.1 provides an overview of the main approaches in the literature to

description of the Italian subjunctive, that is, syntactic and semantic explanations of its use.

I look at traditional and innovative accounts (syntactically-based and semantically-based)

as well as accounts that combine syntactic and semantic approaches. Section 1.2 provides

an overview of studies of the Italian subjunctive in complement clauses in different

historical periods. In Section 1.3, I present the model of the Italian subjunctive to be used in

this study.

In Chapter Two, I discuss the syntax of complement clauses. In Section 2.1, I describe the

type of clause the term ‘complement clause’ encompasses in this study. I begin by

distinguishing independent, governing and subordinate clauses then subject and object

complement clauses. In Section 2.2, I discuss some variable characteristics of complement

clauses, looking at the form and use of complementisers and the position of complement

clauses. In Section 2.3, I discuss some different types of complement clause excluded from

my analysis, and dichiarative, which require special attention. Finally, in Section 2.4, I

define ‘governing lexical element’ for the purposes of this study.

 4
In Chapter Three, I discuss the methodology of this study. Section 3.1 describes the corpus.

After explaining my focus on non-literary Tuscan texts of the Quattrocento, I present my

text typology and introduce the four texts of the corpus, providing background information

on the four texts and discussing any issues of authorship authenticity. Section 3.2 presents

some of the difficulties faced in demarcating complement clauses for the corpus and the

solutions adopted. In Section 3.3, I discuss the categories adopted for coding the clauses of

the corpus.

In Chapter Four, I present my findings on the use of the subjunctive and indicative in the

corpus. I begin with my major findings on the influence on mood selection of the semantics

of the governing lexical element, which I find has the predominant modal influence on

complement clauses. The body of the chapter is concerned with the factors that have been

found in the literature to influence the mood of complement clauses, most of which I find to

have some modal influence although this influence is neither categorical nor equal. As I

discuss my findings on each of the factors, I make comparisons between the four texts of

the corpus where appropriate and between my findings and those of Stefinlongo and

Vegnaduzzo where there are parallel data. As the governing lexical element is the focus of

my analysis, I return to it in more detail in the final section of this chapter and discuss a

selection of lexical items. In particular, I look at the governing lexical elements that appear

with both moods in my corpus and frequently-occurring governing lexical elements that

appear with one mood only.

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Chapter One: Approaches to the Italian subjunctive

In order to describe the use of the subjunctive and indicative in complement clauses in non-

literary Tuscan texts of the Quattrocento it is first necessary to see how the Italian

subjunctive has been described in previous studies. To this end, Section 1.1 of this chapter

provides an overview of the main approaches in the literature to description of the Italian

subjunctive, that is, syntactic and semantic explanations of its use. I look at traditional and

innovative accounts (syntactically-based and semantically-based) as well as accounts that

combine syntactic and semantic approaches. Section 1.2 provides an overview of studies of

the Italian subjunctive in complement clauses in different historical periods. Finally, in

Section 1.3, I present the model of the Italian subjunctive to be used in my study.

1.1 Accounts of the Italian subjunctive

In this section I provide an overview of the main approaches in the literature to description

of the Italian subjunctive. Traditionally, there have been two main ways of describing the

subjunctive in Italian 1 . One focuses on its syntactic function as a marker of subordination.

The other focuses on its meaning. In Section 1.1.1, I consider both early and modern

syntactically-based accounts. In Section 1.1.2, I look at semantically-based accounts,

moving from subjunctive-indicative comparative approaches to traditional and more

innovative semantic explanations. Finally, in Section 1.1.3, I consider accounts that

combine syntactically and semantically-based approaches in different ways.

1
It would be useful to consider approaches to the subjunctive in other languages, particularly in Romance
languages. However, as it is not my intention to propose an original model of the Italian subjunctive, and
given the time limitations of the thesis, I restrict my review of subjunctive description to that of the Italian
language. In any case, accounts of the Italian subjunctive draw on general subjunctive research.
 6
1.1.1 Syntactically-based accounts

Stewart (1996: 236-249) has traced the history of subjunctive description in grammars of

Latin and Italian from the Classical period to the late twentieth century. Early descriptions

of the subjunctive focused on its syntactic function as a marker of subordination. Moods in

general were identified by their syntactic and/or semantic function rather than their form.

This meant that single verb forms could express different moods in different syntactic

contexts. For example, in early descriptions of mood in Latin, the optative was included as

a separate mood and assigned a semantic role despite it having the same morphological

paradigm as the subjunctive. The subjunctive, on the other hand, was thought to occur in

subordinate clauses alone and to have “little or no independent meaning” (1996: 236).

However, the subjunctive was acknowledged to be both syntactically and semantically

dependent upon the structure which governed it. The first grammarian of the Classical

period to highlight more fully the semantic characteristics of the subjunctive was Priscian.

He innovatively asserted that the subjunctive could be used in structures other than those

expressing doubt or possibility, and, furthermore, that the indicative could be used in non-

affirmative statements.

For grammars of Italian, Classicist-style syntactically-based accounts remained the norm

throughout the Renaissance to the late nineteenth century. For the few that did not adhere to

this tradition, the subjunctive was no longer considered to have a solely subordinate

function, and models of moods were somewhat simplified and reduced due to a shift in

focus from function or meaning to morphology as the basis of their classification.

Twentieth-century research on the Italian subjunctive came to be dominated by

semantically-based accounts following the works of four late nineteenth-century

 7
grammarians: Fornaciari, Zambaldi, and Morandi and Cappuccini. These grammarians

presented accounts of the subjunctive that moved beyond Classicist-style syntactically-

based explanations. Their accounts will be discussed in the following section.

Despite the shift to semantically-based approaches, twentieth-century research on the

subjunctive was not restricted to them. Schmitt-Jensen’s Subjonctif et hypotaxe en italien

(1970 cited in Bronzi 1979: 426-427 and Stewart 1996: 245-246) represented a return to

syntactically-based explanations of the subjunctive, and a continuation of the 1960s debate

concerning the relative influence of the two main approaches. In his account, Schmitt-

Jensen argues that it is syntactic factors that presuppose semantic content. For Stewart, this

“implies that in subordinate clauses the subjunctive has no semantic value at all” but simply

marks syntactic subordination. Stewart also notes that while such a model could explain

much subjunctive usage it was not endorsed unanimously for it could not account for the

use of the subjunctive in sentences that were “formally identical except for the mood

selected”. In fact, when faced with these structures, Schmitt-Jensen was forced to resort to

semantic explanations in terms of the governing verb (Bronzi 1979: 427; cf. Section 2.4

below for definition of ‘governing verb’).

1.1.2 Semantically-based accounts

As mentioned, the impetus for the proliferation of semantically-based accounts of the

Italian subjunctive in the twentieth century was the work of four late nineteenth-century

grammarians (Stewart 1996: 241). Fornaciari, in his Grammatica italiana dell’uso moderno

(1879) and Sintassi italiana (1881), was the first to offer a semantically-orientated

definition of the subjunctive. He recognised its occurrence in main, subordinate and

 8
independent clauses (cf. Section 2.1.1 below). His most significant innovation was in how

he structured the description. He presented the subjunctive as the counterpart of the

indicative, contrasting the uses of both moods in certain clause structures. Some recent

accounts continue to use this method (cf. Dardano and Trifone 1985 and Serianni 1988).

Zambaldi, in his Grammatica della lingua italiana (1882), was the first to assert that the

subjunctive had meaning independent of other elements in the sentence. Later, Morandi and

Cappuccini, in their Grammatica italiana (1894), adapted Fornaciari’s method by

comparing subjunctive and indicative use not in individual clause categories but by

dividing usage into four types: 1. where the indicative is obligatory; 2. where the

subjunctive is obligatory; 3. where both moods are possible but involve stylistic

differences; 4. where both moods are possible but carry separate meanings. Their method

has been further developed by Lepschy and Lepschy (1981). In fact, most modern accounts

of the subjunctive incorporate aspects of this comparative approach but on a more ad hoc

basis rather than by structuring their accounts using these categories (cf. Wandruszka 1991;

Stewart 1996; Maiden and Robustelli 2000; Kinder and Savini 2004).

These late nineteenth-century grammarians facilitated a shift in the focus of descriptions of

the Italian subjunctive from syntax to semantics. In fact, Stewart (1996: 242-244) argues

that the twentieth century was marked by an over-emphasis on describing the ‘meaning’ of

the subjunctive “in terms of possibility, uncertainty, hypothesis, subjectivity and related

ideas”. Rohlfs’ (1969: 59-79) description of the use of the subjunctive in his Grammatica

storica della lingua italiana e dei suoi dialetti is an example of a traditional semantic

account. He describes the subjunctive by contrasting its use semantically with the

indicative. For Rohlfs, the indicative mood is used to affirm a reality or certainty, whereas

the subjunctive is the mood of uncertainty (he includes expressions of want, desire, and
 9
intention, arguing that they are based on uncertainty), doubt, possibility, supposition, and

subjectivity (using the latter theme to encompass the expression of feelings). This leads him

to identify several different subjunctives, e.g., congiuntivo del desiderio, congiuntivo del

dubbio, congiuntivo della finalità, congiuntivo potenziale. He then describes the use of the

subjunctive in various grammatical structures, e.g., dependent interrogatives, relative

clauses, after causal conjunctions, etc., at all times deferring to the aforementioned

semantic explanations. Tekavčić’s (1972: 660-661) description of mood in complement

clauses uses similar semantic explanations although he lists the types of clause structure in

which each of three moods (indicative, subjunctive, and conditional) can be found.

Stewart’s (1996: 242-243; 250) difficulty with such accounts is that they often ignore

usages that cannot be described in semantic terms, or they offer unconvincing semantic

explanations of certain uses of the subjunctive. In this regard, Stewart could have cited,

although he does not, Rohlfs’ (1969: 69) claim that the subjunctive occurs in clauses

subordinate to the verb aspettare, e.g., aspettate che piova, because of the desire inherent in

the act of waiting! Moreover, Stewart argues that traditional semantic explanations cannot

account for subjunctive use in subordinate clauses where the mood can be found

representing real, not imagined, circumstances.

This is not to suggest, nor does Stewart, that semantics has no place in accounts of the

Italian subjunctive. In fact, Stewart (1996: 246-249) favours semantically-based approaches

provided that they venture beyond the traditional semantic descriptions. Wandruszka

(1991) is an example of an innovative, yet strongly semantically-based, account of the

Italian subjunctive in subordinate clauses. Wandruszka regards moods in general to have a

semantically-based function, and he identifies the following three main types of

 10
subjunctive: il congiuntivo volitivo; il congiuntivo dubitativo (o epistemico); il congiuntivo

tematico, o fattivo, di valutazione. His volitive subjunctive is used in clauses that express

the will of the syntactic subject, or of the subject of the predication, with respect to the

realisation of the content of the subordinate clause. The epistemic (or dubitative)

subjunctive is used in clauses that express the evaluation by the speaker 2 , and the subject of

the predication, of the validity of an assertion or of the possibility of existence of a state of

affairs. The thematic (or factive) subjunctive (of evaluation) is used in clauses where the

speaker presupposes the inherent truth of the content of the subordinate clause. The basic

tenet of Wandruszka’s model is that the subjunctive has a fundamental value of non-

assertion, that is, the content of a subordinate clause in the subjunctive will not assert a fact.

In summarising the features shared by the three subjunctives that he proposes, Wandruszka

(1991: 416) observes that they do not appear in sentences that reproduce (riproducano) a

fact and that are rhematic at the same time, that is, that act as the object of the

communication. The term riprodurre used in this description is not a particularly useful one

because Wandruszka (1991: 477) later states that the subjunctive does indeed occur in

subordinate clauses representing a fact. It is not until Wandruszka (1991: 480) has fully

developed his principal argument (that the subjunctive has a fundamental value of non-

assertion), that it becomes clear that he intends to argue that the three subjunctives do not

appear in clauses that ‘assert’ but rather in those that ‘presuppose’ a fact. He explains that

this theory of non-assertion is based on the supposition that assertion is the neutral,

unmarked case, which makes the indicative the unmarked verbal mood and the subjunctive

the marked one (1991: 417).

2
In my thesis I take the term ‘speaker’ to include both speakers and writers.
 11
The other significant, and related, motif of Wandruszka’s model is that ‘thematicity’ is the

key factor in mood selection. In the statement quoted above, Wandruszka observes that the

subjunctive does not occur in subordinate clauses that are rhematic. He argues that mood

selection is influenced by the relative communicative weight, or value, of the governing

and subordinate clauses (1991: 419-420, 447-454, 478-481). Wandruszka claims that the

greater the communicative weight of the governing clause, the stronger the syntactic

dependency of the subordinate clause and the more likely it is that the subjunctive mood

will appear in the subordinate clause. Conversely, the greater the communicative autonomy

or independence of the subordinate clause, the more likely it is that the indicative mood will

be used 3 .

Another important aspect of Wandruszka’s model is the consideration he gives to the

influence of style and register on mood selection. He usually construes style and register in

terms of the degree of care or control a speaker exhibits in using language, e.g., “nella

lingua d’uso non sorvegliata” the indicative is frequently used (1991: 434). Sometimes he

refers to formal versus informal contexts (1991: 422, 436), and only occasionally implies a

spoken versus written dichotomy (1991: 421, 426). He finds that mood selection can vary

after some governing verbs without altering the semantics or style of the sentence but for

others finds that the mood determines the ultimate semantic interpretation. He also observes

that mood selection usually marks a particular stylistic register whereby the more informal

the style, the less the subjunctive is used (1991: 422). Moreover, he argues that the

influence of style and register can be so strong as to override semantic correlations between

3
Wandruszka’s argument utilises the theme-rheme opposition from Functional Sentence Perspective theory
where the ‘theme’ is the part of the sentence that conveys information that is already known and/or is not the
object of the communication, and the ‘rheme’ is the part of the sentence that is the object of the
communication, often because it conveys information that is not known by the interlocutor (cf. Lehmann
1988: 187 and Matthews 1997: 139).
 12
mood and governing verb in subject complement clauses that are dependent upon the verbs

parere and sembrare: the subjunctive usually appears in a more elevated register and the

indicative in a less controlled context despite the difference in meaning that the two moods

usually convey (1991: 444).

Despite (unfounded) terminological misgivings 4 , Stewart (1996: 249) finds Wandruszka’s

theories “persuasive”. In particular, he declares the proposition of a thematic, or factive,

subjunctive of evaluation to be “without doubt a significant step forward in the theory of

subjunctive usage”, citing its ability to explain certain structures that are too often ignored

by grammarians. Stewart himself proposes an innovative semantically-based model of the

Italian subjunctive centred around the notion of factivity. He notes that factivity has not

been used in a grammar to explain the subjunctive except in Wandruszka (1991) and that

even there “the definition he applies to his congiuntivo tematico, o fattivo, o [sic] di

valutazione, is decidedly more thematic than factive” as we have seen (1996: 278). Using

definitions provided by Lyons (1977: 794-795), Stewart groups all individual contexts of

use of the subjunctive into one of three higher order contexts depending on the speaker’s

position in regard to the truth of their statement: 1. non-factive: speaker is non-committal as

to its truth or falsity, e.g., Non so se sia tornata; 2. factive: speaker is committed to its truth,

e.g., Mi fa piacere che Gioacchino sia stato promosso; or 3. contrafactive: speaker is

committed to its falsity, e.g., Almeno mi avesse telefonato!.

4
Stewart (1996: 249) has criticised Wandruszka’s third type of subjunctive for its “juxtaposition of the
qualifiers (congiuntivo) tematico, fattivo and di valutazione”. He argues that it is “perhaps infelicitous” that
the qualifiers appear to have been presented “as practically synonymous”. While this may be the case, Stewart
(1996: 248) has misquoted this subjunctive as “il congiuntivo tematico, o fattivo, o [sic] di valutazione”.
Given the absence of the second o preceding di valutazione, Wandruszka’s third subjunctive should be
understood as a ‘thematic, or factive, subjunctive of evaluation’.
 13
One of Stewart’s principal motivations for employing the notion of factivity is the

observation that the subjunctive can be used in contexts involving real rather than imagined

circumstances (1996: 277). While his tripartite division of factivity, non-factivity, and

contrafactivity is relatively straightforward to implement, and provides a means of

describing subjunctive use in both real and imagined circumstances (1996: 250, 278), the

subcategories beneath this division are somewhat cumbersome. For example, under the

heading of non-factivity the material is arranged into two traditional semantic categories

and, within these, into several grammatical categories, whereas the factive contexts are

subdivided into a mixture of 14 semantic and syntactic categories.

One problem that Stewart (1996: 279-282) identifies in his model is how to incorporate the

“contextual sensitivity” of predicates. For example, what may be classed as a factive

predicate in a certain context, e.g., Accadeva che litigassero, may ‘change’ classes when

some other element, such as negation, is introduced, or according to more external

contextual factors, e.g., Non accadeva (mai) che litigassero, “which if anything is

contrafactive”. Stewart explains that this difficulty arises because he is using the term

‘factivity’ in reference to “any proposition to whose truth the speaker is committed, be it

presupposed or stated”, whereas factivity has been traditionally “defined solely within the

framework of presupposition”. Stewart observes that he therefore cannot use Kiparsky and

Kiparsky’s (1971) test for factivity whereby the classification of a subordinate clause’s

factivity remains the same when negated. Stewart’s solution is to simply discuss “the more

problematic areas” individually as they arise.

However, Stewart (1996: 282-284) does express some misgivings as to the capability of his

model to account for all subjunctive usage, especially deontic structures, and indirect
 14
interrogatives. For the former, Stewart attributes this difficulty to the “latent futurity of

deontic structures”, which include expressions of wish, hope, necessity and command, e.g.,

Voglio che i ragazzi si impegnino. For while this example can be assigned a contrafactive

interpretation whereby the speaker presupposes that the statement i ragazzi si impegnano is

false, we are not really able to presuppose the falsity or non-fulfillment of the speaker’s

wish for the future, that is, we do not know whether or not the children will commit

themselves. Stewart observes some similarities between deontic and (most) epistemic

structures, however, and so treats them as non-factive. For indirect interrogatives, Stewart

(1996: 284-285) is less inclined than Wandruszka (1991: 467-472) to consider all indirect

interrogative structures as epistemic and, according to his tripartite division of factivity, as

non-factive. He argues that those introduced by such question words as chi, come, quando,

dove, che cosa, etc. are epistemic in some senses, but are different to those introduced by se

and could be considered factive.

1.1.3 Accounts that combine syntax and semantics

An alternative approach to subjunctive description is to incorporate both syntactically and

semantically-based approaches in the one account. It should first be noted that the influence

of syntactic factors is not necessarily discounted in semantically-based models. For

example, Wandruszka (1991) incorporates syntax in several ways. Firstly, within his three

overarching semantic categories, the material is arranged by grammatical category.

Secondly, the influence on mood selection of syntactic factors such as type of governing

clause, negation, direct interrogation, person and number, and tense and aspect is discussed

as they arise. Finally, but perhaps most significantly, the dominant motif of his model
 15
blends syntax and semantics with its notion of the degree of subordination of a subordinate

clause.

Other accounts of the subjunctive are less easy to categorise as being primarily based on

either syntax or semantics. Recent reference grammars of Italian tend to combine syntactic

and semantic factors, although it should be noted that these writers do not purport to be

presenting theories of the mood. Some arrange their material firstly by grammatical

category then by the meaning of that category (cf. Kinder and Savini 2004). Others offer

less structured accounts, sometimes arranging their material by grammatical category, at

other times by meaning, at yet others by both grammatical category and meaning (cf.

Maiden and Robustelli 2000). The manner in which accounts combine syntactic and

semantic factors varies according to the relative importance the writers assign to them.

Even Lepschy and Lepschy’s (1981, cf. Section 1.1.2 above) account uses a mixture of

syntactic and semantic categories to arrange its material within its primary subjunctive-

indicative comparative categories.

Other descriptions retain syntactic and semantic factors as clearly separate notions within

the one account. Vegnaduzzo (2000: 693-695) uses such an account in his recent research

on the subjunctive in subordinate clauses in Old Italian (cf. Section 1.2 below). He

identifies two main types of subjunctive: intensional and polar. The ‘intensional

subjunctive’ is motivated by the semantics of the governing lexical element through a

process of ‘lexical selection’ (cf. Section 2.4 below for definition of ‘governing lexical

element’). It is divided into the following three sub-types: il congiuntivo volitivo, il

congiuntivo epistemico o dubitativo and il congiuntivo fattivo. These correspond to

Wandruszka’s (1991) three main types of subjunctive although only the first two are
 16
directly attributed to his work. The material is then arranged by grammatical category

within these semantic groups. The ‘polar subjunctive’ is motivated by the presence of a

particular syntactic operator through a process of ‘licensing’. Vegnaduzzo limits his

discussion to the syntactic operators of negation, conjunctions that govern adverbial

clauses, indirect interrogative clauses, and comparative clauses. While he discusses

negation wherever it enables the subjunctive to be used where it would otherwise not be

found, he simply lists examples of subjunctive usage after the other operators, explaining

that these grammatical structures do not easily co-occur with elements that motivate the

intensional subjunctive 5 .

Vegnaduzzo explains that one of the differences between these two subjunctives is that the

intensional subjunctive may be required, possible or impossible depending on the particular

governing lexical element, whereas the polar subjunctive is always possible when an

appropriate syntactic operator is present. This does not mean that the indicative is never

used if such a syntactic operator is present. Where the indicative is used, the meaning of the

sentence is transformed. Positing a polar subjunctive is a more explicit way of accounting

for those syntactic factors that have been found to influence mood selection, e.g., clause

position, negation, direct interrogation, etc. Most other accounts tend simply to discuss

such factors as they arise, as Vegnaduzzo does for negation anyway. However, excepting

his treatment of negation, Vegnaduzzo’s polar subjunctive is largely designed to account

for subjunctive usage in non-complement clauses rather than the modal influence of

syntactic factors. Even then, he notes that his model cannot adequately account for the

5
In listing the grammatical structures to be treated in separate sections, Vegnaduzzo (2000: 694) refers to
conjunctions that govern “frasi avverbiali, interrogative indirette e frasi comparative”. However, in the next
sentence, in explaining why it is that these are to be treated separately, he refers to “interrogative indirette,
frasi avverbiali e periodo ipotetico”. Despite the substitution of periodo ipotetico for frasi comparative, it is
clearly the latter that are discussed in Section 2.3 on pages 711-712.
 17
subjunctive in relative clauses because, firstly, they are not the object of lexical selection

and, secondly, their dependency upon any syntactic operator is mediated by the nominal

group that governs them.

In developing his account of the subjunctive, Stewart (1996: 277) had considered using a

similar model in order to distinguish between subjunctive usage with a semantic function,

and that mainly motivated by syntactic factors. He claims that the first usage involves

unreal or uncertain circumstances, and the second, real and certain ones. In this way,

Stewart hoped to dispel the long-held myth in grammars that the subjunctive is only used in

hypothetical contexts. He ultimately rejected the model because he felt that such a clear

distinction between syntactic and semantic factors is not always possible, and that

sometimes both are at play. Vegnaduzzo (2000: 694), however, argues that lexical selection

and licensing are independent processes. This means that sometimes the subjunctive can be

used where both the lexical category that requires it and a particular syntactic operator are

present, e.g., non credo che Gianni sia arrivato. Furthermore, if an appropriate syntactic

operator is present, the subjunctive can be used with lexical categories that do not otherwise

allow it, e.g., non diceva che fosse stupido vs. *diceva che fosse stupido. In this way,

Vegnaduzzo finds it a satisfactory solution to allow the intensional and polar subjunctives

of his model to co-occur.

1.2 Studies of the subjunctive in complement clauses in Old Italian

There have been two previous corpus-based studies of the use of the subjunctive in

complement clauses in Old Italian: Stefinlongo (1977) and Vegnaduzzo (2000). Stefinlongo

describes the use of the subjunctive and indicative in complement clauses in two collections
 18
of largely non-literary Florentine 6 texts of the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries (up

to 1321) 7 . However, she also devotes considerable space to describing the function and

meaning of the subjunctive in the independent clauses of her corpus. While she does not

propose an explicit model of the subjunctive, her account of mood selection in complement

clauses takes the governing lexical element as its focus. In fact, she presents her data in

three groups: 1. verbal roots (radici verbali, i.e., verbal governing elements) followed by

the subjunctive; 2. verbal roots followed by the indicative; and 3. non-verbal governing

elements. Within the first two groups she distinguishes subject and object complement

clauses and further categorises the subject complement clauses according to the following

grammatical categories: 1. intransitive and impersonal verbs; 2. reflexive and passive verbs

with impersonal value; and 3. impersonal expressions with essere. She then provides an

alphabetical listing of the governing lexical elements found in her corpus with examples.

Her major finding is that it is the semantic value of the governing lexical element in the

governing clause that determines the mood of the complement clause (1977: 469). She

finds that the verbs in her corpus can be grouped according to traditional semantic

categories although there is some overlap, with some verbs appearing both in a category

that typically promotes the subjunctive and in one that typically promotes the indicative,

e.g., dire. Verbs that are followed by the subjunctive fall into one of the following three

categories: 1. verba affectuum, e.g., piacere; 2. verba volendi, e.g., volere; and 3. verba

timendi, e.g., dubitare. She finds that the indicative, on the other hand, occurs most with

verba dicendi, e.g., rispondere, and verba sentiendi, e.g., credere. She also finds that there

6
While Stefinlongo (1977: 253) initially describes her texts as Florentine, she later states that they come from
the same geographic area of “Firenze e Toscana” (1977: 257). Certainly, the scope of her corpus is no broader
in origin than Tuscany.
7
Her two collections are: Schiaffini (1926) and Castellani (1952).
 19
are more verbs in her corpus that are followed by the subjunctive than those that are

followed by the indicative. Of the governing nouns or ‘essere + noun’ combinations that

she identifies, she finds that they reflect their corresponding verbs in terms of mood

selection. Stefinlongo emphasises, however, that mood selection can also be influenced by

other factors. For example, she finds that certain governing verbs, e.g., intendere,

provvedere and dire, are associated with a different mood according to whether they are

followed by a subject or object complement clause (1977: 255). Other factors that she finds

influence mood selection include: type of governing clause, negation (of either the

governing or subordinate clause), direct interrogation, person and number, mood of

governing clause, use of modal verbs (verbi servili), e.g., potere, presence of adverbs or

adjectives which modify the semantics of the governing element. Her findings on the

influence of the tense of the governing clause were inconclusive.

Stefinlongo’s (1977: 257-260) major hypothesis concerns the influence of text type on

mood selection. She claims that the subjunctive is dependent on textual requirements more

so than other moods. Her hypothesis stems largely from her observations about texts such

as the rules and regulations of religious orders where she proposes that the continual and

systematic use of the subjunctive in every type of clause is motivated by the preceptive

nature of the texts (cf. Section 2.1.1 below). Stefinlongo argues that a syntactic analysis of

a text must consider the influence of the text’s particular extra-linguistic features such as its

specific function, the models upon which it draws, the period in which it was written, and

the aims of its writer. Unfortunately, Stefinlongo does not make any other comparisons

about subjunctive use by text type.

 20
A quantitative comparison between my data and Stefinlongo’s would have proved difficult

because she carries out little of this type of analysis herself. While I could have performed

the corresponding calculations on her data, this would have been incomplete because

Stefinlongo does not present all the examples found in her corpus, instead simply marking

with an asterisk governing lexical elements for which there were many examples (1977:

470). However, a comparison in terms of the mood selections associated with particular

governing lexical elements was possible, e.g., dire and pensare.

Vegnaduzzo’s study looks at the use of the subjunctive in subordinate clauses in literary

and non-literary Florentine texts during the period circa 1250-1300 8 . As discussed in

Section 1.1.3 above, Vegnaduzzo presents an explicit model of the subjunctive, identifying

two main types of subjunctive, which may co-occur: the ‘intensional subjunctive’, based on

the semantics of the governing lexical element, and the ‘polar subjunctive’, based on the

presence of certain syntactic operators such as negation.

Many of Vegnaduzzo’s findings are framed in terms of an Old Italian versus Modern Italian

comparative approach, that is, he considers the contexts of use of the subjunctive in Modern

Italian (which appear to be based on Wandruszka (1991)) and compares his thirteenth-

century data against these. His major finding is that the distribution of the subjunctive in

dependent contexts was more restricted in thirteenth-century Italian than it is in Modern

Italian for both his types of subjunctive, but particularly for the intensional subjunctive. He

8
Vegnaduzzo’s study forms part of Lorenzo Renzi and Giampaolo Salvi’s ‘ItalAnt’ project which aims to
publish a Grammatica dell’italiano antico. As described in Renzi (2000: 726-727), the electronic corpus used
in this project is drawn from the Padua Corpus of literary and non-literary Florentine texts from the latter half
of the Duecento, which was integrated into the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche’s Opera del Vocabolario,
currently directed by Pietro Beltrami and previously by D’Arco Silvio Avalle. From this corpus, Renzi and
Salvi compiled theirs excluding texts that were too short, certain repetitive texts such as bankers’ account
books, texts that were difficult to interpret especially some poetical texts, translations including those from
Latin into the vernacular, and some other texts.
 21
found that the subjunctive was mainly motivated by the semantics of governing verbs (but a

more limited number than in Modern Italian), and that they tended to be those that more

clearly expressed the notion of ‘subjectivity’ (2000: 694). Unfortunately, Vegnaduzzo does

not explain the nature of this subjectivity but simply puts the term in inverted commas. He

did find that there could be a very high number of instances of the verbs promoting the

subjunctive whereas there were much fewer nouns and adjectives (and instances of them)

promoting the subjunctive. Furthermore, he cites some evidence to support the suggestion

that adjectives were somewhat resistant to being used with the subjunctive in Old Italian

(2000: 704) 9 . Interestingly, Wandruszka (1991: 475) observes that adjectives are the main

domain of his thematic subjunctive. These two observations are not, however,

incompatible, because Vegnaduzzo also finds that the subjunctive rarely occurred in factive

contexts in his corpus even when dependent upon verbs. Finally, Vegnaduzzo observes that

the polar subjunctive was well-established in his corpus, that is, the subjunctive was

sometimes motivated exclusively by the presence of negation.

Given these observations and the fact that, in Modern Italian, factive governing elements

are those that almost always allow a choice between the subjunctive and the indicative

without modifying the semantic interpretation of the clause, Vegnaduzzo claims that the

subjunctive was more semantically-motivated in thirteenth-century Italian than it is in

Modern Italian. He argues that the use of the subjunctive in factive contexts in Modern

Italian is only as a marker of syntactic subordination, and hypothesises that the spread of

the use of the subjunctive in subordinate contexts has reflected its passage from being a

mainly semantically-dependent element to being mainly a marker of syntactic

subordination. By implying that a factive context is somehow insufficient grounds for

9
No source for this suggestion is provided.
 22
‘semantically-based’ motivation, Vegnaduzzo’s generalisations seem to promote traditional

semantic explanations of the subjunctive mood, that is, that the subjunctive does not

express ‘real’ circumstances (cf. Section 1.1.2 above). A less contestable (but less useful?)

conclusion would be to simply observe that the use of the subjunctive appears to have

changed to incorporate more, and different, contexts of use.

Except for negation, Vegnaduzzo makes only minimal observations about ‘other’ factors

that influence the use of the subjunctive, mentioning them as they occur, e.g., grammatical

class of governing lexical element, type of governing clause, tense, mood of governing

clause, the presence of modal verbs, use of the ‘si’ impersonale, register, and text type

(referring to a prose versus poetry distinction). This is not unexpected given his major

finding that the subjunctive was primarily semantically-motivated by the governing lexical

element. He discusses the influence of negation only where it enables the use of the

subjunctive where it would otherwise not be allowed.

In terms of a quantitative comparison with my data, Vegnaduzzo provides figures of the

number of instances of the subjunctive with certain verbs, which were useful, although he

does not do this for all verbs. As the focus of his discussion is on governing lexical

elements that are followed by the subjunctive in his corpus, I cannot compare the total

number of governing lexical elements followed by each mood in his corpus with mine.

However, a comparison in terms of the mood selections associated with particular

governing elements was certainly possible. I have, however, excluded Vegnaduzzo’s non-

complement clause data (cf. Section 1.1.3 above).

 23
1.3 A model of the Italian subjunctive

Having considered the main approaches in contemporary Italian linguistics to subjunctive

description as well as corpus-based studies of the subjunctive in Old Italian (cf. Sections

1.1 and 1.2 above), I elected to use Wandruszka’s (1991) model to organise and analyse my

corpus. This model satisfies Stewart’s (1996: 276) suggestions for an effective description

of the subjunctive in Italian. Firstly, it has a strongly semantic orientation. Secondly, it

incorporates the notion of presupposition through its proposition of a thematic, or factive,

subjunctive of evaluation. Thirdly, its dominant motif of thematicity incorporates the

notions of theme and rheme. Fourthly, its three main types of subjunctive make some

concessions to traditional semantic categories without resorting to unconvincing semantic

explanations. Fifthly, it places a strong emphasis on stylistic elements, which is useful in

describing subjunctive usage in texts of different types. Sixthly, it considers the role of the

indicative by showing where and why this mood can be used within the categories

proposed. Furthermore, the finding of both Stefinlongo (1977) and Vegnaduzzo (2000)

that, in the thirteenth century, mood selection in complement and subordinate clauses was

principally determined by the semantics of the governing lexical element (cf. Section 1.2

above), lends support to using a model that takes the governing lexical element as its focus,

which Wandruszka’s does. Importantly, the model is sufficiently flexible as to allow for

any unexpected uses of the subjunctive, that is, it easily accommodates governing lexical

elements not specifically included by Wandruszka 10 .

10
Of the 37 verbs Wandruszka (1991: 421) notes as promoting the subjunctive in object complement clauses,
I calculated that Vegnaduzzo (2000: 695-696) finds that 9 of them did so in thirteenth century Italian but that
another 6 not noted by Wandruszka also did. As Vegnaduzzo generally only lists the governing lexical
elements followed by the subjunctive in his study, the other 28 verbs cited by Wandruszka may or may not
have occurred in Vegnaduzzo’s corpus, but if they did, they would have been followed by the indicative only.
 24
The relative structural simplicity and great explanatory power of Wandruszka’s model were

the deciding factors in selecting this model. I had initially considered using Vegnaduzzo’s

(2000) model as I was attracted to its comparative structural simplicity, and to its theory

that lexical selection and licensing are independent processes, which provides an account of

the co-occurrence of syntactically and semantically-motivated uses of the subjunctive. Yet,

in terms of data organisation, Vegnaduzzo’s polar subjunctive is of little practical use in my

study for it is largely used to account for subjunctive use in non-complement clauses.

Nevertheless, at an explanatory level it is useful and not incompatible with Wandruszka’s

more ad hoc approach to the influence of syntactic factors such as negation. Wandruszka

presents cases where the presence of a particular syntactic factor promotes the use of the

subjunctive where it would otherwise not be found. In fact, although only in the context of

adverbial clauses 11 , he refers to a process of ‘grammaticalisation’ whereby the mood is

selected on the basis of the presence of certain elements (conjunctions in this case) rather

than by a volitive expression in the governing clause (1991: 426-428). Vegnaduzzo

attributes these to the process of ‘licensing’ whereas Wandruszka goes one step further and

accounts for this motivation of the subjunctive using his theories of non-assertion and

thematicity. While most of the accounts of the Italian subjunctive discussed in Section 1.1

above discuss these “subjunctivizing factors” (Stewart 1996: 263) if and when they arise,

my aim was to determine whether or not any generalisations about their influence on

subjunctive use could be made, which I indeed found to be the case for many factors. I

discuss these factors in more detail in Section 3.3.

11
Wandruszka uses the term frase extranucleare to refer to adverbial clauses. He divides subordinate clauses
into five types: 1. frase argomentale, which covers object and subject complement clauses; 2. frase
extranucleare; 3. frase relativa; 4. frase comparativa; and 5. frase interrogativa indiretta.
 25
Furthermore, given my focus on complement clauses, it makes sense to use a model that

accounts for subjunctive use in subordinate clauses alone (although this is not to suggest

that it could not be applied more generally). The validity of the model is strengthened by its

coverage of a greater range of subordinate clauses than Vegnaduzzo (2000), as discussed in

Section 1.1.3 above, and also by Stewart’s (1996: 249) observation that it is able to account

for much subjunctive usage that other grammarians ignore. This focus on subordinate

clauses also more easily facilitates a comparison of my findings with those of Stefinlongo

(1977) and Vegnaduzzo (2000). The fact that the model has been ‘tried and tested’ in

Vegnaduzzo’s study, albeit in part only, lends further support to my using it for this similar

study.

At this point I should highlight the fact that I have analysed only those complement clauses

that appear in the subjunctive or indicative mood. Wandruszka (1991: 415) argues that the

finite moods (indicative, subjunctive, imperative, conditional) all indicate something of the

validity of the circumstances they express and position them in relation to extralinguistic

reality, whereas the non-finite moods (infinitive, gerund, participle) do not convey such

indications (they only nominate rather than predicate circumstances). As my interest is in

the moods that indicate the validity and relation with the world of the circumstances

expressed, and more specifically, in the subjunctive-indicative dichotomy, I have therefore

excluded complement clauses that appear in any other mood 12 . This focus is in keeping

with other studies of the subjunctive (cf. Stefinlongo 1977; Wandruszka 1991; Vegnaduzzo

2000), and it is in line with models of the subjunctive that consider the subjunctive and

indicative to be counterparts (cf. Section 1.1.2 above).

12
Moreover, I am able to discount easily the finite imperative mood because it cannot occur in subordinate
clauses, although Serianni (1997: 380) observes that it did appear in subordinate clauses in Old Italian, but
says that such usage was rare.
 26
Thus, my primary level of categorisation is Wandruszka’s three main types of subjunctive

(and therefore the three sub-types of Vegnaduzzo’s intensional subjunctive): volitive,

epistemic, and thematic. Wandruszka further categorises clauses by grammatical category,

firstly, according to the class of the governing lexical element (verb, adjective/adverb, and

noun), and, secondly, within these groups, by distinguishing object and subject complement

clauses. However, I treat these categorisations as individual factors (and determine their

influence on the mood of complement clauses) rather than apply them in my analysis of

every other factor.

 27
Chapter Two: The syntax of complement clauses

In this chapter I discuss the syntax of complement clauses. In Section 2.1, I describe the

type of clause the term ‘complement clause’ encompasses in this study, beginning with

a distinction between independent, governing and subordinate clauses, and a further

distinction between subject and object complement clauses. In Section 2.2, I discuss

some variable characteristics of complement clauses. I look at the form and use of

complementisers, and I discuss the position of complement clauses (left and right-

dislocated clauses). In Section 2.3, I discuss some different types of complement clause,

modal, and indirect interrogative, clauses, which I exclude from my analysis. I also

discuss dichiarative, which require special attention. Finally, in Section 2.4, I define

‘governing lexical element’ for the purposes of this study.

2.1 ‘Complement clause’

In this section, I describe the type of clause the term ‘complement clause’ encompasses

in this study. To do this, I first distinguish between independent, governing and

subordinate clauses (Section 2.1.1). I then distinguish between subject and object

complement clauses (Section 2.1.2).

2.1.1 Independent, governing and subordinate clauses

The need to distinguish between independent, governing and subordinate clauses stems

from Stefinlongo’s (1977: 257-265) discussion of the difficulties she faced in

distinguishing independent and subordinate clauses in her corpus and, in fact, from

difficulties I faced in identifying complement clauses in the letters of Alessandra

 28
Macinghi Strozzi (cf. Section 3.1.3 below for presentation of my corpus texts).

Stefinlongo finds that in certain texts, particularly in the rules and regulations of

religious orders, there are clauses with verbs in the subjunctive which at first appear to

be independent clauses, which, following Serianni (1997: 358, 537), I define as clauses

that are semantically and syntactically autonomous, i.e., they are not dependent on any

other clause and they convey a complete message in themselves, and that constitute

alone a sentence, e.g., Anche non sia ricevuto nessuno nela nostra Compagnia.

However, the presence of conjunctions such as e, anche and anchora at the beginning of

these clauses alludes to a preceding clause upon which these clauses are dependent.

Often Stefinlongo finds that there are actually sentences earlier in the text with volitive

verbs, e.g., ordinare, volere (which Stefinlongo describes as verbi di volontà) in their

governing clause (a clause that governs another clause, cf. Serianni 1997: 369) and so

suggests that these governing verbs are able to exert their influence over many clauses.

Stefinlongo also provides examples of clauses introduced by che with the verb in the

subjunctive, e.g., Che […] li capitani che allora saranno a l’officio siano tenuti e

debbiano essere insieme. Similar examples but with the verb in the indicative can be

found in Strozzi’s letters, e.g., Che insino a Neri di Gin Capponi mi mandò a dire

ch’i’ero una sciocca a mandallo (Strozzi, 13 Jul 1449, p.44) 13 . While Stefinlongo

claims that these clauses resemble apparently independent clauses, she again finds

preceding volitive verbs which may govern them.

However, Stefinlongo sometimes finds in the regulations that there are whole

paragraphs that begin with clauses in the subjunctive and for which no governing verb

can be found in earlier passages, e.g., De l’officio de’ camarlinghi di questa compagnia.

Li camarlinghi di questa compagnia siano tenuti e debbiano scrivere ad intrata in uno

13
The referencing of examples from my corpus is explained at the end of each corpus text presentation in
Section 3.1.3 below.
 29
libbro da una parte tutti li danari. Stefinlongo rejects the possibility that the subjunctive

in these clauses has an imperatival function, arguing that this usage was not yet codified

in the language and that there are very similar clauses elsewhere in the text that are

clearly linked to a governing clause. Instead, she argues that text type influences mood

selection (cf. Section 1.2 above) by suggesting that the clauses that seem to be

independent are actually subordinate to the preceptive nature of the text. This gives rise

to the high incidence of the subjunctive in such texts.

Stefinlongo explains that she elected to analyse only those clauses that could be more

clearly classified as independent. However, she does not provide a definition of an

independent clause and we are left to assume that she did not at any rate include the

above cases. As she does not provide a definition of subordinate clause either, we are

left to assume that she approached subordinate clauses in a similar manner, that is, only

analysing those clauses that could be more clearly classified as subordinate and

therefore excluding the above cases. I follow Stefinlongo in this regard and analyse as

subordinate only those clauses that are clearly dependent on a governing clause

grammatically and semantically (cf. Serianni 1997: 368). As mentioned, I use the term

‘governing clause’ to refer to a clause that governs another clause. By ‘govern’ I mean

that the clause determines the type of syntactic construction that follows it. A governing

clause may itself be a subordinate clause or it may be a main clause, that is, it may be

semantically and syntactically autonomous (cf. Serianni 1997: 358, 368-369, 537). The

governing clause is also the clause in which the governing lexical element occurs. I use

the term ‘governing lexical element’ (GLE) to refer to the main lexical element (of a

governing clause) upon which a subordinate clause depends grammatically and

semantically. I describe GLEs in more detail later in Section 2.4.

 30
2.1.2 Subject vs. object complement clauses

Having distinguished between independent, governing and subordinate clauses, I can

now define the type of clause the term ‘complement clause’ encompasses in my study.

Neither Stefinlongo (1977) nor Vegnaduzzo (2000) provide an explicit definition of

complement clause. However, they appear to use the fairly standard definition of the

term, and this is the one that I use, that is, a subordinate clause that functions as the

complement of a lexical element in a governing clause, since it fulfills the valency of

the predicate (cf. Acquaviva 1991: 633) 14 . While Acquaviva (1991: 633, 658), Dardano

and Trifone (1997: 397, 401), Sabatini and Coletti (1997: 534) and Kinder and Savini

(2004: 421) consider infinitives dependent on inflected verb forms to be complement

clauses as well, I analyse only complement clauses with inflected forms 15 . Complement

clauses can be divided into two main types:

1. ‘subject complement clauses’, where the subordinate clause functions as the

syntactic subject of the sentence, e.g.,

Occorre [che tu legga molto]; and

2. ‘object complement clauses’, where the subordinate clause functions as an

object complement of the governing lexical element, e.g.,

Graziella vuole [che tu venga in Italia].

The ‘object’ in question may be direct or indirect, which I discuss further below.

My use of the term ‘subject complement clause’ is not intended to replace the generally-

accepted structural distinction between a verb’s (or, predicate’s) subject and its

14
See Section 4.16.2.2 below for a discussion of the classification of clauses following pregare as
complement vs. final clauses.
15
While not classifying them as complement clauses, Kinder and Savini (2004: 421) consider infinitives
in conjunction with inflected verb forms to be subordinate clauses. However, Acquaviva (1991: 634)
claims that infinitival clauses that depend upon modal verbs, e.g., Gianni non ha mai saputo scrivere a
macchina, are different to ‘real’ complement clauses arguing that they are not true cases of subordination,
but rather are complex predicates. I refer to these again further below in Section 2.3.1.
 31
complement(s). Indeed, some writers substitute ‘noun clause’ for ‘complement clause’

in deference to the noun-like function of the clause (cf. Kinder and Savini 2004). As

completiva tends to be the preferred term in Italian literature, I use the term

‘complement clause’. At a purely terminological level, the term completiva

(complement clause) is used in two different ways in the Italian literature. Some

grammarians (cf. Acquaviva 1991; Wandruszka 1991; Vegnaduzzo 2000 16 ) use the

term to refer only to clauses that function as a (direct or indirect) object complement of

a governing clause whereas frase soggettiva or frase soggetto is used to refer to clauses

that function as the subject complement of a governing clause. In this case, frase

argomentale is the superordinate term including both object and subject complement

clauses. In a broader sense, completiva is used to refer to clauses that function as a

subject or object complement of a governing clause (cf. Stefinlongo 1977; Dardano and

Trifone 1997; Serianni 1997). In this case, if writers need to make a distinction between

subject and object complement clauses, they use terms such as frase soggettiva and

frase oggettiva, or completive soggetto e oggetto. I follow this second usage, using

‘complement clause’ as the superordinate term, including subject and object clauses.

In his account of complement clauses in Italian, Acquaviva (1991: 633-637)

distinguishes between direct and indirect object complement clauses, completive

oggettive and completive oblique, respectively:

1. completive oggettive correspond to object complements which would be

expressed by nominal syntagms, e.g.,

Gianni desidera [che vincano la partita] (cf. Gianni desidera [vincere la

partita] and Gianni desidera [una vittoria]), and

16
Vegnaduzzo (2000) uses the term frase complemento.
 32
2. completive oblique correspond to prepositional complements which would be

expressed by prepositional syntagms, e.g.,

Gianni si è accorto [che avevano sbagliato] (cf. Gianni si è accorto di

aver sbagliato and Gianni si è accorto dell’errore).

Acquaviva (1991: 633-657) makes a further distinction between direct and indirect

object complement clauses by categorising their governing verbs into four different

classes based on the form of the link between the governing verb and a following

infinitival clause. While he makes some references to non-verbal governing elements,

he says that in the “strict sense” (senso stretto) of the term, object complement clauses

are dependent upon verbs only, thus his focus on verbs (1991: 644). The classes he

postulates are as follows:

1. proposizioni oggettive:

i) transitive verbs with infinitive not preceded by a preposition, e.g.,

Desidero che ognuno faccia il proprio lavoro (cf. Desidero fare il

lavoro),

ii) transitive verbs with infinitive preceded by di, e.g., La giuria propone

che la seduta venga aggiornata (cf. La giuria propone di aggiornare la

seduta);

2. proposizioni oblique:

iii) intransitive verbs with infinitive preceded by di, e.g., Dubito che tu

possa effettivamente mantenere le tue promesse (cf. Dubito di mantenere

le mie promesse), and

iv) transitive or intransitive verbs with infinitive preceded by a, e.g.,

Gianni acconsente a che la partita sia disputata (cf. Gianni acconsente a

disputare la partita).
 33
Interestingly, he finds that these classes are homogeneous on three accounts: the

possibility of the subordinate verb being in inflected form; the semantic properties of

the governing verb; and the possibility of formation of certain grammatical structures,

e.g., whether or not they can take a direct object complement, and whether or not they

allow pronominalisation of a subordinate clause using lo. He also identifies several

categories of subject complement clause (1991: 657-674). These are not based on

structural differences in the way verbs link with their subjects because the subjects are

not selected by the verb. Instead, they largely centre on the grammatical class of the

subject, e.g., adjective, adverb, verb, and the function of the clause, e.g., predicative,

specifier, identifier.

In terms of my data analysis, the major consideration is whether or not to explicitly

distinguish sub-types of complement clause. Acquaviva’s sub-classification of object

and subject complement clauses in terms of the argument structure of the governing

verb is compelling. However, while there are some similarities, there is not an exact

correlation between Wandruszka’s three main types of subjunctive and Acquaviva’s

four classes of object complement clause for example. Moreover, Acquaviva (1991:

637) observes that the distinction between direct and indirect object complement clauses

is neutralised in clauses in the inflected form because che cannot be preceded by a

preposition except in certain usages principally found in formal registers (cf. example iv

above). Given these points and the fact that Acquaviva makes only minimal

observations about mood in complement clauses in Italian, and that other studies do not

distinguish complement clauses beyond subject and object ones, it does not appear

useful to make these further distinctions.

 34
On the other hand, it does appear useful to distinguish between subject and object

complement clauses. Stefinlongo (1977: 255) explains that she elected to distinguish

these, firstly, as a useful method of data organisation but, secondly, to establish whether

or not mood selection differs for single verbs on this basis. As discussed in Section 1.2

above, she did find this to be the case for certain verbs. Dardano and Trifone (1997:

401), on the other hand, claim that, in Modern Italian, subject and object complement

clauses display not only great similarity in form but also in terms of mood selection,

particularly with respect to the indicative and subjunctive. Vegnaduzzo (2000) does not

present any findings on the subject-object distinction. However, Wandruszka (1991:

449, 476-477) observes a difference in mood selection for his thematic subjunctive,

whereby the subjunctive appears to be less strongly “anchored” (ancorato) in object

complement clauses after an adjective in the governing clause than it is in a similarly

governed subject complement clause. Coupling this observation with Stefinlongo’s

findings, I elected to determine the influence on the mood of complement clauses of the

subject-object clause distinction (cf. Section 3.3.3 below).

2.2 Variable characteristics of complement clauses

While complement clauses are typically introduced by che and positioned to the right of

their governing clause, it is not the case that we can rely on these characteristics to

identify a complement clause. In this section, I discuss these variable characteristics: the

form and use of complementisers (2.2.1) and left and right-dislocated complement

clauses (2.2.2).
 35
2.2.1 Complementisers

Complement clauses are typically introduced by che yet it is not the case that we can

rely on this characteristic to identify a complement clause. Firstly, che does not always

have a complementiser function. Secondly, some complement clauses may be marked

by a complementiser of a different form to che. Thirdly, it is not necessarily the case

that all complement clauses are marked by a complementiser.

Che has been found to be the most frequently used conjunction in both Old and Modern

Italian (Rombi and Policarpi 1985: 236) and to have been used with particular

frequency in Tuscan of the Duecento and Trecento (Bertuccelli Papi 1995: 52-53).

Described as “un connettivo semanticamente non specifico” (Dardano and Trifone

1997: 407) and as a “universal, unmarked subordinator” (Lehmann 1988: 212 and cited

in Voghera 1992: 226), che has been found to have a multiplicity of functions. In their

study of conjunctions, Rombi and Policarpi (1985) found che to have the following six

semantic values in the Duecento and Trecento: temporal (temporale), causal (causale),

final (finale), consecutive (consecutivo), concessive (concessivo) and restrictive

(limitativo) 17 . In Modern Italian, they found that che has continued to have these

functions and has gained an adversative (avversativo) one 18 . Che also has a range of

pronominal and adjectival functions (cf. Dardano and Trifone 1997: 378). Furthermore,

the precise function of che can be difficult to classify. Tesi (2001: 161) highlights the

following use of che in Strozzi’s letters: e intesi d’amendue come el mal suo era

17
In citing this study of Rombi and Policarpi, Voghera (1992: 225) omits the consecutive value.
18
Interestingly, Rombi and Policarpi did not find any examples of che having an exceptive (eccettuativo)
function in Old or Modern Italian whereas Dardano and Trifone (1997: 378) claim that it does in Modern
Italian. Moreover, there are examples of it in the letters of Strozzi, e.g., […] da se’ mesi in qua non ho
mai avuto a fare altro, che andare ora a questo Uficio e ora a quest’altro (Strozzi, 24 Aug 1447, p.32).
Sabatini and Coletti (1997: s.v. che) also demonstrate that che can introduce an exceptive clause
following a negative governing clause and often in combination with altro. However, it may be that
Rombi and Policarpi only considered distinct instances of che. Interestingly, Dardano and Trifone do not
include a concessive function for che in Modern Italian.
 36
terzana: che assai mi confortai (Strozzi, 6 Sept 1459, p.78). He claims that here che is

the ‘multivalent’ (‘polivalente’) che that has the appearance of a relative pronoun yet

functions very much like a conjunction. Given its various and sometimes ambiguous

functions, it is not necessarily the case that che marks a complement clause. I discuss

further the sometimes ambiguous use of che in my corpus texts in Section 3.2 below.

Secondly, a complement clause may be marked by a complementiser of a different form

to che. For example, Branca (1986: 123) notes how Morelli uses ca instead of che at

times in his Ricordi, e.g., truovo [ca la tornata di Morello nel populo di San Iacopo fu a

tempo che ’l detto Giraldo era già morto di più anni] (Morelli, III, p.123) 19 . Branca

explains that this form of the complementiser entered Tuscany from the central-southern

regions 20 . Rohlfs (1969: 189-190), in fact, observes the prevalent use of ca in southern

regions particularly following verbs of belief (verbi del credere), e.g., credere, pensare.

In addition, come can sometimes be used as a conjunction rather than an adverb, e.g., tu

mi di’ de’ fatti di Matteo, [come t’ha scritto una lettera di nostro istato] (Strozzi, 8 Nov

1448, p.36). Dardano and Trifone (1997: 400) note that this usage is not common, and

Kinder and Savini (2004: 409) observe that come can be used in this way particularly in

higher registers. Wandruszka (1991: 471), Dardano and Trifone (1997: 400), Sabatini

and Coletti (1997: s.v. come) and Kinder and Savini (2004: 409) find that the

subjunctive is usually used in the complement clause in this case 21 . However, Sabatini

and Coletti observe that the indicative is possible especially in Old Italian, as in the

example I gave above from a letter by Strozzi. I discuss the sometimes subjective

interpretation of the function of come in more detail in Section 3.2 below.

19
In my corpus examples, I use square brackets to mark complement clauses. Any emphasis is also mine.
20
Bertuccelli Papi (1995: 53) notes ca among a few variants of che, e.g., ke, que.
21
In the context of indirect interrogative clauses, Wandruszka (1991: 471) argues that come is used
instead of che to make the event described almost unfold in front of the interlocutor and that the
subjunctive usually occurs because “questo tipo di frase subordinata è legata più strettamente al predicato
della frase principale”. Sabatini and Coletti (1997: s.v. come) also argue that come “ha un effetto più
descrittivo” than che, and that it has a “valore dichiarativo”.
 37
Thirdly, it is not necessarily the case that all complement clauses are marked by a

complementiser, e.g., e vorrebbe [paressi vie più] (Strozzi, 24 Aug 1447, p.30). In

Modern Italian, Dardano and Trifone (1997: 399) observe that che can be omitted in

complement clauses in certain circumstances and especially when there is another che in

the governing clause or closely following the subordinate clause 22 . However, they also

note that che omission depends on the semantics of the governing verb. For example,

che is more likely to be omitted following a verb that indicates fear or doubt, e.g., temo

sia tardi, than one indicating volition, e.g., *voglio Mario venga subito, although the

presence of the preverbal subject in the latter case may impact on the relative

grammaticality judgements of these examples (cf. Giorgi and Pianesi 1997). Acquaviva

(1991: 644-645) claims that complementiser omission is only possible for complement

clauses governed by his second class of verbs (transitive verbs with infinitive preceded

by di), and then usually only for verbs of opinion (and sperare and temere). He also

specifies that the complement clause must be dependent upon a verb rather than a noun.

Wandruszka (1991: 480) does not indicate that che omission is dependent upon the

semantics of the governing element, although he does claim that it is fairly rare after

factive predicates compared with volitive and epistemic ones 23 . Dardano and Trifone

also claim that the subjunctive does not have to be used in a complement clause where

che is omitted but that it usually appears 24 . Acquaviva, and Wandruszka (1991: 426,

453-454, 480), on the other hand, argue that the subjunctive is compulsory. Wandruszka

22
Wandruszka (1991: 454) also provides an example of che omission in a subject complement clause
(with an unaccusative verb in the governing clause) that is coordinated with another complement clause
introduced by che: Mi pare sia passato un giorno e che siano successe un mucchio di cose.
23
Dardano and Trifone (1997: 399) also argue that che omission will not occur if the verb in the
governing clause is a verbal phrase, e.g., *ho la speranza sia andato tutto per il meglio, a non-modal verb
or a verb that cannot take an infinitive. Wandruszka (1991: 426, 454), however, provides examples of che
omission when there is a verbal phrase in the governing clause, e.g., Non c’era bisogno tu spendessi tanti
soldi.
24
Dardano and Trifone (1997: 399) claim that the subjunctive is not obligatory in “proposizioni
completive” where the complementiser has been omitted yet later claim that the subjunctive must be used
when the complementiser is omitted in subject complement clauses (1997: 401). Given that the first claim
is made in the context of a discussion on object complement clauses, it may be that these grammarians are
suggesting that mood selection varies according to a subject-object clause distinction. However, the claim
remains ambiguous and other grammarians do not make such an observation.
 38
explains that this is because the subjunctive is the only morphological clue as to the

syntactic function of the second predicate, that is, it marks the subordinate status of the

complement clause (although he adds that the subjunctive may be replaced with the

indicative in spoken language after volitive predicates). He argues further that because

the subjunctive is compulsory with che omission 25 , verbs that usually take the

indicative, e.g., sapere, cannot have a complement clause without a conjunction.

Finally, Acquaviva, and Dardano and Trifone, claim that che was omitted more

frequently in Old Italian 26 and that the subjunctive was not compulsory. The latter two

grammarians note that che omission was most prevalent in prose writing of the

Quattrocento. Wandruszka also observes that, in Modern Italian, che omission tends to

be a feature of literary language.

These observations show that I cannot necessarily use the presence of che, or indeed of

any complementiser, as a marker of a complement clause. However, it is clear from

these examples that a governing and complement clause are able to be joined by a

complementiser, and I therefore utilise this condition to identify complement clauses.

25
Wandruszka (1991: 453) adds that sometimes the conditional or future can replace the subjunctive.
26
Acquaviva notes that che omission was not restricted to the particular verbs it is in Modern Italian.
 39
2.2.2 Clause position

Furthermore, the position of a complement clause is not necessarily to the right of the

governing clause, e.g., e [che questo sia] molto manifestamente si vede (Morelli, I,

p.110). Such ‘left-dislocation’27 has been found to have certain implications for mood

selection. Wandruszka (1991: 454, 480-481) observes that the verb in a left-dislocated

complement clause tends to be in the subjunctive, particularly if the governing lexical

element is one that is usually followed by the subjunctive. For GLEs that are usually

followed by the indicative, both the indicative and the subjunctive are possible. Using

such an example, Kinder and Savini (2004: 409) observe that in higher registers, the

subjunctive is required in a complement clause when it is “moved from its usual

position for emphasis”, e.g., Che fosse medico, lo sapevamo già (cf. Sapevamo già che

era medico). Wandruszka argues that the subjunctive occurs, or becomes possible,

because of the thematicising function of the position of the dislocated clause. When

moved to the beginning of a sentence, the complement clause is marked as the theme,

that is, its content is not being asserted in any way, and thus the subjunctive is used.

Wandruszka also finds that left-dislocation is particularly frequent for complement

clauses that are dependent upon factive predicates. Vegnaduzzo (2000) presents no

examples of left-dislocated clauses and Stefinlongo (1977: 470) explicitly states that in

her corpus she did not find any examples of this type of clause, which she describes as a

“completiva anteposta”. This can perhaps be attributed to Vegnaduzzo’s (2000: 695)

finding that the factive subjunctive was almost non-existent in thirteenth century Italian.

Nonetheless, I include left-dislocated clauses in my analysis because their syntax does

27
Wandruszka (1991: 454, 480-481), Dardano and Trifone (1997: 445) and Schneider (1999: 20) all refer
to such clauses as being ‘left-dislocated’ whereas Stewart (1996: 246) refers to them as being ‘fronted’.
Matthews (1997: 137, 202) defines a ‘dislocated clause’ as one where a pronoun or some other form of
anaphoric reference occurs in the space from where the clause has been moved, and a ‘fronted clause’ as a
clause that has been “moved to a marked position at the beginning of a sentence”. However, Dardano and
Trifone, and Schneider, observe that an anaphoric pronoun is not compulsory when a subject complement
clause is dislocated. This is because Italian is a ‘Pro-drop’ language. I thus retain the term ‘left-
dislocated’.
 40
not present any major difficulties in terms of identifying complement clauses and

because it is interesting to see how mood is influenced by clause position. I also include

right-dislocated clauses, e.g., […] sicchè dillo con Niccolò, [che gli è ’n punto] (Strozzi,

13 Jul 1449, p.46), because Kinder and Savini’s observation mentioned above is for

both left and right-dislocated clauses, e.g., Lo sapevamo già, che fosse medico.

2.3 Other types of complement clause

In this section, I discuss three somewhat different types of complement clause. In

Section 2.3.1, I look at modal, and indirect interrogative, clauses, which I exclude from

my analysis. In Section 2.3.2, I discuss dichiarative, which require special attention.

2.3.1 Modal, and indirect interrogative, clauses

In listing the clauses that she excludes from her study, Stefinlongo (1977: 254) includes

“quelle che alcuni studiosi chiamano completive ‘modali’” but without exemplifying or

discussing them. It is not immediately clear to what type of clause the term refers.

Elsewhere she claims that the subjunctive tends to be used in complement clauses when

the governing lexical element is itself in a subordinate clause that is “per lo più relativa

o modale”, including the following example: sì la rimettiamo in voi (…) che nne

facciate come crederete che ben sia (1977: 481-482). So it may be that Stefinlongo is

referring to the clauses which Dardano and Trifone (1997: 419-420) explain indicate “il

‘modo’ in cui si svolge un’azione”, e.g., fai come se niente fosse, which are introduced

by come, nel modo che, secondo che, come se, quasi che, etc. in their explicit form.

Dardano and Trifone note that this separate classification for modali is not recognised

by all grammarians, and, along with Sabatini and Coletti (1997: s.v. modale), explain
 41
that some grammarians consider these clauses to be more like comparatives. At any

rate, the clauses for which the term modali is used are not considered to be complement

clauses. It is also possible that Stefinlongo is referring to infinitival clauses that depend

upon modal verbs, e.g., Gianni non ha mai saputo scrivere a macchina, which

Acquaviva (1991: 634) claims are different to ‘real’ complement clauses. Acquaviva

claims further that modal constructions are not true cases of subordination, but are

complex predicates. This argument, however, cannot be applied to the volitive modals

volere and desiderare which clearly select a complement clause (infinitival or finite).

Given that Acquaviva’s ‘modal’ clauses are infinitival and therefore do not indicate

mood, and that Dardano and Trifone’s and Sabatini and Coletti’s modali are not

complement clauses, I exclude such clauses from my analysis.

The second clause type which I exclude from my analysis is the ‘indirect interrogative

clause’. Wandruszka (1991: 467) defines this type of clause as an object complement

clause that is dependent upon a verbum dicendi or sentiendi and that can be restated as a

direct interrogative clause, e.g., e non so [come la fanciulla si fussi contentata] (Strozzi,

24 Aug 1447, p.30). He claims that a test of a ‘true’ object complement clause is that

che cannot be replaced by se (1991: 443) 28 . However, if not excluded altogether from

studies of the subjunctive in complement clauses (cf. Stefinlongo 1977; Schneider

1999), indirect interrogative clauses are at least treated separately (cf. Wandruszka

1991; Vegnaduzzo 2000). This is due largely to their different syntax (Schneider 1999:

37). Given their different syntax and their separate treatment in studies of the

subjunctive in complement clauses (if they are included at all), I exclude them from my

analysis. This does not present any problems in terms of data comparability with

28
Later in his section on indirect interrogative clauses, Wandruszka (1991: 470) argues that “dopo capire
/ comprendere si può avere il congiuntivo se essi hanno il significato di ‘poter capire che…’;
analogamente reggono questo modo anche nella frase completiva”, which further suggests that he does
not consider indirect interrogative clauses to be ‘real’ object complement clauses.
 42
Stefinlongo’s study because she excludes indirect interrogative clauses. Vegnaduzzo, on

the other hand, includes indirect interrogative clauses but as he treats them separately

they can be easily excluded from any data comparison.

2.3.2 Dichiarative

The third clause type that requires special attention is the dichiarativa (or esplicativa) 29 .

The first of these terms should not be confused with the English cognate ‘declarative

clause’ “whose primary role is in making statements” (Matthews 1997: 86), and which

is usually known in Italian as an enunciativa 30 . Sabatini and Coletti (1997: s.v.

dichiarativo) define a dichiarativa as a clause that “esplicita il contenuto di un elemento

antecedente” where the antecedent element can be a noun, a pronoun, a noun-like

composite expression, or the adverb così, e.g., Paolo sostiene questo: che hai torto.

They explain that such clauses are similar (affini) to object and subject complement

clauses because they all “forniscono un completamento a ciò che precede”. However,

they argue that for object and subject complement clauses the “completamento” is a

necessary one whereas dichiarative “esplicano, più che completare, il significato di un

antecedente”. Moreover, they argue that the antecedent “è già autosufficiente”

syntactically and this is why it appears in a clause that ends with a pause (indicated by a

colon or comma). Sabatini and Coletti note that a dichiarativa can be introduced by

subordinating (e.g., che, come) or coordinating (e.g., cioè, ossia, infatti) conjunctions

but may also be preceded by a textual conjunction (or conjunctional phrase) such as (e)

cioè “che attenua lo stacco dalla frase precedente”.

29
Most grammarians use the term dichiarativa (cf. Dardano and Trifone 1997: 402; Serianni 1997: 395).
Sabatini and Coletti (1997: s.v. dichiarativo) note that a dichiarativa is also known as an esplicativa.
30
An enunciativa is one type of clause of a quadripartite classification of simple sentences based on the
general purpose or illocutionary force of the message (Dardano and Trifone 1997: 139). The other three
clause types in this classification are: volitiva, interrogativa and esclamativa. Somewhat less helpfully,
Battaglia and Pernicone (1951: 511-512) use dichiarativa and enunciativa interchangeably for clauses
that state an idea or thought. Serianni (1997: 358) also notes that a frase enunciativa is also known as a
frase dichiarativa.
 43
Serianni (1997: 395-396) offers a very similar definition of dichiarative: “di natura

affine alle completive, le proposizioni dichiarative consentono di precisare o di illustrare

un elemento della sovraordinata” where the antecedent element can be in the form of a

demonstrative or indefinite pronoun or adjective, an adverb, or a noun. He provides

similar examples to Sabatini and Coletti: a volte mi sorprendevo a sperare appunto

questo: che neve e gelo non si sciogliessero più. He argues that the function of a

dichiarativa is similar to that of an apposition. Drawing further parallels with

completive, Serianni explains that dichiarative allow both explicit constructions, as in

the above example, and implicit constructions, e.g., espresse una proposta: ridurre tutti

gli investimenti, and in terms of mood are “assai simili alle completive, facendosi

condizionare in primo luogo dal verbo della sovraordinata”. He also notes that

dichiarative are usually separated from their governing clause by a colon although he

adds that a comma is more commonly used when the clause is introduced by (e) cioè.

Dardano and Trifone (1997: 402), on the other hand, include the dichiarativa as a

variant of object and subject complement clauses, arguing that it completes “il senso

della principale”. In their definition they restrict the antecedent to demonstratives 31 ,

e.g., in ciò l’uomo si distingue dalle bestie, che ha l’uso della ragione. However, they

note that a demonstrative can be accompanied by a noun such as argomento, fatto,

circostanza or punto, e.g., su questo punto ti sbagli, che io fossi presente alla

cerimonia. They also observe that the demonstrative is not always present and that

instead a noun can sometimes govern the dichiarativa on its own, e.g., il fatto che siamo

tutti qui testimonia il nostro affetto per te. While the last two examples would come

under Sabatini and Coletti’s, and Serianni’s, definitions of dichiarativa, the first would

seem to be more of an adverbial clause.

31
Dardano and Trifone (1997: 402) claim that dichiarative “servono a ‘dichiarare’, a spiegare un
pronome dimostrativo” (emphasis mine) yet also provide examples that include demonstrative adjectives.
 44
Stefinlongo (1977: 472, 484) includes such constructions in her analysis and claims that

they were common in old prose, e.g., Et se ciò avvenisse, che non volesse essere

correcto [...]. While not terming them dichiarative, Stefinlongo argues that “alcuni

verbi reggenti emettono due volte il posto oggetto”. She explains that this is usually

done via a neutral pronoun, e.g., ciò, in the first instance, which anticipates that which is

then developed and explained by a complement clause. Vegnaduzzo (2000) presents no

examples of dichiarative. However, he observes that he did not find any examples of

complement clauses following il fatto che, which suggests that he would have included

such clauses if he had found examples (2000: 705).

In her study of che in Tuscan prose of the Duecento and Trecento, Bertuccelli Papi

(1995: 53-54) presents examples in which she argues that che “introduce una frase nella

quale viene definito, individualizzato o esplicato il referente di una sintagma nominale

precedentemente presentato in forma indefinita […], plurale […] ovvero non

identificabile perché dipendente da conoscenze inaccessibili al lettore […]”, e.g., Allora

dico che mi giunse una imaginazione d’Amore; che mi parve vederlo venire da quella

parte ove la mia donna stava, e pareami che lietamente mi dicesse…. She argues that in

her examples che is not a simple conjunction because it has a “funzione di ripresa” nor

is it a (relative) pronoun because there is no morphological agreement with an

antecedent (1995: 54). Citing the informational structure of the sentence, she proposes

that in these cases che has a thematicising function distinct from any grammatical one

(1995: 56-59) 32 . She describes her examples as a variant and extension of the

32
Bertuccelli Papi (1995: 53) argues that in the Duecento and Trecento “i rapporti sintattici e la nozione
stessa di periodo non hanno più la stabilità del modello grammaticale precedente [quello latino] e non
hanno ancora l’imprimatur di una codifica normativa quale si avrà nel ‘500”. She therefore employs a
“prospettiva testuale” instead of “sintassi frasale” whereby the informational structure of a sentence is
defined independently of the morphosyntactic relationships between its elements (1995: 56-59). It looks
at the thematic progression of clauses in a sentence and incorporates the notions of theme and rheme from
Functional Sentence Perspective theory (cf. Section 1.1.2 above) (1995: 57). Bertuccelli Papi (1995: 60)
argues that it is not possible to use subordination or coordination terminology with an informational
structure system.
 45
‘introductory formulas’ (formule introduttive) that Segre (1963: 198) identifies in the

writing of Brunetto, e.g., La cagione […] si è cotale: che 33 , and which Sabatini and

Coletti, and Serianni, would consider to be dichiarative.

Despite employing a similar definition to Sabatini and Coletti, and Serianni, Bertuccelli

Papi’s examples differ significantly from theirs. Firstly, she describes cases where the

antecedent element is a nominal syntagm whereas these other grammarians include

pronominal and adverbial antecedents. Secondly, the clauses introduced by che provide

more than an explication of the antecedent element; they are effectively predicative,

providing additional information about the antecedent. Thirdly, the antecedent nominal

element cannot be suppressed without affecting the grammaticality or semantics of the

sentence whereas it often can be in Sabatini and Coletti’s, and Serianni’s, cases. Given

these differences, I do not consider Bertuccelli Papi’s constructions to be dichiarative.

The above exemplification demonstrates that the category of dichiarativa is somewhat

fluid. Sabatini and Coletti’s, and Serianni’s, definitions appear to be the most useful and

consistent, and I therefore adopt their usage. However, I make more explicit what

appears to be an implied specification by these grammarians that any pronominal

antecedent element be non-clitic, that is, I consider clauses that refer back to clitic

pronouns to be right-dislocated rather than dichiarative, e.g., […] sicchè dillo con

Niccolò, [che gli è ’n punto] (Strozzi, 13 Jul 1449, p.46). Given that dichiarative

following Sabatini and Coletti’s, and Serianni’s, definitions can be accommodated

within Acquaviva’s definition of ‘complement clause’ (cf. Section 2.1.2 above), and

that Stefinlongo and Vegnaduzzo all (would) include such clauses, I include them in my

corpus mindful of the fact that the classification is not watertight. As discussed above,

33
Segre suggests that these introductory formulas derive from the “bisogno di chiarezza” of the author
and notes that they are often pleonastic.
 46
the cases identified by Bertuccelli Papi, and the more problematic one of Dardano and

Trifone’s, fall outside Sabatini and Coletti’s, and Serianni’s, definitions, and therefore

do not form part of my analysis 34 .

Finally, another construction that I do not include in my analysis is the following: e

dicesi che quello sonno d’Adamo fu in questo modo: [che egli fu ratto spirituale in Dio]

(Bernardino, I, p.97). This corpus example resembles the subject complement clauses

Serianni describes where the governing lexical element can be the verb essere alone,

e.g., è che in quell’età non si ha un’esatta nozione del tempo (1997: 394), yet differs

from the examples Serianni supplies. It actually parallels an example of a dichiarativa

given in Sabatini and Coletti: la trattativa si è conclusa in questo modo: [che l’aumento

del salario partirà dal primo gennaio ma sarà pagato tra un anno] (bracketing mine).

However, these cases differ significantly from the other dichiarative presented in

Sabatini and Coletti, and Serianni, because it is difficult to determine their GLEs.

Furthermore, the bracketed clauses seem more like modal clauses, that is, they indicate

the ‘manner’ in which an action takes place (Dardano and Trifone 1997: 419), as they

explain the adverbial phrase in questo modo (cf. Section 2.3.1 above). Given that I am

primarily concerned with the role of the GLE in the modal outcome of complement

clauses, I only included complement clauses that had a distinct GLE and therefore

excluded such cases (cf. Sections 2.4 and 3.2 below).

2.4 ‘Governing lexical element’

The other main difficulty that dichiarative present in terms of analysis is in determining

their governing lexical element and in particular whether or not the GLE includes the

34
Wandruszka (1991: 475-476) also refers to pseudo-cleft clauses (frasi pseudo-scisse), e.g., Ciò che è
fatale è che l’aereo non abbia/ha potuto atterrare, which serve to highlight and rhematicise the
dependent clause. However, these clauses fall outside the scope of my analysis.
 47
antecedent element in the governing clause. As described in Section 2.1.1 above, the

term ‘governing lexical element’ refers to the main lexical element of a governing

clause upon which a subordinate clause depends grammatically and semantically. The

GLE of a complement clause is most commonly a verb (Serianni 1997: 382), e.g.,

pongo [che il padre di questo Calandro fusse quello primo venuto in Firenze] (Morelli,

II, p.118). However, a complement clause can also be governed by a noun, e.g., con

gran paura istò, [che tu non abbia un dì una gran rovina di capitare meno che bene]

(Strozzi, 27 Feb 1453, p.68), or an adjective, e.g., […] sete contenta [che io l’obedisca]

(Caterina, CXVII, Tommaseo v.II, p.226). It can also be governed by an adverb, e.g.,

ecco [che tu conceperai nel tuo ventre] (Bernardino, I, p.90), but these are usually

considered together with adjectives.

In the case of a non-verbal GLE there is usually a verb present somewhere in the

governing clause. In fact, Dardano and Trifone (1997: 398) claim that a noun or

adjective can only govern a finite object complement clause if they form a verbal

expression by joining with a verb. This can be seen in the examples I gave above from

my corpus, e.g., con gran paura istò, [che tu non abbia un dì una gran rovina di

capitare meno che bene] (Strozzi, 27 Feb 1453, p.68), […] sete contenta [che io

l’obedisca] (Caterina, CXVII, Tommaseo v.II, p.226). Dardano and Trifone (1997: 401)

also note that some adjectives and nouns can govern subject complement clauses when

they are joined to some form of the verb essere in the context of an impersonal

expression, e.g., è poco tempo [che ’l padre fu di Collegio] (Strozzi, 24 Aug 1447,

p.28). In addition, Wandruszka (1991: 424) notes that when nouns expressing volition

or need govern a subject complement clause without an article it is often within a

complex predicate such as esserci bisogno, e.g., e però in questo non è di bisogno [mi

distenda più avanti in questa parte tanto] (Morelli, III, p.142). He also notes that some
 48
nouns that do not usually belong to this semantic class can, “con determinati verbi”,

create volitive predicates, e.g., è ora, and that several epistemic nouns only govern a

complement clause “se uniti saldamente […] ad alcuni verbi supporto, in espressioni

idiomatiche”, e.g., e facevo conto tra tu e Filippo [gli avessi a trafficare] (Strozzi, 27

Feb 1453, p.68) (1991: 450). However, Wandruszka (1991: 479) differentiates between

cases where the noun forms part of a complex predicate, e.g., fare piacere, fare pena,

dare fastidio, provare rabbia, and the subjunctive is usual but the indicative possible,

e.g., ci faceva piacere che una ragazza così simpatica venisse / veniva in viaggio con

noi, and, on the other hand, cases where the noun alone governs the subordinate clause

and the subjunctive is usual, e.g., mi prese la rabbia che tutti si impadronissero /

*impadronirono delle mie cose.

In the above cases, the verbs, while necessary grammatically, are usually ‘support’

verbs (verbi supporto) rather than having any significant semantic weight in their own

right. This leads me to suggest that the noun or adjective has the primary role in the

government of the following complement clause. Given that I define the GLE as the

main lexical element upon which a subordinate clause depends both grammatically and

semantically, I therefore consider that the noun or adjective forms the GLE in such

cases. In fact, Wandruszka himself discusses such cases under their primary GLE

classification, i.e., noun or adjective. Similarly, for governing clauses containing a

verbal unit made up of essere da + verb, e.g., è da credere veramente [si soppellivano

ivi] (Morelli, II, p.121), I consider the GLE to be the verb (credere in this example) as it

carries the most semantic weight, and I treat essere da as a modal construction (cf.

Sections 3.3.13 and 4.13 below). There are some cases, however, where there is no

single lexical element that can be considered to be the primary GLE, e.g., avvisare certo

and tenere per fermo (e per costante). In such cases I consider the ‘verb + adjective’
 49
combination to carry the semantic weight of the governing clause and therefore form the

GLE along the lines of Stefinlongo’s single verbal unit mandare a dire (cf. Section 3.2

below) although I classify them as verbal GLEs because the verbs seem to carry more

semantic weight.

As mentioned, one of the particular difficulties that dichiarative present in terms of

analysis is in determining their GLE and in particular whether or not it includes the

antecedent element in the governing clause. This is particularly evident in the case of

dichiarative that make explicit the noun il fatto, e.g., non gli dispiace (il fatto) che

Martina sia già partita (Wandruszka 1991: 419). Kinder and Savini (2004: 409) note

that complement clauses following il fatto che are “often in the subjunctive”. However,

as Stewart (1996: 251) explains, “it could be argued that in many instances il fatto che

[…] is not the sentence element responsible for the following subjunctive”. Wandruszka

indicates that il fatto can be omitted from his example above without affecting the

grammaticality or mood of the sentence, which suggests that the verb dispiacere alone

determines the modal outcome of the complement clause. It is not surprising that il fatto

can often be omitted; Wandruszka (1991: 419) actually describes il fatto che as a

complex nominal syntagm that factive predicates can usually take as a complement 35 ,

and Acquaviva (1991: 658-661) describes it as a periphrasis (perifrasi) whose function

is to “introdurre le completive rette da predicati fattivi”.

Wandruszka (1991: 479) later argues, however, that the mood of complement clauses

following nouns such as fatto, circostanza and notizia “dipende soprattutto dal predicato

sovraordinato” 36 . Furthermore, Acquaviva (1991: 648-649) cites examples that suggest

35
Wandruszka explains that this is one of the ways in which factive predicates can be recognised.
36
Wandruszka (1991: 451) also observes that “in alcuni casi anche il predicato da cui il nome idea è retto
contribuisce a determinare il congiuntivo nella frase subordinata, conferendo all’intera frase una
sfumatura volitiva”.
 50
that the presence of the noun il fatto before a complement clause is itself governed by

the predicate, e.g., *È possibile il fatto che Gianni abbia votato a favore. So it would

seem imprudent to discount its involvement in the modal governance of a dichiarativa

especially when nouns such as fatto, circostanza and notizia “esprimono esclusivamente

la verità presupposta della frase subordinata” (Wandruszka 1991: 479). As mentioned

earlier, Dardano and Trifone (1997: 402) argue that in the absence of a demonstrative, a

noun can sometimes govern a dichiarativa on its own, e.g., il fatto che siamo tutti qui

testimonia il nostro affetto per te. Moreover, there are cases where the omission of il

fatto would likely result in a different modal outcome. Stewart (1996: 252) argues this

for the following example: Pensavamo al fatto incredibile che in centinaia di serate

Stevie [Wonder] non abbia mai potuto vedere ciò che succede intorno a lui. He claims

that “the main verb has no bearing on the choice of mood in the dependent [and] that

since the elimination of il fatto (che) […] would in all probability produce instead a

dependent indicative, we must assume that it is il fatto che itself which provokes the

subjunctive” 37 .

In the list below, I provide examples of dichiarative from my corpus. They are arranged

in terms of the degree of involvement of the antecedent element in the government of

the dichiarativa, moving from examples where the verb alone governs the dichiarativa

to those where a nominal antecedent alone does. This list also serves to exemplify

further the types of clause I consider to be dichiarative (cf. Section 2.3.2 above):

1. E fra l’altre si vide di lui questo: [che pella mortalità del 1374, […], noi savamo

continui tra uomini, donne, fanciulli e balie e fanti, forestieri e compagnoni più di venti

in famiglia] (Morelli, III, p.148)

37
Countering suggestions of the influence of an implied è incredibile che in this sentence, Stewart argues
that “one could equally plead that even if incredibile were omitted the subjunctive would still stand”.
 51
This corpus example parallels one given earlier from Sabatini and Coletti (cf.

Section 2.3.2 above): Paolo sostiene questo: [che hai torto] (bracketing mine) where

they consider the bracketed clause to be a dichiarativa because it makes explicit the

demonstrative pronoun questo and because the governing clause is followed by a strong

pause as indicated by the colon. As the pronominal antecedent element can be omitted

in both cases without affecting the grammaticality or semantics of the sentence, i.e.,

Sabatini and Coletti’s sentence could be rewritten as Paolo sostiene che hai torto, this

suggests that the GLE is the verb alone (vedere and sostenere, respectively).

2. […] ch’io iscrissi duo versi a Soldo, [che per verun modo non volevo mandallo ora]

(Strozzi, 13 Jul 1449, p.42)

The bracketed clause che per verun modo non volevo mandallo ora can be

considered a dichiarativa; it makes explicit the content of the duo versi in the governing

clause, which ends with a pause as marked by the comma. As in the previous case, the

noun phrase antecedent element can be omitted without significantly affecting the

grammaticality or semantics of the sentence, which suggests that it is the verb scrivere

alone that is the GLE 38 .

3. Odi gran fatto ch’ io ti dico, [che ragunando tutte le grazie che mai Idio diè a

creatura in questa vita, ponendole tutte insieme da una parte, e dall’ altra parte la

grazia che elli dè a Maria sola, fu più infinita quella di Maria, che tutte l’ altre].

(Bernardino, I, p.89)

The bracketed clause che […], fu più infinita quella di Maria, che tutte l’ altre

can be considered a dichiarativa; it makes explicit the content of gran fatto in the

38
In fact, in written Italian, this sentence would more likely be expressed as ch’io iscrissi in duo versi a
Soldo che […], where what was the dichiarativa becomes a straight object complement clause governed
by the verb scrivere alone, and the duo versi, by the addition of the preposition in, becomes an adverbial
phrase.
 52
governing clause, which ends with a pause as marked by the comma. As in the previous

cases, the nominal antecedent element gran fatto can be omitted (along with the relative

clause ch’ io ti dico, which follows it) without significantly affecting the grammaticality

or semantics of the sentence. This suggests that it is the verb udire alone that is the

GLE, yet, as discussed earlier, it would be imprudent to discount the involvement of il

fatto in the modal governance of a dichiarativa. Interestingly, the complement clause is

in the indicative in this case (cf. Section 4.3.2 below).

4. Da Lorenzo ho lettere d’ottobre, [che sta bene] (Strozzi, 26 Dec 1449, p.52)

The bracketed clause che sta bene can be considered a dichiarativa; it makes

explicit the content of the lettere d’ottobre in the governing clause, which ends with a

pause as indicated by the comma. In contrast to the previous cases, the noun phrase

lettere d’ottobre cannot be removed without affecting the grammaticality or semantics

of the sentence. Together with the fact that the verb in the governing clause is a

‘support’ verb (avere), these features suggest that the noun lettera has the primary role

in the government of the dichiarativa and is therefore its GLE (the adjectival phrase

d’ottobre is superfluous grammatically).

An appropriate ‘test’ for determining whether or not the antecedent element of a

dichiarativa forms part of the GLE is therefore whether or not it can be suppressed

without significantly affecting the grammaticality or semantics of the sentence. If the

antecedent element can be omitted without affecting the grammaticality or semantics of

the sentence, as is usually the case for pronominal antecedents, then it does not form

part of the GLE although the influence on mood of nouns such as il fatto requires

special consideration. If the antecedent element cannot be omitted, as is the case for
 53
some nominal antecedents, then it is part of, and may even be the entire, governing

lexical element.
 54
Chapter Three: Methodology

In Section 3.1 of this chapter on methodology, I describe my corpus. I begin by explaining

my focus on non-literary Tuscan texts of the Quattrocento (Section 3.1.1), and then present

my text typology and introduce the four texts of the corpus (Section 3.1.2). I conclude this

section by providing background information on the four texts, discussing any issues of

authorship authenticity, and identifying the parts of each of the texts which I used to create

the corpus (Section 3.1.3). In Section 3.2, I summarise the conditions that clauses had to

meet to be included in the corpus, as discussed in Chapter Two, and I discuss some of the

difficulties faced in demarcating complement clauses and the solutions adopted. Finally, in

Section 3.3, I discuss the categories adopted for coding the clauses of the corpus.

3.1 Corpus description

In Section 3.1.1 of the corpus description, I explain my focus on non-literary Tuscan texts

of the Quattrocento. In Section 3.1.2, I present my text typology, which is based on Mirko

Tavoni’s (1992) hierarchy of non-literary Quattrocento writings, and I introduce the four

texts of the corpus. In Section 3.1.3, I provide background information on the four texts,

discuss any issues of authorship authenticity, and identify the parts of each of the texts used

to create the corpus.

3.1.1 General description of corpus

The corpus used in this study consists of a variety of non-literary Tuscan texts composed in

the Quattrocento, using the generally accepted periodisation of 1375-1499, which takes as
 55
its starting point the death of Boccaccio 39 . As no published collection of such texts exists, I

compiled one from individual publications and other collections. In line with the corpora of

Stefinlongo (1977) and Vegnaduzzo (2000), the language of the corpus is homogeneous in

respect of time and place but heterogeneous in terms of text type.

The Quattrocento was chosen because: firstly, it follows chronologically from Stefinlongo

and Vegnaduzzo’s studies, which has enabled any trends in mood selection to be identified;

and secondly, because it is a “neglected” period of linguistic study compared with the

immediately preceding and following centuries (Panizza 1996: 131), yet it is a particularly

interesting period in the history of the Italian language, for it follows the fourteenth century

works of Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio but precedes the codification of written Italian in

the early sixteenth century according to the literary Florentine of those three authors

(Tavoni 1992: 11-13; Tesi 2001: 149).

Tuscan writing was chosen because: firstly, it facilitated a comparison with the studies of

Stefinlongo and Vegnaduzzo, which use largely Florentine texts; and secondly, given that

Italian was based on a refined version of fourteenth century literary Florentine, the

vernacular used in Tuscany needs to be analysed, rather than that of any other region, in

order to contribute to our understanding of the evolution of the subjunctive in Italian.

Despite D’Achille’s (1990: 22-23) argument that an analysis of the development of Italian

should consider “le varie tradizioni regionali che via via si scontrano e si incontrano con la

tradizione egemone e in certa misura ne condizionano l’uso” and that Florentine should not

39
Migliorini (1983: 243) is an authoritative example of this periodisation. In terms of my corpus texts, my
selection of letters attributed to St Caterina da Siena is largely from her early letter-writing period of 1370-
1374, which I explain in Section 3.1.3.4 below. The latest written of my four texts is the letters by Alessandra
Macinghi Strozzi, written over the period 1447-1470 but of which the last in my selection was written in
1453.
 56
be considered a synonym of Italian, I maintain that a focus on the development of the

Tuscan vernacular in non-literary contexts is a valid one. In fact, there is some suggestion

that the prevalence of published Tuscan (and Tre-Quattrocento) family books (cf. Section

3.1.2 below) was a result of the “interesse editoriale ottocentesco per i buoni ‘testi di

lingua’” (Tavoni 1992: 26). Moreover, D’Achille (1990: 22-23) acknowledges that Tuscany

“costituisce l’asse portante del sistema” and has distinguishing features. He explains that

Tuscan speech and writing did not differ significantly in the period under study whereas the

speech-writing dichotomy in other regions was almost akin to the dialect-language one.

Non-literary texts were chosen for the purpose of comparability with Stefinlongo and

Vegnaduzzo’s corpora, and because there was a significant increase in the use of the

vernacular for ‘practical’ purposes during the fifteenth century (Hyde 1993: 115-116; Tesi

2001: 149) 40 . It is also part of a growing area of research in Italian literature and linguistics

(cf. D’Achille 1990; Hyde 1993). In fact, Hyde (1993: 115) argues that “the lower range of

everyday writing, through which the literate minority communicated for business and

pleasure, deserves more attention than it has received”.

The term ‘non-literary’ is not without ambiguities but is intended to refer to such texts as

merchant letters and family books, sermons and religious writing. In recognition of the

term’s ambiguities, Hyde (1993: 115) prefers to use the term ‘literacy’ “to span a subject-

matter embracing both literature and non-literature” and thereby avoid evaluating the

‘literariness’ of such types of writing. In looking at vernacular literature of the

Quattrocento, Panizza (1996: 159) refers to “records […] [of] prose in a range of writings

40
D’Achille (1990: 21 citing Boström 1972) suggests that with the revival of Latin at the beginning of the
Quattrocento the vernacular was restricted to largely ‘practical’ areas. This does not necessarily imply,
however, that there was not also an increase in the use of the vernacular in these areas.
 57
on various non-fictional subjects”. While these are useful descriptions of the types of

writing in my corpus, the term ‘non-literary’ is better supported in the literature. For

example, Tavoni (1991: 11, 23) presents a dichotomy of “lingua non letteraria” and “lingua

letteraria”. I selected a variety of texts within this body of writing so as to examine a

sample of the period’s non-literary writing and to evaluate the influence of text type on the

use of the subjunctive and indicative. The composition of my corpus was guided by the

hierarchy of text type proposed in Tavoni (1992), which I present in the following section.

3.1.2 Text typology

As discussed in Chapter One above, both Stefinlongo (1977: 257-260) and D’Achille

(1990: 23-24) argue that the syntactic analysis of a text must consider the influence of such

features as the background of its writer, its specific function, the models upon which it

draws, the period and place in which it was written, and its audience. Stefinlongo (1977:

258) claims further that the subjunctive “è soggetto alle esigenze testuali” more so than

other moods. As was also discussed in Chapter One above, Wandruszka (1991: 422, 444)

emphasises the influence of style and register on mood selection. He observes that mood

selection usually marks a particular stylistic register whereby the more informal the style,

the less the subjunctive is used, and that, moreover, the influence of style and register can

be so strong as to override semantic correlations between mood and governing verb.

A particularly useful model of such contextual factors is proposed by Berruto (1993). While

the model is actually an attempt to identify the ‘average Italo-Romance linguistic

repertoire’ of late twentieth-century Italy, and focuses on the types of variation that

characterise linguistic varieties in general, it may be taken as identifying the main types of
 58
variation that texts display. The basis of the model is four variable continua that each

represents a different type of variation and along which varieties of Italian and dialect can

be placed at different points in between the most extreme examples of the variation. The

four variable continua are:

i) geographical variation (diatopica): standard Italian (refined version of literary Florentine

model) – heavily dialectalised regional Italian

ii) socio-economic variation (diastratica): learned Italian – popular Italian

iii) functional-context variation (diafasica): academic formal Italian – informal Italian

iv) medium variation (diamesica): highly written form of Italian – highly spoken form of

Italian 41 .

In order to manage the contextual factors that are invoked by a corpus consisting of a

variety of texts, and to explore the influence of text type on the subjunctive-indicative

dichotomy, it is useful to arrange texts into a hierarchy. There are two main methodological

approaches to this task in the literature. The first is that presented in D’Achille’s (1990)

study of spoken language features in texts from the ‘origins’ to the eighteenth century.

D’Achille assigns ‘points’ to texts according to the degree to which various parameters are

manifest in them. His parameters were developed out of his consideration of the various

sociolinguistic and pragmatic features of texts (1990: 23-24). In this respect, D’Achille

anticipates Berruto’s notion of variable continua; the more strongly a text displays the

parameters, the more speech-like it is. D’Achille’s five internal parameters are:

41
This variable is closely related to the functional-context variable.
 59
i) the degree to which the text is intended for a private audience

ii) the degree of spontaneity of the writing

iii) the degree of fonicità displayed in the text, i.e., the relationship of the text with oral

realisations either at the origin or in its utilisation

iv) the degree of allocutività of the text, i.e., the degree of ‘presence’ of the audience

v) the degree of subjectivity of the text, i.e., the emotive involvement of the speaker and/or

of a strong persuasive intent towards the audience

His one external parameter is the educational level of the writer whereby those texts

produced by a writer with a low level of education are considered to be close to speech.

Based on the numerical sum of the points D’Achille assigns to texts, which ‘measure’ the

degree to which these parameters are manifest, he classifies his texts in the following three

levels:

i) writing closest to speech

ii) ‘middle-level’ writing

iii) writing of elevated tone

Despite its precise and methodical nature, I elected not to use this approach for several

reasons. The chief of these is that the focus of D’Achille’s study is to compare the syntax of

spoken and written texts. His parameters and levels are therefore designed primarily to

classify his texts in terms of a speech-writing continuum. This, however, is only one of the

variables that are of interest to my study. Certainly, D’Achille’s small number of text type

levels would not provide as much scope for me to explore the modal influence of text type.

To use D’Achille’s approach would have required me to establish my own set of

 60
parameters and levels, which would have gone beyond the scope of my study. Finally,

D’Achille’s corpus contains a much higher number of texts (and over a greater period) than

mine; my smaller number of texts would not lend itself to his points system as readily.

The textual hierarchy model that I have instead employed is that presented in Tavoni

(1992). Tavoni’s hierarchy of text type for the Quattrocento is based on the position of texts

in relation to the processes of grammatical codification and linguistic-literary unification

based on a Tuscan model. Of all the types of variation identified by Berruto, Tavoni places

strong emphasis on geographical variation. Tavoni (1992: 11) argues that geography is of

particular importance in the Quattrocento because the period immediately precedes the

codification of a written standard according to a literary Tuscan model.

Tavoni divides the texts of the period into non-literary and literary groups. His five broad

categories of non-literary writing are arranged in terms of their degree of

‘demunicipalisation’, that is, the degree to which the writing within a category

demonstrates “dinamiche di conguaglio linguistico” (and usually towards a Tuscan model)

(1992: 12). These categories, from the least to the most ‘demunicipalised’, are:

i) merchant writing

ii) the language of medicine

iii) the language of preaching

iv) religious writing

v) the language of the chancelleries

 61
Tavoni (1992: 12-13) claims that the first four of these categories were socially and

economically relevant forms of writing during the Quattrocento but that they remained

outside the linguistic-literary unification process, whereas the language of the chancelleries

played a fundamental role in this process. However, in his presentation of each category he

does indicate that the first four categories remained outside that process to different

degrees. He also hierarchises the different text types that he presents within each of his

broad categories.

Tavoni describes the types of writing encompassed by his category of merchant writing as

“scritture di carattere pratico” (1992: 21), and includes merchant book-keeping and

correspondence, libri di mercatura and family books. He suggests that the existence of

large collections of merchant letters reveals just how much written communication was

done in the vernacular (1992: 23). Tavoni (1992: 21-25) argues that it was the ‘extra-

literary’ channel (canale extraletterario) of the merchant economy that facilitated the

spread of Tuscan for communicative purposes to linguistic and social areas that it would

not otherwise have reached. He then briefly discusses libri di mercatura, books in which

merchants made miscellaneous notes (e.g., mathematical problems, astronomical news,

proverbs, medical prescriptions, news items) and which were mainly found in Tuscany

(1992: 25-27). He then focuses on family books, also known as ricordanze (Hyde 1993:

120) or ricordi (Branca 1986), which are books that were usually kept by one member of a

family and in which were recorded such items as important dates, family or civic

happenings, and moral reflections. These books have their origin in merchant culture and

were especially prolific in, although not restricted to, Tuscany. In observing that this genre

falls between documentary and literary writing, Tavoni (1992: 27) argues that it is an
 62
example of the transition from merchant writing to treatise, and is evidence of the

Florentine link between merchant culture and humanism.

In discussing the language of medicine, Tavoni (1992: 29-33) highlights the relatively

recent finding that by the Quattrocento there was an established bilingual (Latin and

vernacular) tradition in medicine, including shared terminology. He goes on to explain that

in the second half of the Quattrocento the vernacular was used at all levels of medicine

ranging from the more specialised writing of university textbooks, which largely consisted

of translations of Latin into the vernacular, and textbooks for educated professionals, which

included some original vernacular works, to texts written by qualified medical practitioners

for a non-professional public on subjects such as dietetics and the prevention of epidemics,

wherein the vernacular was used on account of its accessibility, and anonymous ‘recipe’

books (ricettari) of popular medicine covering curative, dietetic and cosmetic topics among

others. The first three types of text were primarily restricted to university centres such as

Bologna and Padua while the texts of popular medicine were more widespread.

The focus of Tavoni’s category of the language of preaching is on the proposal of Bruni

(1983) and Coletti (1983) that the Church and religious movements had an important role

in developing and spreading the vernacular throughout various social groups and through

channels that were not literary in nature (1992: 35-41). Tavoni welcomes this proposal but

cautions that it needs to be further substantiated. He notes that it was the mendicant orders,

and particularly the work of Saint Bernardino da Siena, that contributed to the

standardisation of preaching through their adaptation of the sermo modernus, a style of

preaching that had been codified in the Duecento, to vernacular preaching. It would appear

that Tavoni has placed this category in the middle of his hierarchy because of the
 63
interregional linguistic adaptations made by itinerant preachers but of which we only have

external evidence. He highlights the contribution of the reportationes to this process. While

this form of preaching is clearly the focus of this category, Tavoni also includes sacred

oratory 42 and sermoni mescidati. He suggests that there is a logical progression between St

Bernardino’s style of preaching and the sermoni mescidati, which were an extreme example

of the Latin/vernacular mixing that was a feature of Medieval preaching and which were

developed in Northern regions in the second half of the Quattrocento (1992: 41).

Tavoni (1992: 43-46) recognises that his category of religious writing is a very broad one

for it includes a variety of texts designed for different audiences and uses, e.g.,

hagiographic prose texts, edifying texts and poetic texts. He does, however, claim that they

share a common theme: pietà. Given that Tavoni’s hierarchy is based on

demunicipalisation in terms of a Tuscan model, his placement of this category towards the

upper end of his hierarchy is somewhat puzzling; most of the texts he describes are from

geographically peripheral areas, and while they display “una significativa

smunicipalizzazione”, this is not necessarily in the direction of literary Tuscan (1992: 43).

Tavoni focuses on Bruni’s (1983) findings on the influence of the Observance movement

on linguistic unification. Bruni claims that this movement, which aimed at reviving the

original purity of monastic orders, contributed to linguistic unification and Italianisation but

not through the more common process of local vernaculars interacting and being influenced

by a Tuscan model and forming a koinè. Instead, he argues that there was a process of

linguistic conguaglio in the vernacular but where central and southern regions had greater

influence than literary Tuscan. However, Tavoni does acknowledge the influence of the

42
Tavoni (1992: 39) explains that sacred oratory was established in the Roman See in the second half of the
fifteenth century based on Classical models but which learned lay people in Florence developed in the
vernacular.
 64
penitential movement of the Disciplinati with their laude and other writings which

contributed to the spread of the Tuscan vernacular throughout different regions, and also

cites some other religious texts that do not display this non-Tuscan hybridisation and

instead tend towards the Tuscan vernacular.

Tavoni’s (1992: 47-55) final category is that of the language of the chancelleries. As he

explains, a chancellery is the conglomeration of offices that deal with the affairs of

magistratures and of central and peripheral organs of the state. His category therefore

encompasses a very wide range of texts from legislative acts and statutes to diplomatic

mission reports and correspondence. However, he argues that they are all “caratterizzati da

una fondamentale tendenza al conguaglio linguistico” (1992: 47). Tavoni explains that the

vernacular was first used in writing that was destined for the public, such as edicts, before it

was used in other acts and official correspondence. He also notes that the use of vernacular

in writing developed at different times in different centres, with Florence being one of the

first to use the vernacular (1992: 49). One of the reasons the vernacular replaced Latin in

this environment was the tendency towards reciprocity in interstate correspondence (1992:

49). Generally, a chancellery was situated in a capital city, had regular exchange with

peripheral areas, had a network of overseas relations, tended towards standardising certain

types of text to facilitate internal communication, and interacted with the surrounding

culture and the library of the court. The language of chancelleries was also sometimes

influenced by individual princes and chancellors. The combination of these factors tended

to result in the replacement of local linguistic features with a regional or super-regional

variety, that is, koinai developed in these centres. Another feature of chancellery vernacular

was that it followed the Latin graphic-phonetic system quite heavily at first but later came

under the influence of literary Tuscan. The language of chancelleries was important for the
 65
development of the Italian language as it was drawn upon by those involved in the

questione della lingua. Unfortunately, there is little documentation or studies of the

chancellery writing of many of the major centres including Florence.

Tavoni’s typology is useful for my study because it clearly identifies some of the major

categories of non-literary writing of the Quattrocento. Tavoni (1992: 13-14) does

acknowledge that for reasons of time and space he was unable to include every type of non-

literary writing of the period. In particular, he laments not being able to include the writing

of artists and technicians. Hyde (1993) also presents some other non-literary text types,

including pilgrims’ books, in his work on literacy and its uses in late medieval Italy.

However, given the categories discussed in Tesi’s (2001) more recent overview of

“linguaggi quattrocenteschi della comunicazione”, Tavoni’s selection seems to be a valid

one 43 .

Given that I am interested in the development of the subjunctive in the Italian language,

Tavoni’s focus on how text types relate to the processes of grammatical codification and

linguistic-literary unification is highly pertinent to my study. Despite his somewhat vague

ranking of religious writing, his categories are integrated into a useful hierarchy that

enables me to investigate Stefinlongo’s (1977) hypothesis that subjunctive use is not

influenced solely by semantic or syntactic features but also by features at the level of text

type (cf. Section 1.2 above). In fact, Tavoni (1992: 11) argues that the relative homogeneity

of his categories better enables him to analyse local varieties and diachronic variation.

43
In his broad overview, Tesi includes merchant letters, medical translations, preaching and chancellery
writing. While he does not directly attribute this selection to Tavoni (1992), he does include the work in his
bibliography.
 66
Using Tavoni’s categories as a guide, I selected four texts from which to compile my

corpus. As merchant writing is much more researched than the language of medicine, I

chose two examples of merchant writing (one of correspondence and one of ricordi) and

none of medicine: Le lettere of Alessandra Macinghi Strozzi and the Ricordi of Giovanni di

Pagolo Morelli. As these texts display considerable variation in terms of type, and merchant

ricordi were especially prolific in Tuscany, these two texts are a good sample of this

category of writing. For the language of preaching, I chose an example of mendicant

sermons because they are the focus of Tavoni’s category: Prediche volgari of Saint

Bernardino da Siena. Finally, while my choice of religious writing, Le lettere of Saint

Caterina da Siena, may not be similar to the text types Tavoni discusses in his category, Le

lettere are overtly religious in terms of their theme and authorship and it is a very well-

researched text. I did not include an example of chancellery writing because there is little

documentation or studies of the chancellery writing of Florence, as discussed above.

Further support for my selection of texts can be taken from their inclusion in the works of

various scholars as good examples of non-literary Quattrocento texts. In his anthology of

Tuscan texts, Tavoni (1992: 205) includes Morelli’s Ricordi as an “esempio illustre di

‘libro di famiglia’” (1992: 175), and St Bernardino’s Prediche volgari. Tesi (2001: 149-

167) also includes St Bernardino’s Prediche volgari as well as Strozzi’s letters. D’Achille

(1990) includes Strozzi’s letters, which he notes are often cited as an example of non-

literary Florentine writing of the Quattrocento, and St Bernardino’s Prediche volgari 44 as

Level A Tuscan texts (1990: 51-52), and Morelli’s Ricordi as a Level B Tuscan text, which

he describes as a “classico esempio di prosa media fiorentina quattrocentesca” (1990: 56).

44
D’Achille uses Varese’s (1955) selection of exempla and anecdotal inserts rather than whole sermons.
 67
In addition, D’Achille’s selection of texts for the period 1375-1525 draws on Varese’s

(1955) anthology Prosatori volgari del Quattrocento, which includes these three texts.

3.1.3 Presentation of corpus texts

In this section I provide background information on each of the four texts of my corpus and

discuss any issues of authorship authenticity. As I collected data on the first 100

complement clauses in each of the texts, I also identify the parts of each text which I used

to create the corpus.

3.1.3.1 Le lettere – Alessandra Macinghi Strozzi

My first example of merchant writing is a collection of letters written by the Florentine

Alessandra Macinghi Strozzi. First published by Cesare Guasti in 1877 as Lettere di una

gentildonna fiorentina del secolo XV ai figliuoli esuli, I have used Heather Gregory’s

bilingual edition Selected letters of Alessandra Strozzi published in 1997, which follows the

Guasti edition 45 . The following biographical information is taken largely from Crabb

(2000) as well as Gregory’s Introduction.

Strozzi was born into a Florentine merchant family in circa 1408, married the Florentine

merchant Matteo di Simone Strozzi in 1422 and lived until 1471. Her husband died of the

plague while in politically-motivated exile from Florence in 1435 or early 1436. Over the

45
Since collecting my data from Gregory’s edition of Strozzi’s letters, I have been able to locate a copy of the
Guasti edition. There appear to be only minor discrepancies between the two versions, e.g., there are two
differences in the letter dated 24 August 1447: there is an apostrophe following an instance of de in the Guasti
edition but not in Gregory’s, and Gregory has si spendrà where Guasti has si spenderà on one occasion.
 68
period 1447-1470 (making this the latest written text of my corpus), she wrote letters to

three of her sons, Filippo, Lorenzo and Matteo 46 , who had left Florence to work in the

merchant banking firms of relatives. In these letters, of which 73 are extant, Strozzi writes

about familial news and plans including financial matters and minor merchant business in

which she was involved, and wider news including political happenings.

While Strozzi is unlikely to have had a formal education, she was literate in Tuscan and

could keep accounts. She often complained about the task of writing letters yet seems to

have written out of a desire to communicate personally with her sons for she usually wrote

long and detailed letters even when her sons were being kept up-to-date with family

business and Florentine politics by their sisters’ husbands (Gregory 1997: 7). Strozzi had a

more colloquial writing style than did her male relatives, did not seem to do much planning

or editing and her writing probably reflects her speech (Crabb 2000: 51).

While most of the letters are written in her own hand, Strozzi did dictate some to her

youngest son, Matteo, when he was still living with her in the 1440s, once he had been

taught to read and write in Italian as part of his merchant education 47 . Most of the dictated

letters bear Matteo’s signature but it is not clear whether or not these form part of the

separate collection of letters Matteo composed himself (cf. Crabb 2000: 2, 105). The eight

letters that I used are from the period 1447-1453 (see list below) but appear to be signed by

Alessandra herself for most have a closing such as per la tua Allesandra fu di Matteo degli

Strozi in Firenze (Strozzi, 8 Nov 1448, p.42). Furthermore, a couple of these letters refer to

46
All except one of Strozzi’s extant letters are to her sons. The other is to a cousin of her husband. The first
letter to Matteo was written on 9 September 1458.
47
In a letter dated 24 August 1447, Strozzi states that she was having Matteo learn to write (p.32). Crabb
(2000: 103-104) explains that “as schoolchildren, Alessandra’s sons acquired the skills they needed by
following the vernacular curriculum useful to aspiring merchants, not the humanist Latin curriculum.”
 69
Matteo being away which forces Strozzi to write herself 48 . In any case, the letters remain a

good example of Strozzi’s language and of the “lingua quotidiana della Firenze

quattrocentesca” (Varese 1955: 215). While the possibility of interception of letters

following the extension of their father’s exile to Filippo and Lorenzo in 1458 motivated the

use of cipher in some letters (Crabb 2000: 3), this is of less relevance to my data which

come from letters prior to this period.

The first 100 complement clauses in Strozzi were taken from the first eight letters in

Gregory’s collection. It should be noted that Gregory’s edition omits paragraphs from the

letters in order to include as many letters as possible in her translation. This does not

present any problems for my analysis. The eight letters and their recipients are as follows:

• 24 August 1447 – Filippo

• 8 November 1448 – Filippo
• 13 July 1449 – Filippo
• 26 December 1449 – Filippo
• 8 February 1450 49 – Filippo
• 22 October 1450 – Filippo
• 10 April 1451 – Filippo
• 27 February 1453 – Lorenzo

Where I give corpus examples from Strozzi, I provide the date of the letter and the page

reference in Gregory in the following manner: (Strozzi, 27 Feb 1453, p.68).

48
In a letter dated 8 November 1448, Strozzi writes about Matteo having gone to stay in the country with his
brother-in-law, Marco, saying mi pareva essere impacciata sanza lui, poi mi scrive tutte le lettere (p.38). In
another dated 22 October 1450, Strozzi comments on Matteo’s absence and adds e fatica mi pare lo scrivere
(p.58).
49
Gregory (1997: 225) notes that in fifteenth-century Tuscany the New Year began on 25 March so letters
written prior to this were dated with the previous year, which was 1449 in this case. I have followed Gregory
in conforming the letter dates to today’s New Year beginning of 1 January, which Tuscany did not adopt until
1721.
 70
3.1.3.2 Ricordi – Giovanni di Pagolo Morelli

My second example of merchant writing is the Ricordi written by the Florentine Giovanni

di Pagolo Morelli. I have used the memoir as it appears in Vittore Branca’s 1986

publication Mercanti scrittori: Ricordi nella Firenze tra Medioevo e Rinascimento, which

is taken from Branca’s 1956 publication of Morelli’s Ricordi. The following biographical

information is taken from Varese (1955) as well as from Branca (1986: XXXIV-LI).

Morelli was born into a Florentine wool merchant family in 1371. He was orphaned at the

age of three and thereafter had a difficult childhood. Through his work in commerce, and

various public offices (e.g., Priore and Gonfaloniere di Giustizia), “trovò ricchezze e

onori” (Varese 1955: 253). He lived until 1444. Morelli wrote his Ricordi over the period

1393-1411 (with a brief entry in 1421 to record the death of his eldest son). He wrote this

work for his family and its subsequent generations only (D’Achille 1990: 56 and Tavoni

1992: 175). It consists of a preface and four chapters. In the first chapter, Morelli describes

his family’s home area, the Mugello. In the second chapter and part of the third, Morelli

records the history of his family up to and including his wives and children 50 with details

such as physical appearance, personality, occupation, spouses, offspring and burial sites. In

the remainder of the third chapter, Morelli writes about his experiences as an orphan and

his views on moral and civil education (Branca 1986: XXXVI). The fourth and final

chapter is largely a chronicle of Florentine and wider happenings from 1363 to 1411. The

sections that I used are the preface, the first and second chapters, and the part of the third

chapter concerned with the history of his family (see below). Of the sections I used, the

latest recorded date is 1403 (III, p.159).

50
Morelli married twice (his first wife died) and had nine children.
 71
While there are no issues concerning authorship authenticity as Morelli wrote in his own

hand, it should be noted that this text is quite literary in parts (cf. D’Achille 1990: 57).

Morelli was well-read including classics such as Virgil, Boezio and Dante (Varese 1955:

253). Citing Trolli (1976: 69), Tavoni (1992: 176) suggests that Morelli’s Ricordi fall

between practical and literary writing: “Linguisticamente, un’opera popolare, che riflette

genuinamente il fiorentino del tempo, con ‘fenomeni dialettali…presenti qui con

straordinaria frequenza’ (Trolli 1972: 51), eppure anche con una componente lessicale dotta

e una sua ricerca di decoro stilistico”. D’Achille (1990: 57) also notes that the text contains

syntactic features typical of spoken language.

The first 100 complement clauses in Morelli were taken from the preface and first three

chapters in Branca’s 1986 edition. The first three chapters are titled as follows:

• del paese e luogo propio donde anticamente siamo

• del primo chiarito a noi per nostri libri e scritture
• discendenti del primo nominato e ’l mestiero d’essi e dove abitorono

Where I give corpus examples from Morelli, I provide the chapter number and the page

reference in the following manner: (Morelli, II, p.121).

3.1.3.3 Prediche volgari – Saint Bernardino da Siena

My example of preaching is a collection of sermons that were delivered by the Tuscan

Franciscan Saint Bernardino da Siena in 1427 in Siena. I have used Carlo Delcorno’s two-

volume edition of this collection, Prediche volgari sul Campo di Siena, published in 1989,

which is a revision of Luciano Banchi’s 1880-1888 publication Le prediche volgari di S.

Bernardino da Siena dette nella Piaza del Campo l’anno MCCCCXXVII ora primamente
 72
edite. The following biographical information is taken largely from Delcorno (1989) and

some from Varese (1955).

St Bernardino was born in Massa Marittima in Tuscany in 1380. His Sienese father and

Massese mother were members of the noble class. He was orphaned in the year he turned

six and then raised by a maternal aunt until she died in 1391. He then lived with a childless

couple in Siena but members of his family remained involved in his religious upbringing.

In the period 1392-1402 he took courses in canon law and received tuition in the arts,

philosophy and theology. At the age of 22 he began his noviciate as a Franciscan. He left

Siena in 1414 and spent much of the next ten years preaching throughout the north of Italy.

In 1424 he returned to preaching in Tuscany and Umbria where he also became involved in

public life. In August 1427 he was invited to preach in Siena and did so from 15 August to

5 October. It is this series of sermons which I have used in my study. St Bernardino

continued to preach throughout Italy (and was acquitted of heresy on a couple of occasions)

and was also involved in diplomatic negotiations until his death in the same year as Morelli

(1444).

Considered by most to be the “più belle” of the saint’s sermons (Varese 1955: 42), the 1427

Sienese series was delivered orally in the Campo di Siena, the city’s main square. The 45

sermons in the series cover a range of topics. My data come largely from the first sermon

and some from the second (see below). The first sermon is an exaltation of Mary inspired

by the celebration of the Assumption. The second concerns the care God has for humanity,

and the guardianship of angels. Intended as oral texts, this series of sermons was

transcribed by the textile worker Benedetto di maestro Bartolomeo. While the linguistic

influence of such reportationes can be problematic, e.g., modifying the speech of itinerant
 73
preachers to that of locals (Tavoni 1992: 35-41), it is less of an issue in this particular case.

Given that St Bernardino, his audience and Benedetto were all Sienese, inter-dialectal

adaptations would not have been necessary. While this does not remove the possibility of

other alterations to the original text, Benedetto’s transcription is considered to be very

accurate (Varese 1955: 42; Tavoni 1992: 37), which reduces any issues of authorship

authenticity.

D’Achille (1990: 52 and citing Bolzoni 1984: 1049) comments on the oral nature of the

saint’s sermons, their minimal formal elaboration and their use of direct speech and

questions, which created a dramatic style of preaching. Polecritti (2003: 147-148) explains

that it was not unusual for St Bernardino to preach to large public audiences in piazze:

“popular because of his wit and his story-telling […], he was a traveling celebrity whose

visits were associated with both instruction and pleasure”. While all four of my texts bear

speech-like qualities as discussed, St Bernardino’s series of sermons is the only text in my

corpus which is intended to be oral. Given that my primary interest is in the use of the

subjunctive and indicative in non-literary Tuscan of the Quattrocento rather than a

comparison of speech and writing, the fact that none of my texts would be located at either

extreme of Berruto’s (1993) speech-writing continuum presented in Section 3.1.2 above (cf.

D’Achille 1990: 12), and that Tuscan speech and writing did not differ significantly in this

period, as discussed in Section 3.1.1 above, my inclusion of sermons alongside letters and

ricordi, as per Tavoni (1992), is not problematic.

The first 100 complement clauses in St Bernardino were taken from the first two sermons

in Delcorno’s edition. The first 96 clauses were taken from the first sermon and the final
 74
four from the second. These two sermons, delivered on the 15 and 16 August 1427,

respectively, are described as follows:

• in questa predica si tratta come la nostra gloriosa Madre andò in cielo, e de

l’allegrezza che fece il paradiso di lei
• in questa siconda predica si contiene della mirabile cura che Idio ha sopra
dell’umana natura; e come Idio ci guarda colli angioli suoi

Where I give corpus examples from St Bernardino, I provide the sermon number and the

page reference in Delcorno in the following manner: (Bernardino, I, p.89).

3.1.3.4 Le lettere – Saint Caterina da Siena

My example of religious writing is a collection of letters attributed to the Sienese

Dominican Saint Caterina da Siena. Where possible I have used the first “truly critical

edition” of 88 of the saint’s 382 letters compiled by Eugenio Dupré Theseider and

published in 1940 (Noffke 1988: 20). I have also used Piero Misciattelli’s (1913-1922)

reprint of Niccolò Tommaseo’s collection published in 1860 for letters that were not

available in Dupré Theseider 51 . The following biographical information is taken largely

from Noffke’s (1988) Introduction to her translation into English of some of the letters.

St Caterina was born in Siena in 1347, the twenty-fourth of twenty-five children of the

wool-dyers Iacopo and Lapa di Benincasa. In 1364 or early 1365 she joined the Mantellate,

a Dominican third-order of lay women, and spent the next three years in “almost total

solitude and silence” (Noffke 1988: 32). She then dedicated herself to caring for the sick. In

1374 the Dominican Raimondo da Capua was appointed her spiritual director, and like him,

51
Dupré Theseider died before completing all volumes of his critical edition of St Caterina’s letters. This
work is being continued by Antonio Volpato (cf. Noffke 1988: xiii).
 75
St Caterina began to take an interest in ecclesiastical politics. The saint also gained a circle

of followers who would pray and read with her. While St Caterina had no formal schooling,

she learnt to read during her period of solitude. From the early 1370s, St Caterina used

letter-writing as a way to encourage and influence others including family and the religious

hierarchy, often in an oratorical style (Noffke 1988: 3, 7-8). She also travelled to mediate in

ecclesiastical politics. Initially, the saint dictated her letters but it is possible that by 1377

(when she began composing the Dialogue 52 ) she was writing in her own hand. The saint’s

ability to write, however, remains disputed. St Caterina died at the age of 33.

Of the 382 letters attributed to St Caterina, I elected to study those written to members of

her family and close associates in order to increase both the homogeneity of my selection of

her letters and that of my corpus, given that Strozzi’s letters were written to her sons and

Morelli’s Ricordi was written for his family. This necessitated the use of two editions of the

saint’s letters, as outlined above. I included all known letters to her family (four to her

mother, four to her brothers and two to her nieces 53 ) as well as two of several letters to the

Sienese Alessia de’ Saracini, a disciple and close companion of the saint (see list below).

Of the letters to Alessia, I included the one which is addressed to both Alessia and Cecca

(Francesca di Clemente Gori) because one of the letters to St Caterina’s mother is also

addressed to Cecca. Both Cecca and Alessia acted as scribes for the saint and were

members of the Mantellate.

52
In the Dialogue, St Caterina describes “her vision of life with God in Christ, in the form of a conversation
between herself and God […]” (Noffke 1988: 3).
53
The letter to one of her nieces is very similar to a letter St Caterina wrote to three Neapolitan women
(Misciattelli 1922: 102 citing Tommaseo 1860) (Caterina, XXVI, Tommaseo v.I, p.102).
 76
The issue of the precise authorship of the letters attributed to St Caterina has been raised

often (Noffke 1988: 9). From what has been deduced from them, the letters to her family

were probably written over the early period of her letter-writing (1370-1374). While my

selection of letters falls just outside the generally accepted periodisation of the Quattrocento

(1375-1499), one of the letters to her mother was probably written in 1376 and the dates of

the letters to Alessia which I have used are not certain so I elected to stretch the

periodisation slightly and include these early letters. In the early period, St Caterina’s

female companions acted as her scribes but she came to use male secretaries including the

Sienese Neri di Landoccio Pagliaresi, one of her disciples, during the period of my

selection of letters (Noffke 1988: 9). It is likely that the scribes used a combination of

verbatim transcription and notes to record the saint’s letters especially towards the end of

her life when she often dictated in a state of ecstasy (Noffke 1988: 28 citing Dupré

Theseider 1940: 240 ff.). The issue of authorship authenticity is increased by the fact that

we only have the originals of eight of her 382 letters, which means that the rest have come

to us in the form of copies or copies of copies (Noffke 1988: 10-11). However, given that

the letters still reflect a spontaneous, unpolished, rambling style, e.g., some sentences are

left unfinished (Noffke 1988: 7-8), which suggests that the saint’s speech was not

unrecognisably altered 54 , and that the saint’s scribes were usually Tuscan, the letters are an

adequate sample of early Quattrocento Tuscan for use in my study.

The first 100 complement clauses in St Caterina were taken from a total of 12 letters from

the Dupré Theseider and Tommaseo collections. The 12 letters and their recipients are as

follows:

54
Dupré Theseider (1940: 240 ff. cited by Noffke 1988: 28) argues that “there must have been a certain
metamorphosis at the hands of the secretaries” citing the unexpectedly reduced amount of dialect and the fact
that the letters are “written in good literary language”. It seems likely that the content of the letters was not
altered as much as its expression, e.g., removal of Sienese forms, corrected syntax (Noffke 1988: 11).
 77
• XV (Dupré v.I) – al fratello Benincasa
• XIII (Dupré v.I) – ai suoi tre fratelli
• XIIII (Dupré v.I) – al fratello Benincasa
• XVI (Dupré v.I) – al fratello Benincasa
• I (Tommaseo v.I) – a monna Lapa, sua madre
• VI (Tommaseo v.I) – a monna Lapa, sua madre
• CXVII (Tommaseo v.II) – a monna Lapa sua madre, e a monna Cecca nel
Monasterio di Santa Agnesa di Montepulciano, quand’essa era alla Rocca
• XXIII (Tommaseo v.I) – a Nanna figliuola di Benincasa, verginella, sua nipote, in
Firenze
• XXVI (Tommaseo v.I) – a suora Eugenia sua nipote nel Monastero di Santa Agnesa
di Montepulciano
• LXXXIII (Dupré v.I) – a monna Lapa 55
• CXXVI (Tommaseo v.II) – a monna Alessia e a monna Cecca
• XLIX (Tommaseo v.I) – a monna Alessa ecc.

Where I give corpus examples from St Caterina, I provide the letter number in the edition

from which the letter is taken, the edition and volume, and the page reference, in the

following manner: (Caterina, XIIII, Dupré v.I, p.58).

3.2 Complement clause demarcation

This section builds on the description in Chapter Two of the types of clause considered in

this study. I first summarise the conditions that clauses had to meet to be included in my

corpus. I then present some of the difficulties I faced in demarcating complement clauses

and the solutions adopted.

As noted in the previous section, I collected data on the first 100 complement clauses in

each of the four texts presented in the previous section. To be counted as a complement

clause, the following conditions had to be met:

55
The letters are presented in the order in which I collected clauses from them. I have not grouped this
particular letter with the others to her mother because it did not surface in my initial search.
 78
• the clause contains a verb in the subjunctive or indicative mood (cf. Section 1.3)

• the clause contains a non-syncretised verb form, i.e., verb forms where the

indicative and subjunctive share the same morphology were excluded since it is

impossible to determine their mood 56 . This usually excludes the following forms 57 :

for first conjugation verbs, the second person singular of the present tense, e.g., ami;

for first conjugation verbs ending in -iare, the second person plural of the present

tense, e.g., stroppiate; for all three verb conjugations, the first person plural of the

present and perfect tenses, e.g., amiamo, abbiamo amato, siamo andati, the second

person plural of the passato remoto indicative and the imperfect subjunctive, e.g.,

amaste, and the second person plural of the trapassato remoto indicative and past

perfect subjunctive, e.g., aveste amato.

• the clause functions as a subject or (direct or indirect) object complement of the

governing lexical element. This includes dichiarative but excludes modal, and

indirect interrogative, clauses.

• the clause is subordinate to a single, discretely-occurring GLE.

The last of these conditions requires some discussion and in doing so I address some of the

difficulties in complement clause demarcation that I faced. Given that I am primarily

concerned with the modal governance of lexical elements in governing clauses, rather than

with complement clauses per se (cf. Sections 1.3 and 3.3), I only counted complement

clauses which were governed by a single, discretely-occurring lexical element. In this way,

56
These exclusions are in line with Meihuizen-Dokkum (1974: 20-21) and Stefinlongo (1977). While
Stefinlongo does not actually state that she did not collect data on complement clauses that contain
syncretised verb forms, we can infer that she did not when she qualifies an example of coordination between
the indicative and subjunctive moods by saying that one could include it “se non fosse che il primo verbo
della subordinata (entri) è in sincretismo modale” (1977: 701).
57
It is not always necessary to exclude these parts of the paradigms of irregular verbs (cf. Meihuizen-Dokkum
1974: 20-21).
 79
I was able to maximise the analytical potential of the corpus because a corpus of 400 single,

discretely-occurring GLEs provides more reliable statistical information on the influence of

the semantics of the GLE on the mood of complement clauses. This decision had three

implications for the demarcation of complement clauses in my texts, which I discuss in turn

below.

Firstly, it meant that I counted complement clauses that were governed by a clearly

identifiable GLE, rather than those possibly governed by GLEs in earlier sections of the

text as in the following example: la seconda è, [che voi consideriate el frutto che segue

delle fatiche] (Caterina, XIIII, Dupré v.I, p.57). This issue of ‘non-GLE’ governed

complement clauses arose in one of the letters of St Caterina. In this letter, St Caterina

encourages one of her brothers to remember three things, which she lists as follows:

E se vi paresse molto duro a portare le molte fatiche, riducovi a memoria tre cose,

acciò che portiate più patientemente. E prima, voglio [che pensiate la brevità del

tempo vostro]1, che non sete sicuro del dì di domane. […] La seconda è, [che voi

consideriate el frutto che segue delle fatiche]2, ché dice san Paolo che no è

comparatione dalle fatiche a rispetto del frutto e rimuneratione della superna

gloria. La terza si è, [che voi consideriate il danno che séguita a coloro che portano

con ira e con impatientia]3: ché séguita questo danno qui, e la pena eternale di là.

(Caterina, XIIII, Dupré v.I, pp.56-57)

The first clause that I have square-bracketed in this example is a complement clause

governed by the verb volere and I included it in my corpus. The second and third bracketed

clauses, however, while like the first complement clause, are not governed by a clearly
 80
identifiable GLE. It could be argued that they are governed by the same volere that governs

the first clause, which is not unlike Stefinlongo’s suggestion that GLEs may exert influence

over many clauses (cf. Section 2.1.1 above). Since I am interested in the modal influence of

GLEs, in the absence of a clearly identifiable GLE, I excluded such clauses from my

corpus. Moreover, this particular series of clauses is similar to a string, my exclusion of

which I discuss later in this section.

The second implication of counting only complement clauses governed by a single,

discretely-occurring GLE was that it meant I counted complement clauses that were

governed by single GLEs only, rather than those plausibly governed by more than one GLE

as in the following example: […] vogliamo piuttosto giudicare e credere [che le cose o

prospere o dannose ci avvenghino per avventura o per indotto di più o di meno senno], che

per volontà di Dio (Morelli, III, p.139). The issue of multiple GLEs arose in the Ricordi of

Morelli and Le lettere of St Caterina. In each of these texts there are two cases where a

complement clause is subordinate to a governing clause containing two verbs (or two

nouns, in one case) joined by the coordinating conjunction e, each of which could govern a

complement clause by itself and both of which would be classified as the same type of

subjunctive, e.g., ella consentì e volse [ch’eglino si partisseno] (Caterina, LXXXIII, Dupré

v.I, p.338). In this example, the verbs consentire and volere would both be classified as

volitive. Apart from their classification as the same type of subjunctive, the verbs in these

‘double GLEs’ do not appear to form a single verbal unit along the lines of constructions

involving the verb mandare and a verbum dicendi e.g., mandare a dire (Stefinlongo 1977:

488), e.g., Che insino a Neri di Gin Capponi mi mandò a dire [ch’i’ ero una sciocca a

mandallo] (Strozzi, 13 Jul 1449, p.44). Since it would not be possible to evaluate the

respective modal governances of each lexical element in a ‘double GLE’ (in the absence of
 81
a minimal pair), I elected to exclude such doubles and to count complement clauses that

were subordinate to single GLEs only.

The third implication of counting only complement clauses governed by a single,

discretely-occurring GLE was that it meant that in the case of complement clauses sharing a

single GLE, I counted only the first clause in the ‘string’, e.g., de’ fatti del Comune,

t’avviso [che ho debito fiorini dugento quaranta]1, e [sono istata molestata da no’ meno di

quattro Ufici, che hanno a riscuotere pel Comune]2 (Strozzi, 24 Aug 1447, p.32). The issue

of complement clauses sharing a single GLE first arose out of the inconsistent punctuation,

and abundant and sometimes ambiguous use of che, in Le lettere of Strozzi. As Gregory

(1997: 8) notes, Strozzi’s “prose is often lacking in clear grammatical structure”. She

explains further that “punctuation in the modern sense was not used in Renaissance Italy,

and [Strozzi’s] letters are generally made up of very long sentences and infrequent stops”.

Furthermore, Crabb (2000: 2) notes that Guasti’s (1877) transcription of Strozzi’s letters

(upon which Gregory’s selection and translation are based) “has some imperfections by

current standards, particularly in the way he partially modernized spelling and

punctuation”. This is evidenced by the use of the semi-colon and the exclamation mark 58 .

Nevertheless, in some strings of coordinated clauses, it would actually have been a

straightforward task to determine the syntactic nature of each clause based on unambiguous

syntax, meaning and context. In the following example I have bracketed the two clauses

that I would consider to be complement clauses of the governing clause istimasi:

58
The semi-colon was invented by Aldus Manutius (1450-1515) and so would not have been in use at the
time Strozzi wrote most of her letters. The exclamation mark did not come into use in print until the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries and so is also unlikely to have been used by Strozzi.
 82
Istimasi [che questo verno non farà troppo danno]1, ma [che a primavera

comincierà a fare il fracasso]2: che Iddio ci aiuti! e Matteo m’ha sentito dire che,

sendoci morìa, non ho danari da partirmi: ed è vero. (Strozzi, 8 Nov 1448, p.38)

The use of the adversative coordinating conjunction ma and the repetition of the

conjunction che make it quite clear that the second bracketed clause fulfills one of the

arguments of istimasi and could therefore be considered, just as much as the first bracketed

clause, a subject complement of the governing clause.

However, there were a number of cases for which such an approach would have been

difficult, if not impossible, and the interpretation highly subjective. Take the following

example in which the governing clause egli è vero has at least one but plausibly up to six

complement clauses, each of which I have bracketed:

Egli è vero [che qua è cominciato la morìa]1, e [chi ha ’vuto d’andare in villa, se

n’è ito]2; e [ancora per le ville n’è morti]3, e [quasi per tutto il contado ne muore

quand’uno e quand’un altro]4; e [la brigata si sta per ancora in villa]5; e [credo,

non faciendoci altrimenti danno, che torneranno ora a Firenze]6. (Strozzi, 8 Nov

1448, pp.36-38)

The first bracketed clause is clearly a subject complement of egli è vero: it fulfills one of

the arguments of the predicate, it is preceded by the conjunction che and it directly follows

the impersonal GLE. However, it is difficult to determine from the punctuation whether or

not the successive clauses are also subject complements of this governing clause. All of the

successive clauses are linked through the coordinating conjunction e but none of them is
 83
introduced by the conjunction che. The argument for the complement status of each clause

becomes subjectively weaker the further away from the governing clause the clause occurs,

until the final bracketed clause beginning with credo (itself a governing clause to a

complement clause) which seems least likely to have been intended as a subject

complement of egli è vero, partly due to its change in subject to the first person singular. In

fact, the editor’s use of a semi-colon following the second bracketed clause appears to be

some attempt to evaluate the strength of the links between the successive clauses and the

governing clause. However, the punctuation is not a sufficiently reliable guide to the

precise syntactic nature of each clause for the reasons outlined earlier.

Strozzi’s abundant use of che further complicates the demarcation of complement clauses.

As discussed in Section 2.2.1, the conjunction che has been found to be the most frequently

used conjunction in both Old and Modern Italian and to have a multiplicity of uses, some of

which are difficult to determine. Take the following example from one of Strozzi’s letters

in which I have bracketed the possible complement clauses to the governing clause

aspettasi:

Aspettasi [che la gravezza nuova esca fuori per tutto ottobre]1; [che se mi fanno il

dovere, come dicono, di non porre albìtro a vedove e pupilli, non arò duo fiorini]2;

[che forse non farò tanto debito]3. (Strozzi, 24 Aug 1447, p.32)

The first instance of che in this example quite clearly has a complementiser function: la

gravezza nuova esca fuori per tutto ottobre directly follows the GLE aspettasi and fulfills

one of the arguments of the predicate. However, the successive clauses introduced by che

are not necessarily complements of aspettasi. In fact, the further away from aspettasi the
 84
clause appears, the less it seems to be governed by it. In these cases, che seems to have an

‘introductory’ or coordinating function, introducing each predicate and linking it to the

preceding ones but without necessarily marking syntactic subordination 59 .

Tesi (2001: 161) lends some support for this analysis when he argues that the language of

Strozzi tends to align (allineare) clauses rather than arrange them according to a hierarchy

of logical-grammatical links (collegamenti logico-grammaticali). He further argues that “la

presenza di un nesso giustappositivo come il che ‘polivalente’ [cf. Section 2.2.1 above] […]

testimonia la deriva delle strutture ipotattiche più ‘leggere’ (come una frase relativa) verso

la paratassi e la coordinazione”. Similarly, Trifone (1989: 81) observes that there are more

paratactic than hypotactic structures in Strozzi’s letters and he argues that any

subordination is often quite juxtapositional in appearance, as exemplified by the use of the

generic (generico) che.

A further complication in the interpretation of che in my texts is cases of ‘contextual

syncretism’ (sincretismo contestuale) whereby the syntactic function of the clause “dipende

da come si interpreta il che” (Stefinlongo 1977: 493). Take the following example from one

of Strozzi’s letters:

E per quella ti scrissi della casetta di Niccolò Popoleschi, [che s’è venduta a

Donato Ruciellai]1, che ci è a confini, cioè in sulla corte, [che per verun modo non

si vole lasciare uscire di mano]2. (Strozzi, 8 Nov 1448, pp.40-42)

59
This use of che bears a resemblance to those studied by Bertuccelli Papi (1995) and Segre (1963), which I
discussed in Section 2.3.2 above.
 85
While it could be argued that the clauses that I have bracketed describe the casetta and

therefore that che is actually a relative pronoun, Gregory, in her translation of this letter

into English 60 , interprets the clauses as complements of ti scrissi. Mindful that it is

impossible to be categorical, I, like Stefinlongo, included such clauses (although only the

first in the case of a ‘string’) provided that the context supported a complementiser

interpretation.

This issue of contextual syncretism also arose in the analysis of clauses following come. As

discussed in Section 2.2.1 above, come can sometimes be used as a conjunction rather than

an adverb, e.g., tu mi di’ de’ fatti di Matteo, [come t’ha scritto una lettera di nostro istato]

(Strozzi, 8 Nov 1448, p.36). My method to distinguish the two uses was to substitute che

and in quale modo for come. If the context supported the substitution of che, I considered

the following clause to be a complement and included it in my corpus, as in the example

given from Strozzi. If the context supported the substitution of in quale modo, I considered

the following clause to be adverbial and excluded it from my corpus, e.g., vuo’ vedere

[come questo è vero]? (Bernardino, I, p.95). This distinction, however, was sometimes

difficult to make, in part because when come is used as a conjunction, it tends to have a

more ‘descriptive’ (descrittivo) effect than does che anyway (Sabatini and Coletti 1997: s.v.

come). This was particularly the case in the Prediche volgari of St Bernardino:

60
“In that letter I told you about Niccolò Popoleschi’s little house, that it’s been sold to Donato Rucellai and
that it borders on this one, that is on the courtyard side, and that we wouldn’t want by any means to lose our
chance of [buying] it.” (Gregory 1997: 41-43)
 86
Nel quale sacro parlare noi faremo tre contemplazioni. Prima: vedremo [come

Maria, salendo in cielo, è da tutti li spiriti beati essaltata o vuoi invitata]1; dove

dice: <<Surge>>. Seconda contemplazione: vedremo come Maria […]. Prima

vediamo [come Maria è da tutta la gloria invitata]2. […] (Bernardino, I, p.87)

While both clauses that I have marked could arguably be considered adverbial, I included

only the first as a complement clause because St Bernardino does not go on immediately to

explain ‘in what way’ Mary is da tutti li spiriti beati essaltata o vuoi invitata, whereas he

does do this in the passage following the second example, elucidating his first

contemplation, which gives the second clause a more strongly adverbial nature. The

difference in tense of the governing verb vedere in these cases contributes to this

interpretation, with the clause following vedere in the present tense seeming more adverbial

than that following the one in the future. Again mindful that it is impossible to be

categorical, I included clauses following come in my corpus provided that the context

supported a complementiser interpretation.

Returning to the issue of shared GLEs, slightly different cases of complement clauses

sharing a single GLE arose in the letters of St Caterina:

Così voglio [che facciate voi]1, carissimo fratello: [che siate amatore delle virtù]2,

con una patientia santa e con una confessione spessa, che vi farà portare le vostre

fatiche. (Caterina, XVI, Dupré v.I, pp.60-61)

In this example, I considered the second clause, which elaborates the adverb così, to share

the GLE volere of the first complement clause and I therefore excluded it from my corpus.
 87
My decision to count only the first clause in any ‘string’ of complement clauses possibly

sharing a single GLE is not intended to argue that the further away from the GLE a

complement clause occurs, the less strongly its modal outcome is governed by the lexical

element in the governing clause. I am not taking a position on the scope of modal

governance. While it would be interesting to determine what happens to the scope of mood

selection in strings of complement clauses, a corpus of 400 discretely-occurring GLEs

provides more reliable statistical information on the influence of the semantics of the GLE

on the mood of complement clauses, as argued above. The fact that my decision also helped

avoid the subjective task of determining the ‘syntactic intent’ of writing that lacks “clear

grammatical structure” was a useful secondary benefit.

A less subjective but equally problematic approach would have been to accept all clauses

between full stops as complement clauses to a single governing clause unless they were

clearly of the non-complement variety, e.g., introduced by a non-complement conjunction.

However, this approach would have reduced the number of discretely-occurring GLEs in

the corpus and thus weakened its analytical potential, as argued above. Moreover, both this

approach and the subjective case-by-case approach would likely have resulted in a skewed

corpus because the writers of the texts in the corpus punctuated their writing to different

degrees of consistency.

In cases where I excluded the first in a string of coordinated complement clauses for some

reason (e.g., syncretised morphology, non-subjunctive/indicative), I did not count any of

the successive complement clauses, again because the scope of modal governance is

outside the aims of this thesis. Moreover, in analysing cases of coordination of subjunctive

and indicative, Segre (1963: 208-209) suggests that the clauses that occur in the indicative
 88
do not seem coordinated to the preceding ones in the subjunctive but rather are more like

“incidentali aggiunte”. He argues further that such cases are another example of a shift

from subordinate to non-subordinate constructions.

In cases where a complement clause was governed by a clause that was itself a clause

which I had not included in my corpus because it was one of a string, I determined the

governing clause type (subordinate vs. non-subordinate) (cf. Section 3.3.5 below) on a

case-by-case basis because the subordinate status of governing clauses does not impact

upon the collection of 400 single, discretely-occurring GLEs. Take the following example:

tu di’ che, veduto che qua Matteo, sì per amore della morìa, [che porta pericolo a

starci]1, e sì perchè e’ perde tempo e non fa nulla, [Niccolò è contento]2 [lo mandi

costà]3, e [ch’ io lo metta in punto]4 (Strozzi, 8 Nov 1448, p.36)

In this example, I included in my corpus the first bracketed clause, which is governed by

the verb dire. I did not include the second or fourth bracketed clauses because they are also

governed by the same dire. I included the third bracketed clause because it is a complement

clause governed by the contento of the second bracketed clause which I considered to be

subordinate. Where determining the degree of subordination of a clause in a string was

highly subjective, as discussed earlier, I recorded the governing clause type as

‘indeterminable’. There are only two such cases in my corpus 61 , the following of which I

discussed earlier in this section (cf. Section 3.3.5 below for the other example): credo, non

faciendoci altrimenti danno, [che torneranno ora a Firenze] (Strozzi, 8 Nov 1448, p.36). In

61
As the subordinate status of governing clauses does not impact upon the collection of 400 single, discretely-
occurring GLEs, as argued earlier, I was more likely to consider ‘string’ clauses as subordinate when faced
with a subordinate/non-subordinate distinction.
 89
this example, the governing clause credo of the complement clause che torneranno ora a

Firenze is the sixth in a string of possible complement clauses to the governing clause egli

è vero but seems least likely to have been intended as a subject complement.

In summary, the primary motivation for counting only those clauses governed by a single,

discretely-occurring lexical element was to maximise the analytical potential of the corpus.

In the case of multiple GLEs, it would have been impossible (in the absence of minimal

pairs) to evaluate the respective modal governances of more than one GLE per complement

clause, and to have counted complement clauses not governed by clearly identifiable GLEs,

or more than one complement clause per governing clause, would have reduced the number

of discretely-occurring GLEs in the corpus. In turn, these methods would have weakened

any possible generalisations about the modal governance of particular lexical elements.

3.3 Coding categories

In this section I present the categories by which I coded the clauses of my corpus. In

Chapter One, I observed that, while some researchers, such as Wandruszka (1991), propose

certain underlying principles for the modal outcomes of complement clauses, and most

concur that the governing lexical element has a significant influence, studies show that

mood can be influenced by various other semantic or syntactic factors and/or that these

other factors contribute to the underlying principles (cf. Stefinlongo 1977; Stewart 1996;

Vegnaduzzo 2000; Kinder and Savini 2004). However, there has been little systematic

analysis of these ‘other’ factors; they tend to be reported in an ad hoc fashion. My aim is to

determine whether or not any generalisations can be made about the modal influence of
 90
these factors. Given the time limitations of the thesis, I selected only those categories that

researchers indicate as appearing to have some influence on mood in Italian.

3.3.1 Semantics of governing lexical element

The governing lexical element forms a large part of my analysis. As mentioned above, most

researchers concur on the significant modal influence of the GLE whereby its semantics

influences, if not determines, the mood of the complement clause. In fact, as discussed in

Section 1.2 above, Stefinlongo (1977) and Vegnaduzzo (2000) found that, in the thirteenth

century, mood selection in complement and subordinate clauses, respectively, was

principally determined by the semantics of the GLE. Furthermore, Stefinlongo (1977: 689)

claims that the influence of the GLE can override the influence of other factors such as

negation. However, Stefinlongo (1977: 687), along with others (cf. Wandruszka 1991:

422), also cites examples where the mood of the complement clause determines the

semantic interpretation of the GLE. In order to determine the modal influence of the

semantics of the GLE, I classified each GLE (whether followed by the subjunctive or

indicative) according to Wandruszka’s (1991) three types of subjunctive as outlined in

Section 1.1.2 above, which are based on broad semantic categories: volitive, epistemic,

thematic. Within the indicative mood, I have paid some attention to the use of the future

tense because Wandruszka appears to treat it as a mood in itself, almost equating it with the

finite moods he identifies at the beginning of his chapter, and because Stefinlongo (1977:

470) excluded complement clauses in the future tense because she held that the temporal

value of these cases cancelled the subjunctive-indicative dichotomy.

 91
The semantic classification of GLEs also allowed me to compare the frequency of use of

each of these types of subjunctive in my corpus with that observed by Wandruszka (1991)

and Vegnaduzzo (2000). I was also able to determine whether or not the semantic

classification of the GLE has a bearing on the modal influence of other factors, which I

discuss where applicable.

3.3.2 Grammatical class of governing lexical element

Vegnaduzzo (2000: 704) found that the grammatical class of the GLE (e.g., verb, noun,

adjective/adverb) has an influence on the mood of the complement clause. I therefore also

classified the GLEs of my corpus by their class.

3.3.3 Type of complement clause

Stefinlongo (1977) and Wandruszka (1991) both suggest that the type of complement

clause influences its mood, as discussed in Section 2.1.2 above. Specifically, they observe

differences in the modal outcomes of subject and object complement clauses. They do not

investigate differences in the further clausal distinctions made by Acquaviva (1991), which

would be neutralised in clauses in the inflected form anyway (cf. Section 2.1.2 above). I

therefore coded my corpus by the object-subject distinction alone. I also coded my corpus

for dichiarative to determine any patterns in their modal outcome (cf. Section 2.3.2 above).
 92
3.3.4 Clause position

The position of the complement clause in relation to the governing clause has been found to

have a bearing on the mood of the subordinate clause, as discussed in Section 2.2.2 above.

For example, Wandruszka (1991) cites examples of left-dislocation promoting subjunctive

use in complement clauses. I therefore coded my corpus in terms of clause position.

3.3.5 Type of governing clause

Stefinlongo (1977: 256, 490, 687, 692-693) found that the type of clause in which the GLE

occurs, e.g., hypothetical, relative, temporal, can influence the mood of the complement

clause by modifying or strengthening the government of its GLE even to the point of it

becoming a “reggenza supplementare”. Wandruszka (1991: 435-436, 443, 457) and

Vegnaduzzo (2000: 701-702) also suggest that the hypothetical construction has an

influence on mood in complement clauses. Given that for Stefinlongo the most important

distinction appears to be whether or not the GLE occurs within a subordinate or non-

subordinate clause, and that all three researchers cite examples of the hypothetical

construction promoting subjunctive use, I collected data on these two features only.

As discussed in Section 2.1.1 above, I consider to be subordinate all clauses that are clearly

dependent on a governing clause grammatically and semantically. While some scholars

consider infinitives dependent on inflected forms to be subordinate clauses as well, as

discussed in Section 2.1.2 above, in the case of a non-finite verb form, e.g., infinitive,

gerund, I determined its subordinate status from the clause by which it is governed. I also
 93
consider non-finite forms to preserve the person, number, tense, aspect and mood of the

clause by which they are governed. Take the following example:

e perchè nell’orazione abbondassero le molte battaglie in diversi modi, e tenebre di

mente con molta confusione, facendole il dimonio vedere [che la sua orazione non

fusse piacevole a Dio] (Caterina, XXVI, Tommaseo v.I, p.107)

In this case, I consider the GLE vedere to preserve the person, number, tense, aspect, mood

and subordinate status of facendo, which in turn preserves these features of the subordinate

clause in the imperfect subjunctive by which it is governed. In two cases in my corpus the

type of governing clause was difficult to determine so I recorded it as ‘indeterminable’,

e.g., dissi che la lampana è stretta di sotto: e così il cuore nostro; a significare [che il

cuore debba essere stretto verso queste cose terrene], cioè in non desiderarle nè amarle

disordinatamente […] (Caterina, XXIII, Tommaseo v.I, p.91) (cf. Section 3.2 above for the

other example).

3.3.6 Complementiser

As discussed in Section 2.2.1 above, Acquaviva (1991), Wandruszka (1991), Dardano and

Trifone (1997) and Sabatini and Coletti (1997) all claim that the type of complementiser

(che, come, ca, none) has an influence on the mood of the complement clause. I therefore

coded my corpus in terms of this factor. I also noted cases where the complementiser was

repeated and whether or not there was some form of clausal insertion between the

governing and complement clauses in these cases, firstly, because this has been found to be
 94
common in Old Italian (cf. Stefinlongo 1977: 495), and, secondly, to determine if this

influences the mood of the complement clause.

3.3.7 Negation

Negation has been found to have a strong influence on the mood of complement clauses.

Wandruszka (1991) and Vegnaduzzo (2000) provide many examples where the mood of the

complement clause is influenced by the negation of the governing clause. Stefinlongo

(1977: 256) claims that the negation of either the governing or complement clause can

influence the mood of the complement clause. I therefore coded my corpus for negation of

either or both the governing and complement clauses.

3.3.8 Direct interrogation

Stefinlongo (1977: 469), Wandruszka (1991: 440, 448, 461) and Kinder and Savini (2004:

405) all suggest that the mood of the complement clause is influenced when the GLE

occurs within a direct interrogative clause. I therefore coded my corpus for direct

interrogative contexts.

3.3.9 Person and number

Stefinlongo (1977: 482), Wandruszka (1991: 432-434, 437, 441, 449), Stewart (1996: 257)

and Kinder and Savini (2004: 405) all suggest that the person of the governing clause has

an influence on the mood of the complement clause. Wandruszka (1991: 434, 437) also

suggests that the number of the governing clause has an influence on mood in combination
 95
with person. He suggests further that the person of the complement clause has an influence

on mood (1991: 421). I therefore coded my corpus for person and number of the governing

clause, and for person (but not number) of the complement clause.

3.3.10 Tense and aspect

Wandruszka (1991: 445-446, 448), Stewart (1996: 256-257), Vegnaduzzo (2000: 701) and

Kinder and Savini (2004: 405) all cite examples where the tense of the governing and

complement clauses has an influence on the mood of the complement clause, with the

distinction between past and non-past tenses being the most important 62 . Wandruszka

(1991: 445, 473), Stewart (1996: 257, 292) and Kinder and Savini (2004: 408) also suggest

that the aspect of the governing clause has a bearing on the mood of the complement

clause, with the distinction between perfect and imperfect tenses being the most important.

I therefore coded my corpus for the tense of the governing and complement clauses, and for

the aspect of the governing clause (limiting my study of aspect to past tenses).

3.3.11 Mood of governing clause

Stefinlongo (1977: 256, 494), Wandruszka (1991: 421, 435), Vegnaduzzo (2000: 702-703)

and Kinder and Savini (2004: 410) all suggest that the mood of the governing clause has an

influence on the mood of its complement clause. I therefore coded my corpus for all

possible moods of the governing clause.

62
As mentioned in Section 1.2 above, Stefinlongo’s (1977: 256) findings on the influence of the tense of the
governing clause on the mood of the complement clause were inconclusive.
 96
3.3.12 Causative construction

Given that Maiden and Robustelli (2000: 317) and Vegnaduzzo (2000: 696, 700) observe

that fare with a causative value tends to be followed by the subjunctive, I decided to

investigate the influence of the causative construction on the mood of the complement

clause. While these scholars consider fare che to be a ‘causative construction’, I coded my

corpus for constructions of the type ‘fare + infinitive + che’ only. I consider the modal

influence of causative fare separately in Section 4.16.2.1 of my analysis.

3.3.13 Modal verbs

Stefinlongo (1977: 256) found that the mood of the complement clause can be influenced

by a modal verb preceding the GLE 63 . I therefore recorded the presence of any modal verbs

in governing clauses so as to consider their possible influence on the mood of the

complement clause 64 .

3.3.14 Adverbs and adjectives

Stefinlongo (1977: 256) cites examples where the presence of an adverb or adjective in

either the governing or complement clause can influence the mood of the complement

63
Vegnaduzzo (2000: 709) also cites one example where intendere, which he finds is usually followed by the
indicative, is followed by the subjunctive when preceded by the modal verb potere.
64
Stefinlongo (1977: 490) also cites examples of dovere in complement clauses following governing verbs
such as pregare. However, given that she describes the use of dovere in these cases as ‘pleonastic’ and almost
obligatory, it did not appear worth considering the influence on mood of the presence of modal verbs in the
complement clause.
 97
clause by modifying or strengthening the government of the GLE 65 . I therefore coded my

corpus for adverbial and adjectival modifiers.

3.3.15 ‘si’ impersonale

Vegnaduzzo (2000: 701) suggests that the use of the ‘si’ impersonale can influence the

mood of the complement clause. As his one example occurs in a governing clause, I coded

the governing clauses of my corpus for the presence of the ‘si’ impersonale.

3.3.16 Other

In the event that there appeared to be case-specific factors influencing the modal outcome

of particular complement clauses, I noted these as they arose. For example, Vegnaduzzo

(2000: 702) states that parere is normally followed by the subjunctive but can be followed

by the indicative especially if there is a human referent mentioned in the dative, which

changes the meaning of the governing verb from ‘sembrare’ to ‘ritenere, pensare’.

3.3.17 Text type

Finally, I considered the modal influence of text type. As discussed in Chapter One, several

researchers have highlighted the influence of style and register on the subjunctive-

indicative dichotomy (cf. Wandruszka 1991; Vegnaduzzo 2000; Kinder and Savini 2004).

Having selected a range of different texts for my corpus using Tavoni’s (1992) hierarchy

65
Wandruszka (1991: 465, 469) and Vegnaduzzo (2000: 707) also cite some examples of adverbial and
adjectival influence of mood although in the context of non-complement clauses only.
 98
(cf. Section 3.1.2 above), I was able to explore Stefinlongo’s (1977) hypothesis that text

type influences mood (cf. Sections 1.2 and 2.1.1 above) by comparing the texts of my

corpus according to some of the above factors.

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Chapter Four: Analysis and discussion

In this chapter I present my findings on the use of the subjunctive and indicative in my

corpus. I begin by presenting my major findings on the influence on mood selection in

complement clauses of the semantics of the governing lexical element (GLE). The body

of the chapter is concerned with the factors that have been found in the literature to

influence the mood of complement clauses, and were identified in Section 3.3 above.

For each factor, I make comparisons between the four texts of my corpus where

appropriate and between my findings and those of Stefinlongo (1977) and Vegnaduzzo

(2000) where there are parallel data. As the GLE is the focus of my analysis, I return to

it in more detail in the final section of this chapter and discuss a selection of lexical

items. In particular, I look at the GLEs that appear with both moods in my corpus and

frequently-occurring GLEs that appear with one mood only.

4.1 Semantics of governing lexical element

The incidence of indicative and subjunctive in my corpus is almost equal. Of the 400

complement clauses, 207 (51.75%) are in the indicative and 193 (48.25%) are in the

subjunctive. Of the indicatives, 26 (12.56%) are in a future tense 66 . Some scholars

consider this temporal value to override the subjunctive-indicative dichotomy (cf.

Section 3.3.1 above). However, all except one of the cases in the future occur following

an epistemic GLE and do not significantly affect the proportion of indicative to

subjunctive within this group and therefore do not weaken my findings on the

dichotomy. On the other hand, the distribution of epistemic, volitive and thematic GLEs

in the corpus is far from equal. Of the 400 GLEs, 281 (70.25%) are epistemic, 105

(26.25%) are volitive, and 14 (3.50%) are thematic. The preponderance of epistemic

66
One is in the futuro anteriore, the others are in the futuro semplice.
 100
GLEs in the corpus is difficult to explain satisfactorily. One possible explanation is that

the particular texts of my corpus use epistemic contexts more frequently, as shall be

discussed below.

However, while there are more epistemic GLEs in the corpus, it is not the case that there

are more epistemic subjunctives. Of the 193 subjunctives in the corpus, 103 (53.37%) of

them are governed by a volitive lexical element, 82 (42.49%) by an epistemic lexical

element, and 8 (4.15%) by a thematic lexical element. This supports Wandruszka’s

(1991: 417) claim that the volitive subjunctive is used more than the epistemic or

thematic ones and that it is used in all registers and syntactic constructions more than

the others. Furthermore, of the three types of subjunctive, Vegnaduzzo (2000: 695, 697,

704-705) found volitive verbs and nouns to be the most numerous and he found only

three cases of a subjunctive following a thematic GLE.

The incidence of indicative and subjunctive within the three GLE semantic groups is

also far from equal. In complement clauses governed by an epistemic lexical element,

70.82% (199) are in the indicative, while 29.18% (82) are in the subjunctive. Of the

volitive-governed complement clauses, 98.10% (103) are in the subjunctive, and of the

thematic-governed complement clauses, 8 (57.14%) are in the subjunctive and 6

(42.86%) are in the indicative. The two volitive-governed complement clauses in the

indicative require some discussion. One is in the futuro semplice following sperare:

[…] e spero coll’aiuto suo [che assai utile ve ne seguitarà all’anime vostre]

(Bernardino, I, p.111). As mentioned above, the future tense may override the

subjunctive-indicative dichotomy in this case. The other example follows accordarsi:

ora, per grazia di Dio, mi sono accordata co’ loro per ensino a febbraio; [che pago, tra

tutti, il mese fiorini nove o circa] (Strozzi, 24 Aug 1447, p.32). While there are a few
 101
factors present in this example that I find promote the use of the indicative (first person

singular governing clause, first person complement clause, object complement clause),

these are also present in other volitive cases. However, the selection of this clause as

being a complement clause is not incontrovertible for it is not as clearly subordinate to

accordarsi as other complement clauses in my corpus are to their GLEs.

The almost categorical modal outcome of volitive-governed complement clauses would

seem to be strong evidence that the subjunctive is semantically-motivated in this

context. Given this finding and the small proportion of thematic GLEs in my corpus, the

focus of my analysis will be on the modal outcome of epistemic GLEs in order to

determine which factors influence modal outcome in this context.

Special consideration should be given here to the influence of text type. The overall

incidence of indicative and subjunctive is fairly evenly distributed across the four texts

of my corpus. However, the distribution of the three GLE semantic groups and the

proportion of the two moods within them vary between the texts as shown in Table 1

below:

Text Mood GLE semantic group Total

epistemic volitive thematic
Strozzi indicative 56 1 1 58
subjunctive 12 25 5 42
Total 68 26 6 100
Morelli indicative 53 0 2 55
subjunctive 26 19 0 45
Total 79 19 2 100
St Bernardino indicative 44 1 3 48
subjunctive 27 24 1 52
Total 71 25 4 100
St Caterina indicative 46 0 0 46
subjunctive 17 35 2 54
Total 63 35 2 100
Corpus total 281 105 14 400
Table 1: Distribution of indicative and subjunctive within GLE semantic groups by text
 102
Le lettere of St Caterina da Siena have the highest percentage of complement clauses in

the subjunctive (54%) followed closely by the Prediche volgari of St Bernardino da

Siena (52%). In both the other two texts, the complement clauses in the subjunctive are

fewer than 50% (Strozzi 42%, Morelli 45%). St Caterina also has the highest raw figure

of complement clauses governed by a volitive lexical element (35) and the lowest raw

figure of those governed by an epistemic lexical element (63). Given that her writing

has the smallest difference in proportion of volitive to epistemic GLEs and the highest

raw figure of volitive GLEs, it is not surprising that her writing has the highest

percentage of subjunctives. Nor is it surprising that her writing has such a high

proportion of volitive GLEs. The saint’s letters are highly exhortative (cf. Librandi

2001), e.g., priegovi [che voi vi correggiate di questo difetto e degli altri], e che

perdoniate alla mia ignoranza (Caterina, XIIII, Dupré v.I, p.58).

The relative predominance of epistemic contexts in the other three texts may reflect the

primary intentions of their writing, which are concerned with knowledge/belief. In her

letters, Alessandra Macinghi Strozzi keeps her sons up-to-date with what is happening

in their familial and wider circles. In the Ricordi, Giovanni di Pagolo Morelli records

the history of his family, which includes personal details about family members as well

as details about property and business, and D’Achille (1990: 57) observes specifically

that the “parte ‘precettistica’ è limitata”. In his sermons, St Bernardino’s principal role

is that of a teacher. He presents information or asks (often rhetorical) questions that

regard his listener’s knowledge/belief. However, this is not to say that these three texts

do not also contain exhortations to their recipients or that the letters of St Caterina are

not concerned with knowledge/belief. The texts differ, however, in terms of their

primary intention, which consequently has a bearing on the GLEs that are used.
 103
The high incidence of subjunctive in the sermons of St Bernardino, on the other hand, is

attributable to the fact that his writing has the highest raw figure of epistemic-governed

subjunctives (27) and the smallest difference in proportion of indicative (61.97%) to

subjunctive (38.03%) for complement clauses governed by an epistemic lexical element,

that is, more of his epistemic GLEs are followed by the subjunctive than is the case in

the other texts. The relatively high percentage of subjunctives in the Prediche volgari is

further explained by the fact that this text contains over 35% (16) of the complement

clauses that are governed by the GLE credere in my corpus, which I have found to be

almost always followed by the subjunctive when the complement clause is in the

imperfect or present tense (as it is in 15 of St Bernardino’s 16 cases) (cf. Section

4.16.1.3 below).

The writings of Strozzi and Morelli have the highest percentages of complement clauses

in the indicative (58% and 55%, respectively). While Strozzi’s writing has the second

highest raw figure of volitive GLEs, of which all but the case of accordarsi discussed

earlier are in the subjunctive, her high overall percentage of indicatives can be attributed

to the fact that her writing has the greatest difference in proportion of the two moods for

complement clauses governed by an epistemic lexical element. 82.35% of her

epistemic-governed complement clauses occur in the indicative and 17.65% in the

subjunctive, that is, more of her epistemic GLEs are followed by the indicative than is

the case in the other texts. It is interesting to note that almost half (6) of the small

number of thematic contexts in the corpus occurs in Le lettere of Strozzi including four

of the five thematic adjectives and nouns, and that five of the six thematic-governed

complement clauses are in the subjunctive (cf. Section 4.2 below). Morelli’s high

percentage of indicatives, on the other hand, can be explained by his writing having the

greatest difference in proportion of volitive to epistemic GLEs whereby he has the

 104
highest raw figure of epistemic GLEs (79) and the lowest raw figure of volitive GLEs

(19). This difference reflects the predominance of epistemic contexts in his Ricordi,

which is, perhaps not surprisingly, even greater than that in the writing of Strozzi and St

Bernardino, as well as the fact that exhortation was of less concern in ricordi generally.

It is interesting to observe that the two religious texts have the highest percentage of

subjunctives and the two secular texts the highest percentage of indicatives. This

difference suggests that text type has some influence on the mood of complement

clauses. However, this influence appears to be more indirect than direct, whereby text

type influences the relative incidence of particular semantic contexts, as discussed

above, and/or the presence of other factors, which themselves promote particular modal

outcomes, which I discuss in the following sections.

A further consideration regarding the modal influence of the semantics of the governing

lexical element is the range and frequency of GLE types in my corpus. The epistemic

group of GLEs displays the greatest variety in terms of its raw figure of different lexical

elements. There are 53 different epistemic GLEs, 26 different volitive GLEs and 11

different thematic GLEs. Six of the GLEs in the corpus occur in two semantic groups

and there is a total of 84 different GLEs in the corpus (cf. Sections 4.16.1 and 4.16.2.4

below). These are listed together with their modal outcome and frequency in Appendix

A. In the case of orthographical variants of lexical items, I have standardised them to

Modern Italian forms, e.g., aviso, avisso (avvisare), comprendarete (comprendere), ti

maravigli (meravigliarsi), priego, pregarai (pregare), prosumere (presumere),

isperando (sperare). Nearly half (41) of this total number of different GLEs occur only

once each in the corpus. Another 18 occur only twice each, which means that 70.24% of

the total number of GLEs occur only once or twice in the corpus. Another 14 GLEs
 105
occur 3-6 times and 6 GLEs range in frequency from 7 (convenire) to 17 (parere).

There are 5 GLEs that occur at least 20 times each, making up 49.00% of the total

corpus of 400 GLEs. The two most frequent GLEs, creder(si) and dire, together make

up 29.25% of the total corpus. While the variety of GLEs in my corpus strengthens my

findings on the influence of other factors on the mood of complement clauses in

general, their low frequencies means that I am unable to determine the typical modal

outcome of a large proportion of the GLEs in my corpus. The modal outcome of GLEs

with high frequencies, as shown in Table 2 below, will be discussed in Section 4.16.

Frequency No. of GLE types

1 41
2 18
3 8
4 2 (intendere, porre)
5 2 (guardare, sentire)
6 2 (avvisare, trovare)
7 1 (convenire)
9 1 (considerare)
11 1 (pensare)
14 1 (sapere)
15 1 (fare)
17 1 (parere)
20 1 (volere)
28 1 (pregare)
31 1 (vedere)
45 1 (creder(si))
72 1 (dire)
Total: 400 Total: 84
Table 2: Frequency of GLEs

Of the 84 different GLEs in the corpus, 47 (55.95%) appear followed by a

subjunctive 67 . Stefinlongo (1977: 256) claims to have found more verbs followed by the

subjunctive than the indicative and, while she does not provide an exact figure, the

difference appears to be greater than in my corpus. As the focus of Vegnaduzzo’s

(2000) discussion is on GLEs followed by the subjunctive, I cannot compare the

67
They may or may not be followed by an indicative as well.
 106
number of GLEs followed by each mood in his corpus with mine, as discussed in

Section 1.2 above. He does claim that fewer verbs could be followed by the subjunctive

in Old Italian than in Modern Italian (cf. Section 1.2 above). In my corpus, of the 53

epistemic GLEs, 37.74% (20) appear followed by a subjunctive, whereas all except one

of the volitive GLEs appear followed by a subjunctive and over half (6) of the thematic

GLEs appear followed by a subjunctive 68 . Only 13 (15.48%) of the total number of

different GLEs occur followed by both moods 69 . Most of these are epistemic. They are

discussed later in Section 4.16.1.

4.2 Grammatical class of governing lexical element

Of the 400 GLEs in my corpus, 372 (93.00%) are verbs, 18 (4.50%) are nouns and 10

(2.50%) are adjectives/adverbs 70 . For verbal GLEs, the proportion of indicative to

subjunctive in the following complement clause is almost identical to the incidence of

the two moods in the entire corpus, which is almost equal. The proportions for nominal

and adjectival/adverbial GLEs display some variation. Nominal GLEs are followed by

an indicative more than a subjunctive (60.00% to 40.00%) and adjectival/adverbial

GLEs by a subjunctive more than an indicative (61.11% to 38.89%). However, given

the small number of these GLE classes in the corpus it is not possible to generalise

about their modal tendencies with certainty. Similarly, the claim, which Vegnaduzzo

(2000: 704) cites, that adjectives were somewhat resistant to being followed by a

subjunctive in Old Italian, seems to be contradicted, especially given that there are no

volitive adjectives/adverbs, but cannot be verified strongly. For the verbal GLEs in my

corpus, the distribution of the three GLE semantic groups parallels their distribution

68
Vegnaduzzo (2000: 700) found very few (pochissimi) epistemic governing verbs followed by the
subjunctive but many (numerosissimi) examples of the few that were.
69
The following GLEs occur followed by both moods: avvisare, considerare, creder(si), dire, essere,
parere, pensare, porre, ricordar(si), seguitare, sentire, sperare and vedere.
70
Of these only one is an adverb: ecco.
 107
across the corpus. Of the adjectives/adverbs in my corpus, there are no volitive

examples, with 70.00% (7) being epistemic and 30.00% (3) being thematic. Of the

nominal GLEs, there is the same number (8) of volitive and epistemic nouns and there

are two thematic nouns. Not surprisingly, most of the subjunctives follow a volitive

noun.

In Vegnaduzzo’s corpus, the epistemic adjectives/adverbs sicuro and vero are followed

by a subjunctive only in the presence of negation. All his other cases of epistemic

adjectives/adverbs (sicuro, vero and certo) are followed by the indicative. This leads

Vegnaduzzo to suggest that the primary motivation for the subjunctive in these cases is

the syntactic factor of negation (2000: 704). In my corpus, none of the seven epistemic

adjectives/adverbs is negated and one is followed by a subjunctive (possibile). My one

example of ecco, two of certo and three of vero are all followed by the indicative,

although three of these cases do occur in a future tense. Nonetheless, the modal outcome

of these adjectives/adverbs would seem to be attributable to their semantics, with

possibile the only one to convey a degree of uncertainty. Moreover, the single case of

possibile occurs within a hypothetical construction, which would also account for the

following subjunctive (cf. Section 4.5 below) 71 . The complementiser is also omitted,

which may also contribute to the following subjunctive (cf. Section 4.6 below).

Two of the eight epistemic nouns in my corpus (conto and caso) are followed by a

subjunctive, the others (lettera, ragione, segno and verità) are followed by the

indicative. It would again seem that the semantics of the GLE influences the mood of

the complement clause in these cases, since conto and caso are used in (semantically)

hypothetical contexts whereas the other nouns are not. The absence of a complementiser

71
It is interesting to note that four out of the six epistemic adjectives/adverbs followed by an indicative in
my corpus appear in the letters of Strozzi but I think their modal outcome is primarily attributable to their
semantics rather than to text type.
 108
in the case of conto and the fact that the complement clauses are in the imperfect, may

be contributing factors (cf. Sections 4.6 and 4.10.2 below). Conto actually occurs as part

of fare conto, and expresses an idea that Strozzi had had for her sons but from which

she was withdrawing: e facevo conto tra tu e Filippo [gli avessi a trafficare], acciò voi

cominciassi avanzare l’anno qualche cosa (Strozzi, 27 Feb 1453, p.68). Caso occurs

within porre caso meaning ipotizzare: ma poniamo caso [che fusse vero] (Caterina,

XIIII, Dupré v.I, p.58) 72 .

Both the thematic adjectives/adverbs in my corpus (contento and ragionevole) are

followed by the subjunctive. Vegnaduzzo’s corpus contains only two cases of a

thematic adjective/adverb (meglio), both of which are followed by a subjunctive,

although he states that such GLEs are usually followed by the subjunctive in Modern

Italian (2000: 705). Wandruszka (1991: 476) also makes this observation although he

says that the subjunctive is not used as consistently in lower registers. However, in my

two cases of contento, the GLE occurs within a subordinate clause and in one case there

is no complementiser, which may also contribute to the following subjunctive (cf.

Sections 4.5 and 4.6 below). In the one case of ragionevole, the complementiser is

repeated due to the presence of a gerundial insertion, and the complement clause is a

subject clause, both of which may contribute to the following subjunctive (cf. Sections

4.3.1 and 4.6 below). There are two thematic nouns in my corpus. Tempo occurs once

and followed by an indicative, which may be strengthened by the perfect tense of the

complement clause: ch’è poco tempo [che ’l padre fu di Collegio] (Strozzi, 24 Aug

1447, p.28) (cf. Section 4.10 below). Consolazione occurs once and is followed by a

subjunctive, possibly on account of the GLE occurring within a governing clause that is

72
It may have been better to treat porre caso as a single verbal unit (cf. Sections 2.4 and 3.2 above) rather
than as the nominal GLE caso because the verb and adjective together convey the meaning ipotizzare.
Fortunately, this is the only example of this combination in my corpus, so my findings are not adversely
affected by having considered caso the primary GLE.
 109
in the conditional mood as it is the apodosis of a hypothetical construction (cf. Section

4.5 below). The subjunctive may also be promoted by the absence of a complementiser

(cf. Section 4.6 below). Given the small number of thematic GLEs it is not possible to

determine their typical modal outcomes, which in turn makes it difficult to evaluate the

modal influence of other factors, i.e., some may simply strengthen a typical modal

outcome whereas others may promote an atypical outcome. However, I have not found

any of the abovementioned factors to strongly promote the use of the subjunctive in my

corpus generally. Given Vegnaduzzo and Wandruszka’s claim that thematic

adjectives/adverbs are usually followed by the subjunctive in Modern Italian, it may be

that the ‘thematic’ semantics of these GLEs promotes the use of the subjunctive

although this may not apply to non-adjectival/adverbial thematic GLEs, which I discuss

in Section 4.16.3 below.

Mindful of the small number of non-verbal GLEs in my corpus, it would nevertheless

seem to be the case that the class of the GLE does not have a strong influence on the

modal outcome of complement clauses and that the semantics of the GLE promotes the

use of the subjunctive for volitive GLEs and for epistemic and thematic

adjectives/adverbs and nouns, although other factors may have some modal influence

on thematic adjectives/adverbs and nouns.

4.3 Type of complement clause

In this section I consider the modal influence of the nature of the complement clause. In

Section 4.3.1, I look at the modal outcomes of object and subject complement clauses.

In Section 4.3.2, I discuss the nature and modal outcome of the dichiarative in the

corpus.
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4.3.1 Object vs. subject

Of the 400 complement clauses in my corpus, 317 (79.25%) are object complement

clauses and 83 (20.75%) are subject complement clauses. The distribution of object and

subject complement clauses occurs evenly across the three GLE semantic groups.

Within these clause types, the incidence of indicative and subjunctive is relatively even

with only a slightly greater percentage of object complement clauses in the indicative

(53.94%) and of subject complement clauses in the subjunctive (56.63%). However,

once the volitive and thematic GLEs are removed, the results are more interesting.

74.89% (164) of the epistemic-governed object complement clauses are in the indicative

and 25.11% (55) are in the subjunctive, which suggests a significant tendency for object

complement clauses to be in the indicative. Among the epistemic-governed subject

complement clauses, 56.45% (35) are in the indicative and 43.55% (27) are in the

subjunctive, which suggests that the subjunctive is more likely in a subject complement

clause than an object one.

While Stefinlongo (1977) also claims that the type of complement clause influences its

mood (cf. Sections 1.2 and 2.1.2 above), her examples suggest that this factor operates

differently according to the individual GLE. For example, she found that intendere was

followed by the indicative in subject complement clauses and by the subjunctive in

object complement clauses, which would seem to be the opposite of my finding for

epistemic GLEs. However, there are other factors present in her examples which may

also influence the mood. In her indicative subject clause examples, intendere is used

with the ‘si’ impersonale and her subjunctive object clause examples involve negation

(as Stefinlongo herself notes) (cf. Sections 4.15 and 4.7 below). In my corpus, intendere

occurs four times and each time it is followed by an object complement clause in the
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indicative (and negation and the ‘si’ impersonale are not present), which matches my

overall finding. Wandruszka (1991: 449) observes that adjectives such as certo and

sicuro, when used personally, i.e., followed by object complement clauses, can be

followed by either the subjunctive or the indicative without a significant difference in

meaning, whereas when they are followed by subject complement clauses the mood

selection has a greater influence on the meaning of the sentence. In my corpus, there are

just two examples of certo and none of sicuro. The case of essere certo occurs with a

subject complement clause and that of tenere certo with an object complement clause.

However, while both cases are followed by the indicative, the complement clauses are

in the futuro semplice, which may weaken any modal influence of the object-subject

distinction, e.g., che i’ tengo certo [ch’ella istarà bene quanto io] (Strozzi, 10 Apr 1451,

p.60). Vegnaduzzo (2000) does not present any findings on the object-subject

distinction, as discussed in Section 2.1.2 above.

Unfortunately, there are insufficient thematic contexts in my corpus to be able to verify

Wandruszka’s (1991: 476-477) observation for Modern Italian that subject complement

clauses following thematic adjectives/adverbs are almost always in the subjunctive,

whereas the subjunctive is “meno saldamente ancorato” in object complement clauses.

In my corpus, of the 14 complement clauses governed by a thematic GLE, only three

are governed by an adjective/adverb. Two of these are object complement clauses

following contento and the other is a subject complement clause following ragionevole.

All three cases are in the subjunctive. The use of the subjunctive following ragionevole

may be strengthened by it being a subject complement clause (cf. Section 4.2 above).

While I am not able to verify Wandruszka’s observations for adjectives/adverbs, it

would appear that the object-subject distinction does have an influence on modal
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outcome at least when governed by an epistemic GLE, with the subjunctive much more

likely in a subject complement clause than an object one.

4.3.2 Dichiarative

There are 16 dichiarative in my corpus, which makes up 4.00% of the corpus. The 16

dichiarative are relatively evenly distributed between the four texts, with St Bernardino

and Morelli having five each and Strozzi and St Caterina having three each. All except

one of the dichiarative are in the indicative, e.g., ma non essendoci altra ragione che

questa, [che Idio figliuol di Dio doveva venire ad abitare in lei] (Bernardino, I, p.98).

The one in the subjunctive is the only one following a volitive GLE via the modal verb

volere: questo ho voluto recare a memoria per esempro di chi legge: [cioè che niuno, o

maschio o femmina, né per paura né per lusinghe né per veruno modo mai si spogli di

suo avere o di sue ragioni] (Morelli, III, p.158). The distribution of dichiarative

between the three GLE semantic groups shows a slight variation from the overall

frequency of the three groups in the corpus: 75.00% (12) have an epistemic GLE,

18.75% (3) have a thematic GLE, and one (6.25%) has a volitive GLE. Of interest is the

fact that 21.43% (3) of the 14 thematic-governed complement clauses in the corpus are

dichiarative.

In terms of their characteristics, 11 of the dichiarative are governed by a verb and 5 by a

noun, which means that 27.78% of the total number of nominal GLEs in the corpus

occurs in the context of a dichiarativa. The most common type of antecedent element is

a noun, occurring in 75.00% (12) of cases. In four of these, the antecedent element is

also the GLE. The other four dichiarative have a pronominal antecedent element, with

three having a demonstrative pronoun (questo or quello) and one having quanto.
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81.25% (13) of the dichiarative are also object complement clauses, which may

contribute to the use of the indicative as discussed in the previous section. Negation,

and subordination of the governing clause, are present in similar proportion, with the

governing clause or the dichiarativa being negated in 37.50% (6) of cases, and 31.25%

(5) of the governing clauses being subordinate. While there is a relatively small number

of dichiarative in the corpus, the fact that they all occur in the indicative except the one

example with a volitive GLE, and that, except for the high proportion of object

complement clauses, there are no other obvious reasons for such a categorical modal

outcome, suggests that it may be the very nature of the dichiarativa clause type which

promotes the indicative. Moreover, this nature seems to override other factors that

typically promote the subjunctive, e.g., negation, and subordination of governing clause.

Coupled with my findings on modal differences for epistemic-governed complement

clauses according to an object-subject distinction, it would appear that the type of

complement clause does have an influence on its modal outcome. In particular, object

complement clauses have a significant tendency to be in the indicative whereas the

subjunctive occurs more in subject complement clauses, and dichiarative promote the

use of the indicative almost categorically.

4.4 Clause position

There are only three dislocated complement clauses in my corpus. This small number is

not unexpected because, as discussed in Section 2.2.2 above, Vegnaduzzo (2000)

presents no examples of left-dislocated clauses, which suggests that he did not find any,

and Stefinlongo (1977) did not find any examples of this type of clause. As I suggested

in Section 2.2.2, the absence of left-dislocated clauses may be attributable to

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Vegnaduzzo’s (2000) finding that the factive subjunctive was almost non-existent in

thirteenth century Italian (as is the case for my corpus as well) whereas Wandruszka

(1991) finds that left-dislocation is particularly frequent for complement clauses that are

dependent upon factive predicates. In my corpus, all three dislocated clauses have an

epistemic GLE.

The one left-dislocated clause is in the subjunctive: e [che questo sia] molto

manifestamente si vede (Morelli, I. p.110). The two right-dislocated clauses are both in

the indicative: se è grande di castella o fortezza o d’altri edifici, di casamenti tu l’hai

già veduto: [cioè che nel detto Mugello ha sei grosse castella] (Morelli, I, p.114); a fine

di bene fo tutto; sicchè dillo con Niccolò, [che gli è ’n punto] (Strozzi, 13 Jul 1449,

p.46). As there are only three dislocated clauses in the entire corpus it is not possible to

confirm with any certainty the modal influence of dislocation. Notwithstanding this, the

presence of the subjunctive in the left-dislocated clause is as expected, as discussed in

Section 2.2.2 above. Given that the GLE vedere is followed overwhelmingly by the

indicative in 83.87% (26) of the 31 cases in my corpus (cf. Section 4.16.1.7 below) and

that the presence of the adverbial phrase molto manifestamente in the governing clause

serves to strengthen the certainty of the object complement clause, the left-dislocation

would appear to be a major contributing factor to the use of the subjunctive. The

presence of the indicative in the two right-dislocated clauses is also not surprising. As

discussed in Section 2.2.2 above, while Kinder and Savini (2004) observe that the

subjunctive is required in a complement clause when it is “moved from its usual

position for emphasis” (whether to the left or to the right), this occurs in higher registers

whereas the examples in my corpus occur in Morelli’s Ricordi and in the letters of

Strozzi, which probably cannot be considered high in register. Moreover, the two right-

dislocated clauses are governed by vedere and dire, which are both followed by the
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indicative in over 83% of the cases in my corpus (cf. Section 4.16.1 below). These

observations suggest that the semantics of the GLE and certain aspects of text type

(register) play a stronger role in determining the modal outcome of right-dislocated

clauses than does clause position, which has the stronger role for left-dislocated clauses.

4.5 Type of governing clause

As discussed in Section 3.3.5 above, Stefinlongo (1977) found that the type of clause in

which the GLE occurs has a large influence on the mood of the complement clause,

with the most important distinction being whether or not the GLE occurs within a

subordinate or non-subordinate clause. Interestingly, while Stefinlongo found that

subordinate governing clauses tend to be followed by the subjunctive, this is not the

case in my corpus. Of the 400 complement clauses in my corpus, 20.50% (82) are

governed by a subordinate clause and 79.00% (316) are governed by a non-subordinate

clause 73 . Among the epistemic-governed complement clauses, 58 are governed by a

subordinate clause, with 67.24% (39) in the indicative and 32.76% (19) in the

subjunctive. Of the 221 epistemic-governed complement clauses governed by a non-

subordinate clause, 71.95% (159) occur in the indicative and 28.05% (62) in the

subjunctive.

However, the difference in findings between my corpus and Stefinlongo’s may reflect

the fact that the cases of subordinate governing clauses found by Stefinlongo are largely

restrictive relative clauses (relative limitative) and, in addition, are often fixed

expressions (formule fisse) which she says are “poco sensibili ad influenze modificanti”

(1977: 482-483). Furthermore, Stefinlongo only discusses this factor in the context of

73
These figures do not total 400 complement clauses because the subordinate status of two governing
clauses was not able to be determined with certainty, as discussed in Section 3.3.5 above.
 116
certain GLEs. So it may be that certain subordinate clauses promote the subjunctive

more than others and/or that the type of governing clause has a GLE-specific influence.

Of the epistemic-governed complement clauses in my corpus, there are only a few

examples of clauses governed by relative clauses compared with the number governed

by other subordinate clauses, e.g., complement, causal, consecutive, temporal, and

protases of hypothetical clauses, and there do not appear to be any modal outcome

patterns between different types of subordinate clause except in the case of hypothetical

clauses, which I discuss below. However, as I collected data on the subordinate/non-

subordinate distinction only, I cannot confirm this hypothesis.

As discussed in Section 3.3.5 above, Stefinlongo, Wandruszka (1991) and Vegnaduzzo

(2000) all cite examples of the hypothetical construction promoting subjunctive use. In

my corpus, there are only five cases of a governing clause being the protasis of a

hypothetical clause (all with an epistemic GLE), and the complement clause occurs in

the subjunctive in each case, e.g., pregovi che, se vi paresse [che io stessi più che

piacesse alla vostra volontà], voi stiate contenta (Caterina, CXVII, Tommaseo v.II,

p.226). While the hypothetical construction appears to promote the use of the

subjunctive in my corpus, in four of the five cases, the mood of the protasis is also the

subjunctive, which is a likely contributing factor to the use of the subjunctive in the

complement clause. I discuss the modal influence of the mood of the governing clause

in more detail in Section 4.11 below.

Of the four texts in the corpus, St Caterina’s letters have the most subordinate governing

clauses with 32.93% (27) of the total. The letters of Strozzi have 25.61% (21), the

Ricordi of Morelli have 23.17% (19) and St Bernardino’s sermons have 18.29% (15).

When the GLE within one of these clauses is epistemic, the indicative is favoured in the
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complement clause in all four texts although to different degrees: 81.25% in Strozzi,

66.67% in St Bernardino, 64.29% in Morelli and 59.09% in St Caterina.

Overall, my findings suggest that, except in the case of the hypothetical construction,

which appears to promote the use of the subjunctive (cf. Section 4.11 below for further

discussion), the type of governing clause does not have a strong influence on the mood

of the complement clause, i.e., a subordinate governing clause does not strongly

promote the use of the subjunctive, but its influence may be moderated by text type to a

small extent.

4.6 Complementiser

Of the 400 complement clauses in my corpus, 82.50% (330) are joined to their

governing clause by a complementiser (che, come or ca) while 17.50% (70) have no

complementiser. Of the 330 joined by a complementiser, 94.85% (313) have the

complementiser che, 4.85% (16) have come and one example is joined by ca. The one

example of ca is followed by the indicative and occurs in Morelli’s Ricordi with an

epistemic GLE (trovare): truovo [ca la tornata di Morello nel populo di San Iacopo fu

a tempo che ’l detto Giraldo era già morto di più anni] (Morelli, III, p.123). As

discussed in Section 2.2.1 above, Dardano and Trifone (1997) note that the use of come

as a conjunction is not common and Kinder and Savini (2004) observe that it is used

particularly in higher registers. However, come occurs in 4.00% (16) of my corpus

examples and is distributed across the four texts as follows: 7 in Strozzi, 6 in St

Bernardino, 2 in Morelli and 1 in St Caterina. Even more unexpected is my finding that

all the complement clauses preceded by come occur in the indicative. This may be

attributable to the period of writing, for while Wandruszka (1991), Dardano and Trifone

(1997), Sabatini and Coletti (1997) and Kinder and Savini (2004) all assert that the
 118
subjunctive is usually used following come, Sabatini and Coletti (1997) do observe that

the indicative is possible especially in Old Italian, as discussed in Section 2.2.1 above. It

may also be attributable to the fact that come always follows an epistemic GLE in my

corpus, all except one of which are verbal: vedere (6), avvisare (3) 74 , dire (1), essere

(1), lettera (1), pensare (1), predire (1), sapere (1), sentire (1).

While it is a little unexpected that a significant proportion (17.50%) of the complement

clauses in my corpus are not linked to their governing clause by a complementiser, this

finding supports the claim of Acquaviva (1991) and Dardano and Trifone (1997) that

che omission was more frequent in Old Italian than Modern Italian, and, according to

the latter two scholars, most prevalent in prose writing of the Quattrocento, as discussed

in Section 2.2.1 above. Dardano and Trifone also observe that complementiser omission

depends on the semantics of the governing verb whereby che is more likely to be

omitted following a verb that indicates fear or doubt than one indicating volition (cf.

Section 2.2.1 above). In my corpus, however, there are 28 different GLEs that occur

without a following complementiser on at least one occasion. Two of these are thematic,

8 are volitive and 19 are epistemic as shown in Table 3 below 75 :

74
Interestingly, there are six occurrences of avvisare in the corpus, all of which occur in Strozzi. Come is
used with half of these.
75
Dire occurs in both the volitive and epistemic groups. Credere and vedere are followed by both the
indicative and subjunctive.
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indicative subjunctive
thematic
consolazione (1)
contento (1)
Total 0 2
volitive
pregare (3)
bisogno (2)
convenire (2)
dire (2)
piacere (2)
volere (2)
fare (1)
lasciare (1)
Total 0 15
epistemic
credere (6) credere (9)
dire (6) parere (7)
vedere (3) conto (1)
conoscere (2) dimostrare (1)
intendere (2) essere (1)
istimare (2) possibile (1)
pensare (2) vedere (1)
seguire (2)
sentire (2)
avere (1)
certo (1)
comprendere (1)
sapere (1)
trovare (1)
Total 32 21
Corpus total 32 38
Table 3: Frequency of GLEs not followed by a complementiser

Given the small incidence of thematic GLEs in my corpus, however, it is not possible to

verify Wandruszka’s (1991) observation that complementiser omission is fairly rare

after thematic predicates compared with volitive and epistemic ones (cf. Section 2.2.1

above). My corpus does not confirm Acquaviva’s (1991) claim that complementiser

omission is only possible for complement clauses governed by his second class of verbs

(transitive verbs with infinitive preceded by di), and then usually only for verbs of

opinion (and sperare and temere) (cf. Section 2.2.1 above). As can be seen in Table 3,

my corpus contains many examples of verbs from Acquaviva’s other classes, e.g., che
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Iddio il sa, il dispiacere ebbi quando intesi [non potevi venire quando fusti a Livorno]

(Strozzi, 24 Aug 1447, p.34). Acquaviva also claims that the GLE must be a verb rather

than a noun whereas there are three cases each of nominal and adjectival GLEs in my

corpus, e.g., e che oramai è di bisogno [uno di voi torni qua] (Strozzi, 22 Oct 1450,

p.56) (cf. Section 2.2.1 above).

In terms of mood selection, of the epistemic GLEs not followed by a complementiser in

my corpus, 60.38% (32) are followed by the indicative and 39.62% (21) by the

subjunctive. Compared with the corresponding proportion for complement clauses

governed by epistemic lexical elements followed by che, 71.09% to 28.91%, the

omission of the complementiser corresponds to a slightly greater incidence of the

subjunctive. However, my finding supports the claim of Acquaviva (1991) and Dardano

and Trifone (1997) that the subjunctive was not compulsory when the complementiser

was omitted in Old Italian (cf. Section 2.2.1 above). While Wandruszka (1991) argues

that the subjunctive is compulsory although the indicative can be used in spoken

language after volitive predicates (cf. Section 2.2.1 above), he adds that sometimes the

future (or conditional) can replace the subjunctive (1991: 453). In fact, of the 32 cases

in the indicative in my corpus, 9 (28.12%) are in the futuro semplice. Wandruszka also

argues that because the subjunctive is compulsory with che omission, verbs that are

usually followed by the indicative, e.g., sapere, cannot have a complement clause

without a conjunction (cf. Section 2.2.1 above). However, in my corpus, while all 14

occurrences of sapere are followed by the indicative, there is one example with no

complementiser: chè so [è poca ispesa] (Strozzi, 8 Nov 1448, p.40).

In terms of text type, complementiser omission is a distinct feature of the two secular

texts in my corpus and barely present in the two religious texts: 42% of Strozzi’s
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complement clauses are not preceded by a complementiser, 26% of Morelli’s, 2% of St

Bernardino’s and none of St Caterina’s. Given Wandruszka’s (1991) observation that, in

Modern Italian, che omission tends to be a feature of literary language (cf. Section 2.2.1

above), it would appear that there has been a change in the types of context in which

complementiser omission occurs today. Of the cases in Strozzi and Morelli, there is a

slightly greater tendency towards the subjunctive in Morelli (61.54% vs. 52.38%). This

may reflect textual differences, since Morelli’s Ricordi are higher in register than are

Strozzi’s letters.

One final finding with regard to complementisers in my corpus is that there are seven

cases where the complementiser (che) is repeated, e.g., tu di’ che, veduto che qua

Matteo, sì per amore della morìa, [che porta pericolo a starci] (Strozzi, 8 Nov 1448,

p.36). In all seven cases, the repetition can be attributed to some form of clausal

insertion between the governing and complement clauses. This was a very common

practice in Old Italian (cf. Stefinlongo 1977: 495). Four of the cases occur in Le lettere

of Strozzi, which is perhaps not surprising given their complicated syntax (cf. Section

3.2 above). Such repetition does not appear to influence the modal outcome of the

complement clause (four cases are in the indicative and three are in the subjunctive)

although there are insufficient examples in my corpus to be definitive about this.

While Stefinlongo (1977) and Vegnaduzzo (2000) do not present any findings on

complementiser type and use (except in the case of complementiser repetition as

discussed above), overall, my findings seem to confirm firstly, that complementiser

omission and use of come were more common and less restricted in Old Italian than in

Modern Italian, and secondly, for epistemic GLEs, that the subjunctive was not used as

consistently in such cases as it is in Modern Italian.

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4.7 Negation

Negation is not largely present in my corpus: only 15.75% (63) of the 400 sentences

have one or both of their clauses negated. Both clauses are negated in only five cases. In

17 cases the governing clause alone is negated and in 41 (10.25%) cases the

complement clause alone is negated. 26.98% of the total number of cases of negation

occur within a thematic (5) or volitive (12) context. This leaves 46 cases in an epistemic

context, which account for 16.37% of the total number of epistemic contexts. The

distribution of negation and corresponding modal incidence for epistemic contexts are

given in Table 4 below:

Negated clause Indicative Subjunctive Total

Neither 167 (71.06%) 68 (28.94%) 235
Governing 8 (47.06%) 9 (52.94%) 17
Governing alone 7 (50.00%) 7 (50.00%) 14
Complement alone 24 (82.76%) 5 (17.24%) 29
Both 1 (33.33%) 2 (66.67%) 3
At least one 32 (69.57%) 14 (30.43%) 46
Table 4: Incidence of mood by negation in epistemic contexts

These figures reveal that, in epistemic contexts, negation of the governing clause

increases the use of the subjunctive in the following complement clause but does not

promote its use categorically. In fact, when a governing clause is negated, the incidence

of indicative and subjunctive is (almost) equal. This is in keeping with the findings of

Stefinlongo (1977), Wandruszka (1991) and Vegnaduzzo (2000) who together provide

many examples where the negation of the governing clause tends to promote (or

strengthen) the use of the subjunctive in the complement clause, as discussed in Section
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3.3.7 above. However, their observations do not apply to all GLEs, which suggests that

the modal influence of negation is inter-related with other factors 76 .

On the other hand, my data suggest that the negation of the complement clause does not

promote the use of the subjunctive in epistemic contexts. Firstly, there is a very high

proportion of indicatives when the complement clause only is negated (82.76%).

Secondly, the incidence of the two moods when at least one clause is negated is more or

less the same as that when neither clause is negated (about 70:30). While Stefinlongo

(1977) claims that the negation of either the governing or complement clause can

influence the mood of the complement clause (as discussed in Section 3.3.7 above), she

only explicitly attributes the use of the subjunctive to the negation of the complement

clause in two cases (1977: 471, 483). Negation of the complement clause may simply

strengthen the use of the subjunctive if it has any modal influence at all 77 .

Finally, in my corpus, it is not possible to determine whether or not negation of the

complement clause promotes subjunctive use in combination with negation of the

governing clause, as there are only five cases in which both clauses are negated.

Overall, therefore, it appears that negation of the governing clause increases the use of

the subjunctive in the following complement clause in epistemic contexts.

76
Wandruszka (1991: 431-432) also makes a distinction between external and internal negation. He
explains that external negation, where the dependent clause is not directly influenced by the negation,
does not influence the mood of the complement clause, e.g., Rodolfo non dice [che Clara è perfetta], i.e.,
that Rodolfo made the assertion ‘Clara è perfetta’ is negated, whereas internal negation, where the
negation of the GLE directly involves the dependent clause, can influence mood, e.g., Rodolfo non dice
[che Clara sia perfetta], i.e., the subject neither asserts or believes that ‘Clara è perfetta’ (1991: 440).
While I do not make this distinction for my corpus, it may account in part for the non-categorical
promotion of the subjunctive in complement clauses when the governing clause is negated.
77
Vegnaduzzo (2000: 695, 698) found that the GLEs lasciare, sofferire, temere, dottare and avere paura
tend to be followed by expletive negation when they are followed by the subjunctive.
 124
4.8 Direct interrogation

As discussed in Section 3.3.8 above, Stefinlongo (1977), Wandruszka (1991) and

Kinder and Savini (2004) all suggest that the mood of the complement clause is

influenced when the GLE occurs within a direct interrogative clause. Of the 400

complement clauses in my corpus, 26 occur within a question, e.g., credi tu [che Maria

cognoscesse ciò ch’io ti dico]? (Bernardino, I, p.92). Interestingly, all of these appear in

St Bernardino’s Prediche volgari. The saint’s relatively frequent use of (often

rhetorical) questions is a characteristic method of his preaching (cf. Section 3.1.3.3

above). In all the direct interrogative contexts, the GLE is epistemic, except two where

it is volitive (pregare). Of the 24 epistemic contexts, 66.67% (16) of the complement

clauses are in the subjunctive and 33.33% (8) are in the indicative. Given that fewer

than 30% of epistemic-governed complement clauses in the entire corpus are in the

subjunctive, this finding at first suggests that it is the direct interrogative nature of the

clause which increases the use of the subjunctive. However, the direct interrogative

context may have a secondary/strengthening modal influence only, if any, because all

except two of the cases in the subjunctive have credere as their GLE, which, in my

corpus, when followed by a complement clause in the imperfect or present tense (as it is

in all the direct interrogative cases), is almost always followed by the subjunctive (and

is so in all the direct interrogative cases) (cf. Section 4.16.1.3 below). Just as credere is

more often followed by the subjunctive than the indicative in my corpus overall, parere,

one of the other two GLEs followed by the subjunctive in a direct interrogative context,

is followed by the subjunctive 82.35% (14) of the 17 times it appears in the corpus (cf.

Section 4.16.1.5 below), which adds further support to direct interrogation having only

a secondary/strengthening, if any, modal influence.

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Similarly, Wandruszka (1991: 435-436) observes that when credere is used in a direct

interrogative context its typical modal outcome of the subjunctive is strengthened,

although the indicative is possible in an informal language context. He later claims that

a direct interrogative context promotes the subjunctive citing an example with the GLE

dire, which is normally followed by the indicative, and suggesting that the subjunctive

is used because the subordinate clause does not communicate new information (1991:

440, 461). Kinder and Savini (2000: 405) also observe that the subjunctive is used

following GLEs that express certainty and conviction, e.g., essere convinto, when they

are used in the negative or interrogative. However, Wandruszka (1991: 448) also cites

cases where direct interrogation prevents the use of the subjunctive, e.g., noto, ovvio,

sicuro and vero. Stefinlongo (1977: 469) includes interrogation in a list of factors that

“possono puntualizzarne o modificarne del tutto la reggenza” of a GLE, but her

examples are limited to direct interrogative clauses in the subjunctive following the

volitive volere. Vegnaduzzo (2000) presents no findings on the influence of direct

interrogation. However, Wandruszka’s, and Kinder and Savini’s, observations suggest

that direct interrogation does have an influence on the mood of the complement clause

but the outcome of this influence depends on the semantics of the GLE.

In my corpus, the presence of the subjunctive in two direct interrogative cases with the

GLE considerare is somewhat exceptional because this GLE is followed by the

indicative in its other seven occurrences in the corpus (cf. Section 4.16.1.2 below), three

of which are also in a direct interrogative context: e che maggior letizia si può

considerare [che Maria possa avere]? (Bernardino, I, p.108). However, the presence of

the modal verb potere in the ‘si’ impersonale in the governing clause may promote the

use of the subjunctive in the example given (cf. Section 4.15 below). Moreover, this is

to assume that the base modal outcome of considerare is the indicative. This is actually
 126
difficult to ascertain because in the cases where it is followed by the indicative there are

indicative-promoting factors present; in three of the four non-interrogative cases, the

governing clause is in the first person singular, and in two of these and the fourth case,

the governing clause is in a perfect tense (cf. Sections 4.9.1 and 4.10 below).

Interestingly, in the three direct interrogative cases, the negation of the governing clause

does not promote the subjunctive (cf. Section 4.7 above). In the other (non-

interrogative) case where considerare is followed by the subjunctive, the governing

clause is in the futuro semplice and it is likely the uncertainty created by this futurity

promotes the use of the subjunctive.

There is greater GLE variety among the eight complement clauses in a direct

interrogative context in the indicative: considerare (3), vedere (3), pensare (1), sapere

(1). As will be shown in Section 4.16 below, these verbs (like considerare) are followed

overwhelmingly by the indicative in my corpus. This adds further support to direct

interrogation having only a strengthening, if any, modal influence compared to the

semantics of the GLE and other factors such as tense and aspect in my corpus.

However, it should be noted that the cases of direct interrogation in my corpus are

limited to six different GLEs.

4.9 Person and number

In this section, I present my findings on the modal influence of person and number,

which was discussed above in Section 3.3.9. In Section 4.9.1, I look at the person and

number of the governing clause. In Section 4.9.2, I look at the person of the

complement clause.
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4.9.1 Person and number of governing clause

The proportion of the three persons in the 400 governing clauses of my corpus is as

follows: 42.25% (169) first, 20.25% (81) second and 36.25% (145) third. Singular

governing clauses occur in the greatest proportion in my corpus; there are 348 (88.10%)

singular governing clauses and 47 (11.90%) plural governing clauses 78 . Similar

proportions of person and number exist within the 277 epistemic contexts for which

person and number of governing clause are relevant. The incidence of indicative and

subjunctive for each possible person and number combination in an epistemic context is

given in Table 5 below:

Person Number Indicative Subjunctive % difference Total

first singular 90 (81.08%) 21 (18.92%) 62.16 111
plural 7 (46.67%) 8 (53.33%) 6.67 15
Total 97 (76.98%) 29 (23.02%) 53.97 126 (45.49%)
second singular 24 (61.54%) 15 (38.46%) 23.08 39
plural 9 (81.82%) 2 (18.18%) 63.64 11
Total 33 (66.00%) 17 (34.00%) 32.00 50 (18.05%)
third singular 61 (64.89%) 33 (35.11%) 29.79 94
plural 5 (71.43%) 2 (28.57%) 42.86 7
Total 66 (65.35%) 35 (34.65%) 30.69 101 (36.46%)
Grand total 196 (70.76%) 81 (29.24%) 41.52 277
Table 5: Incidence of mood by person and number of governing clause in epistemic contexts

Of the 126 epistemic governing clauses in the first person, 76.98% (97) of the following

complement clauses are in the indicative and 23.02% (29) are in the subjunctive. Of the

50 epistemic governing clauses in the second person, 66.00% (33) of the complement

clauses are in the indicative and 34.00% (17) are in the subjunctive. Of the 101

epistemic governing clauses in the third person, 65.35% (66) of the complement clauses

78
These percentages do not total 100 because there are four cases for which the person and number of the
governing clause is not applicable, e.g., ed eziandio saputo [che ’l padre e’ suoi antichi in Mugello erano
ricchi, temuti e riveriti] (Morelli, II, p.119) and ecco [che tu conceperai nel tuo ventre] (Bernardino, I,
p.90), and one for which they are indeterminable, e.g., dissi che la lampana è stretta di sotto: e così il
cuore nostro; a significare [che il cuore debba essere stretto verso queste cose terrene] (Caterina, XXIII,
Tommaseo v.I, p.91).
 128
are in the indicative and 34.65% (35) are in the subjunctive. These differences in

incidence of both moods indicate that, for epistemic contexts, a tendency towards the

indicative is strongest when the governing clause is in the first person, or, conversely,

that the subjunctive appears following a governing clause in the second or third person

more than one in the first person. Of the 244 singular epistemic governing clauses,

71.72% (175) of the following complement clauses are in the indicative and 28.28%

(69) are in the subjunctive. Of the 33 plural epistemic governing clauses, 63.64% (21)

of the following complement clauses are in the indicative and 36.36% (12) are in the

subjunctive. While the numbers of plural governing clauses are relatively small, these

figures suggest a slightly greater tendency for the indicative to follow a singular

governing clause, and for the subjunctive to follow a plural one.

All combinations of person and number of the governing clause occur in my corpus 79 .

For epistemic contexts, there is a significant tendency for complement clauses following

a governing clause in the first person singular to be in the indicative, with 81.08% (90)

occurring in the indicative and 18.92% (21) in the subjunctive. For some scholars, the

modal influence of the person and number of the governing clause is linked, on the one

hand, with concerns of register, and, on the other, with the interaction between the

semantics of the GLE and the relationship between the speaker and the subject of the

predicate. For example, Kinder and Savini (2004: 405) observe that the subjunctive is

often used in higher registers with GLEs expressing certainty and conviction used in the

affirmative and in the first person, e.g., sono convinto che volessero solo scherzare.

Wandruszka (1991: 432-433) observes that negare and smentire are usually followed by

the subjunctive but he says that the indicative can be used if the speaker wants to

indicate that they do not share the assertion of the subject of the predicate, e.g., la

79
However, for thematic GLEs, there are no cases of a complement clause in the third person plural.
 129
bambina negava che aveva trovato la chiave sotto lo zerbino (i.e., the speaker does not

think the child is telling the truth). Wandruszka adds, however, that this distinction is

not possible for the first person singular because the speaker and subject are the same

and so the typical modal outcome (the subjunctive) would remain. However, he

observes that when credere is used in the first person, the indicative can indicate a

“ferma convinzione […] solo leggermente indebolita”, e.g., credo che ho dimenticato

gli occhiali proprio lì (1991: 434). Indeed, Stefinlongo (1977: 482) found that credere

in the first person was usually followed by the indicative and Wandruszka (1991: 441,

449) observes that, in the first person, non volere dire and adjectives such as convinto,

persuaso, certo and sicuro are usually followed by the indicative.

In my corpus, there is also a tendency for complement clauses following a governing

clause in the first person plural to be in the subjunctive, with 53.33% (8) occurring in

the subjunctive and 46.67% (7) in the indicative, although the small number of first

person plural cases should be noted. This reflects Wandruszka’s (1991: 437) finding for

ammettere, mettere and porre used exhortatively.

At this point, it should be remembered that I have looked at the overall modal outcome

of person whereas the scholars mentioned above present findings on specific GLEs in

the first person only. For epistemic contexts in my corpus, the person and number of the

governing clause do not seem to have a significant influence on the mood of the

complement clause except in the case of the first person singular, where the indicative is

favoured and the subjunctive is least likely to occur, and in the first person plural, where

there is a strong tendency towards the subjunctive. The subjunctive also occurs more

often following a plural governing clause generally or a governing clause in the second

or third person.
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4.9.2 Person of complement clause

The proportion of the three persons in the 400 complement clauses of my corpus is as

follows: 9.00% (36) first, 18.00% (72) second and 73.00% (292) third. Of the 281

epistemic-governed complement clauses, 6.41% (18) are in the first person, 11.74%

(33) are in the second, and 81.85% (230) are in the third. The differences in proportion

of person between the epistemic-governed complement clauses and the entire corpus

can be attributed to the distribution of person in volitive-governed complement clauses

where there is a much higher proportion of the second person (32.38%), which reflects

the semantics of this group whereby the speaker ‘wills’ things of the recipient. Of the

epistemic contexts, 88.89% (16) of complement clauses in the first person are in the

indicative and 11.11% (2) are in the subjunctive, 78.79% (26) of those in the second

person are in the indicative and 21.21% (7) are in the subjunctive, and 68.26% (157) of

those in the third person are in the indicative and 31.74% (73) are in the subjunctive.

These figures reveal a strong tendency for the complement clause to be in the indicative

when it is in the first person, and an increasing use of the subjunctive when it is in the

second and third person, in that order. Interestingly, Wandruszka (1991: 421) observes

that some volitive GLEs can be followed by the indicative in spoken language

especially when the complement clause is in the second person. Given that all except

two of my volitive GLEs are followed by the subjunctive, Wandruszka’s observation

may be evidence of a less categorical modal outcome for volitive GLEs in Modern

Italian although moderated by register.

Overall, for epistemic contexts in my corpus, person and number do not seem to have a

significant influence on the mood of the complement clause except in the case of the

first person, where the indicative is strongly favoured (except when the governing
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clause is plural, in which case there is a tendency towards the subjunctive). The

subjunctive tends to be used in a second or third person (or plural, in the case of

governing clauses) context.

4.10 Tense and aspect

In this section, I discuss my findings on the modal influence of tense and aspect. In

Section 4.10.1, I look at the tense of both governing and complement clauses. In Section

4.10.2, I look at the aspect of both governing and complement clauses.

4.10.1 Tense of governing and complement clauses

As discussed in Section 3.3.10 above, the tense of the governing and complement

clauses has been found to have an influence on the mood of the complement clause, the

most important distinction being between past and non-past tenses. While scholars tend

to report on individual GLEs, they commonly observe that the subjunctive is more

prevalent in past contexts (cf. Wandruszka 1991; Stewart 1996; Vegnaduzzo 2000;

Kinder and Savini 2004) 80 . In my corpus, 77.50% (310) of governing clauses are in a

non-past tense and 22.00% (88) are in a past tense 81 . This is not unexpected given the

nature of the four texts in which the speakers are most often discussing things in relation

to the present moment. The incidence of indicative and subjunctive in complement

clauses following these two tense groupings in epistemic contexts is given in Table 6

below:

80
As mentioned in Section 1.2 above, Stefinlongo’s (1977: 256) findings on the influence of the tense of
the governing clause on the mood of the complement clause were inconclusive.
81
These figures do not total 100% as the tense of the following two governing clauses was
indeterminable: ecco [che tu conceperai nel tuo ventre] (Bernardino, I, p.90) and dissi che la lampana è
stretta di sotto: e così il cuore nostro; a significare [che il cuore debba essere stretto verso queste cose
terrene] (Caterina, XXIII, Tommaseo v.I, p.91).
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Tense Indicative Subjunctive Total
past 45 (72.58%) 17 (27.42%) 62 (22.06%)
non-past 153 (70.51%) 64 (29.49%) 217 (77.22%)
indeterminable 1 1 2 (0.71%)
Table 6: Incidence of mood by tense of governing clause in epistemic contexts

These figures show that the incidence of indicative and subjunctive is the same, which

indicates that the tense of the governing clause (or more specifically the past/non-past

distinction) does not have a particular influence on the modal outcome of complement

clauses in isolation from the tense of the complement clause.

In my corpus, there is a fairly even proportion of complement clauses in past and non-

past tenses, with 56.50% (226) being in a past tense and 43.50% (174) in a non-past

tense. This is not unexpected either as all four speakers both recount the past and

discuss the present/future. The incidence of indicative and subjunctive in complement

clauses in these two tense groupings in epistemic contexts is given in Table 7 below:

Tense Indicative Subjunctive Total

past 92 (62.16%) 56 (37.84%) 148 (52.67%)
non-past 107 (80.45%) 26 (19.55%) 133 (47.33%)
incl. 25 in future

Table 7: Incidence of mood by tense of complement clause in epistemic contexts

These figures indicate that the tense of the complement clause itself (or more

specifically the past/non-past distinction) has some influence on its mood, with the

subjunctive twice as likely to appear in a past tense as a non-past one, with 37.84% of

past complement clauses being in the subjunctive compared with 19.55% of non-past

complement clauses. Even when the 25 cases of the future tense in epistemic contexts

are removed from the indicative count, the subjunctive is still far less prevalent in non-

past than past tenses (24.07% vs. 37.84%).

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Moreover, the modal influence of the tense of the complement clause exists regardless

of the tense of the governing clause. In Table 8 below, I give the incidence of indicative

and subjunctive in complement clauses in epistemic contexts for the four possible

combinations of past and non-past tenses of the governing and complement clauses.

Tense Indicative Subjunctive Total

Governing Complement
clause clause
non-past past 56 (58.33%) 40 (41.67%) 96 (34.41%)
past past 36 (69.23%) 16 (30.77%) 52 (18.64%)
non-past non-past 97 (80.17%) 24 (19.83%) 121 (43.37%)
past non-past 9 (90.00%) 1 (10.00%) 10 (3.58%)
Table 8: Incidence of mood by tense of governing and complement clause in epistemic contexts

These figures indicate that the subjunctive is most likely to appear when the

complement clause is in a past tense regardless of the tense of the governing clause.

Interestingly, the incidence of subjunctives is highest when the complement clause is in

a past tense and the governing clause is in a non-past tense. Similarly, while the

indicative is favoured when the complement clause is in a non-past tense, there is a

higher incidence of subjunctive when the governing clause is also in a non-past tense,

although this difference is based on a very small number of past/non-past combinations.

Even when the cases of the future tense are removed from the indicative count, the

above ranking of tense combination and subjunctive incidence holds, although the

subjunctive incidence for the non-past/non-past combination rises to 24.47% and to

12.50% for the past/non-past combination.

Overall, in epistemic contexts in my corpus, tense has some influence on the mood of

the complement clause, with the subjunctive occurring more in past tenses than non-past

tenses regardless of the tense of the governing clause.

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4.10.2 Aspect of governing and complement clauses

As discussed in Section 3.3.10 above, the aspect of the governing clause has also been

found to influence the mood of the complement clause, the most important distinction

being between perfect and imperfect tenses. Again, while scholars usually report on

individual GLEs, they commonly observe that the subjunctive tends to follow a

governing clause in the present or imperfect, and the indicative tends to follow a perfect

tense (cf. Wandruszka 1991; Stewart 1996; Kinder and Savini 2004). I have limited my

study of aspect to past tenses. Of the 88 cases of a governing clause in a past tense in

my corpus, 80.68% (71) are in a perfect tense and 19.32% (17) are in an imperfect

tense. For epistemic contexts, the incidence of indicative and subjunctive in the

complement clauses following perfect and imperfect tenses is given in Table 9 below:

Aspect Indicative Subjunctive Total

perfect 43 (86.00%) 7 (14.00%) 50 (80.65%)
imperfect 2 (16.67%) 10 (83.33%) 12 (19.35%)
Total - - 62
Table 9: Incidence of mood by aspect of governing clause in epistemic contexts

Mindful of the small number of imperfect governing clauses in my corpus, these figures

reveal a strong tendency for the subjunctive to appear in complement clauses governed

by imperfect tenses, and the indicative to appear in those governed by perfect tenses, as

others have found. This indicates that the aspect of the governing clause has a

significant influence on the modal outcome of complement clauses.

While other studies have not indicated that the aspect of the complement clause

influences its mood, it became apparent through my data that it has a similar influence

on its mood to that of the aspect of the governing clause. This is especially true of the
 135
modal outcome of credere (cf. Section 4.16.1.3 below). Using the data I had collected

for the tense of the complement clause, I was able to gather the information required to

investigate the aspect of the complement clause.

Of the 174 cases of a complement clause in a past tense in my corpus, 61.49% (107) are

in an imperfect tense and 38.51% (67) are in a perfect tense. For epistemic contexts, the

incidence of indicative and subjunctive in the complement clauses in perfect and

imperfect tenses is given in Table 10 below:

Aspect Indicative Subjunctive Total

perfect 60 (92.31%) 5 (7.69%) 65 (43.92%)
imperfect 32 (38.55%) 51 (61.45%) 83 (56.08%)
Total - - 148
Table 10: Incidence of mood by aspect of complement clause in epistemic contexts

As shown by these figures, almost all the complement clauses in a perfect tense are in

the indicative, and there is a strong tendency for the subjunctive to appear in

complement clauses in the imperfect. While the almost categorical indicative outcome

for perfect complement clauses suggests that the aspect of the complement clause has a

slightly stronger modal influence than the aspect of the governing clause, the tendency

for the subjunctive to appear in imperfect complement clauses is not as strong as when

the governing clause is in the imperfect (although it should be remembered that there

are much fewer cases of an imperfect governing clause in my corpus).

Of the five cases where the complement clause is in a perfect tense and the subjunctive

appears, the semantics of the GLE, sometimes in combination with other factors,

appears to override the very strong tendency towards the indicative. One of the cases

involves the GLE parere, which is followed by the subjunctive in 82.35% (14) of its 17
 136
cases despite the presence of a human referent, which Vegnaduzzo found to promote the

indicative after this GLE (cf. Sections 3.3.16 and 4.16.1.5). In addition, this example is

one of the six cases of parere in the letters of Strozzi, all of which have no

complementiser and are followed by the subjunctive. There is only one other case of

parere without a complementiser (in Morelli) and it is also followed by the subjunctive,

so it may be that when parere is used without a complementiser, the complement clause

must be in the subjunctive. Another case of perfect subjunctive has the GLE credere

(and no complementiser), which is followed by the subjunctive 71.11% (32) of its 45

cases (cf. Section 4.16.1.3 below). Dare a intendere only appears once in my corpus but

it is likely that the hypothetical nature of the example promotes the use of a perfect

subjunctive: e sempre mi die’ a ’ntendere [che qualche fortuna gli avessi fatti mal

capitare] (Strozzi, 10 Apr 1451, p.60). Similarly, there is one case of dire followed by

the subjunctive in a perfect tense when the GLE is part of the protasis of a hypothetical

clause. The fifth case involves the GLE pensare, which is actually followed by the

indicative (72.73%) more than the subjunctive (27.27%) (cf. Section 4.16.1.6 below).

However, the use of the subjunctive in this case may be attributable to the governing

clause being in an imperfect tense and possibly to its subordinate status: […] del quale

io pensava [ch’ egli avesse fatti sì fatti ripari contra ogni vento], […] (Caterina,

CXXVI, Tommaseo v.II, p.274).

Overall, for epistemic contexts in my corpus, aspect has greater influence on the mood

of the complement clause than does tense although given the finding of some scholars

that the subjunctive tends to follow the present or imperfect, it would be interesting to

investigate a possible combined influence of tense and aspect. By itself, tense has some

influence on the mood of the complement clause, with the subjunctive occurring more

in past tenses than non-past tenses regardless of the tense of the governing clause. The
 137
aspect of both governing and complement clauses has significant modal influence, with

a strong tendency for the complement clause to appear in the subjunctive if it or its

governing clause is in the imperfect, and to appear in the indicative if it or its governing

clause is in a perfect tense. However, the semantics of the GLE, sometimes in

combination with other factors, may override the modal influence of aspect. It should

also be noted that Vegnaduzzo (2000: 697) found that convenire occurred followed by

the subjunctive in all tenses, which also suggests that tense and aspect do not have a

categorical modal influence.

4.11 Mood of governing clause

As discussed in Section 3.3.11 above, several scholars suggest that the mood of the

governing clause has an influence on the mood of its complement clause. More

specifically, they observe that a governing clause in the subjunctive can promote the use

of the subjunctive where the indicative would otherwise be used (cf. Stefinlongo 1977;

Vegnaduzzo 2000; Kinder and Savini 2004) or that a governing clause in the imperative

can promote an atypical modal outcome for a GLE (cf. Stefinlongo 1977; Wandruszka

1991). In my corpus, 81.75% (327) of the complement clauses are governed by a clause

in the indicative. For these cases, the incidence of indicative and subjunctive in the

complement clause within each GLE semantic group is similar to that in the entire

corpus. The mood of the clauses governing a further 18 complement clauses cannot be

determined, e.g., syncretised form o non consideri tu che se tu perdi la gloria di Dio,

[non ti vale nulla di bene che tu abbi mai fatto a salvazione?] (Bernardino, I, p.112).

This leaves 55 complement clauses governed by other moods; 27 (6.75% of corpus) are

governed by an imperative, 23 (5.75% of corpus) by a subjunctive, and 5 (1.25% of

corpus) by the conditional. Given the small number of occurrences of a governing

 138
conditional (only one occurrence in an epistemic context), it is not possible to determine

its influence on the mood of complement clauses.

Most of the governing clauses in the imperative have volitive lexical elements. In 12 of

these 18 cases the GLE is fare and has a causative value in five cases, e.g., fa [che io ti

vegga una pietra preziosa nel cospetto di Dio] (Caterina, XXVI, Tommaseo v.I, p.110).

Both the use of the imperative and the causative value may contribute to this volitive

nature as well as to the use of the subjunctive (cf. Section 4.16.2.1 below). Of the eight

complement clauses governed by an epistemic imperative, all are in the indicative.

However, this finding may have more to do with the semantics of the GLE than the

mood of the governing clause. Four of these clauses are governed by pensare, e.g.,

pensate [che Job perdé l’avere e’ figliuoli e sanità] (Caterina, XVI, Dupré v.I, p.60),

which is more often followed by the indicative than the subjunctive in my corpus (cf.

Section 4.16.1.6 below). However, Wandruszka (1991: 435) observes that this GLE is

usually followed by the indicative when it is in the imperative. He also observes that

credere in the imperative is always followed by the indicative and that negative

imperatives are usually followed by the indicative (1991: 432, 435), which suggests that

the imperative may promote the use of the indicative. In my corpus, another two of the

clauses governed by an epistemic imperative are governed by tenere per fermo (e per

costante), and one by udire, which are the only occurrences of these GLEs in my corpus

so I am not able to determine a typical modal outcome for them. The final clause is

governed by dire, which is normally followed by the indicative in my corpus (cf.

Section 4.16.1.4 below). Interestingly, Vegnaduzzo (2000: 701-702) claims that dire is

predisposed to ‘modal attraction’ (attrazione modale), whereby the subjunctive can

appear beyond the clause immediately subordinate to dire in the presence of a ‘syntactic

operator’ (operatore sintattico) such as the hypothetical construction.

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It should also be noted that of the 18 complement clauses mentioned earlier for which

the mood of the governing clause cannot be determined, half the clauses are governed

by a GLE form which is syncretised between the first person plural present indicative

and imperative forms where a deontic interpretation is highly plausible, e.g., ma

poniamo caso [che fusse vero]: voi sete ubrigato a lei, e non lei a voi (Caterina, XIIII,

Dupré v.I, p.58). In seven of these nine cases, the GLE is epistemic (dire, porre (caso))

and is followed by the subjunctive in all except one. While porre (caso) is usually

followed by the subjunctive in my corpus (four of its five occurrences), dire is more

often followed by the indicative. It is therefore also plausible that it is the deontic

function of the GLE that contributes to the use of the subjunctive in these cases. In the

one case where porre is followed by the indicative, the present tense of the complement

clause may account for the use of this mood because in the other cases porre (caso) is

followed by the imperfect: poniamo [che di questo io v’ò per scusato], però che non

avete potuto (Caterina, XIIII, Dupré v.I, p.57).

Of the 11 complement clauses governed by an epistemic subjunctive, eight (72.73%)

are in the subjunctive and three (27.27%) are in the indicative. This finding could

suggest that there is quite a strong tendency for complement clauses governed by a

subjunctive to occur in the subjunctive themselves, as others have found, especially

given that the GLEs that are followed by a subjunctive are quite diverse (six different

GLEs). However, in five of the examples the GLE occurs within the protasis of a

hypothetical construction, which I found to promote the subjunctive (cf. Section 4.5

above) 82 . In the absence of se-clauses in the indicative, it is not possible to determine

which of the hypothetical construction and the presence of the subjunctive has the

greater influence on the mood of the complement clause; it seems likely that they exert

82
In one of the five examples the GLE does not occur within a se-clause so I did not consider it in Section
4.5 above, but as the construction is hypothetical in nature I consider it here: onde subito che vedesse [che
tu amassse veruna cosa fuore di lui], egli si partirebbe da te (Caterina, XXVI, Tommaseo v.I, p.104).
 140
a combined influence 83 . For example, Vegnaduzzo (2000: 703) found that avvenire is

only followed by the subjunctive when it is itself in the subjunctive, and the example he

provides has avvenire in the protasis of a hypothetical construction. Similarly, Kinder

and Savini’s (2004: 410) example of ‘modal attraction’, where they observe that the

subjunctive may be used in a complement clause when it follows another subordinate

clause in the subjunctive, also involves a hypothetical construction although they do add

that this is usually restricted to higher registers. I am left then with just three cases of a

governing clause in the subjunctive being followed by a subjunctive and three by the

indicative, from which it is not possible to make any generalisations about the modal

influence of a subjunctive governing clause.

Overall, in epistemic contexts in my corpus, the mood of the governing clause does not

appear to have a significant influence on the mood of the complement clause, at least

not in isolation from the semantics of the GLE and/or other factors such as the

hypothetical construction, although the imperative may contribute to an atypical modal

outcome.

4.12 Causative construction

Given Maiden and Robustelli’s (2000), and Vegnaduzzo’s (2000), observation that fare

with a causative value tends to be followed by the subjunctive, I decided to investigate

the influence of the traditional causative construction (fare + infinitive + che) on the

mood of the complement clause, as discussed in Section 3.3.12 above. I consider the

modal influence of causative fare separately in Section 4.16.2.1 of my analysis. There

83
In one of the five cases of the hypothetical construction discussed in Section 4.5 above, I coded the
governing clause as being in the indicative (e se vedi [abbia bisogno d’alcuna cosa di qua], avvisami e
manderò tutto (Strozzi, 10 Apr 1451, p.64) but Rohlfs (1968: 296-297) notes that the –i ending was
sometimes used instead of –a for the subjunctive as a way of distinguishing the second person from the
first and third for verbs of the second and third conjugations.
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are only two cases of a causative construction in my corpus and in both cases the

complement clause is in the subjunctive and the GLE is epistemic: io non vi credetti

predicare oggi; ma i nostri Magnifici Signori m’hanno fatto predicare loro, che mi

fecero sentire 84 [ch’io cominciasse oggi] (Bernardino, I, p.110) and e perchè

nell’orazione abbondassero le molte battaglie in diversi modi, e tenebre di mente con

molta confusione, facendole il dimonio vedere [che la sua orazione non fusse piacevole

a Dio] (Caterina, XXVI, Tommaseo v.I, p.107). It is difficult therefore to generalise

about the modal influence of this construction on complement clauses. However, of the

total number of cases of sentire in the corpus (5), this example is the only one which is

followed by a subjunctive, which suggests that the causative construction may

contribute to the presence of the subjunctive. Further support for this influence can be

gained from the fact that certain characteristics of this sentence would actually be more

likely to promote the indicative: the complement clause is in the first person and the

governing clause is in a perfect tense (cf. Sections 4.9.2 and 4.10.1 above). However,

this clause could be interpreted as final, which would also account for the use of the

subjunctive. Vedere, on the other hand, occurs much more frequently in my corpus (31)

but again in only five of these cases is it followed by the subjunctive, which suggests

that the causative construction may contribute to the presence of the subjunctive.

However, the influence of other subjunctive-promoting factors, such as the imperfect

subjunctive governing clause, cannot be discounted (cf. Sections 4.10.2 and 4.11

above). As these are the only cases of the causative construction in my corpus, the

subjunctive-promoting influence of this construction cannot be confirmed but seems

likely.

84
Delcorno (1989: 110), the editor of St Bernardino’s Prediche volgari, glosses this verb as sapere.
 142
4.13 Modal verbs

As discussed in Section 3.3.13 above, Stefinlongo (1977) found that the mood of the

complement clause can be influenced by a modal verb preceding the GLE. In my

corpus, there are 19 cases where a modal verb is used in conjunction with the GLE,

making up 4.75% of the corpus, e.g., non si poté mai provare [che ella facesse mai

inverso di Dio altro che cose laudabili, atte a dare gloria e onore a Dio] (Bernardino, I,

p.95). The common modal verbs are all present in different frequencies: potere (5),

dovere (3) and volere (2). There is one case where parere acts as a quasi-modal verb:

parti da credere [che li suoi vederi fussero infiniti]? (Bernardino, I, p.96). I also

consider the eight cases of essere da to be modal constructions, e.g., è da prosumere

[che dovesse il meno avere anni venti] (Morelli, II, p.118). The modal verbs are not

evenly distributed between the four texts: Morelli has ten (including all eight cases of

essere da), St Bernardino has seven, St Caterina has two and there are none in Strozzi.

Of the 17 cases with an epistemic GLE, 70.59% (12) are followed by a subjunctive and

29.41% (5) by the indicative. While this at first suggests an overall tendency for modal

verbs to contribute to the use of the subjunctive, some of the GLEs with which they are

coupled would be followed by the subjunctive in any case.

Modal verbs occur with eight different epistemic GLEs in my corpus: credere (6), dire

(3), presumere (3), considerare (1), essere (1), pensare (1), provare (1) and sapere (1).

Two of these verbs are usually followed by the subjunctive: credere and presumere. As

has been mentioned in earlier sections, credere occurs a total of 45 times in my corpus

and is usually followed by the subjunctive (71.11%). It occurs with a modal verb six

times and with the subjunctive in four of these cases. In four cases, the modal verb is the

modal construction essere da, and is followed by the subjunctive in two of these and by
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the indicative in the other two. In one case the indicative appears to be used primarily

because of the presence of the adverb veramente in the governing clause, but the modal

construction may also contribute to its use:

Credo [si riponesse il corpo suo in San Simone]: perché erano ivi vicini, è da

credere veramente [si soppellivano ivi]. (Morelli, II, p.121)

I have given the clauses preceding this example as they contain an example of credere

followed by a complement clause in the imperfect subjunctive, which provides a useful

contrast with the one under discussion in the imperfect indicative. In the other case, the

combination of the inversion of the modal construction and the perfect tense of the

complement clause appears to contribute to the use of the indicative (the other cases of

essere da credere are followed by an imperfect tense) (cf. Section 4.10.2 above):

E dobbiamo credere, avendo in lui veduto buono intelletto, [che e’ dovesse

essere nell’età d’anni venti], che a quel tempo era come oggi di dodici. E da

credere è [ch’egli istette in Firenze quindici o venti anni] prima avesse

inviamento fermo o masserizia appo sé da potere pigliare di lui buona isperanza

o sicurtà di ferma istanzia. (Morelli, II, p.119)

I have again given the clauses preceding this example as they contain an example of

credere preceded by dovere where the complement clause is in the subjunctive.

Presumere occurs only three times in my corpus and each time is preceded by essere da

and the complement clause is in the subjunctive. Given that Wandruszka (1991: 437)

observes that the indicative is quite rare following this GLE in Modern Italian, essere da

may have at most a strengthening modal influence.

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The other verbs accompanied by modal verbs in my corpus are usually followed by the

indicative (or occur in very small numbers) in my corpus. Of the three cases of dire with

a modal verb, two are followed by the indicative (with volere and potere) and one by

the subjunctive (with potere). Epistemic dire occurs almost always, 89.55% (60),

followed by the indicative. The presence of the subjunctive in the example with potere

seems to be promoted by the modal verb and the future tense, whereby potere,

especially in the future, reduces the certainty of the predicate: e potremo dire [che

fussero quelle cinque pietre, colle quali David vense Golias] (Bernardino, I, p.111). The

use of the indicative in the other example with potere seems attributable to the emphatic

assertion of the truth of the complement clause by way of the phrasal insertion e così è

la verità between the governing and complement clauses:

e non ti maravigliare perch’ io dica così; perocchè più volte mi puoi avere udito

dire, e così è la verità, [che le conversazioni, col perverso vocabolo de’ divoti e

delle divote, guastano l’anime e i costumi e osservanzie delle religioni]

(Caterina, XXVI, Tommaseo v.I, p.106)

Moreover, in this example, the modal potere is more directly linked with the past

gerundial udire than with the GLE dire, which may also account for the absence of the

subjunctive in this case. Some further support for the subjunctive-promoting influence

of potere can be gained from the use of the subjunctive following considerare preceded

by potere, a GLE which occurs followed by the indicative seven out of nine times in my

corpus: e che maggior letizia si può considerare [che Maria possa avere]? (Bernardino,

I, p.108). However, the direct interrogative context and use of the ‘si’ impersonale may

also contribute to the use of the subjunctive in this case (cf. Sections 4.8 and 4.15) 85 .

85
In the other case where considerare is followed by the subjunctive, the subjunctive is likely attributable
to the fact that the governing clause is in a future tense.
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The other two GLEs that occur preceded by potere and followed by the subjunctive,

essere and provare, occur in very small numbers overall. However, of the five cases of

the modal potere, all except one are followed by the subjunctive, which suggests that

potere contributes to the use of the subjunctive. This is, in fact, the only modal verb

Stefinlongo cites as promoting the subjunctive where the indicative would usually

appear (following dire) (1977: 477).

Sapere, on the other hand, occurs 14 times in my corpus and always followed by the

indicative. It is only preceded by a modal verb (dovere) on one occasion: tu debbi

sapere [che prima che Iesù incarnasse, egli le fu mandato l’angiolo Gabriello ad

anunziarla della volontà di Dio] (Bernardino, I, p.90). While it seems likely that the

semantics of sapere are sufficient alone to promote the use of the indicative,

Stefinlongo (1977: 494) also presents an example of sapere preceded by dovere and

suggests that the modal verb strengthens the indicative outcome of this GLE. Pensare

occurs 11 times in my corpus, in eight of which it is followed by the indicative. The

presence of the modal dovere may therefore contribute to the use of the subjunctive in

the one case it appears in my corpus: oh questo bene debbi tu pensare [che ella ne fusse

maestra]! (Bernardino, I, pp.93-94).

Mindful of the small number of modal verbs in my corpus, these findings suggest that,

in the presence of modal verbs, the semantics of the GLE has the primary role in the

modal outcome of complement clauses but modal verbs, especially potere and essere

da, may contribute to the use of the subjunctive following certain GLEs which are more

typically followed by the indicative, e.g., considerare, dire, pensare, or they may

strengthen typical modal outcomes as per essere da presumere, or they may contribute
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to the use of the indicative following certain GLEs which are more typically followed

by the subjunctive, e.g., credere.

4.14 Adverbs and adjectives

As discussed in Section 3.3.14 above, Stefinlongo (1977) cites examples where the

presence of an adverb or adjective in either the governing or complement clause can

influence the mood of the complement clause by modifying or strengthening the

government of the GLE. I recorded 31 cases in my corpus where I thought the presence

of an adverb or adjective in either clause might modify or strengthen the typical modal

outcome of the GLE. In many of these cases the particular GLEs occur too infrequently

in my corpus to determine their typical modal outcome. A closer analysis of the others

reveals that the presence of an adverb/adjective may modify the mood of the

complement clause in just three cases. Each of these has an epistemic GLE (credere and

parere) that is more often followed by the subjunctive in my corpus but which is

followed by the indicative in these particular cases (cf. Sections 4.16.1.3 and 4.16.1.5

below). One of these was discussed in Section 4.13 above as the GLE is preceded by the

modal construction essere da: credo si riponesse il corpo suo in San Simone: perché

erano ivi vicini, è da credere veramente [si soppellivano ivi] (Morelli, II, p.121). It may

be that the modal construction essere da also contributes to the use of the indicative in

this case. In the second example, also in Morelli, a bracketed phrasal insertion likely

contributes to the use of the indicative following credere: […] il perché credo piuttosto

(e quest’è veramente la verità) [che si soppellì dove il padre suo, cioè in San Simone]

(Morelli, III, p.123). In this case, however, the perfect tense of the complement clause

would also contribute to the use of the indicative (cf. Sections 4.10.2 and 4.16.1.3). The

adjectives in the third example also occur within a bracketed insertion between the
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governing and complement clauses: e pare (e questo ci è chiaro e aperto per alcune

antiche iscritture, come di sopra abbiamo narrato) [ch’egli ebbe della sua legittima

donna più figliuoli] (Morelli, II, p.117). Again, the perfect tense of the complement

clause may contribute to the use of the indicative. There is another example where an

adverbial phrase seems to contribute to the use of the indicative following a GLE that

can be followed by the subjunctive (cf. Wandruszka 1991: 433): […] e’ giudicherebbe

quel ch’io […] [che sanza niuna accezione egli è da prosumere gran fermezza, gran

sollecitudine e gran provvedimento in lui] (Morelli, III, p.148). However, as this is the

only occurrence of this GLE in my corpus, I am not able to confirm its typical modal

outcome. In each of these cases, the adverb/adjective may increase the certainty of the

predicate and therefore contribute to the use of the indicative where the subjunctive

would otherwise occur.

There are other cases where the presence of an adverb/adjective may strengthen typical

modal outcomes, e.g., ma i’ so bene per udita di nostri antichi [che il corso de’ Tintori

era di fuori di Firenze allora] (Morelli, III, p.124), e credo per insino a oggi, che siamo

negli anni 1403, [e’ n’abbia avuti circa di sedici o diciotto] (Morelli, III, p.150).

Interestingly, a parallel example of credere with circa does not see the subjunctive

retained: non so a punto il tempo della sua vita, ma credo [visse circa d’anni sessanta]

(Morelli, III, p.132). The unexpected indicative may be promoted by the first person

singular of the governing clause or the absence of the complementiser (cf. Sections

4.9.1 and 4.6 above). It also suggests that circa has minimal modal influence. There is

another case that suggests that adverbs/adjectives have a relatively weak modal

influence in the presence of other factors: e [che questo sia] molto manifestamente si

vede (Morelli, I, p.110). In this example, first discussed in Section 4.4 above, one would

expect the adverbial phrase molto manifestamente to strengthen the usual indicative
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outcome of vedere, but the left-dislocation of the complement clause seems to have a

much stronger influence and, in fact, promotes the use of the subjunctive.

Overall, while adverbs/adjectives do not have a significant presence in my corpus, they

may sometimes modify typical modal outcomes at the level of individual GLEs but

usually in the presence of other factors.

4.15 ‘si’ impersonale

As discussed in Section 3.3.15 above, Vegnaduzzo (2000) suggests that the use of the

‘si’ impersonale can influence the mood of the complement clause. In my corpus, there

are 21 cases of the governing clause containing the ‘si’ impersonale, which makes up

5.25% of my corpus. All of these have an epistemic GLE except four which have a

volitive one. Of the 17 epistemic GLEs, 76.47% (13) are followed by the indicative and

23.53% (4) by the subjunctive. This indicates that on the face of it the ‘si’ impersonale

does not seem to promote the use of the subjunctive. Vegnaduzzo’s single example is of

dire used with the ‘si’ impersonale and followed by the subjunctive. However,

Stefinlongo (1977: 476-477) supports Trolli’s (1972) claim from her data that, unlike in

Modern Italian, dire used impersonally was followed by the indicative in Old Italian 86 .

In my corpus, all seven cases of dire with the ‘si’ impersonale are followed by the

indicative, e.g., ella cognobbe tutte le costellazioni che si dice [che so’ LXXII o circa]

(Bernardino, I, p.92). The other GLEs used with the ‘si’ impersonale and followed by

the indicative are: istimare (2), vedere (2), conoscere (1) and considerare (1). Istimare

and conoscere occur in small numbers in my corpus but always followed by the

86
Trolli’s claim was that dire used impersonally was always followed by the indicative whereas
Stefinlongo did find one example where it was followed by the subjunctive (probably because of the
presence of the modal verb potere).
 149
indicative. Vedere and considerare are discussed below as they also occur followed by

the subjunctive.

There are only four cases of GLEs used with the ‘si’ impersonale which are followed by

the subjunctive: credere, considerare, provare and vedere. In all four cases, there are

other factors present that may contribute to the use of the subjunctive more than the ‘si’

impersonale. As has been discussed earlier, credere is more often followed by the

subjunctive in any case. Considerare is more often followed by the indicative (7:2) but

in this case it is preceded by the modal verb potere and is in a direct interrogative

context, which may contribute to the use of the subjunctive (cf. Sections 4.13 and 4.8

above). Provare in the ‘si’ impersonale is the only case of this GLE in my corpus and

there are other subjunctive-promoting factors present (modal verb potere, negation of

governing clause). Vedere is more often followed by the indicative. It occurs three times

with the ‘si’ impersonale and followed by the subjunctive in one of these cases.

However, in this one case the complement clause is left-dislocated and it is likely that

this promotes the use of the subjunctive (cf. Section 4.4 above).

Overall, in epistemic contexts in my corpus, the presence of the ‘si’ impersonale in the

governing clause does not seem to have a significant influence on the mood of the

complement clause, but it may contribute to the use of the subjunctive alongside other

subjunctive-promoting factors following GLEs that are usually followed by the

indicative.
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4.16 Selected governing lexical elements

In this section, I discuss the modal outcome of selected governing lexical elements in

my corpus. The modal outcome and frequency of each GLE in my corpus is given in

Appendix A. In Section 4.16.1, I explore ‘bi-modal’ GLEs, that is, GLEs which are

followed by both the subjunctive and indicative in my corpus. For each example, I

discuss the typical modal outcome of the GLE and, where possible, I account for the

presence of the atypical mood. In Section 4.16.2, I discuss ‘uni-modal’ GLEs, that is,

GLEs which are followed by either the subjunctive or indicative only. Finally, in

Section 4.16.3, I make some general observations about the small number of thematic

GLEs in my corpus.

4.16.1 Bi-modal GLEs

As discussed in Section 4.1 above, only 13 (15.48%) of the total number of different

GLEs (84) occur followed by both moods in my corpus. These are given in Table 11

below with their relative incidence of indicative and subjunctive:

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GLE indicative subjunctive Total
volitive
avvisare 0 1 1
dire 0 5 5
ricordare 0 1 1
sperare 1 1 2
epistemic
avvisare 5 0 5
considerare 7 2 9
creder(si) 13 32 45
dire 60 7 67
essere 1 2 3
parere 3 14 17
pensare 8 3 11
porre 1 3 4
ricordarsi 1 0 1
seguitare 1 1 2
sentire 4 1 5
vedere 26 5 31
Table 11: Incidence of indicative and subjunctive for GLEs that are followed by both moods

For three of these GLEs (avvisare, dire and ricordar(si)), the use of both moods can be

attributed to the fact that they are used in both volitive and epistemic senses. As volitive

GLEs, avvisare, dire and ricordare are followed by the subjunctive, e.g., avvisimi

[ch’io faccia onore a Niccolò] (Strozzi, 26 Dec 1449, p.48). When used epistemically,

avvisare and ricordarsi are always followed by the indicative, and dire is usually

followed by the indicative, e.g., di Marco, t’ aviso [ch’ è buon giovane] (Strozzi, 8 Nov

1448, p.40). I will now look in turn at those GLEs that each occur within one semantic

group only, because it is through such cases that we can more precisely determine

which factors, other than the semantics of the GLE, influence the mood of complement

clauses. I will only look at those GLEs for which there are at least two occurrences of

both moods, although I first discuss briefly sperare as it is the only volitive GLE

followed by both moods in my corpus.

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4.16.1.1 sperare

As discussed in Section 4.1 above, the one volitive GLE that occurs followed by both

moods, sperare, is followed by the indicative once: […] e spero coll’aiuto suo [che

assai utile ve ne seguitarà all’anime vostre] (Bernardino, I, p.111). However, this

example is in a future tense, which I have explained may override the subjunctive-

indicative dichotomy (cf. Section 3.3.1 above). Sperare only appears one other time in

my corpus and it is followed by the subjunctive as would be expected of a volitive GLE:

isperando [che il frutto pervenga ai termini iscritti di sopra] (Morelli, pref., p.105).

4.16.1.2 considerare

The epistemic GLE considerare occurs nine times. In seven of these, the complement

clause is in the indicative. In one of the two cases where it is followed by the

subjunctive, the use of the subjunctive is likely contributed to by the combination of the

modal verb potere, the direct interrogative context, and the ‘si’ impersonale, as

discussed in Sections 4.13, 4.8 and 4.15 above: e che maggior letizia si può considerare

[che Maria possa avere]? (Bernardino, I, p.108). In the other case, the subjunctive

appears to be promoted by the uncertainty of the predicate conveyed through the future

tense of the passage, which the gerundial GLE carries: […] ma saravi più tosto

consolatione, e vorrete per onore di Dio portare ogni fatica, di me considerando [che si

facci l’onore di Dio] (Caterina, LXXXIII, Dupré v.I, p.338).

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4.16.1.3 creder(si)

The epistemic GLE creder(si) occurs 45 times. It is the second most frequently

occurring GLE, making up 11.25% of the entire corpus and, as Vegnaduzzo (2000: 700)

found, the most common epistemic GLE followed by the subjunctive. 71.11% (32) of

occurrences of creder(si) are followed by the subjunctive and 28.99% (13) by the

indicative, which suggests a strong tendency for the semantics of this GLE to promote

the use of the subjunctive. It occurs in the reflexive form just once, which is the only

indicative example following this GLE in St Bernardino’s Prediche volgari. The

occurrences of creder(si) are not evenly distributed between the four texts of my corpus,

as shown in Table 12 below:

Text Indicative Subjunctive Total

Strozzi 6 (75.00%) 2 (25.00%) 8 (17.78%)
Morelli 6 (30.00%) 14 (70.00%) 20 (44.44%)
St Bernardino 1 (6.25%) 15 (93.75%) 16 (35.56%)
St Caterina 0 1 1 (2.22%)
Total 13 (28.89%) 32 (71.11%) 45
Table 12: Incidence of indicative and subjunctive following creder(si) by text

As can be seen from these figures, most of the instances of creder(si) occur in St

Bernardino and Morelli. The higher proportion of indicative in Strozzi can be accounted

for by the fact that in five out of the six cases the complement clause is in a future tense,

e.g., […] che credo [sarà di novembre] […] (Strozzi, 24 Aug 1447, p.28). This finding

reflects that of Vegnaduzzo (2000: 700) who found that, as in Modern Italian, credere is

usually followed by the subjunctive in Old Italian but that the indicative is possible

especially in low register prose and especially in the future or conditional. Stefinlongo

(1977: 481-482), on the other hand, found that the type of governing clause has the

greatest influence on the mood of a complement clause following credere, with the
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subjunctive usually only following credere when the governing clause is subordinate.

This finding is not reflected in my data. As mentioned in Section 4.8 above, a closer

analysis of the tense and aspect of all the complement clauses following creder(si) in

my corpus reveals that when the complement clause is in the imperfect or present tense,

creder(si) is followed by the subjunctive, e.g., […] e credetti [che morissi] […]

(Strozzi, 8 Nov 1448, p.38), and indicative cases are in the perfect or future, e.g., […]

ma credo [visse circa d’anni sessanta] (Morelli, III, p.132) 87 . This finding accounts for

all except three of the cases of creder(si) in my corpus.

The three exceptions occur in Morelli. One of these was discussed in the context of

modal verbs in Section 4.13 above: […] è da credere veramente [si soppellivano ivi]

(Morelli, II, p.121). In this example, it seems likely that the modal construction essere

da and the adverb veramente contribute to the use of the indicative despite the imperfect

complement clause. In the other example of an imperfect complement clause in the

indicative, […] e credo [che Bartolomeo avendone più, come avete inteso dinanzi, e già

grandi e inviati, faceva poca istima di questo minore] (Morelli, III, p.136), it is likely

that the separation of the GLE and the verb in the imperfect by two clauses, one of

which is in a perfect tense, account for the indicative. The third exception was discussed

in Section 4.14 above: e credo per insino a oggi, che siamo negli anni 1403, [e’ n’abbia

avuti circa di sedici o diciotto] (Morelli, III, p.150). In this example, the adverb circa

may strengthen the uncertainty about the age and therefore the use of the subjunctive

despite the perfect tense of the complement clause. My data on creder(si) suggest

therefore that other factors, especially tense and aspect, have a significant influence on

87
Vegnaduzzo (2000: 700) found examples of the present and imperfect indicative following credere. He
suggests that they convey a greater degree of certainty about the truth of the predicate. Stefinlongo (1977:
481-482) found that credere was usually followed by the indicative when the GLE was in a non-
subordinate clause and especially when it was in the first person, whereas credere was followed by the
subjunctive when it was in a subordinate clause.
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the modal outcome of complement clauses following this GLE but in conjunction with

the semantics of the GLE.

4.16.1.4 dire

As mentioned earlier, dire is used volitively five times in my corpus and is followed by

the subjunctive in all these cases, e.g., dice la Caterina, [che tu faccia ch’ell’ abbia un

poco di quel sapone] (Strozzi, 24 Aug 1447, p.34). Wandruszka (1991: 422) argues that

the subjunctive does not modify the semantics of dire but rather indicates a volitive

modalisation (modalizzazione volitiva) of the subordinate clause. Vegnaduzzo (2000:

696), on the other hand, gives examples of dire being used volitively when it means

either ‘ordinare’ or ‘stabilire’, which is the case in some of my examples: e ditegli [che

legga questa lettera] (Caterina, CXXVI, Tommaseo v.II, p.276). This reflects

Stefinlongo’s (1977: 255) finding that dire is usually followed by the indicative,

especially when used impersonally (cf. Section 4.15 above), but can be followed by the

subjunctive in an object complement clause when it has an injunctive (ingiuntivo)

meaning rather than a locutionary (locutivo) one.

Dire is used epistemically 67 times in my corpus. Even without its volitive occurrences,

dire is the most frequently occurring GLE of the entire corpus (16.75%; 18.00% with

volitives). In 89.55% (60) of occurrences, dire is followed by the indicative and in

10.45% (7) by the subjunctive, which reveals a strong tendency for this GLE to promote

the indicative, e.g., dico [che Alessandro disse queste parole] […] (Bernardino, I, p.89).

The instances of dire are relatively evenly distributed between the four texts of my

corpus: St Bernardino (23), St Caterina (18), Morelli (15) and Strozzi (11). Five of the

seven cases where it is followed by the subjunctive occur in St Bernardino. Three of

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these cases are almost identical in structure: doh! diciamo [che basti per lo primo

candore, che fu intellettuale] (Bernardino, I, p.99). In these cases, the (probable) deontic

use of dire is likely to contribute to the use of the subjunctive (cf. Section 4.11 above).

In another case, discussed in Section 4.13 above, the use of the modal verb potere and

the future tense convey a degree of uncertainty which may contribute to the use of the

subjunctive: […] e potremo dire [che fussero quelle cinque pietre, colle quali David

vense Golias] (Bernardino, I, p.111). In the final example from St Bernardino, the

subjunctive is likely promoted by modal attraction (cf. Section 4.11 above) whereby the

governing clause is in the subjunctive and itself a complement clause governed by

volere: e non voglio però che mi dismentichi di dire a voi, padri e fratelli e figliuoli

miei, e simile a voi, madri e sorelle mie, [che voi siate e ben trovati per mille volte]

(Bernardino, I, p.86). The other two cases of dire followed by the subjunctive occur in

St Caterina’s letters. In the first, the subjunctive would be promoted primarily by it

being part of the protasis of a hypothetical construction: e se mi diceste [ch’ella non

abia avuto pietà di noi], dico che non è vero (Caterina, XIIII, Dupré v.I, p.58). In the

second example, the subjunctive has a deontic function as it were, reinforcing the

deontic dovere: altrimenti il mangeresti in terra; e già ti dissi, [che in terra non si

debba mangiare] (Caterina, XXVI, Tommaseo v.I, p.104) 88 .

4.16.1.5 parere

The epistemic GLE parere occurs 17 times. 82.35% (14) of occurrences of parere are

followed by the subjunctive and 17.65% (3) by the indicative, which suggests a strong

tendency for the semantics of this GLE to promote the use of the subjunctive.

Interestingly, all six examples of parere in Strozzi are followed by the subjunctive

88
In this example, dire could also have been classified as volitive, i.e., more along Vegnaduzzo’s
‘stabilire’ interpretation, which would also account for the subjunctive.
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without a complementiser, e.g., mi pareva [fussi a bastanza] (Strozzi, 13 Jul 1449,

p.44). This is not unexpected given Dardano and Trifone’s (1997) observation that che

is more likely to be omitted following a verb that indicates fear or doubt than one

indicating volition (cf. Sections 2.2.1 and 4.6 above). As suggested in Section 4.10.2

above, it may be that when parere is used without a complementiser, the complement

clause must be in the subjunctive, for there is only one other case of parere without a

complementiser (in Morelli) and it is also followed by the subjunctive. While the other

cases of parere followed by the subjunctive do have a complementiser, the absence of

the complementiser in the cases in Strozzi and Morelli may strengthen the use of the

subjunctive (cf. Section 4.6 above).

In the three examples where parere is followed by the indicative, there are other factors

present that promote this mood. While Vegnaduzzo found the indicative is possible

following parere especially if there is a human referent in the dative (cf. Section 3.3.16

above), such a human referent is found in only two of the three indicative examples in

my corpus but also in eight of the 14 subjunctive examples, which suggests that this

factor does not have a strong modal influence. The first example of parere followed by

the indicative is in Morelli and was discussed in Section 4.14 above because the

indicative is likely promoted by the presence of the adverbs chiaro and aperto in a

bracketed insertion, which increases the certainty of the predicate. In the second

example, also in Morelli, the presence of the modal dovere in the complement clause

may contribute to the use of the indicative perhaps through the increased conviction of

the speaker it conveys: ma per non lasciare così ignudo i fatti suoi, a me pare, volendo

immaginare pelle vie ragionevoli, [che si de venire appresso a qualche chiarità e della

sua nazione e appresso della morte] (Morelli, II, p.117). In the final example from St

Caterina’s letters, the clause I considered a complement of parere could also be

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interpreted as a consecutive clause, which would account for the indicative because

consecutive clauses usually appear in the indicative (Dardano and Trifone 1997: 410):

ora, per acquistare vita etterna, vi pare di tanta fatica [che dite che v’andarete a

dilequare se tosto io non vi rispondo] (Caterina, LXXXIII, Dupré v.I, p. 339).

4.16.1.6 pensare

The epistemic GLE pensare occurs 11 times, 72.73% (8) followed by the indicative and

27.27% (3) by the subjunctive, which suggests a tendency for the semantics of this GLE

to promote the use of the indicative, e.g., non pensate voi [che le menti nostre vengono

a pregarla], che ella preghi il suo dolce e diletto figliuolo, che discenda in noi delle

grazie sue? (Bernardino, I, p.100). Vegnaduzzo (2000: 700) also found that, unlike in

Modern Italian, where he says that credere and pensare have similar patterns of

subjunctive use, in Old Italian, pensare allowed the indicative “molto più ampiamente”

than credere. However, in most of my examples of pensare followed by the indicative,

there are other factors present which would contribute to the use of the indicative, e.g.,

in half of the examples pensare is in the imperative (cf. Section 4.11 above), and in two

cases the complement clause is in the future tense. Indeed, Vegnaduzzo (2000: 700) also

found that, as in Modern Italian, pensare could be followed by the indicative where it

means ‘venire in mente’ or ‘considerare, tenere presente’, the latter of which could

reflect a deontic function. Stefinlongo (1977: 692), on the other hand, suggests that the

modal outcome of pensare depends more on the presence of other factors, e.g.,

negation, type and mood of governing clause, rather than a difference in meaning of the

GLE. In my corpus, the use of the subjunctive following pensare is strongly influenced

by aspect. In all three cases of pensare followed by the subjunctive, either the

complement or governing clause is in the imperfect, whereas there is no imperfect in

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any of the indicative examples, e.g., e questo penso [che fusse perché Pagolo ebbe a

dire a nostra madre che questa sua balia era la più diversa femmina e più bestiale che

fusse mai […]] (Morelli, III, pp.135-136).

4.16.1.7 vedere

The epistemic GLE vedere is the third most frequently occurring GLE in my corpus,

occurring 31 times and making up 7.75% of the entire corpus. 83.87% (26) of

occurrences of vedere are followed by the indicative and 16.13% (5) by the subjunctive,

which suggests a strong tendency for the semantics of this GLE to promote the use of

the indicative, e.g., […] che vedi [ch’io non ho altro bene in questo mondo che voi tre

mia figliuoli] (Strozzi, 26 Dec 1449, p.50). The use of the subjunctive can be accounted

for in each of the five cases. In one of the cases (discussed in Section 4.4 above), the

complement clause is left-dislocated. In the other four cases the governing clause is

itself a subordinate clause, which may contribute to the use of the subjunctive, as

discussed in Section 4.5 above. As I also discussed, while the tendency for subordinate

governing clauses to be followed by the subjunctive is not strong, it appears to be

influenced by text type whereby the tendency is strongest in the letters of St Caterina.

Indeed, three of the five subjunctive complement clauses following subordinate vedere

occur in the letters of St Caterina.

In all four cases where subordinate vedere is followed by the subjunctive, there are

other factors present which likely have an even greater subjunctive-promoting

influence. In the one example from Strozzi, the subordinate governing clause is the

protasis of a hypothetical clause (and the complementiser is omitted): e se vedi [abbia

bisogno d’alcuna cosa di qua], avvisami e manderò tutto (Strozzi, 10 Apr 1451, p.64)
 160
(cf. Section 4.5 above). In two of the examples in St Caterina, the governing clause is

also in the subjunctive (cf. Section 4.11 above) and in one of these examples the

causative construction is also present (cf. Section 4.12 above): e perchè nell’orazione

abbondassero le molte battaglie in diversi modi, e tenebre di mente con molta

confusione, facendole il dimonio vedere [che la sua orazione non fusse piacevole a

Dio] (Caterina, XXVI, Tommaseo v.I, p.107). In the other case in St Caterina, the

governing clause is negated: perchè io non veggo [che in altro modo potessi essere vera

sposa di Cristo crocifisso] (Caterina, XXVI, Tommaseo v.I, p.110) (cf. Section 4.7

above). Of perhaps even greater modal influence is the fact that the complement clause

in all three examples in St Caterina, and the governing clause of two, is in the imperfect

(cf. Section 4.10.2 above). Moreover, there are only three examples of the imperfect

indicative following vedere and in these cases there is usually an indicative-promoting

factor present.

4.16.2 Uni-modal GLEs

As discussed in Section 4.1 above, of the 84 different GLEs in my corpus, 59 (70.24%)

appear only once or twice each, and 75 (89.29%) occur fewer than 10 times each. It is

not possible therefore to make generalisations about their modal outcomes. However, I

am able to determine the modal tendencies of the GLEs that occur more frequently, ten

or more times, (i.e., GLEs which each make up at least 2.50% of the total corpus of 400

GLEs). In Table 13 below, I provide the incidence of subjunctive and indicative for

these nine GLEs. The shaded boxes indicate the GLE’s typical modal outcome in my

corpus.
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GLE indicative subjunctive Total
volitive
fare 0 15 15
pregare 0 28 28
volere 0 20 20
epistemic
creder(si) 13 32 45
dire 60 7 67 89
parere 3 14 17
pensare 8 3 11
sapere 14 0 14
vedere 26 5 31
Table 13: Incidence of indicative and subjunctive of GLEs that occur ten or more times

Five of these GLEs (creder(si), dire, parere, pensare and vedere) were discussed in the

previous section as they are all ‘bi-modal’ (epistemic) verbs. The four verbs that remain

(fare, pregare, volere and sapere) are all ‘uni-modal’, that is, in my corpus they are

followed by either the subjunctive or the indicative only. Given that fare, pregare and

volere are all volitive GLEs, it is not surprising that they are followed by the

subjunctive only. However, I will discuss fare and pregare below as there are some

other observations to make about their usage, and I will discuss sapere because it is an

epistemic GLE. I will also look at those GLEs that can be classified in more than one

semantic group yet are always followed by the same mood in my corpus: comprendere,

dimostrare and guardare.

4.16.2.1 fare

The GLE fare occurs 15 times in my corpus, making up 3.75% of the entire corpus, and

it is followed by the subjunctive in all cases. In 7 of these 15 occurrences fare has a

causative value, e.g., dice la Caterina, che tu faccia [ch’ell’ abbia un poco di quel

sapone] (Strozzi, 24 Aug 1447, p.34). In five of these cases fare is also in the

89
Dire actually occurs 72 times in my corpus but five of these are when it has a volitive nature. In these
five cases the following complement clause is in the subjunctive (cf. Sections 4.16.1 and 4.16.1.4 above).
 162
imperative, e.g., fate [che ella sia a sua gloria] (Bernardino, I, p.103). These findings

confirm Maiden and Robustelli’s (2000) and Vegnaduzzo’s (2000) observations that

fare with a causative value is followed by the subjunctive (cf. Section 3.3.12 above).

Wandruszka (1991: 421) observes that this is especially the case if fare is used in the

imperative. He explains that the sentence is “modalizzata in senso volitivo”. Fare is

used in the imperative (with no causative value) in another seven cases, e.g., fa’ [che

per ogni fante mi scriva] (Strozzi, 24 Aug 1447, p.34). The ‘volitivisation’ of fare

through the causative value and use of the imperative seems to promote the use of the

subjunctive, although the single non-causative and non-imperative example of fare is

also volitive and followed by the subjunctive: e per questo i’ fo [ch’egli avesse in capo

d’anni due il figliuolo, cioè Calandro], se fu il primo (Morelli, II, p.119).

4.16.2.2 pregare

The volitive GLE pregare occurs 28 times, making it the fourth most frequently

occurring GLE and 7.00% of the entire corpus. Not unexpectedly, it is followed by the

subjunctive in all cases, e.g., e come io prego io, così prego ciascun di voi [che

devotamente e umilmente preghiate], acciò che tutti noi siamo essauditi, [che per salute

dell’anime nostre ella impetri questa grazia dal suo diletto figliuolo] (Bernardino, I,

p.86). The occurrences of pregare are not distributed evenly across the four texts of my

corpus. 39.29% (11) of the cases of pregare occur in St Caterina, 32.14% (9) in St

Bernardino, 21.43% (6) in Strozzi and there are only two cases in Morelli. Given the

different themes and purposes of the four texts, this distribution is not surprising (cf.

Section 3.1.3 above). From the letters of Strozzi to the sermons of St Bernardino and the

letters of St Caterina, the writing is increasingly exhortative.

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The classification of clauses following pregare as complement rather than final clauses

requires some discussion. Subordinate clauses may be classified differently depending

on whether the criteria used are based on their syntactic characteristics or on their

semantic relationship with their governing clauses (cf. Dardano and Trifone 1997: 394).

Serianni (1997: 383) asserts that the term oggettiva “non esclude che molte subordinate

possano essere interpretate diversamente”. He later observes that many complement

constructions could be considered final, i.e., the terms are not mutually exclusive (1997:

404-405). However, to classify a clause as final is to invoke semantic criteria. Indeed,

final clauses are usually defined in semantic terms alone, e.g., they indicate to what end

the action in the governing clause is carried out or to what objective it tends (Dardano

and Trifone 1997: 406 and Bertuccelli Papi 1991: 818). While I am aware of the

semantic dimension of clausal classification, I elected to use syntactic criteria to classify

clauses as outlined in Section 2.1 above. Syntactically, a clause following pregare

functions as an object complement since it fulfills the valency of the predicate. In fact,

Stefinlongo (1977: 485-486) also includes clauses following inchiedere on similar

grounds. I did not, however, include clauses introduced by an explicitly final

conjunction, e.g., affinché, perché, instead including only those clauses introduced by

che or come, or those with no complementiser. This is in keeping with Serianni’s (1997:

404) description of final clauses in which he focuses on clauses that are introduced by a

“congiunzione espressamente finale”.

The classification of clauses following pregare as object complement clauses, however,

raises another issue, that of an apparent double object. Serianni (1997: 382) explains

that if one considers an object complement clause to be “homologous” to the object of a

simple sentence (cf. Dardano and Trifone 1997: 394), then one cannot adequately

account for many clauses including those following transitive verbs where an object is
 164
expressed in addition to the object complement clause, e.g., priego Iddio [che ti dia

quella grazia e virtù che ha’ di bisogno] (Strozzi, 8 Feb 1450, p.54). Serianni addresses

the apparent double object issue by arguing that object complement clauses function as

object complements but are not homologous to the object of a simple sentence (although

he would probably concur that they are analogous to it).

Further support for the inclusion of clauses following pregare in my corpus can be

taken from their classification as complement clauses by Serianni (1997: 386) 90 and

Wandruszka (1991: 421) and their inclusion in the studies of Stefinlongo (1977: 490-

492) and Vegnaduzzo (2000: 695). While Acquaviva (1991) does not include pregare in

any of his lists of verbs, under his fourth class of ‘transitive or intransitive verbs with

infinitive preceded by a’ (cf. Section 2.1.2 above) he observes that a can introduce

subordinate clauses with a final value. He divides these clauses into two categories:

1. ‘non-complement final clauses’, i.e., clauses that are not necessarily required

by the verb, e.g., abbiamo mandato Gianni (a comprare il pane), and

2. ‘complement clauses with final meaning’, i.e., clauses that are arguments of

the verb, e.g., il presidente invitò Gianni a essere più conciso / *il presidente

invitò Gianni.

Given that Serianni (1997: 406) notes that pregare could formerly be followed by a,

e.g., prego gli scrittori del ‘Preludio’ a darmi un po’ di posto, it may be the case that

clauses following pregare fit into Acquaviva’s second category.

90
Interestingly, of the verbs Serianni (1997: 386, 405) provides as examples of verbs that can govern final
clauses, pregare is the only one that also appears in his examples of verbs that can govern complement
clauses.
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4.16.2.3 sapere

The epistemic GLE sapere occurs 14 times, making up 3.50% of the entire corpus, and

it is followed by the indicative in all cases, e.g., voi sapete [che a me conviene seguitare

la volontà di Dio]; e io so [che voi volete ch’io la séguiti] (Caterina, LXXXIII, Dupré

v.I, p.338). This is in line with Wandruszka’s (1991: 441-442) claim that the “normal,

unmarked” modal outcome of this “so-called factive verb” is the indicative because

sapere communicates the fact that the subject of the predicate knows that the speaker

presupposes that the predicate “corresponds to reality”. Vegnaduzzo (2000) does not

mention any cases of sapere, which indicates that he did not find any examples of this

GLE being followed by the subjunctive. However, Wandruszka explains that, in the

context of negation, the subjunctive can be used to indicate that the factuality of the

predicate is/was not known by the subject, e.g., i vicini non sapevano che la casa

era/fosse in vendita da tempo. Stefinlongo (1977: 257, 494), on the other hand, found

two cases where a non-negated sapere was followed by the subjunctive, although she

explains that one of these could be interpreted as a relative clause and the other is part

of a temporal/hypothetical construction. However, she also observes that in six of the

seven cases where sapere was followed by the indicative, there were other factors

present which would contribute to the use of the indicative, e.g., presence of modal verb

dovere, governing clause in imperative, presence of adverb di vero which prevented use

of the subjunctive. Given Wandruszka’s observations on this GLE, it seems likely that

the presence of such factors would simply strengthen the use of the indicative. In fact,

there are other factors present in only some of my examples, e.g., first person singular

governing clause in over half the cases, presence of dovere in one case, presence of

bene in one case. Bearing in mind that there are no negated cases of sapere in my
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corpus, it would appear that it is the semantics of this GLE that promotes the use of the

indicative.

4.16.2.4 Multi-semantic group GLEs

There are three GLEs in my corpus which can be classified in more than one semantic

group yet are always followed by the same mood: comprendere, dimostrare and

guardare. While this suggests that the individual semantics of these GLEs may have the

greatest influence on their modal outcome, none of these GLEs occurs frequently in my

corpus, making such a generalisation difficult.

Comprendere occurs three times, always followed by the indicative. It is used once

thematically, e.g., dice che ella temé, ma poi fu rassicurata, comprendendo [che egli

era angiolo] (Bernardino, I, p.90), and twice epistemically, e.g., e comprendarete [che

a pieno non si potrà dire quello che di lei si converrebbe dire] (Bernardino, I, p.88) and

e per quello senta di te, comprendo [se’ più tosto da sapere gittar via, che avanzare un

grosso] (Strozzi, 27 Feb 1453, p.68).

Dimostrare occurs twice, followed by the subjunctive in both cases. It is used once

thematically, e.g., e però vi prego, fratelli carissimi, che voi questo dolce prezzo teniate

molto caro, cioè che l’amiate, e, per dimostrare [che voi l’amiate], sempre siate

amatori e osservatori de’ comandamenti di Dio (Caterina, XIII, Dupré v.I, p.55) and

once epistemically, e.g., queste sue ricordanze e ’l dire << i’ non vidi mio padre>> mi

dimostra [vi stesse assai] (Morelli, III, p.136).

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Guardare occurs five times, followed by the subjunctive in all cases. It is used twice

thematically in Strozzi, e.g., ho diliberato non guardare [che di tre figliuoli niuno

n’abbia a’ mie’ bisogni], ma fare il ben vostro (Strozzi, 13 Jul 1449, p.44) and three

times epistemically in St Caterina, e.g., guarda [che tu non dia nè riceva se non in

necessità] (Caterina, XXVI, Tommaseo v.I, p.105).

4.16.3 Thematic GLEs

In my discussion of the modal influence of the grammatical class of the GLE, I looked

in some detail at the modal outcome of thematic adjectives/adverbs and nouns (cf.

Section 4.2 above). I suggested that it may be the ‘thematic’ semantics of these GLEs

that promotes the use of the subjunctive as there are no strongly subjunctive-promoting

factors present in the examples. I did note, however, that given the small number of

these GLEs it is not possible to determine their typical modal outcomes, which in turn

makes it difficult to evaluate the modal influence of other factors. This difficulty

remains for the seven thematic governing verbs in my corpus. Four of the thematic

verbs are followed by the indicative (commendare, comprendere, meravigliarsi and

scusare) and three by the subjunctive (dimostrare, guardare and imprendere).

The indicative may be promoted or strengthened following commendare, scusare and

one case of meravigliarsi by the dichiarativa nature of the clauses, e.g., e della

lunghezza dello iscritto mi scusi la ignoranza mia, [che in più brieve iscrittura non mi

so dare a ’ntendere] (Morelli, II, p.120) (cf. Section 4.3.2 above). In the case of

commendare, the presence of essere da may also contribute to the use of the indicative:

e pertanto era più da commendare la sua virtù, [che dove era discordia e scandolo

grande ella sola era da tutti amata] (Morelli, III, p.154) (cf. Section 4.13 above). In the
 168
case of meravigliarsi, its first person singular form may promote or strengthen the

indicative: d’una cosa mi maraviglio, [che mai in tal dì voi non usate né di dire né

d’udire predica] (cf. Section 4.9.1 above). Given that the other case of meravigliarsi is

also followed by the indicative and there are no typically indicative-promoting factors

present, it may be that the indicative is the typical modal outcome of this GLE. The

indicative following comprendere may be due to a stronger influence from the perfect

governing clause compared to the imperfect complement clause (cf. Section 4.10.2

above): dice che ella temé, ma poi fu rassicurata, comprendendo [che egli era angiolo]

(Bernardino, I, p.90).

For the thematic governing verbs followed by the subjunctive, the mood of the

governing clause, the use of the imperfect and the presence of negation may account for

this mood. Dimostrare and imprendere are both in governing clauses which are in the

subjunctive, and in the case of imprendere both the governing and complement clauses

are in the imperfect: perché da lei imprendessimo [che ciò che noi facessimo, noi

dirizzassimo la intenzione nostra a Dio] (Bernardino, I, p.95) (cf. Sections 4.11 and

4.10.2 above). In the two cases of guardare, both the governing and complement

clauses are negated, e.g., ho diliberato non guardare [che di tre figliuoli niuno n’abbia

a’ mie’ bisogni, ma fare il ben vostro] (Strozzi, 13 Jul 1449, p.44), and in the other case

the governing clause is in the imperative, e.g., non guardare [ch’io non risponda a tutte

le tue] (Strozzi, 10 Apr 1451, p.64) (cf. Sections 4.7 and 4.11 above).

Given Vegnaduzzo’s (2000: 705) claim that thematic adjectives/adverbs are usually

followed by the subjunctive in Modern Italian, it may be that the modal outcome of

thematic GLEs generally is less consistent in Old Italian and that factors other than the

semantics of these GLEs influence modal outcome.

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Conclusion

On the face of it, two centuries on from the writings studied by Stefinlongo (1977) and

Vegnaduzzo (2000), the mood of complement clauses is still influenced predominantly

by the semantics of the governing lexical element. However, various other factors,

including text type, have a significant role in the modal outcome of complement

clauses. These factors do not, however, have equal or categorical modal influence.

Furthermore, their modal influence may be more or less direct as well as inter-related

with the semantics of the governing lexical element and other factors.

The major evidence for the predominant influence of the semantics of the GLE on the

mood of complement clauses in my corpus of non-literary Tuscan of the Quattrocento is

the almost categorical modal outcome (subjunctive) of the volitive GLEs, which make

up 26.25% of the corpus of 400 GLEs. Yet even within the epistemic GLEs, which

make up 70.25% of the corpus and are followed by the indicative in 70.82% of

occurrences, the individual semantics of the GLE usually has the primary role in the

modal outcome of the complement clause. Each GLE appears to have a typical modal

outcome (indicative or subjunctive) although this may sometimes be modified by the

presence of other factors.

At this point, it should be remembered that 70.24% of the 84 different GLEs in the

corpus appear only once or twice. While the overall variety of GLEs in the corpus,

especially of epistemic GLEs, strengthens the validity of the claim about the modal

influence of other factors, their relatively infrequent use makes it difficult to determine

their typical modal outcomes with certainty. However, modal tendencies can be

observed for the more frequently-occurring GLEs. In fact, the GLEs I term ‘bi-modal’
 170
have a typical modal outcome but are sometimes followed by the atypical mood in the

presence of certain factors. On the other hand, the fact that there are not many examples

of frequently-occurring (non-volitive) ‘uni-modal’ GLEs is evidence for the significant

influence that other factors have on the modal outcome of complement clauses.

Moreover, there are some contexts in which the semantics of the GLE does not have the

primary modal influence. The presence or absence of a complementiser, and, for

epistemic contexts, the modal outcome in the case of omission, appears to be influenced

by text type more than by the semantics of the GLE in my corpus, as others have found

for Old Italian. In the case of thematic GLEs, their modal outcome may be less

consistent generally in Old Italian compared with Modern Italian and factors other than

the semantics of the GLE may have the greater modal influence. For the small number

of thematic adjectives/adverbs and nouns in the corpus, there is some evidence to

suggest that their thematic nature may promote the use of the subjunctive as I do not

find the syntactic factors that accompany them to strongly promote the subjunctive.

Given the small number of thematic GLEs in the corpus, however, it is not possible to

determine their typical modal outcomes and therefore confirm the relative modal

influence of other factors.

Certainly, for the epistemic GLEs in the corpus, factors other than their semantics have

an influence on the mood of the complement clause as well. While there are usually

several mood-influencing factors present in any one sentence, I have determined any

modal tendencies of factors by looking at each factor individually across the whole

corpus. It is important to emphasise that my analysis has focused on the modal influence

of factors in epistemic contexts due to the almost categorical subjunctive outcome of the

volitive GLEs in the corpus and the small number of thematic GLEs. It should also be
 171
emphasised that several of the factors I explored are not highly represented in the

corpus, which makes it difficult to confirm their modal influence with certainty.

Of the various factors indicated in other studies as influencing the mood of complement

clauses, I do not find them all to have a significant influence in my corpus. There are

two factors which have minimal modal influence: direct interrogation and the

grammatical class of the GLE. The presence of direct interrogation has, at most, a

secondary or strengthening modal influence compared with the semantics of the GLE

and other factors such as tense and aspect, although it should be noted that my findings

are based on direct interrogative contexts with six different GLEs only. The

grammatical class of the GLE also seems to have minimal modal influence again

compared with the semantics of the GLE and other syntactic factors although this

finding is based on a predominantly verbal corpus. Within the small collection of

adjectives/adverbs in my corpus, Vegnaduzzo’s claim that adjectives/adverbs are

somewhat resistant to being followed by the subjunctive in Old Italian, seems to be

contradicted but cannot be verified strongly.

The rest of the factors investigated have a modal influence in my corpus although this

influence is neither categorical, that is, the presence of a factor does not necessarily

guarantee a particular modal outcome, nor equal, that is, factors differ in terms of their

degree of modal influence. Firstly, the modal influence of the semantics of the GLE

often predominates. Secondly, in the presence of another factor that exerts a stronger

(and different) modal influence, the typical modal outcome of a factor may be

overridden. It may also be the case that the modal influence of some factors is inter-

related with that of other factors. As mentioned, there is often more than one mood-

influencing factor present in any one sentence and it may be that they all contribute
 172
collectively to the use of a particular mood. This has not been tested here. Finally, it

must be emphasised that the modal influence of many factors actually depends on the

relation between the factor and the semantics of the GLE. Wandruszka would suggest

that the presence of factors may alter the relative communicative value of the governing

and subordinate clauses and thereby the modal outcome of the latter (cf. Section 1.1.2

above). Certainly, Stewart’s (1996: 277) argument that a clear distinction between

syntactic and semantic factors is not always possible, that sometimes both are at play, is

a relevant one (cf. Section 1.1.3 above).

In my corpus, three factors promote atypical mood selection rather than a particular

mood, that is, their presence may promote the use of the indicative in one clause but the

subjunctive in another depending on the factor’s interaction with the semantics of the

GLE: the governing clause in the imperative, modal verbs, and adjectives/adverbs. The

mood of the governing clause overall does not seem to have a significant modal

influence in the corpus, at least not in isolation from the semantics of the GLE and/or

other factors such as the hypothetical construction. However, the use of the imperative

or deontic function may promote an atypical modal outcome. Similarly, the presence of

modal verbs, and adjectives/adverbs, can modify or strengthen typical modal outcomes

by modifying or strengthening the modal influence of the semantics of the GLE, e.g.,

increasing the certainty of the predicate, although this is often in the presence of other

factors and is based on a small number of cases. Certainly, other factors, such as left-

dislocation, have a stronger modal influence whereby they can override the semantic

modification created by the presence of an adverb for example.

The other factors that have a modal influence in the corpus typically promote or are

associated with a particular mood. One group of factors is concerned with clause type.
 173
There is a significant tendency for certain types of complement clause to occur with

particular moods. Object complement clauses have a significant tendency to be in the

indicative whereas the subjunctive occurs more in subject clauses. All except one of the

dichiarative in the corpus, which are also largely object complement clauses in my

corpus, occur in the indicative. As there are often subjunctive-promoting factors present

as well, the dichiarativa nature itself seems to have the greater modal influence

although it should be remembered that there is a relatively small number of dichiarative

in the corpus. The subordinate status of the governing clause, on the other hand, does

not have a strong influence on the mood of the complement clause, except in the case of

the hypothetical construction which promotes the use of the subjunctive although this

influence may be a combined one as the hypothetical construction usually co-occurs

with a governing clause in the subjunctive. The modal influence of governing clause

type may also be moderated by text type to a small extent as the subjunctive is used

most following a subordinate governing clause in St Caterina’s letters, then in Morelli’s

Ricordi and St Bernardino’s sermons, and comparatively less in Strozzi’s letters.

A second group of factors is concerned with the relative position of the governing and

complement clauses and how the two clauses are joined. While there is only one

example of a left-dislocated clause in the corpus, it occurs in the subjunctive despite the

presence of indicative-promoting factors, which suggests that left-dislocation has a very

strong modal influence. Interestingly, the absence of left-dislocated clauses in the

corpus may be because there are very few thematic GLEs in the corpus, whereas left-

dislocation is common with factive predicates. For right-dislocated clauses, the

semantics of the GLE as well as register appear to have the greater modal influence as

both my examples occur in the indicative and are not in high register texts (Strozzi and

Morelli). My findings regarding complementisers seem to confirm firstly, that

 174
complementiser omission and use of come were more common and less restricted in Old

Italian than in Modern Italian, and secondly, that the subjunctive was not used as

consistently in such cases as it is in Modern Italian. In fact, all the complement clauses

preceded by come in the corpus are in the indicative although this may be attributable to

the typical mood selection of the epistemic GLEs in these cases. In terms of the use of

the complementiser, text type may have a greater modal influence than the semantics of

the GLE as the complementiser is omitted frequently in the secular texts of the corpus

but rarely in the religious ones, and, in cases of omission, there is a slight tendency for

the subjunctive to be used more in the secular text of higher register (Morelli).

The next factor, person and number, is inter-related with the semantics of the GLE.

Overall, person and number do not seem to have a significant influence on the mood of

the complement clause in the corpus except in the case of the first person, where the

indicative is strongly favoured in the singular, whereas in the plural there is a tendency

towards the subjunctive. The subjunctive tends to be favoured by the presence of a

second or third person (or plural, in the case of governing clauses) context. Scholars

observe that the modal influence of person and number is linked with the interaction

between the semantics of the GLE and the relationship between the speaker and the

subject of the predicate. In the case of the first person, the speaker and the subject of the

predicate would often be the same making it difficult to convey certain distinctions via

the mood of the complement clause. This may explain the strong tendency for first

person singular governing clauses to be followed by the indicative.

Tense and aspect have a significant influence on the mood of the complement clause in

the corpus. Overall, aspect has the greater influence although the two are clearly related

and it would be interesting to investigate their combined influence. By itself, tense has
 175
some modal influence but only the tense of the complement clause where the

subjunctive is more prevalent in past than non-past tenses regardless of the tense of the

governing clause. It is actually tense (future) that accounts for one of the two uses of the

indicative following a volitive GLE in the corpus. While the proportion of complement

clauses in a future tense is not large enough to skew my findings on the use of the

indicative, it does appear that the use of the future may override the subjunctive-

indicative dichotomy, as some scholars have suggested. The aspect of both governing

and complement clauses has significant modal influence in the corpus and possibly the

strongest modal influence of all the factors investigated. There is a strong tendency for

the complement clause to be in the subjunctive if it or its governing clause is in the

imperfect, but in the indicative if it or its governing clause is in a perfect tense. The

strength of the modal influence of aspect is particularly apparent in the modal outcomes

of credere, pensare and vedere. However, the semantics of the GLE, sometimes in

combination with other factors, may override the modal influence of aspect.

The final three factors, negation, causative construction and ‘si’ impersonale, are not

largely present in the corpus but all seem to promote the use of the subjunctive overall.

Negation of the governing clause rather than the complement clause increases the use of

the subjunctive although not categorically. There are only two cases of the causative

construction in the corpus but it seems likely that this construction promotes the use of

the subjunctive. Fare with causative value is also associated with subjunctive use in the

corpus. Finally, the use of the ‘si’ impersonale does not have a significant modal

influence in the corpus but may contribute to the use of the subjunctive alongside other

subjunctive-promoting factors.
 176
As well as the influence of all these factors, the mood of complement clauses is also

influenced by text type to a certain degree in the corpus. The two religious texts of the

corpus, the Prediche volgari of St Bernardino da Siena and Le lettere of St Caterina da

Siena, have over 50% of their complement clauses in the subjunctive, whereas the two

secular texts, Le lettere of Alessandra Macinghi Strozzi and the Ricordi of Giovanni di

Pagolo Morelli, have fewer than 50%. Moreover, the proportion of indicative and

subjunctive within each GLE semantic group varies between the four texts. Yet text

type has minimal direct modal influence. For example, it may have a greater influence

than the semantics of the GLE in terms of complementiser usage.

I have found, however, that text type exerts an indirect influence on the mood of

complement clauses. Primarily, it influences the relative incidence of particular

semantic contexts, especially of volitive and epistemic GLEs (the latter display the

greatest modal variety). Indeed, the distribution of volitive, epistemic and thematic

GLEs varies between the four texts of the corpus. The incidence of particular semantic

contexts depends on the primary intentions of the speaker of the text. One of the ways in

which the corpus texts differ is their respective focus on knowledge/belief and

exhortation, e.g., exhortation is a distinct feature of St Caterina’s letters but of minimal

concern in Morelli’s Ricordi. Such ‘thematic’ differences naturally affect which

semantic contexts dominate a text, e.g., St Caterina’s letters have the highest number of

volitive GLEs and Morelli’s Ricordi have the highest number of epistemic GLEs. These

differences also influence the specific lexical elements the speaker uses. This variation

can be seen in the unequal distribution of GLEs such as credere, pregare and volere

between the four texts. As it is the semantics of the GLE that has the predominant

modal influence on the complement clause, differences in the lexical elements used

naturally affects the overall incidence of indicative and subjunctive in the text.
 177
Secondarily, text type also influences the relative incidence of certain factors, which in

turn can influence the mood of complement clauses. For example, all direct

interrogative contexts in the corpus occur in the Prediche volgari of St Bernardino

although I do not find this factor to have more than a secondary influence on the mood

of the complement clause in comparison to the semantics of the GLE and other factors.

While I have not calculated the textual distribution of all the factors I have considered, it

is reasonable to assume that factors such as person and number, and tense and aspect,

vary between texts according to the person and temporal perspective of the work.

While I have elucidated Stefinlongo’s hypothesis that subjunctive use is not influenced

solely by semantic or syntactic features but also by features at the level of text type, my

finding that text type has a largely indirect modal influence may be attributable to the

fact that, while drawn from different levels of Tavoni’s hierarchy of text type, all four of

my corpus texts are non-literary. Given Wandruszka’s observations that modal outcome

usually marks a particular stylistic register whose influence can be so strong as to

override semantic correlations between mood and GLE, a more stylistically diverse

selection of texts, i.e., texts that could be placed at very different points along Berruto’s

(1993) variable continua (cf. Section 3.1.2 above), may reveal a greater direct modal

influence. However, Vegnaduzzo, whose corpus consists of literary and non-literary

texts, makes minimal observations about the influence of text type and register. It may

be therefore that text type has a comparatively weak influence on the mood of the

complement clause.

The findings of my study support the major finding of both Stefinlongo and

Vegnaduzzo that the subjunctive was primarily semantically-motivated in Old Italian.

However, I cannot confirm Vegnaduzzo’s finding that the distribution of the

 178
subjunctive in dependent contexts was more restricted in thirteenth-century Italian than

it is in Modern Italian. I also cannot verify his hypothesis that the spread of the use of

the subjunctive in subordinate contexts in Modern Italian has reflected its passage from

being a mainly semantically-dependent element to being mainly a marker of syntactic

subordination. This is partly because Vegnaduzzo’s study is of subjunctive use in

subordinate contexts generally rather than in complement clauses only. More

significantly, it is because his finding and hypothesis are based largely on his finding

that the factive subjunctive was almost non-existent in his corpus whereas there are very

few thematic contexts generally in my corpus.

Moreover, Vegnaduzzo’s hypothesis implies that a factive context is insufficient

grounds for semantically-motivated subjunctive use whereas this is not the claim

reflected in Wandruszka’s model of the subjunctive, which promotes less traditional

semantic explanations of this mood which extend beyond lexical semantics to

underlying principles of non-assertion and thematicity. The significant incidence of

subjunctive in the small number of thematic contexts in my corpus, however, may

reflect the beginnings of a change in subjunctive usage. This could be confirmed by a

more detailed study of the modal outcome of thematic GLEs in a larger corpus.

However, it also seems likely that it was not until the period following the codification

of written Italian in the early sixteenth century that precursors to Modern Italian

subjunctive usage would appear more consistently. This could be confirmed by

conducting similar studies of writing from the sixteenth century onwards, including the

modal outcome of non-complement clause contexts. In turn, this would enable the

evolution of the subjunctive in Italian to be more fully documented as well as inform

our understanding of current trends in the use of the subjunctive in Italian.

 179
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Appendix A: Modal outcome and frequency of governing lexical elements in
corpus

Indicative Subjunctive Total

Thematic
adjective/adverb
contento - 2 2
ragionevole - 1 1
noun
consolazione - 1 1
tempo 1 - 1
verb
commendare 1 - 1
*comprendere 1 - 1
*dimostrare - 1 1
*guardare - 2 2
imprendere - 1 1
meravigliarsi 2 - 2
scusare 1 - 1
Total: 11 diff. GLE types 6 8 14

Volitive
adjective/adverb
none
noun
bisogno - 2 2
esempio - 1 1
necessità - 1 1
paura - 1 1
prego - 1 1
volontà - 2 2
verb
accordarsi 1 - 1
addomandare - 2 2
aspettare - 1 1
*avvisare - 1 1
bastare - 1 1
comandare - 3 3
consentire - 1 1
convenire - 7 7
desiderare - 1 1
*dire - 5 5
domandare - 1 1
fare - 15 15
*guardare - 3 3
lasciare - 1 1
ordinare - 1 1
piacere - 2 2
pregare - 28 28
*ricordare - 1 1
sperare 1 1 2
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Indicative Subjunctive Total
volere - 20 20
Total: 26 diff. GLE types 2 103 105

Epistemic
adjective/adverb
certo 2 - 2
ecco 1 - 1
possibile - 1 1
vero 3 - 3
noun
caso - 1 1
conto - 1 1
lettera 2 - 2
ragione 1 - 1
segno 2 - 2
verità 1 - 1
verb
avere 2 - 2
avere a dire 1 - 1
avvedersi - 1 1
avvenire 3 - 3
*avvisare 5 - 5
avvisare certo 1 - 1
*comprendere 2 - 2
conoscere 3 - 3
considerare 7 2 9
creder(si) 13 32 45
dare a intendere - 1 1
derivare 1 - 1
*dimostrare - 1 1
*dire 60 7 67
essere 1 2 3
giudicare 1 - 1
gridare 1 - 1
intendere 4 - 4
intervenire 2 - 2
iscrivere 1 - 1
istimare 3 - 3
mandare a dire 1 - 1
parere 3 14 17
pensare 8 3 11
porre 1 3 4
predire 1 - 1
presumere - 3 3
promettere 2 - 2
provare - 1 1
ragguardare 1 - 1
*ricordarsi 1 - 1
rispondere 1 - 1
 185
Indicative Subjunctive Total
sapere 14 - 14
scrivere 1 - 1
seguire 2 - 2
seguitare 1 1 2
sentire 4 1 5
significare - 1 1
tenere - 1 1
tenere per fermo (e per costante) 2 - 2
trovare 6 - 6
udire 1 - 1
vedere 26 5 31
Total: 53 diff. GLE types 199 82 281

Grand total: 84 diff. GLE types 207 193 400

* occurs in more than one semantic group