This study investigates the defining properties of Agents and the interplay of syntax and semantics in semantic inferences, based on Dowty’s Proto-Role Hypothesis. Five properties from Dowty’s list were selected, and 39 Italian sentence pairs showing the Instrument-subject Alternation were created. 93 participants rated how much Agents, Instrument-subjects, Instrument-PPs and Patients exhibit each property. Results show that while some properties are sensitive to syntactic realization, others are linked to lexical semantics and world knowledge, supporting the view that semantic inferences arise from an interaction between syntax and semantics.

This study explores the role of linguistic othering in shaping French cultural identity through a diachronic comparison with the Italian language. By analyzing key texts by French grammarians and scholars from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, the research reveals how linguistic representations and stereotypes served to sustain cultural narratives and define symbolic boundaries. Initially regarded as a prestigious reference and later as a rival, Italian played a crucial role in articulating the distinctiveness of French linguistic identity. While efforts to affirm the uniqueness of French often led grammarians to overstate differences with Italian – at times obscuring their shared origins – the development of both languages was marked by continuous exchange and reciprocal influence. The study’s originality lies in showing how linguistic and ideological frameworks evolved in tandem, tracing the progressive articulation of othering within the cultural landscape of early modern Europe.

Tøyeneffekten by Bjarte Breiteig is a novel set in Oslo that tells the story of a family of white Norwegians that decide to move to the multiethnic neighbourhood of Tøyen. Historically a place of residence for the working class, since the 1970s many immigrants have settled there, so much so that Tøyen has been renamed ʻLille Pakistanʼ (Little Pakistan). The events take place in the years 2009-18, a period in which the neighbourhood goes through profound changes due to an urban regeneration intervention which, among other things, triggers gentrification mechanisms. Through the selection of some passages in which Mona’s narrative voice describes the urban context that surrounds her, this article takes a close look at Bjarte Breiteig’s artistic representation of the transformation of Tøyen.

The subversive semantic power of the revenant or reanimated corpse in Victorian literature serves as a crucial indicator of the era’s preoccupation with the body as a cultural domain. Deeply entwined with the uneasy relationship between the advancement of anatomical science and criminality, the body is marked as the site of fraught boundaries imbued with social order and its attendant anxieties. This paper explores the narrative strategies of Stevenson’s short story “The Body Snatcher” (1884) where resurrectionist motifs resist the enforcement of the condition of anonymity that was entailed by anatomical dissection and signal the impossibility of closure through the trope of return of the repressed sub specie of the dissected cadaver. This dual ‘resistance’ culminates in the symbolism of the revenant corpse’s movement, abandoned in its progress towards the future. Stevenson’s story reveals a hermeneutic complexity that intertwines the themes of contamination, ethical collusion, commodification of the dead body through the entanglement of medical practice and narrative opacity. This offers further insights into the Victorian resurrectionist imagination, in the light of that ‘aura’ of the corpse which the regulation of the 1834 New Poor Amendment Act failed to dispel.

In reply to Alessandro Capone’s paper entitled “On quasi-proper names”, I provide relevant data in Japanese and discuss the properties and status of quasi-names from a cross-linguistic perspective. A close look at the properties of Japanese quasi-names indicates that they are a special case of yobina (lit. ‘call name’), a subcategory of nicknames in Japanese which are used both to refer to and to call someone. Specifically, they are like stage names systematically given to older family members. The yobina status of quasi-names appear to hold cross-linguistically, while the peculiarity within the yobina category has general and language-specific elements.

There is a substantial body of scholarship arguing for the relevance of magic realism to Toni Morrison’s fictional production, with one exception being her last novel God Help the Child, which, in that respect, has been remarkably overlooked. The present paper intends to fill this scholarly gap by focusing on what Morrison called “enchantment”, a powerful blend of magic and realism that she employed to represent a host of racial and ancestral issues of Blackness, often of a traumatic kind.

Linguists argued that the Cockney dialect, in London, is expected to be replaced by Multicultural London English in the years to come. However, this does not imply that Cockney is dead, as recent research revealed that it just moved to Essex. This paper aims at examining whether (l) vocalisation, a common feature of Cockney, is still present in the London district of Bermondsey. Ten working-class English speakers, stratified by age and sex, have been recorded by means of sociolinguistic interviews. The results, discussed both quantitively and qualitatively, show that: (a) (l) vocalisation is present in all age cohorts, with young speakers favouring the non-standard feature; (b) preceding long vowels trigger (l) vocalisation.

This study compares how instruments are syntactically realized in Italian and LIS, using a cross-modal comparative approach. In Italian, Instruments are syntactically realized only when they are not recoverable from the verb. Three Instrument types are identified: shadow, default, and open. Only shadow Instruments are incorporated into the verbal root. As for LIS, our analysis reveals that shadow Instruments are preferred and finer-grained compared to Italian, probably due to visual modality. This has implications for Italian-to-LIS interpretation, as interpreters might make a wrong choice when Italian does not specify, but LIS requires a shadow Instrument.

Scandinavian second-generation writers provide evidence of the social impact of migration and multiethnicity. Yet the Swedish literary market seems preferably to target writers of African or Middle Eastern descent, perhaps benefiting from the rifts that the non-whiteness issue generates in people. On the other hand, the Yugoslav diaspora, nowadays celebrated as a model of positive integration, is often ignored in the literary context. In her novel, Alma Kirlić questions the supposedly happy outcome of the Yugoslavs’ arrival in Sweden. Relying on the ‘melancholic migrant’ metaphor, this study aims to further explore Sweden’s post-migrant condition by providing new points of reference.