I pronomi deboli nel sistema pronominale dell’italiano

This work illustrates the Italian pronominal system and focuses on weak pronouns, which are not present in traditional grammatical descriptions. In both Old Italian and Modern Italian, three classes of personal pronouns should be assumed: strong, weak, and clitic. In both varieties, strong pronouns have the same distribution as noun phrases. Clitic pronouns have a special syntax, with wellknown differences between the two varieties with respect to the lexical forms and syntactic distribution. As for weak pronouns, more forms were present in Old Italian than in Modern Italian, where they are a residual option. They are nowadays limited to the subject pronouns tu and egli/esso and to the object dative form loro found in high registers. Focusing on the textual conditions in which the overt weak forms egli/esso are preferred over the null weak form, an ongoing language change can be observed. The weak forms egli/esso are substituted by lui/lei, which are in the process of becoming weak. Among other properties, they may have a non-human antecedent. Finally, weak forms are found in the paradigms of possessive, relative, interrogative, demostrative, and adverbial proforms, showing that the tripartition into clitic, weak, and strong forms is pervasive in grammar and not limited to the paradigm of personal pronouns.