"Non obstante", da formula del linguaggio giuridico a connettivo concessivo

Non obstante, from the legal language formula to the concessive connective · In this paper we provide an explanation of the process which led the formulaic Latin ablative absolute non obstante (aliqua re) to develop the function of a concessive connective (meaning ‘although’, ‘in spite of ’). We analyse data derived from the Old Italian database tlio, containing Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries texts ; furthermore, we take into account examples from Late Latin and Medieval Latin texts. The analysis is carried out within the theoretical framework of the “Historical Pragmatics”. In order to explain the linguistic change, on the one hand we take into account strictly linguistic aspects (phonetic variation, morphological fixation, transcategorisation); on the other hand, we focus on pragmatical, sociolinguistic and contextual aspects. Two factors seem to have played a crucial role : the definiteness of the noun phrase which follows nonostante ; the spreading of such expressions outside the legal language among illiterate people.