Contact-Induced Change in Sicilian Gallo-Italic. The Multipurpose Aviri a + Infinitive Construction in the Dialect of Nicosia

In this paper we focus on an aspect of the change in the syntax of the Gallo-Italic variety of Nicosia (Enna), presumably fostered by prolonged contact with Sicilian: the use of the Aviri a + Infinitive Construction (AICo). This periphrasis can cover different func-tions (deontic, epistemic, futural, and optative) and, in Nicosiano, can surface in different configurations. We considered a written corpus containing works (poetry, short stories, novels, theatre plays) by the two major authors in Nicosiano: La Giglia (1862-1922) and Cas-trogiovanni (1933-2007). We compared the occurrences of the AICo in the corpus with those of modal dövë̀̀‘must’ and synthetic future forms, whose functions generally overlap with those of the AICo. The data collected confirm the effects of Sicilian on Nicosiano: the AICo has almost completely taken over dövë̀̀ and synthetic forms for all the functions considered, the latter constructions generally occurring in crystallised expressions in the corpus.