Tense switching in Italian: the alternation between passato prossimo and passato remoto in oral narratives

Traditionalaccountsofthedifferencebetweenthepassatoprossimo ("nearpast")(PP)andpassatoremota("remotepast")(PR)under-

scorethepointthatinmodernstandardItalianthetwotensescontrast onlyinwrittenliterarydiscourse,sincePRhasalmostdisappeared

fromconversationaluse. Inthe"familiar"speechofmostnorthernItalianregions,thePRis

saidtohavebeenreplacedbythePP(Rohlfs1986;Lepschyand Lepschy1981;Harris1982),whileincentralandsouthernItalythe PRisstillused.Therearecontrastingopinionsontheextentofthe useofthePRincentralItaly.Forinstance,Rohlfssaysthat"in centralItalythepassatoremotobeginstoloseground:inFlorenceitis notmuchinuse"(1966:45-6);whileLepschyandLepschystatethat boththePRandthePParefoundinTuscanyandcentralItalyandthat theyhavedifferentmeaningswhicharemirroredinliterary/written language.