ABSTRACT
The profundity of the linguistic difference between Italian dialects should not be underestimated. The most convenient historical starting point, in terms of which to consider the subsequent evolution of Tuscan and other Italo-Romance dialects, is Classical Latin. Regional linguistic variation within spoken Latin was probably present from the moment Latin became diffused among the various peoples of Italy and the wider Roman Empire. The various Germanic invaders who, from the third to the ninth century held power in Italy, also left their linguistic stamp on the Italo-Romance dialects, although the influence of Germanic is almost exclusively a matter of introducing new words, rather than grammatical or phonological structures, into Italo-Romance dialects Morphologization is a form of ‘grammaticalization’, but the term grammaticalization is commonly reserved for that development whereby an originally autonomous lexical word gradually loses its distinctive meaning, and becomes a mere indicator of grammatical categories.
