‘TRAMONTARE’ NEI DIALETTI ITALIANI: UN EXCURSUS ONOMASIOLOGICO E MOTIVAZIONALE

This study aims to identify and analyze the main lexotypes for the notion of ‘setting’ in Italian dialects. The comparative analysis of data offered by the Italian Linguistic Atlas and by some regional atlases reveals a fair variety of lexical types which in most cases are distributed in continuous and homogeneous areas, even though the most recent regional atlases reveal an evident process of Italianization signaled by the affirmation of the Italian type ‘tramontare’. On the motivational level, it can be observed that the most productive category is made up of verbal forms that express a descending motion for which the meaning ‘setting’ represents a metaphorical extension of the semantic value of the predicate.