La memoria come fonte di informazione nell’interazione dialogica in varietà storiche dell’italiano

According to recent proposals, memory can be considered a category that conveys an evidential meaning, as speakers, by using expressions such as "I remember (that…)", provide evidence regarding the source of the information contained in a given utterance. However, specific and in-depth studies on this topic are still lacking. This study presents the results of an investigation into memory as an evidential category conducted on a selection of Italian plays composed between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries. Through a comprehensive analysis of the documents, all possible strategies for encoding memory with an evidential function found in the texts were identified and subsequently classified based on various parameters. The analysis of the collected data not only enhances our understanding of the relationship between the category of memory and other evidential categories but also sheds light on a range of semantic and pragmatic functions often associated with the expression of memory as an evidential source. These functions play a significant role at both interactional and intersubjective levels. Finally, the analysis of the corpus also provides evidence of important elements of continuity in the interaction of these linguistic categories in a diachronic perspective.