Sociotopography meets Dialectology: the case of Aquilan

Abstract

Abstract The goal of this paper is to offer an argument for the Sociotopographic Model and its extension to dialectal data. It is shown that Italian and one of its dialects, Aquilan, seem to differ with respect to which reference systems their prepositions can describe. Aquilan includes an absolute and an elevational reference system; Italian only includes an absolute system. It is proposed that this difference is strongly correlated to Aquilan being a dialect spoken in a mountainous valley, and therefore reflecting the “lay of the land” in its spatial lexicon. The paper offers an experimental study involving two groups of informants (group 1, age >70.0 years, N = 13; group 2, age <40.0 years, N = 10). It is shown that both groups can use the elevational system in Aquilan, but generational differences are attested. Some conclusions regarding connections between Sociotopography and Dialectology are offered.