Puntini di sospensione e mimesi del parlato: le facce del rapporto tra punteggiatura e prosodia

This paper deals with ellipsis <…> in modern Italian and focuses on those uses which possess a direct connection with prosodic features of spoken language. Firstly, I will illustrate the position of the prosodic uses of ellipsis in a global theoretical framework, where punctuation is assigned a basic communicative meaning and its connection with prosody is generally seen as indirect. The prosodic uses of ellipsis occupy a subordinate position in this framework, because they appear only in specific text types – i.e. literary texts – and in specific textual conditions – i.e. reported speech. Secondly, I will provide a thorough empirical analysis of ellipsis, based on data taken from a collection of Italian novels. I will show that prosodic uses have the function of simulating fragmentation phenomena (e.g. retracting, interruption, hesitation), which are characteristic of spontaneous spoken language. With the help of a model of organization of spoken discourse, I will classify the prosodic uses of ellipsis according to the specific phenomenon they reproduce in written text.