Adunque and Dunque in Old Italian between Free and Patterned Variation: The Role of English Translation in Pragmatic Analysis

From earliest records, the Italian adunque and dunque ‘then, therefore’ are used apparently in free variation as they both translate Lat. igitur, ergo, itaque. If the first is more frequent until the end of the 16th century, the second increases steadily until the 20th century when it totally substitutes adunque. Despite their very long use, the history of the two forms is very difficult to reconstruct. The core uses of both forms are those of correlative and resultative connectives. However, in earlier texts, some differences emerge as only adunque can have the temporal meaning of ‘at that time’ and it is more frequently used in bridging contexts whose reading is also compatible with that of discourse and pragmatic marker. This study considers patterns of use of the two forms in texts dating to the 14th century, when the variant adunque was still very frequent. By considering the use of both forms in Boccaccio’s Decameron and Catherine of Siena’s letters, it confronts these texts with their English translations. The analysis of English translations equivalents of both forms proves a rewarding way of mapping the functional spectra of forms and serves as a heuristic tool to establish their semantic- pragmatic fields.