Marcatori interazionali di cortesia dal latino alle lingue romanze: nomi e verbi tra morfosintassi e contesto discorsivo

The paper considers the pragmatic evolution from Latin to modern Romance languages of a group of courtesy markers (CMs). These CM7s are usually derived form nominal holophrastic formulae, verbs, and/or performative locutions with an illocutive value as is the case of It. grazie 'thanks', Sp. pido perdón 'I beg (your) pardon', Fr. je te/vous prie 'I pray you' used in thanks, apologies and requests, respectively. Through the comparison of the functional evolution in Italian and French of the Latin etyma gratia and merce(dem) in acts of thanking, the study shows how both Latin forms, through delocutive derivation, are employed in illocutive thanking acts characterised by productive pragmatic cycles. These latter, however, presuppose the existence of the use of the form in a formula reinterpreted according to the following pattern: noun (e.g. It. grazie 'thanks') > locution (It. rendo grazie lit. 'I return thanks')> verb (It. ringraziare 'to thank')>noun (It. ringraziamento 'thank').