Connettivi e portata testuale. Analisi corpus-based degli usi di tuttavia nella scrittura contemporanea

This paper deals with the textual scope of connectives in written language, focusing on the case of the Italian concessive connective tuttavia. The aim of the study is twofold. Firstly, it puts forward a definition of textual scope and presents a battery of tests to distinguish a wide scope from a narrow scope. The tests are based on the observation of semantic, pragmatic and formal features of the linguistic units linked by the connective. Secondly, tuttavia is examined through a corpus-based analysis that combines a quantitative and a qualitative approach. The analysis intends to establish whether syntax and/or punctuation exert an influence on the textual scope of tuttavia. Corpus data show that the sole factor that displays a statistically significant influence on textual scope is the structural scope of the connective (on a sentence vs. on smaller constituents), whereas specific distributions of the connective in the sentence or the presence/absence of commas around it do not play a role.