Che ti venga NP, a conventionalised impoliteness formula for Italian disease curses (14th–20th century)
Additional information
Authors
Type
Book chapter
Year
2025
Language
English
Abstract
This essay argues that the Italian formula che ti venga NP is a conventionalised linguistic expression of impoliteness, particularly as a disease curse, from the fourteenth to the twentieth century. Still used in contemporary Italian, examples such as che ti venga il gavocciolo (‘may a plague sore take you’) appear in medieval legislative texts and judicial records. Theologically, these curses were deemed sinful and blasphemous. Drawing on two historical corpora – the COrpus Diacronico dell’ITaliano (CODIT) and an eighteenth-century corpus of Carlo Goldoni’s dramatic oeuvre – the study finds 132 instances of the curse. Quantitative analysis examines subjunctive and pronoun use, word order, intensifiers, and disease nouns, revealing a preference for severe illnesses like the plague and rabies. The qualitative analysis focuses on rare benedictive uses, reinforcing the hypothesis that che ti venga NP is predominantly impolite. Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century pedagogical texts provide further metapragmatic evidence of its conventionalised status. This interdisciplinary approach fills a research gap by highlighting the syntactic stability of the Che ti venga NP phrase over centuries, paving the way for cross-cultural comparisons of similar expressions.
Keywords
Curses, Disease curses, Formula, Impoliteness, Maledictions, Swearing
Book
The Grammar of Impoliteness
Pages (or article number)
129-178
ISBN
9783111477084
Diffusion
License
CC BY-Nd
Visibility
Public
Status open access
Gold
