Verb and verbal modality

Abstract

in spoken Sicilian , the verb is subject to morphological varians of its theme and verbal modality ( including not only tense and mood but also person and number , owing to the peculiar structure of the Sicilian statement in which a nominal or pronominal subject is not absolutely necessary , in opposition to what happens in French , for instance)

In this paper, the author analyses such variants, and considers with caution the traditional , normative, classifications, which are obsolete  and based on written linguistic samples.

He gives a synchronic description and brings forwward the general idea that such variants are caused by grammatically different realities

He then tries to explain the observed phenomena- although it is sometimes impossible to do so without allowing for diachrony: so the shift of the stress may cause formal variations such as neutralizing of the e/i and o/u oppositions; analogy and linguistic economy have to be considered ; or else the duality of the infinitive termination (-ari, -iri) may influence the other verbal modality variants.