The paper presents an analysis of how the connector la qual cosa functioned in the 16th - early 17th century Italian prose. The features we pay special attention to are: a) the concurrence of la qual cosa and its synonym il che, b) the ability of la qual cosa to perform a variety of syntactic roles, c) the co-occurrence of la qual cosa with other conjunctions within a single clause. The analysis suggests that it could be reasonable to single out the clauses adduced by la qual cosa and il che as a specific clause type, the way it is done in the Russian grammatical tradition where such clauses are called extended declarative. The material for the study is drawn from pieces of fiction, scientific and nonfiction prose (works by N. Machiavelli, N. Tartalea, F. Sansovino, B. Cellini, P. Sarpi, P. Bembo, G. Della Casa and other authors).
|
