Le concordanze dei periodi ipotetici tra italiano antico, dialetti italoromanzi ed italiano contemporaneo

This paper deals with the question of the value of different verb forms in conditional sentences of Italo–Romance varieties, taking into account the dialects of Italy, Old Italian and the inner architecture of contemporary Italian. From the modal perspective the Italo–Romance varieties distinguish higher probability vs lower probability constructions: in the first case the different tenses of the indicative are used to refer to past, present and future events, while in the second case the imperfect / pluperfect subjunctive and/or the simple / compound conditional are used (a)symmetrically to refer to non–past / past events respectively. Moreover, neostandard contemporary Italian uses the imperfect indicative to mark (past–present–future) counterfactuality, whereas in Old Italian and in most of the dialects of Italy the same verb form was used mainly to refer to lower probability past events