Origini e sviluppo di anteposito ‘eccetto’ nei documenti di area longobarda [Origins and development of "anteposito" 'except for' in documents from Longobard Italy]

This paper investigates the origins of anteposito ‘except for’, i.e. a deverbal preposition that occurs in 8th to 10th century legal and notarial documents from the Italian territories that had been under Lombard rule. Like other perfect participles occurring in the absolute construction called ablativus absolutus (e.g. excepto ‘except for’, excluso ‘excluding’), anteposito ‘lit.: placed in front of / before’ has lost the morpho-syntactic features typical of a participial clause and has acquired those of a prepositional phrase but, in addition, it has also undergone a semantic change that is worth of note. Its development as a synonym of excepto is illustrated here in the light of the cultural background, the linguistic competence, and the writing practice of the medieval notaries, with particular regard to the structural frame of the charters (sales, donations, wills, etc.). The hypothesis is put forward that the semantic shift under examination can be explained in relation to a well-established, formulaic order of the different parts of the deeds.