La riscoperta della sintassi nella storiografia linguistica dalla fine del Novecento: le frasi dipendenti

My contribution aims at illustrating the peculiarities of the debate relating to the concept of “dependent clause” and its history, giving space both to the contribution of the individual “schools” of thought and to their mutual reception in linguistic historiography since the end of the 20th century. The method of investigation is based on the various parameters that help to answer the questions of “who, when, where, with what tools, why, in what way, for what purpose and for the benefit of whom” the linguistic scientific historiography is practiced. Since the problem of the origin of the concept of “dependent sentence” is tackled through a metalinguistic study that extends from the grammars of the II century B.C. up to those of the 20th century, particular attention is payed to the period of its theoretical elaboration between the 17 and 19th centuries, especially within the Ancient Greek grammars. In particular, the German–speaking terminology of the syntax of dependence between the early 1600s and the late 1700s, from Radke to Adelung, is considered. The study concludes with an overview of the most recent works of the 21st century dedicated to the “dependent sentence”, with reference to Rinas who underlines the role of punctuation in the architecture of the German syntax of sentence.