Old Sicilian: Promittinu a lu dittu Manfrè

Riverplatense

Riverplatense

Senior Member
German — Austria
Hello everybody,

I'm having problems translating this sentence in old sicilianu which is remarkable because of it's special use of reference.

Promittinu a lu dittu Manfrè ... non permectiri nì consentiri fari nì fari fari.

Can someone translate it in Italian or Englisch?

Thank you!
 
    • An attempt:

    Promettono al detto (?) Manfrè ... non permettere né consentire di farlo, e neanche di farlo fare
    (...non permettere di farlo o farlo fare e non essere d'accordo con quello che qualcuno lo faccia o lo faccia fare)

    far fare - mandare qualcuno a fare
    (if Manfrè is a vocative, then "lu dittu" is not not very clear to me ...)
     
    Last edited:
    I'd say I promise to said* Manfrè (Manfred)... not to allow nor consent, neither doing nor ordering to do.
    (*: as in, "this Manfred we've already talked about". Could also mean "this man named Manfred".)

    I've based it on similarity with Catalan (Promet al dit Manfrè... no permetre ni consentir fer ni fer fer).
     
    Last edited:
    Well, I'm not sure about that, the only thing I can say is that somebody promised something to Manfrè. Take into account I don't speak Italian, and obviously no Old Sicilian either.
    Now that you said that, they promise looks better, like some kind of court settlement. And it'd be a bit closer to my language, too: prometen al dit Manfrè...
     
    Thank you very much, francisgranada and Favara, it looks very clear now.
    However, I don't see any significant morphosyntactical difference (besides the preposition introducing the secondary clause) between


    • Promittinu a lu dittu Manfrè ... non permectiri nì consentiri fari nì fari fari.
      and
    • Promettono al suddetto Manfredo ... di non permettere né consentire di farlo e neanche di farlo fare.

    I guess that in both the old Sicilian and the Tuscan Italian the subject is the same in the main and in the secondary clause (implicit they). I also think that promittiri and promettere have the same function in their sentences. So I don't understand how this example can be given related to logophoric pronouns, before all because I don't see why we have to go back to the 15th century, as Mocciaro explains in his abstract: http://www.webdominius.com/convegno/download/abstract_mocciaro.pdf.
     
    I don't know, but maybe it's due to the fact that in the old Sicilian no prepositions were needed (exactly like in the Catalan translation of Favara), so the Sicilian example may seem to be be more "representative" or more general, from the point of view of the discussed phenomenon, than the modern Italian (or Tuscan) usage ...

    By the way, the Italian translation "Promettono al suddetto Manfredo ... di non permettere né consentire di farlo e neanche di farlo fare" would not function, if the verbs permettere and consentire required different prepositions (not di in both cases) ...
     
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