The Grammatica da Lingua Italiana para os Portuguezes by Antonio Prefumo: between the traditional and the conversational method

Within the Italian FL grammatical tradition, the 19th century is a very fruitful period. In other contributions, we have highlighted how several Portuguese and Italian figures connected to the circle of the S. Carlos Theatre in Lisbon act as preceptors and compose some grammars, which contain a strong normative part and, at the same time, connect themselves to the conversational tradition: among these works, the Grammatica da Lingua Italiana para os Portuguezes by Antonio Prefumo (Lisbon, 1829) plays a central role, as it goes through four editions over almost forty years. The paper analyses the social and intellectual context of production of this text, besides outlining the author’s profile and providing a philological reconstruction of the sources and models adopted. Furthermore, the paper attempts an analysis of the Grammatica that, on the one hand, highlights both the heritage of the vernacular and Enlightenment grammatical traditions and its innovative aspects and, on the other hand, compares the various editions through the study of their macro-textual areas. The methodology underlying our description follows that proposed by Swiggers (2006, 168) being based on four aspects: the analysis of the author, the audience, the subject described and its form. This approach places the author at the centre of a historical conjuncture in which the traditional grammatical method was associated with that of conversation, responding to the demand of an audience that increasingly approached the study of FL for practical reasons, rather than to meet the traditional educational demands of the upper classes.