Different sources of convergent patterns in the Alps

Abstract The diffusion of particle-verbs in Rhaeto-Romance and Italo-Romance dialects is surveyed on the basis of a selection of 13 AIS maps presenting the responses to 12 input sentences referring to different events. Particle-verbs are more frequent in the coding of motion than non-motion events. The geographic diffusion appears to be biased towards the Central and the Eastern Alps and the Central Po Plain. The distribution of particle-verbs is shown to correlate with the presence of systems of topographical deixis and to result from processes of language shift from Romance to Germanic in the mountains. Diffusion in the plain has resulted from inter-dialectal contact along cross-Alpine trade routes.