At the Lordship’s Pleasure… Or: how expressing one's will politely

Abstract

Since in Italian most of the so-called ‘language of politeness’ are expressions based on piacere (EPs) the paper deals with explaining their origin, development and accommodation as ‘politeness induced pragmatic markers’. An analysis of early vernacular texts demonstrates that – in continuous connection with directive speech-acts and the afforded courtesy constraints – EPs become conventionalised forms of verbal submission.  As such, a great part of them has generated the common formulae of polite requesting. However, a particular Italian construction – the phrasal pattern che piaccia a X + infinitive – conquered its formulary character as a benevolent optionality device for processing both, the modular structure of public petitions and the ‘gentle’ speech-style of high-ranked persons.