Prefisso Paese: Re-

Abstract

The essence of Italy, if there is one, perhaps lies in a grammatical prefix. When one tries to answer the synthetic question “Who are we?” (given that such a question may have a meaning when applied to a historical collective entity in continuous flux such as a nation), one may attempt an analytical formulation: what we are might be expressed in the prefix “re-“ or “ri-.”It is not by chance, in fact, that the decisive moments in Italian history have a name that starts with such a prefix: Renaissance, Resurgence [Risorgimento], Resistence, Reconstruction. If attempting something like a theoretical deduction of Italianness (of which doubting is legitimate) makes any sense at all, grammatical analysis might perhaps be of help.