Rivalry of causal / explanatory conjunctions in the 16th - early 17th century Italian

The article deals with the functioning of the causal conjunctions / discourse connectors che, perche and conciossiacosache in the 16th-century Italian language. This example is illustrative of how the developing standard language was becoming more versatile and stylistically differentiated. On the one hand, it drew on the Old Italian resources; on the other hand, the living dialects of Tuscany were an equally powerful resource for enriching the colloquial register.