*Capor (> cabo) o capora? Esiti inattesi e basi pseudo-italiche: una polemica tra Ascoli, Schuchardt e D’Ovidio

The D’Ovidio–Schuchardt correspondence (1875–1921), edited by the author of this paper for the Hugo Schuchardt Archiv in Graz (now in print), contains a wealth of information and evidence that goes far beyond the anecdotal, shedding light not only on the scientific dialogue between the two scholars but also on trends and crucial issues in European linguistics between the 19th and 20th centuries. This article reconstructs — starting from a brief exchange of letters between the Molisian philologist and the master of Graz — an etymological controversy, apparently marginal but full of interesting implications, that at the end of the century opposed G.I. Ascoli, on the one hand, and Schuchardt and D’Ovidio, on the other: a trace, among the many to be found in the correspondence, of the turning point that was by now taking shape, even in Italian Romanistics, from the “one-dimensional” linearity of the historical– comparative paradigm to a new vision of linguistic dynamics, more attentive to the influences and crossings of cultural currents.