«Non voglio mi creda un neogrammatico arrabbiato». Le leggi fonetiche nel carteggio D’Ovidio-Schuchardt (e in rapporto al pensiero ascoliano)

This article is based on a group of letters from F. D’Ovidio and H. Schuchardt exchanged between 1885 and 1886, i.e. in the months between the publication of the famous Schuchardtian brochure Über die Lautgesetze. Gegen die Junggrammatiker. Through the examination of private and printed writings in which the two correspondents took a position on the theoretical debate then in progress, the paper also explores the agreements and disagreements that the two linguists, both linked to Ascoli, expressed with regard to his ideas on linguistic change and the role of «ethnic reactions». The development of D’Ovidio’s etymological research is thus highlighted. The Molisian scholar, originally aligned on Ascoli’s positions, arrived in the 1890s, thanks to the dialogue with Schuchardt and the frequentation of W. D. Whitney’s writings, to a more dynamic and less linear conception of linguistic evolution, in which a leading role was attributed to the prestige of cultural currents and to the contaminations caused by their influences.