The 'Narrative Imperfect' in Legal Italian: The Case of Judgements

Researchers analysing legal Italian have often highlighted the poor drafting quality of court judgements. Although the lack of official training aimed at developing the judges’ writing skills may contribute to the erratic use of verb tenses, no explanation is provided for the constant selection of a very peculiar linguistic resource: the narrative imperfect. The analysis of a corpus of judgements shows that the narrative imperfect may originate from the texts of the Corte di Cassazione which, owing to its prestige, provides a model for lower instance courts in terms of drafting habits. A functional justification may be provided by the high level of formality ensured by the narrative imperfect used to describe official acts performed by participants in the proceedings, i.e. a highly valued institutional event. By contrast, in the light of reversible performatives, it appears that the basic aspectual value of the imperfect tense does not contribute to the ‘suspension’ of telic speechacts