Verbi procomplementari, locuzioni idiomatiche e traduzione: uno sguardo in diacronia. Il caso di fare

The Italian verb-clitic constructions termed verbi procomplementari may be classified as phraseological units with reference to their non-compositional meaning; moreover, they often belong to larger multi-words including additional elements. Although some date back to the 14th Century, the increasing frequency of most procomplementari is a consequence of the recent influence of oral discourse on modern Italian. This survey of a corpus of fictional prose written by Italian authors or translated from other languages sheds light on the chronological development between 1800 and 2005 and illustrates the role of translations in the success of this class of verbs. Although the analysis confirms their quantitative increase, their widespread presence in translations stands in contrast with the tenets of Translation Universals.