Council for Ligurian Linguistic Heritage

Ligurian Council

DEIZE

Italian-Ligurian (Genoese) dictionary

giù di lì

adv. phr.
  1. pressapoco, all’incirca

    pöcassæ [ˌpɔːkaˈsɛː]

    arriverò alle sei o giù di lì

    arriviò à sëi oe pöcassæ

  2. laggiù

    in zu de lì [iŋ ˈzy de ˈli] (var. zu de lì)

    lazù [laˈzy] (var. lazue)1

    il bar è giù di lì, dopo la curva

    o bar o l’é in zu de lì, dòppo a curva

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1. Variant with epenthesis of the vowel -e

This term may also occur with epenthesis (i.e. final addition) of the vowel -e. In Genoese, this phenomenon mostly affects monosyllables (such as mi [ˈmi]mie [ˈmiːe] “I”, ti [ˈti]tie [ˈtiːe] “you”, chì [ˈki]chie [ˈkiːe] “here”, [ˈli]lie [ˈliːe] “there”, scì [ˈʃi]scie [ˈʃiːe] “yes”, no [ˈnu]noe [ˈnuːe] “no”) and some bisyllables (ascì [aˈʃi]ascie [aˈʃiːe] “also”; coscì [kuˈʃi]coscie [kuˈʃiːe] “so”). It occurs especially when the word is at the end of the phonetic chain (thus, generally, at the end of a sentence) and serves essentially emphatic purposes. It is therefore a phenomenon typical of spoken language, and generally does not occur in written texts (unless, of course, they aim to imitate speech). Its use with nouns in -on [ˈuŋ] (staçion [staˈsjuŋ]staçioñe [staˈsjuŋˑe] “station”) and with participles in -ou (cantou [kaŋˈtɔw]cantoue [kaŋˈtɔwˑe] “sung”) is decidedly rare, and mostly restricted to certain areas.