Sviluppi nello studio della sinestesia letteraria in ambito linguistico italiano e romeno

Stephen Ullmann’s theory about synaesthesia represents a milestone in the analysis of the intersensory rhetorical configuration in literature, offering some interesting criteria to identify and to record the synaesthetic occurrences into a specific schedule that was used by several researchers during the second half of the 19th century. We investigate the advances of Ullmann’s analytic model in the Romanian and the Italian linguistic field of research, initially focusing our attention on Mihaela Mancaș and Luigi Rosiello’s studies and subsequently trying to show the limits of this scientific approach. In terms of syntax, we go beyond the adjectival structure, taking into account the complexity of other syntactic possibilities. We also look at the semantic incompatibility factor (Dombi), in order to recognize the literary creative synaesthesia. Thirdly, we consider the metonymic and the metaphoric processes as interpretative solutions for literary synaesthesia (Paissa), suggesting our three-factorial analytic model, including the process (the intersensorial combination), the interpretative proceeding (metaphoric or metonymic solutions) and the complexity of syntactic structure.