Andare a + infinito: una perifrasi in movimento, fra mutamento e variazione

After briefly reviewing the diachrony of andare a + infinitive, this paper focuses on its periphrastic uses in contemporary Italian, based on the analysis of data from different corpora. The andare a + infinitive periphrasis is overall more frequent in written than in spoken language, and in most cases it has a culminative value. In specific varieties, such as (semi-)scientific written and spoken Italian, as well as in the language used in video tutorials, the periphrasis also displays a prospective value. Despite the proximity between prospective aspect and future tense, however, it is here argued that there is so far no evidence of an incipient grammaticalization leading to a form of analytic future, a phenomenon which characterizes ‘go (to) + infinitive’ periphrases in other Romance languages.