soggiungere

Forms

soggiungere (first-person singular present soggiùngo, first-person singular past historic soggiùnsi, past participle soggiùnto, auxiliary avére)^[1] The old form soggiugnere is used by Dante.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin subiungere (“to attach, join; to add”), formed from sub- (“under”) and iungō (“to yoke, join”).^[5][6][7][1] From it came Late Latin subiunctivus, the source of the grammatical term soggiuntivo.^[5]

De Vaan traces iungō to a nasal present, Proto-Indo-European *(H)iu-n-g- (“to yoke”).^[8] The simple Latin verb gave giungere.^[6][5] REW knows no other Romance outcome of the Latin verb; a dialect of the Polesine has a derivative for a shed, as an “addition” to the house.^[9][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

GRADIT dates the verb before 1313 and DELI before 1321, in Dante, with the sense of saying something more after what has already been said.^[7][5] In the Purgatorio Virgil “added”: Lo sol sen va, soggiunse, e vien la sera (“the sun is going, he added, and evening comes”).^[4]

Semantic evolution

The sense of speech has been the main one from the start;^[4][7] Boccaccio and later prose use it to introduce or close reported words.^[4][7] The Latin sense “to join, unite” lived on as a rare literary use, and DEI records 14th-century uses for “to strike, catch” and, in the 17th century (Lippi), “to arrive unexpectedly”, like sopraggiungere.^[2][10]

The grammatical term soggiuntivo “subjunctive mood” appears as soggiontivo in Niccolò Liburnio in 1526 and as soggiuntivo in Citolini in 1561; as an adjective “that adds or joins” it is in Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger in 1619.^[5]

Timeline

• Before 1313 – GRADIT's first date for soggiungere.^[7]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses soggiungere and soggiugnere “to add in speech”.^[5][4]
• 1526 – Soggiontivo “subjunctive mood” in Niccolò Liburnio.^[5]
• 1561 – Soggiuntivo in Alessandro Citolini.^[5]
• 17th century – Soggiunzione is recorded.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, also intransitive) To add in speech, to say further, to complete, clarify or reply to what has been said: Poi soggiunse che sarebbe tornato presto.^[7][11][10]
2. (transitive, archaic) To join, to unite.^[7][11][10]
3. (intransitive, archaic) To arrive unexpectedly; like sopraggiungere.^[7][10][12]

Word family

• soggiuntivo
• soggiungimento
• soggiunzione

Related words

• giungere
• aggiungere
• Latin subiungo

Usage notes

It is conjugated like giungere (past soggiunsi, participle soggiunto), and is often used as an aside in reported speech, or followed by che or di.^[11][3][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3529
3. ^ a b Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
4. ^ a b c d e Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
6. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b c d e f g h De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ a b c d Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
11. ^ a b c Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
12. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli