Per studiare il vocabolario del passato. La posizione delle parole in epoca storica

This paper aims to propose a new method for describing the lexicon of a language in a specific period of its history. The first paragraph outlines the two main ideas to be found in the studies concerning both synchronic and diachronic lexicology. In the second para-graph our method for lexical inquiry is presented along with its core concepts, such as textual Corpus Representativeness, Connotation, Connotation Rate (Quoziente Connota-tivo, QC) and word Position in the Center-Periphery Vocabulary Model. The third para-graph sketches two possible research lines, the first one regarding the lexicon of a given historical period (Old Italian), the second dealing with the comparison between two differ-ent linguistic historical phases (Old Italian vs. Contemporary Italian).