Author:
In this paper, our aim is to show the different ways of language evolution through examples of conditional mode morphology in various Romance languages: unsuccessful solutions that remain isolated and die out, local ones that will not expand far off the centre of the innovation, and `mainstream' ones that, for one reason or other, affect a large number of related languages or dialects. The article focuses on medieval Northern Italian dialects, mainly 14th century Lombard where the three ways coexisted.