Identity in the Repertoire. A Bottom Line

Within the more general topic of linguistic representations of identity, the issue of “identity in the repertoire” deserves special attention. Closely related to this subject is the study of the manifold chronological/typological aspects of language contact. Indeed, language contact over time may affect, also in a profound way, the repertoire of every speech community involved, from phonology to lexicon, according to an increasing level of interference. It follows that this subject matter is undoubtedly extremely vast and involves several issues with many interesting insights achieved in recent researches on this topic. Therefore, the primary aim of this chapter consists of a broad reflection on the most significant and innovative results which have come to light. Obviously, the complexity of the subject and the wealth of the studies available require a preliminary discussion on how our reflections should be organized.