Affiliation:
1. Department of Linguistics, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA
Abstract
Accounts of phonological contrast traditionally invoke a binary distinction between unpredictable lexically stored phonemes and contextually predictable allophones, whose patterning reveals speakers’ knowledge about their native language. This paper explores the complexity of contrasts among Italian mid vowels from a multifaceted perspective considering the lexicon, linguistic structure, usage, and regional variety. The Italian mid vowels are marginally contrastive due to a scarcity of minimal pairs alongside variation in phonetic realization. The analysis considers corpus data, which indicate that the marginal contrasts among front vowels vs. back vowels are driven by different sources and forces. Functional loads are low; while front /e ɛ/ have the weakest lexical contrast among all Italian vowels, back /o ɔ/ are separated by somewhat more minimal pairs. Among stressed front vowels, height is predicted by syllable structure and is context-dependent in some Italian varieties. Meanwhile, the height of back mid vowels is predicted by lexical frequency, in line with expectations of phonetic reduction in high-frequency contexts. For both front and back vowels, the phonetic factor of duration predicts vowel height, especially in closed syllables, suggesting its use for contrast enhancement. The results have implications for a proposed formalization of Italian mid vowel variation.
Funder
Willson Center Fellowship from the University of Georgia’s Willson Center for Humanities & Arts
Reference89 articles.
1. Albano Leoni, Federico, Cutugno, Francesco, Savy, Renata, Caniparoli, Valentina, D’Anna, Leandro, Paone, Ester, Giordano, Rosa, Manfrellotti, Olga, Petrillo, Massimo, and De Rosa, Aurelio (2024, April 07). Corpora e Lessici dell’Italiano Parlato e Scritto. Available online: http://www.clips.unina.it/.
2. Alkire, Ti, and Rosen, Carol (2010). Romance Languages: A Historical Introduction, Cambridge University Press.
3. The Effects of Language Dominance in the Perception and Production of the Galician Mid Vowel Contrasts;Amengual;Phonetica,2015
4. Pisoni, David B., and Remez, Robert E. (2005). The Handbook of Speech Perception, John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated.
5. Badia i Margarit, Antoni M. (1969). Sons i Fonemes de la Llengua Catalana, Publicacions de la Universitat de Barcelona.