Tuscan and Etruscan

Izzo, Herbert J.

doi:10.3138/9781487599867

Cited by 26 publications

(8 citation statements)

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“…Bafile (1997:28) writes: “In effect, the occurrence of less spirantized (or non-spirantized) forms becomes more frequent passing from the velar to the dental and then to the labial.” 3 Antelmi (1989:60–61) notes that “a larger quantity of carefully produced word-initial forms is observed, above all for the /k/ … because this is the characteristic most noted and stigmatized in Florentine, that speakers would like to correct.” 4 Sorianello (2003b:3081) finds that “the velar obstruent /k/ is the primary target of the ‘gorgia,’ progressively followed by /t/ and /p/.” Historically, one sees a similar pattern of asymmetry. Izzo (1972) provides diachronic evidence that velars lenited at least several generations before nonvelars did.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…First, its lenition patterns have not been the subject of much close phonetic analysis. Previous studies either do not incorporate acoustic data at all (Bafile, 1997; Cravens, 1984, 2000; Izzo, 1972; Kirchner, 1998, 2001, 2004; Nespor & Vogel, 1986); do not fully describe their acoustic methods (Giannelli & Savoia, 1978); or limit acoustic analysis to either a subset of stops (Sorianello, 2001, 2003a, 2003b) or a subset of pertinent acoustic characteristics (Marotta, 2001). Second, it exhibits a well-known, but as yet unexplained, asymmetry in the extent to which consonants within natural classes weaken—an observation evident in dialectal stereotyping and previous research (Bafile, 1997; Contini, 1960; Giannelli & Savoia, 1979–80; Kirchner, 1998; Lepschy & Lepschy, 1977; and others).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Consonant weakening in Florentine Italian: A cross-disciplinary approach to gradient and variable sound change

Dalcher

2008

Lang Var Change

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Few acoustic studies of the intervocalic consonant lenition in central Italian dialects (a process known as Gorgia Toscana) have been undertaken. This study examines speech data from Florentine Italian in order to describe the process of Gorgia Toscana quantitatively and to assess the roles of physiological, perceptual, phonological, and social factors in the process. Results of acoustic and statistical analysis indicate gradient and variable output, with certain patterns occurring in the variation. The observations that emerge from the data cannot all be accounted for if Gorgia Toscana is characterized as a purely phonetic, phonological, or socially driven process of sound change. Rather, different aspects of the process are attributed to different motivators: gradience and velar preference to articulator movements, resistance of nonvelar lenition to perceptual constraints, targeting of a natural class and categorical weakening to abstract featural representations, and intersubject variation in velar lenition to external social factors.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

Consonant weakening in Florentine Italian: A cross-disciplinary approach to gradient and variable sound change

Dalcher

2008

Lang Var Change

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“…Gorgia spans word and phrase boundaries: its regular scope is the utterance or the intonational phrase included between pauses or prosodic breaks; no 5 Further historical details regarding gorgia may be found in the exhaustive work by Izzo (1972). syntactic boundary, however strong, may block the process (contra Nespor & Vogel 1982).…”

Section: Triggering and Blocking Contextsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Even though there is an important literature on the topic (among many others, see Castellani 1960, Contini 1960, Izzo 1972, Giannelli & Savoia 1978, 1979-80, Marotta 1995a, acoustic analyses of Tuscan lenition are recent and still rare (see Marotta 2001-02, Sorianello 2001-02, Villafaña 2006. Section 4.3 presents original data which show a large variability in the phonetic output: fricatives are found besides stops and approximants; in Pisan, segment deletion is also possible for the input /k/ ( § 5).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lenition in Tuscan Italian (Gorgia Toscana)

Marotta¹

2008

Lenition and Fortition

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Tuscan Italian features a lenition process known as gorgia toscana, which effects the spirantisation of stop consonants in weak positions. Gorgia spans word boundaries and is active in many different registers. The focus of this chapter is on the description any analysis of the phonetic output of this process in Florentine and Pisan Italian. Outputs are variable and may not always be predicted (especially for the velar voiceless plosive /k/). Another finding is that gorgia toscana is sensitive to the place of articulation: velar stops are much more prone to lenition than dentals and labials. A detailed phonetic analysis isolates the basic cues of lenition, among which most prominently feature the quality and the duration of VOT. On the basis of their acoustic structure, a new class of segments, semifricatives, are identified; they are shown to be weaker than the corresponding stops. This leads to a reinterpretation of the role of VOT, which cannot serve as a diagnostic for consonantal strength alone. We argue that the burst also needs to be recognised as a basic indicator of strength in the case of plosives. Finally, the variability of outputs not withstanding, a formal interpretation of gorgia toscana is proposed that takes advantage of the tools of Government Phonology in general, and of CVCV in particular.

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“…If it was, it is not clear that their languages were necessarily related to existing non-Austronesian languages elsewhere . Izzo (1972) and others before him have pointed to the unacceptability of relying on substratum languages to explain the peculiarities of ex isting languages . It is essentially unscientific to resolve problems by appe aling to inaccessible hypothetical influences .…”

Section: Assimi Lation Substrata Borrowi Ng and Formosan Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%