Voyelles longues virtuelles et réduction vocalique en coratin

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to describe and analyze the reduction of unstressed vowels in Coratino, a language spoken in the Apulia region of Italy. Its vowel inventory includes seven vowels: /i, e, ε, a, ɔ, o, u/. All but /a/ are reduced to a schwa when they surface in unstressed positions. Furthermore, back and front vowels are not reduced in unstressed positions when they are adjacent to a labial consonant, or adjacent to a velar followed by a palatal. These vowels also remain non-reduced in word-initial position. Therefore, there are three contexts in which these vowels are not reduced (in stressed positions, adjacent to a consonant, and in word-initial positions). This article aims to reduce this disjunction.

Assessing the Representation of Phonological Rules by a Production Study of Non-Words in Coratino

“…All initial vowels appeared as quite stable acoustically, confirming that they are never reduced in Coratino, even in an unstressed configuration. For non-initial unstressed vowels, the acoustic analyses confirmed the phonological reduction process previously described by Bucci (2013Bucci ( , 2017. Indeed, non-initial unstressed protected vowels maintained their vowel quality and just displayed some phonetic reduction with a decrease in formant contrast.…”

“…This supports the phonological analyses of this process as they have been developed in e.g. Bucci (2013Bucci ( , 2017 in the non-linear phonology framework, proposing that consonantal protection provides the target vowels with branching structures in the skeleton. Branching structures would enable the vowel to resist reduction, following the proposal by Honeybone (2005) that segments sharing an articulation feature are protected from lenitions.…”

“…In this case, there is only a partial phonological reduction concerning the contrast between mid-high and mid-low vowels, which is lost. The reduction process has been analyzed in the context of formal phonology in Bucci (2013, 2017) and D'Introno & Weston (2000.…”

“…Beckman, 1998;Flemming, 2005), though it can also be conceived as the trace of past or present initial stress, making initial positions, even unstressed, part of the stressed domain (Barnes, 2002). The status of initial configurations has been modelled by Bucci (2013) as syllabic space providing a branching structure making vowels nonreduced, in the framework of government phonology (Kaye et al, 1990) and CVCV phonology (Scheer, 2004).…”

La voyelle initiale des noms et l’état d'annexion en kabyle (berbère)

“…CJL/RCL 65(2), 2020 15Larsen considère que l'accent est une unité [CV] insérée après la voyelle accentuée. L'idée que l'accent soit représenté en phonologie par de l'espace syllabique est également entretenue par Bucci (2013), Chierchia (1986) et Ségéral et Scheer (2008). Sous (15a), la position V 2 qui sert de cible à la propagation de la voyelle tonique á doit être licenciée à cet effet par V 3 .…”