Osservazioni sulla sostanza dei primitivi nella Teoria degli Elementi e il rapporto fra fonologia e fonetica

The paper concerns the nature of segmental primes and the relationship between phonological categories and phonetic surface. The view of classic Element Theory and Government Phonology, that elements correspond to acoustic signatures in the speech signal, is here applied to phenomena of phonetics-phonology mismatch, maintaining that the ambiguity that may occasionally arise in phonetic forms needs not to be attributed to an allegedly arbitrary transduction from phonology to phonetics.  A non-phonemic conception of segments is adopted, whereby the elemental content of segments, which is lexically established, may undergo changes determined by prosodic and segmental licensing

Tratti binari e tratti monovalenti nella rappresentazione delle vocali

The paper deals with the nature of segmental primitives. Although the conception of features as binary units has dominated phonological literature for decades, it has been challenged in convincing ways by the alternative theory according to which primitives are monovalent units. The paper compares the two aforementioned approaches by focusing on the representation of vowels. I will argue in favour of the unarist conception through a discussion of data concerning vowel harmony and metaphony in Italo-Romance varieties

Osservazioni sulla sostanza dei primitivi nella Teoria degli Elementi e il rapporto fra fonologia e fonetica

The paper concerns the nature of segmental primes and the relationship between phonological categories and phonetic surface. The view of classic Element Theory and Government Phonology, that elements correspond to acoustic signatures in the speech signal, is here applied to phenomena of phonetics-phonology mismatch, maintaining that the ambiguity that may occasionally arise in phonetic forms needs not to be attributed to an allegedly arbitrary transduction from phonology to phonetics.  A non-phonemic conception of segments is adopted, whereby the elemental content of segments, which is lexically established, may undergo changes determined by prosodic and segmental licensing

From Phonological Rules to the Person Case Constraint. Monovalent vs. Bivalent Features in Grammar

In phonology, segmental content has been predominantly represented in terms of binary features. Although binary features may provide an elegant description of some segmental contrasts, it is far from clear that speaker/hearer’s knowledge about segments is organized in a binary way, as we illustrated with specific reference to vocalic alternations (metaphony etc.). The debate about binarity in phonology has a potential parallel in morphosyntax. While syntactic categories (N, V, v, T etc.) are monovalent, a model like Distributed Morphology depends on standard generative phonology for a number of formal properties, including the adoption of binary features. Thus 1st and 2nd persons are [+participant] while 3rd person is the absence of such properties, namely [-participant]. We argue that this is not the most economical set of assumptions, specifically in the explanation of the syntactic generalization known as the Person Case Constraint (PCC). For both phonology and morphology, we show that the inherent richness of binary features leads to formal and conceptual problems, such as the fact that atomic segments or lexical items have as complex a feature matrix as non-atomic ones

Syllable Weakening in Kagoshima Japanese An Element-Based Analysis

This paper examines syllable weakening or nisshōka (入声化) in Kagoshima Japanese (KJ), where high vowel apocope feeds lenition, leading to correspondences such as Tōkyō Japanese (TJ) [kaki] ‘persimmon’ and Kagoshima [kaʔ]. The traditional pattern noted in the literature is quite clear. Apocope elides stem-final /u/ or /i/. The preceding onset is lenited in one of four ways: 1) stops and affricates are debuccalised (/kaki/ > [kaʔ] ‘persimmon’); 2) fricatives undergo voicing neutralisation (TJ [kazu] > KJ [kas] ‘number’); 3) nasals undergo place loss (TJ [kami] > KJ [kaɴ] ‘paper’); 4) rhotics undergo gliding (TJ [maru] > [maj] ‘round’). This paper presents an initial analysis of the data within Element Theory representational framework

Fenomeni di cancellazione dell'articolo e del proclitico oggetto nel napoletano ed altre varietà italiane meridionali

L'articolo tratta i fenomeni di cancellazione di derivati da ILLE in dialetti italiani meridionali, analizzandone le condizioni di applicazione e proponendone la spiegazione in termini di lenizione consonantica

Recensione a B. Pacini “Il processo di cambiamento dell’indebolimento consonantico a Cortona: studio sociolinguistico”

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