Lampitelli, Roseano, Torres-Tamarit (2022). Vowel length in Friulian verbs: a case of mora affixation

Autors:

Nicola Lampitelli, Paolo Roseano, Francesc Torres-Tamarit

Títol:

Vowel length in Friulian verbs: a case of mora affixation

Editorial: Morphology, 32(1):1-28 (Springer)
Data de publicació: Febrer del 2022

Text complet

This paper deals with vowel length in Friulian, and shows that this is sometimes phonologically predictable and sometimes an instance of mora affixation in conjugation 1 verbs. Building on newly collected data on verbal morphology, we make the hypothesis that the Theme morpheme in conjugation 1 verbs in the dialect of Negrons has distinct allomorphs, among which a mora. This analysis of morphological length in Negrons Friulian shows that there is no need for a morphome-based analysis of the data. In our analysis, each morph, including length, spells out a morphosyntactic property.

Bonet & Torres (2022). Typologically Exceptional Phenomena in Romance Phonology

Autors:

Eulàlia Bonet & Francesc Torres-Tamarit

Títol:

Typologically Exceptional Phenomena in Romance Phonology

Editorial: The Cambridge Handbook of Romance Linguistics, Cambridge University Press
Data de publicació: 23 juny 2022

Més informació

This chapter on Romance phonology reviews several phenomena that can be qualified as typologically rare. Some of the phenomena examined are rarely documented within Romance but are relatively common in other language families, while others are hardly attested in the world’s languages but are present to some degree in Romance. Their relative frequency across languages and geographical distribution have been assessed with the help of three online databases that are publicly available: PHOIBLE, WALS, and the World Phonotactics Database. In addition, the challenges that these phenomena represent for phonological theory are also briefly considered. The topics examined in this chapter concern (i) phoneme inventories; (ii) syllable structure, with a focus on consonantal clusters; (iii) segmental processes involving glides, nasal place neutralization, lenition and fortition, and metathesis, among others; and (iv) issues at the morphology–phonology interface involving suprasegmentals.

Mascaró & Torres-Tamarit (2022). Stress-dependent harmony in Asturian and harmony in situ

Autors:

Joan Mascaró & Francesc Torres-Tamarit

Títol:

Stress-dependent harmony in Asturian and harmony in situ

Editorial: Language, Linguistic Society of America
Data de publicació: Desembre del 2022
Pàgines: 33

Més informació

In many cases of stress-dependent harmony the trigger is associated with a morpheme. We examine two instances of morphemic harmony where the triggering morpheme is mixed, that is, it consists of segmental material and floating features. The floating features cause stepwise raising of the stressed vowel, /a/ → [e], and /e/ → [i], /o/ → [u]. We examine in particular Felechosa Asturian, where the triggering masculine singular count morpheme usually has the exponent /-o/ and the floating features [+high] and [−low]. When the stressed vowel is mid, /-o/ raises it to high (/neɡɾ-o/ → [ˈniɣɾ-o]). When the stressed vowel is /a/, the suffix raises this vowel to [e] as predicted, but at the same time the triggering morph /-o/ raises to [u] (/blank-o/ → [ˈbleŋk-u]). This phenomenon, which we call harmony in situ, derives from the fact that, because raising is stepwise, one of the floating features cannot link to the stressed vowel, and thus it has to be realized on the trigger itself. Felechosa Asturian is compared to Ḷḷena Asturian, which does not present harmony in situ, and an optimality-theoretic analysis is provided.

Pons-Moll, Torres-Tamarit & I.Mascaró (2023). Prosodically-driven morpheme non-realization in the Minorcan Catalan DP

Autors:

Clàudia Pons-Moll, Francesc Torres-Tamarit i Ignasi Mascaró

Títol:

Prosodically-driven morpheme non-realization in the Minorcan Catalan DP

Editorial: Linguistics, De Gruyter Mouton
Data de publicació: Abril del 2023

Més informació
Text complet


This article focuses on a case of prosodically-driven morpheme non-realization found in the Minorcan Catalan DP that has not been documented or accounted for in the previous literature. In this variety of Catalan, kinship restrictive appositive phrases show the realization of the masculine personal article if the following personal name starts with a consonant (es conco en Toni, the-def.art.m uncle the-pers.art.m Toni ‘uncle Toni’), but not if it starts with a vowel (es conco Àngel, the-def.art.m uncle Àngel ‘uncle Àngel’). This asymmetrical pattern is entirely unexpected since a preconsonantal coda is generated in the former cases (cf. es conco en Toni [əs.kòŋ.kun.tɔ́.ni]) and an onsetless syllable and a hiatus are generated in the latter (cf. es conco Àngel [əs.kòŋ.ku.án.ʒəl]). The structures obtained are indeed non-optimizing from a strictly syllabic point of view and stand as a clear case of antimarkedness. We argue that this asymmetric behavior is prosodic in nature, and is mainly driven by the need to keep the left edge of the prosodic word free of clitic material, without challenging basic syllabification constraints active in Catalan. We further justify how the cases under scrutiny shed new light on the typology of alignment constraints referred to the alignment between prosodic and lexical categories, on the nature of morpheme realization constraints, and on the morphosyntax-phonology interface.

Hamann & Torres-Tamarit (2023). Merger in Eivissan Catalan: an acoustic analysis of the vowel systems of young native speakers

Autors:

Silke Hamann & Francesc Torres-Tamarit

Títol:

Merger in Eivissan Catalan: an acoustic analysis of the vowel systems of young native speakers

Editorial: Phonetica (De Gruyter)
Data de publicació: 16 juny 2023

Més informació

The vowel system of Catalan has been the focus of many studies, though work on the varieties spoken on the island of Eivissa (Ibiza) are scarce, with a single mention of the possible merger of the mid back vowels /o, ɔ/ (Torres Torres, Marià. 1983. Aspectes del vocalisme tònic eivissenc. Eivissa 14. 22–23). The present article provides the first acoustic analysis of the vowel inventory of 25 young native speakers of Eivissan Catalan, with a focus on the realisations of stressed /ə, ɛ/, and the back mid vowels /o, ɔ/. We employed Pillai scores (Hay, Jennifer, Paul Warren & Katie Drager. 2006. Factors influencing speech perception in the context of a merger-in-progress. Journal of Phonetics 34. 458–484) to compare the possibly merged pairs /ə, ɛ/ and /o, ɔ/ to the fully-contrasting neighbouring pairs /e, ɛ/ and /o, u/. Our results show that all participants had considerable overlap of stressed /ə/ and /ɛ/, and all but one had considerable overlap of the back mid vowels, while the fully contrastive pairs (/e, ɛ/ and /o, u/) showed almost no overlap.