The Italian ‘mobile diphtongs’ A test case for experimental phonetics and phonological theory. Veer, B. van der Citation Veer, B. van der. (2006, January 17). The Italian ‘mobile diphtongs’ A test case for experimental phonetics and phonological theory. LOT dissertation series. LOT, Utrecht. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/1887/3773 Version: Not Applicable (or Unknown) Licence agreement concerning inclusion of doctoral thesis in the License: Institutional Repository of the University of Leiden Downloaded from: https://hdl.handle.net/1887/3773 Note: To cite this publication please use the final published version (if applicable). The Italian ‘mobile diphthongs’ A test case for experimental phonetics and phonological theory Published by LOT phone: +31 30 253 6006 Trans 10 fax: +31 30 253 6000 3512 JK Utrecht e-mail: [email protected] The Netherlands http://www.lotschool.nl Cover illustration by Stijn Houtman (November 2005) ISBN 90-76864-88-8 NUR 632 Copyright © 2006 by Bart van der Veer. All rights reserved. The Italian ‘mobile diphthongs’ A test case for experimental phonetics and phonological theory PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van de graad van Doctor aan de Universiteit Leiden, op gezag van de Rector Magnificus Dr. D.D. Breimer hoogleraar in de faculteit der Wiskunde en Natuurwetenschappen en die der Geneeskunde, volgens besluit van het College voor Promoties te verdedigen op dinsdag 17 januari 2006 klokke 16.15 uur door BART VAN DER VEER geboren te ’s-Gravenhage in 1968 Promotiecommissie promotores: Prof. dr. V.J.J.P. van Heuven Prof. dr. J.E.C.V. Rooryck co-promotor: Dr. J.M. van de Weijer referent: Prof. dr. P.M. Bertinetto, Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa overige leden: Prof. dr. H.M.G.M. Jacobs, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen Table of contents Transcription and abbreviations ix 1 Introduction 1 1.1. Scope and aims 1 1.2. Outline of the chapters 2 1.3. The framework 3 2 The Italian dittonghi mobili 5 2.1. Introduction 5 2.2. Diphthongs and diphthongization 7 2.2.1. Definition 7 2.2.2. Falling and rising diphthongs 8 2.2.3. Sources of diphthongs 9 2.3. Diphthongs in Modern Italian 10 2.4. Diphthongization of /E/ and /O/ (< e*, o*) 12 2.4.1. Introduction to the data 12 2.4.2. Romance diphthongization: different theories 15 2.5. The dittongo mobile in early and contemporary Italian 22 2.5.1. Grammars and dictionaries 22 2.5.2. Phonology 25 2.5.2.1. Saltarelli (1970) 25 2.5.2.2. Marotta (1987, 1988) 26 2.5.2.3. Sluyters (1992) 28 2.5.3. The twentieth century 30 2.6. Summary 31 3 Experiment I: Duration 33 3.1. Introduction 33 3.2. Method 34 3.2.1. Speakers 34 3.2.2. Material 34 3.2.3. Procedure 35 3.2.4. Data analysis 36 3.3. Results 38 3.3.1. Monophthongal vowel duration 38 3.3.2. Diphthong duration 40 3.3.3. Comparing monophthongs and diphthongs 44 3.3.4. Relative duration of monophthongs and diphthongs 45 3.4. Conclusion and discussion 50 3.4.1. Conclusion 50 vi C O NT EN TS 3.4.2. Discussion 51 4 Experiment II: Variation 53 4.1. Introduction 53 4.2. Experiment I 54 4.2.1. Speech shadowing 54 4.2.2. Subjects 55 4.2.3. Materials 55 4.2.4. Procedure 57 4.2.5. Listening task 57 4.3. Experiment II: reading aloud 58 4.3.1. Method 58 4.3.2. Data transcription 58 4.4. Results of the experiments 58 4.4.1. Agreement 58 4.4.2. Effects of experimental factors 60 4.5. Conclusion 63 4.6. Discussion 63 5 Italian glides 73 5.1. Introduction 73 5.2. Preliminaries 73 5.3. The syllabic affiliation of glides 77 5.3.1. Discussion of former analyses 77 5.3.2. A nucleus analysis for onglides 80 5.3.3. Offglides 81 5.4. An OT analysis of Italian glide formation 82 5.4.1. A syllable-based approach 82 5.4.2. The syllable-based approach criticized 84 5.4.3. Positional Faithfulness 85 5.4.4. Italian syllable structure in moraic theory 86 5.4.5. The extended syllable-based approach 89 5.5. The mobile diphthongs 92 5.6. Conclusion 95 6 Allomorphy and analogical change 97 6.1. Introduction 97 6.2. Allomorphy 97 6.2.1. Preliminaries 97 6.2.2. One or more morphemes? 98 6.3. Analogical change 111 6.3.1. Optimal Paradigms (McCarthy 2005) 114 6.3.2. Optimal Paradigms and multiple inputs 116 6.3.3. Paradigms and their bases 118 6.3.4. Analogical levelling of the monophthong–diphthong alternation 120 6.3.5. Some lexical exceptions 125 C O NT EN TS vii 6.4. Summary 126 7 Conclusion 129 7.1. Introduction 129 7.2. Summary and main findings 129 7.3. Additional issues and suggestions for further research 132 Appendix A Original sources of the translated quotations 135 Appendix B Additional tables 137 References 151 Samenvatting (summary in Dutch) 165 Riassunto (summary in Italian) 169 Index 173 Curriculum vitae 181 Acknowledgements 181 Transcription and abbreviations Transcription Phonemic and phonetic transcriptions are based on the standard of the International Phonetic Association. Syllable boundaries are indicated by a dot (.). If the Italian data are presented in their orthographic forms, lexical stress is indicated by means of a grave accent mark (`) for all vowels, except for closed e and o, in which case an acute accent (´) represents their closed quality, in keeping with common practice in Italian dictionaries. Thus, pésca ‘fishing’ and dótto ‘duct’ are distinguished from pèsca ‘peach’ and dòtto ‘well-read’. Note that, according to Italian spelling rules, the orthographic accent mark is required only when stress falls on the last vowel of polysyllabic words (as in città ‘city’, caffè ‘coffee’, felicità ‘happiness’) or to distinguish monosyllabic homographs, e.g. dà ‘(s)he gives’ as opposed to da ‘from’. Abbreviations AUG augmentative C consonant D duration DIM diminutive FUT future tense G glide GEN genitive IMP imperative IMPERF imperfect IND indicative INF infinitive µ mora OP Optimal Paradigms OT Optimality Theory PRES present tense σ syllable SUBJ subjunctive V vowel st 1SG 1 person singular rd 3SG 3 person singular st 1PL 1 person plural nd 3PL 2 person plural 1 Introduction 1.1. Scope and aims “It is a rule that could never find peace in the Italian language and that finally, so it seems, has found it in death.”1 With these words, Fochi, in his normative guide to writing and speaking Italian, describes the fate of the regola del dittongo mobile, the ‘mobile diphthong’ rule. Since the 17th century, Italian grammarians and lexico- graphers have been using the term dittongo mobile to refer to the rising diphthongs [jE] and [wO], which are historically related to the Late Latin mid-low stressed vow- els [E] and [O] and alternate with corresponding monophthongs as a result of stress- shifting morphological operations, e.g. sediamo [se"djamo] ‘we sit’ vs siedi ["sjEdi] ‘you sit’ and movimento [movi"mento] ‘movement’ vs muovo ["mwOvo] ‘I move’.2 However, written sources provide evidence that, ever since the 16th century, these particular diphthongs have hypercorrectly been extended to unstressed syllables, e.g. siederò [sjede"rO] ‘I shall sit’ and muoviamo [mwo"vjamo] ‘we move’. This analogi- cal change has led to a great deal of variation, in some cases the alternations are maintained while in others they have been eliminated. Still in the early 20th century, an author as renowned as Grazia Deledda wrote both moveva and muoveva (IMPERF IND/3SG of muovere ‘to move’), in her novels, or scoteva next to scuoteva (IMPERF IND/3SG of scuotere ‘to shake’), and inconsistent use of the forms was found in many other literary works of that period (see van der Veer 2001). In spite of this chaotic situation, a number of purists have defended the ‘mobile diphthong’ rule until this very day. For instance, according to Gabrielli (1956:204), it would be a “vero e proprio errore” (‘a serious mistake’) to neglect the rule. In 1976, the same Gabrielli published his language guide Si dice e non si dice, in which, to his great disappointment, he had to conclude that the ‘mobile diphthong’ rule, although “sim- ple even for a child who goes to primary school”3, is often violated. He regrets even more that there are grammarians who, with pleasure, encourage language users to disobey the rule: “I also said that language users are often pretty slipshod with the ‘mobile diphthong’; but it seems paradoxical to me that I should welcome this with pleasure and wish that this miserable diphthong would drown as soon as possible.”4 In the phonological literature, the ‘mobile diphthongs’ have received little atten- tion. The first phonological formalization of the phenomenon was provided by Sal- tarelli (1970), who accounts for the monophthong–diphthong alternation by adopting the underlying diphthongs /iE…/ and /uO…/, from which simplex vowels are derived by 1 “È una regola che non è mai riuscita a trovar pace nella lingua italiana, e che finalmente, la trova, come pare, nella morte.” Fochi (1969:86). 2 In modern Italian, [E] and [O] are raised to [e] and [o] in unstressed positions. 3 “(...) semplice anche per uno scolaretto delle elementari (...)” (Gabrielli 1976:42). 4 “Che l’uso spesso s’infischi del dittongo mobile, l’ho detto anch’io; ma che poi io debba addirittura goderne, e augurarmi che al più presto questo infelice dittongo s’affossi, mi sembra paradossale.” (Ga- brielli 1976:42).