Central Italian
Romance varieties spoken in Central Italy
Central Italian | |
---|---|
Native to | Italy |
Region | Umbria , Lazio (except the southeast), central Marche , small parts of southernmost Tuscany , and northwestern Abruzzo |
Native speakers
|
~3,000,000 [ citation needed ] (2006) |
Indo-European
|
|
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | – |
Glottolog | None |
Linguasphere |
51-AAA-ra ... -rba
|
Dialects that maintain a distinction between final /-u/ and /-o/ are outlined in red.
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Central Italian ( Italian : dialetti mediani ) refers to the Italo-Romance varieties of language spoken in the so-called Area Mediana , which covers a swathe of the central Italian peninsula . Area Mediana is also used in a narrower sense to describe the southern part, in which case the northern one may be referred to as the Area Perimediana , a distinction that will be made throughout this article. The two areas are split along a line running approximately from Rome in the southwest to Ancona in the northeast. [1]
Background
In the early Middle Ages, Central Italian extended north into Romagna and covered all of modern-day Lazio , Abruzzo , and Molise . Since then, however, the dialects spoken in those areas have been assimilated into Gallo-Italic and Southern Italo-Romance respectively. [2] In addition, the dialect of Rome has undergone considerable Tuscanization from the fifteenth century onwards, such that it has lost many of its Central Italian features. [3]
Phonological features
Except for its southern fringe, the Area Mediana is characterized by a contrast between the final vowels /-u/ and /-o/, which distinguishes it from both the Area Perimediana and from Southern Italo-Romance. [4] Cf. Spoletine [ˈkreːto, ˈtittu] < Latin crēdō , tēctum 'I believe, roof'. An additional isogloss that runs along the border between the two areas, but often overlaps it in either direction, is that of post- nasal plosive voicing, as in [manˈt̬ellu] 'cloak'. This is a feature that the Area Mediana shares with neighbouring Southern Italo-Romance. [5]
In the Area Mediana are found the following vocalic phenomena:
- In most areas, stressed mid-vowels are raised by one degree of aperture if the following syllable contains either /u/ or /i/. This is referred to as 'Sabine metaphony'. Compare the following examples from the Ascrean dialect: [6]
-
In a few areas, metaphony results in
diphthongization
for stressed low-mid vowels, while high-mids undergo normal raising to /i, u/. Compare the following examples from the
Nursine
dialect:
[7]
- [metto, mitti] 'I put, you put'
- [soːla, suːlu] 'alone' (f./m.)
- [bbɛlla, bbjɛjju] 'beautiful' (f./m.)
- [mᴐrte, mwᴐrti] 'death, dead ( pl .)'
- Southeast of Rome, around Nemi , low-mid vowels undergo metaphonic diphthongization, while high-mids resist raising to /i, u/. This was also the case for Old Romanesco , which had alternations such as /ˈpɛde, ˈpjɛdi/ 'foot, feet'. [8]
- In some areas with Sabine metaphony, if a word has a stress ed mid-vowel, then final /-u/ lowers to /-o/ in a sort of height-based vowel harmony . Compare */ˈbɛllu, ˈfreddu/ > /ˈbeʎʎu, ˈfriddu/ (metaphony) > Tornimpartese /ˈbeʎʎo, ˈfriddu/ 'beautiful, cold'. [9]
Sound-changes (or lack thereof) that distinguish most or all of Central Italian from Tuscan include the following, many of them shared with Southern Italo-Romance: [10]
- /nd/ > /nn/, as in Latin vēndere > [ˈwenne] 'to sell'.
- /mb, nv/ > /mm/, as in Latin plumbum > [ˈpjummu] 'lead'.
- /ld/ > /ll/, as in Latin cal(i)da > [ˈkalla] 'hot'.
- Retention of /j/, as in Latin Maium > [ˈmaːju] 'May'.
- /mj/ > /ɲ(ɲ)/, as in Latin vindēmia > [wenˈneɲɲa] 'grape harvest'.
- /rj/ > /r/, as in Latin caprārium > [kraˈpaːru] 'goatherd'.
Sound-changes with a limited distribution within the Area Mediana include: [11]
- /ɡn/ > /(i̯)n/, as in Latin agnum , ligna > Tagliacozzese /ˈai̯nu, ˈlena/ 'lamb, firewood'.
-
/d, v/ > ∅ word-initially and intervocalically, as in Latin
dentem
,
vaccam, crudum, ovum
> /ɛnte akka kruː ou/ in
Rieti
and
L'Aquila
.
- Around Terni , and to its immediate northeast, this deletion only applies in intervocalic position.
In the north of the Area Perimediana , a number of Gallo-Italic features are found: [12]
-
/a/ > /ɛ/ in stressed open syllables, as in /ˈpa.ne/ > /ˈpɛ.ne/ 'bread', around
Perugia
and areas to its north.
[13]
- In the same area, habitual reduction or deletion of vowels in unstressed internal syllables, as in /ˈtrappole/ > /ˈtrapp(ə)le/ 'traps'.
- Voicing of intervocalic /t/ to /d/ and degemination of long consonants around Ancona and to its west. [14]
- In both of the aforementioned areas: lack, or reversal, of the sound-changes /nd/ > /nn/ and /mb, nv/ > /mm/ that are found in the rest of Central Italian. [15]
The following changes to final vowels are found in the Area Perimediana :
- /-u/ > /-o/, as in Latin musteum > Montelaghese [ˈmoʃʃo], everywhere except for a small 'island' around Pitigliano . [16]
- /-i/ > /-e/, as in /i ˈkani/ > /e ˈkane/ 'the dogs', in some of the dialects situated along a long arc from Montalto di Castro in the southwest to Fabriano in the northeast. [17]
Morphological features
-
In part of the
Area Mediana
, below a line running northeast from
Rome
to
Rieti
and
Norcia
, the
3
PL
ending of non-first conjugation verbs is, unusually, /-u/ (rather than /-o/), which acts as a trigger for metaphony. Cf. Latin
vēndunt
>
Leonessan
[ˈvinnu] 'they sell'.
[18]
- In the same area, a series of irregular first-conjugation verbs also show 3PL /-u/ (as opposed to the /-o/ or /-onno/ found elsewhere). Examples include [au, dau, fau, vau] 'they have/give/do/go'. [19]
- Latin fourth-declension nouns have been retained as such in many cases. Cf. Latin manum , manūs 'hand(s)' > Fabrichese [ˈmaːno] (invariant) and Latin fīcum , fīcūs 'fig(s)' > Canepinese [ˈfiːko] (invariant). [20]
-
Latin neuters of the -
um
/-
a
type survive more extensively than in Tuscan. Cf. Latin
olīvētum, olīvēta
>
Roiatese
[liˈviːtu, leˈveːta] 'olive-grove(s)'. Even originally non-neuter nouns are sometimes drawn into this class, as in Latin
hortum
,
hortī
>
Segnese
[ˈᴐrto, ˈᴐrta] 'garden(s)'.
[21]
- The plurals, which are grammatically feminine, are replaced by the feminine ending /-e/ in some dialects, leading to outcomes such as Spoletine [ˈlabbru, ˈlabbre] 'lip(s)'. Both plurals may also alternate within the same dialect, as in Treiese [ˈᴐːa~ˈᴐːe] 'eggs'.
- The Latin neuter plural /-ora/, as in tempora 'times', was extended to several other words in medieval times, but today the phenomenon is limited to areas such as Serrone , where one finds cases like [ˈraːmo, ˈraːmora] 'branch(es)'. In Serviglianese, the final vowel changes to /-e/, as in [ˈfiːko, ˈfiːkore] 'fig(s)'.
- In several dialects, final syllables beginning with /n/, /l/, or /r/ may be deleted in masculine nouns. In varieties such as Matelicese , this occurs only in the singular, not the plural, leading to outcomes such as */paˈtrone, paˈtroni/ > [paˈtro, paˈtruːni] 'lord, lords'. In varieties such as Serviglianese , this deletion occurs both in the singular and the plural, resulting in [paˈtro, paˈtru], with metaphony-induced vowel distinctions remaining as a marker of number. [22]
Syntactic features
- Direct objects are often marked by the preposition a if they are animate. [23]
See also
References
- ↑ Loporcaro & Paciaroni 2016: 228
- ↑ Loporcaro & Panciani 2016: 229–230
- ↑ Vignuzzi 1997: 312, 317; Loporcaro & Panciani 2016: 229, 233
- ↑ Vignuzzi 1997: 312–313; Loporcaro & Panciani 2016: 228–229, 231–232
- ↑ Loporcaro & Panciani 2016: 229–230, 232
- ↑ Vignuzzi 1997: 313; Loporcaro & Panciani 2016: 230
- ↑ Loporcaro & Panciani 2016: 230
- ↑ Vignuzzi 1997: 317; Loporcaro & Panciani 2016: 230
- ↑ Vignuzzi 1997: 314, Loporcaro & Panciani 2016: 232
- ↑ Vignuzzi 1997: 314–315; Loporcaro & Panciani 2016: 232
- ↑ Vignuzzi 1997: 315–316, 318
- ↑ Loporcaro & Panciani 2016: 240–241
- ↑ Vignuzzi 1997: 318. This citation also covers the following bullet-point.
- ↑ Loporcaro & Panciani 2016: 229
- ↑ Loporcaro & Panciani 2016: 229
- ↑ Loporcaro & Panciani 2016: 229, 240
- ↑ Vignuzzi 1997: 318; Loporcaro & Panciani 2016: 240
- ↑ Vignuzzi 1997: 315–316; Loporcaro & Panciani 2016: 231
- ↑ Vignuzzi 1997: 316–317
- ↑ Loporcaro & Panciani 2016: 241
- ↑ Loporcaro & Panciani 2016: 234. This citation applies to the following two bullet-point as well.
- ↑ Loporcaro & Panciani 2016: 233
- ↑ Vignuzzi 1997: 315; Loporcaro & Panciani 2016: 237
Bibliography
- Loporcaro, Michele & Paciaroni, Tania. 2016. The dialects of central Italy. In Ledgeway, Adam & Maiden, Martin (eds.), The Oxford guide to the Romance languages , 228–245. Oxford University Press.
- Vignuzzi, Ugo. 1997. Lazio, Umbria, and the Marche. In Maiden, Martin & Parry, Mair (eds.), The dialects of Italy , 311–320. London: Routledge.
Historical linguistic minorities
:
Albanian
,
Catalan
,
Croatian
,
French
,
Franco-Provençal
,
Friulian
,
Germanic
,
Greek
,
Ladin
,
Occitan
,
Romani
,
Sardinian
,
Slovene
,
Wenzhounese
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Italo-
Dalmatian |
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Western |
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Reconstructed | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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