Vowel lengthening in northern Italy: A case for segmental and prosodic optimization

The goal of this dissertation is to argue that a wide variety of historical and synchronic processes of vowel lengthening in many languages can be motivated as a way of optimizing segmental and prosodic structures. The northern Italian dialects are chosen as the main pool of data for the study of vowel lengthening and its conditionings, since in a relatively small area we find a great variety of vowel length developments. Moreover, some of the vowel developments are compelling for recent prosodic theory. A set of phonological optimization tendencies are proposed to be active in these dialects, and it is shown that the interaction between the prosodic and segmental optimization constraints are resolved by language-particular parametrization.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Spanish

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2011

Author dc:creator

• Prieto-Vives, Pilar

Contributors dc:contributor

• Hualde, Jose Ignacio

• Language, Linguistics
• Literature, Romance

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 1994 Prieto-Vives, Pilar

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

AAI9416428
(UMI)AAI9416428

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/21297