Phonological Lenition and the Inherent Strength of the word-Initial Position: The view from Southern Italian dialects
Résumé
In typology and diachronically, the word-initial position is considered to be strong when compared with the other positions: (a) it hosts a larger set of contrasts; (b) it is asymmetrically resistant to weakening. Consequently, the inherent strength of the word-initial initial position has been built into phonological models of positional strength/weakness reflecting the widespread view that the strength of initial positions is a design feature of (phonological) grammar.
However, in many Southern Italian dialects word-initial voiced stops /b, d, g/ shift according to a phonological scale into voiced fricatives, liquids or glides [v/β], [r/l/or dental fricative] and [j, w, v] or 0 (no melodic material). Therefore, the weak variant of the stop is found in both absolute initial position and intervocalically, whereas, the strong variant is found as a result of a phonotactically driven rule in post-consonantal position and as a geminate, either after prefixation or in positions created by Syntactic Doubling (Raddoppiamento Sintattico RS).
We will show here that the initial weakening in Central and Southern Italian dialects, such as Neapolitan, is not a product of lenition. The initial position is still playing host to a wider set of contrasts and these are used to set up quasi-morphological paradigms. In these dialects, in the initial position, roots come in either a strong or a weak form depending on their morphemic environment. Our view preserves the hypothesis that root-initial position is still inherently strong because it is only the strong initial position that can host a quasi-morphological contrast.
Our conclusion matches a typological and diachronic interpretation involving the place of Central and Southern Italian dialects among other Romance languages. Paradoxically, since the Latin merger between /b/ and /w/ into only one sound ([β]), the particular sound shift of voiced stops in Central and Southern Italian dialects patterns with the sound change from Latin to Spanish or Catalan, where the reshaping of the phonotactics has produced a strong [b-] in word-initial position (betacism) and the bilabial fricative in the weak position. This is different to Italian where two distinct phonemes /b/ and /v/ not exchangeable from their lexical positions, have developed from the Latin merger between /b/ and [w].