1. A Phonetic and Phonological Analysis
UNIVERSITY OF CRETE
DEPARTMENT OF PHILOLOGY
The Consonants of the (western) Cretan Dialect
A Phonetic and Phonological Analysis
Administrative details
Research Grant, ref. number: 3493
Funded by: UoC Research Committee
Grant period: February 2012 – February 2014
Grant award: €
PI: Ioanna Kappa, Associate Prof. of Linguistics
Postoctoral Fellow: Angelos Lengeris, PhD
Research assistants (MA Linguistics students, UoC):
Nitsa Paracheraki
Konstadinos Sipitanos
The Cretan dialect, one of the most distinct regional Greek dialects, has been examined by a very limited number of studies. Research concerned with the phonetics and phonology of the dialect is even more scarce and mainly impressionistic. The aim of this project is to provide, using acoustic analysis techniques, a phonetic and phonological description of the consonants that occur in the dialectal variety spoken in western Crete.
Project objectives
Record dialectal materials in conversational and read speech containing consonants in a variety of contexts.
Describe the phonemic inventory of consonants and their allophones.
List phonological phenomena that provide valuable information on phonological processes absent in Standard Modern Greek, such as extreme palatalization and (af)frication of velar consonants and delateralization and retroflexion of /l/ before back vowels.
Document the dialect of Crete and assist its rescuing since it is an undeniable fact that some phonetic and phonological features that characterise the dialect are mainly retained by older speakers in the villages of Crete.
Disseminate our results in both academic and non-academic audiences with the goal of showing the richness of spoken Greek.
Provide a baseline for further research on the phonetics and phonology of the Cretan dialect (e.g. examination of eastern Cretan dialect, examination of vowels and intonation).
Contact us
Ioanna Kappa,
Angelos Lengeris,
Map of Crete showing our informants’ villages of origin (Episkopi, Anogia, Agios Georgios, Kouroutes, Asi Gonia)

2. Research outcomes (as of February 2014)
Examples of speech recordings
Extreme palatalization and affrication (velar shoftening)
SMG
Cretan
Gloss
/ke/
[ce]
[ʨe]
and
/eki/
[eˈci]
[eˈʨi]
there
/aftokinita/
[aftoˈcinita]
[aftoˈʨinita]
cars
/θɾinaki/
---
/θɾiˈnaki/
shovel
Delateralization and retroflexion of /l/
/aˈla/
[aˈla]
[aˈɻa]
but
/baloˈθies/
[baɻoˈθçes]
gunfire
/laˈðaki/
[laˈðaci]
[ɻaˈðaci]
oil
/vɣalˈmeno/
[vɣalˈmeno]
[vɣaɻˈmeno]
taken out
/kuˈluɾia/
[kuˈluɾʝa]
[kuˈɻuɾʝa]
bagels
Methods
Recordings of conversational and read speech. Semi-directed interviews between 10 informants (5 female and 5 male) from different areas of the western Crete and a native speaker of the dialect.
The dialectal material consists of individual words embedded in carrier sentences and conversational speech of approx. 20 minutes (e.g. stories, customs, and descriptions of a variety of topics).
The collected data are phonetically annotated and prepared before proceeding to the phonetic and statistical analysis.
Speech analysis software is used in order to obtain quantity (duration) and quality (energy density maximum, frication, spectral tilt and moments, formant transitions) measurements.
The phonetic analysis in combination with the statistical analysis provides the basis for the subsequent phonological analyses.
Research outcomes (as of February 2014)
Publications
Kappa, Ioanna (submitted). Instances of vowel assimilation in the Cretan dialect. Selected Papers of the 21th International Symposium on Theoretical and Applied Linguistics. Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
Kappa, Ioanna (submitted). Palatalization of the Epenthetic Consonant in the (western) Cretan Dialect: Regressive vs. Progressive Assimilation? Proceedings of the 11th International Conference of Greek Linguistics. Aegean University.
Kappa, Ioanna (in prep.) Issues in the Language-Contact Phonology of the Western Cretan Dialect.
Lengeris, Angelos and Ioanna Kappa (submitted). Palatalization and affrication of velar stops in the (western) Cretan dialect. Selected Papers of the 21th International Symposium on Theoretical and Applied Linguistics. Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
Lengeris, A., Ioanna Kappa, Nitsa Paracheraki and Konstadinos Sipitanos (submitted). On the Phonetics and Phonology of Retroflexion in the (western) Cretan Dialect. Proceedings of the 11th International Conference of Greek Linguistics. Aegean University.

3. Conference presentations
Kappa, Ioanna. Instances of vowel assimilation in the Cretan dialect. Oral presentation at the 21st International Symposium on Theoretical & Applied Linguistics (ISTAL), April 2013, Thessaloniki.
Kappa, Ioanna. Issues in the Language-Contact Phonology of the Western Cretan Dialect. Oral presentation at Phonetics, phonology, languages in contact (PPLC 2013), August, Paris.
Kappa, Ioanna. Palatalization of the Epenthetic Consonant in the (western) Cretan Dialect: Regressive vs. Progressive Assimilation? Oral presentation at the 11th International Conference of Greek Linguistics (ICGL), September 2013, Rhodes.
Lengeris, Angelos & Ioanna Kappa. Extreme palatalization and (af)frication of velar consonants in the (western) Cretan dialect. Oral presentation at the 21st International Symposium on Theoretical & Applied Linguistics (ISTAL), April 2013, Thessaloniki.
Lengeris, Angelos Ioanna Kappa, Nitsa Paracheraki & Konstadinos Sipitanos. On the Phonetics and Phonology of Retroflexion in the (western) Cretan Dialect. Oral presentation at the 11th International Conference of Greek Linguistics (ICGL), September 2013, Rhodes.