1. Elements on the borders α colored approach to vowel reduction in Lunigiana dialects Edoardo Cavirani - Meertens Institute - cavirani.edoardo@gmail.com Carrarese, Colonnatese and Ortonovese From proto-Romance to Lunigiana dialects “The […] unstressed vowel deletion […] is (almost) normal in the Higher Magra Valley […], while the more you descend the valley, the more the deletion alternates with the reduction” (Luciani 1999: 82) Word-internal vowels have been reduced to schwa or deleted in the whole geolinguistic domain (Cavirani 2015): SILVĀTICU(M) ‘wild m.’> Carr./Col./Ort. [səlˈvat(ə)k] Pontr. [sarˈvadg] Word-final vowels (WFVs) display a better resistance to reduction: Although the MASC. SG / PL. and FEM. SG phonological exponents are identical in the whole Lunigiana, some variation can be observed in the reduction of the FEM. PL one: Carr. [e] vs. Col. [ i ̯ a] vs. Ort. [a] Preceding accounts Colors & Constraints Lunigiana Morpho-syntactic structure WFVs are morpho-syntactically complex: they can be the phonological exponent of more than one morpho-syntactic terminal Subsegmental structure Coloured Containment Theory (Van Oostendorp 2006) the morphological affiliation of phonological objects must be visible on the surface 1 Constraint set (Cavirani 2015) *V|S TR |: unstressed vowels cannot license complex structures 2 *CV: a morphologically transparent CV unit cannot be incorporated in the phonological representation (no CV epenthesis) E XPRESS -|X| α : elements belonging to the underlying representation of affixes (α) must be phonetically interpreted 1 “ Coloring […] grants the bare minimum of accessibility phonology may have to morphological structure, and […] rules out the possibility of morpheme-specific rules or constraints” (Trommer 2015: 83) 2 Complexity hierarchy: |X̲Y|>>|X̲|>>|X|>>| | Distributed Morphology (Manzini & Savoia 2005) Vocabulary insertion targets terminal nodes Subset Principle Morphological operations: Fusion and Impoverishment NUM and GEN spell-out - DM Fusion in Carr./St.It. { PL { F }} => { PL, F }; /e/  { PL, F } Impoverishment (if PL : F ) in Ort. { PL } => ø; /a/  { F } No morph. operation in Col. /a/  { F }; /i/  { PL } variation both in the Vocabulary and in the morph. components Nanosyntax (Taraldsen 2010) Vocabulary insertion targets subtrees Superset Principle NUM and GEN spell-out - nS Carr./St.It. /e/  { PL { F }} Ort. /a/  { PL { F }} Col. /a/  { F }; /i/  { PL { M }} variation only in the Vocabulary; no need for morph. operations WFVs are phonologically complex: they can constitute the phonetic interpretation of complex elemental structures (Backley 2011) … [a] = |A| [e] = |A.I|[i] = |I|... translating complex morpho-syntactic stuctures (viz. subtrees) |A|  { F }|I|  { PL { M }} /e/  a) { PL, F } b) { PL { F }} donn-[e] ‘women’ /i/  a) { PL } b) { PL { M }} lup-[i] ‘wolves’ References: Backley P. (2011). An introduction to element theory. Edinburgh University Press  Cavirani E. (2015). Modeling phonologization. Utrecht: LOT publishing  Manzini M.R. & L.M. Savoia (2005). I dialetti italiani e romanci. Morfosintassi generativa. Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso  van Oostendorp M. (2006). A Theory of Morphosyntactic Colours. Ms, Meertens Instituut, Amsterdam  Taraldsen T. (2010). Lexicalizing number and gender in Lunigiana. Nordlyd 36, pp. 113–127  Trommer J. (2015). Moraic Affixes and Morphological Colors in Dinka. Linguistic Inquiry 46, pp. 77-112. MASCFEM SGPLSGPL Carrareselup-ølup-ilup-alup-e Colonnateselup-ølup-ilup-a lup-i ̯ a Ortonoveselup-ølup-ilup-a Analysis M. SG, M. PL and F. SG The three dialects show the same M. SG, M. PL and F. SG structure: lup - lupi - lupa The variation can be found in the F. PL spell-out: lupe - lup i ̯ a - lupa F. PL Grammars No Vocabulary difference (vs. Taraldsen 2009): the three dialects display the same VIs No morphological operation (vs. Manzini & Savoia 2005) The burden of the variation is taken by the phonological module Carr. N{ PL { M }}{F}{F}  lup|I| α |A| α ||| CVCV Col. N{ PL { M }}{F}{F}  lup|I| α |A| α ||| CVCV+CV Ort. N{ PL { M }}{F}{F}  lup|I| α |A| α ||| CVCV Carr. Col. Ort. N  lup ||| CVCV N{ PL { M }}  lup|I| α ||| CVCV N{F}{F}  lup|A| α ||| CVCV Carr. *CV, E XPRESS -|X| α | *V|S TR | Col. *V|S TR |, E XPRESS -|X| α | *CV Ort. *CV, *V|S TR | | E XPRESS -|X| α Conclusion