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Abstract:
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In this report , the phenomenon of vowel lengthening in Standard Italian and two Northern Italian dialects , Friulian and Milanese , is discussed . For each language , the facts of vowel lengthening are presented and analyzed in the framework of several theories previously proposed to account for the data . These include primarily derivational theory , moraic theory , and optimality theory . Vowel lengthening is analyzed predominantly from a synchronic perspective for Standard Italian , but for Friulian and Milanese , both diachronic and synchronic accounts are presented . Vowel length in Italian and Milanese is seen to result from bimoraic enforcement , a principle requiring that all stressed syllables be bimoraic . A constraint prohibiting long vowels in word -final position interacts with the principle of bimoraic enforcement in Italian . In Milanese , bimoraic enforcement responds to a lexical contrast in moraic and non -moraic codas . Vowels before non -moraic codas lengthen to create a bimoraic syllable , while those before moraic codas do not since those syllables are already bimoraic . In Friulian , on the other hand , historical vowel lengthening which resulted from compensatory lengthening following the apocope of final vowels has been reanalyzed as a synchronic process of compensatory lengthening resulting from loss of consonant voice following word -final devoicing . |