Why are some consonants pronounced very differently from the way we expect them to be in different contexts? What factors affect how a consonant surfaces in fluent speech? Are certain sounds more likely to undergo changes than others? Under the supervision of Dr. Elizabeth Zsiga, Miss Christina Villafana's doctoral dissertation will address these questions as they relate to Florentine Italian, a dialect exhibiting a rich array of weakened consonants. Previous studies by Miss Villafana and others indicate that this type of process warrants detailed acoustic analysis and theoretical explanation. The research methodologies used will be (1) the development of an experimental design that controls for the phonological, phonetic, and social factors involved in weakening and (2) the collection, digitization, and quantitative analysis of sounds that weaken in this dialect. At this dissertation's core will be an experimental analysis of lenition in Florentine that surpasses what presently exists in the literature. Its secondary focus will be an integration of established theories relating to sound change and an analysis of the factors contributing to lenition in this dialect.
Analysis of Gorgia Toscana is a starting point for assessing the strength of phonological theories and for illuminating our general understanding of the physiological and cognitive factors involved in language processing. Such assessment contributes to at least four broad areas of study outside the domain of theoretical phonology. First, the results of this study, particularly in its attempt to reconcile the phonological (abstract) and phonetic (physical) factors involved in sound changes, will offer both the theoretical and applied linguist a better understanding of common processes that transfer from first to second language. Thorough understanding of such processes, known to cause problems in second language acquisition, furnishes the second language teacher (and possibly the speech/language pathologist) with tools for diagnosing and treating sound-related linguistic problems and disorders. Second, detailed acoustic analysis of the sound patterns of this dialect may be of use to speech recognition engineers who regularly struggle with nonstandard and accented speech. Third, the project will enhance the linguist's knowledge and understanding of the relationship between a language and its non-standard varieties, particularly with respect to their phoneme inventories and sound-related processes. Finally, the broad range of data collected and analyzed will contribute to the preservation of Florentine speech - as the global inventory of languages grows ever smaller through dialect shift and absorption, archived records of minority language phenomena will be useful to the historian, anthropologist, sociologist, and linguist.
