chapter 5
New parameters for the sociophonetic indexes
Evidence from the Tuscan varieties of Italian
Giovanna Marotta
Università di PisaA sociophonetic analysis of the main phonological processes occurring in
Tuscan Italian is presented within a global proposal of a new, original set of
parameters of variation. After a general discussion on the sociophonetic indexes
and the illustration of phonological processes occurring in the local pronuncia-
tion of Italian, the parameters of the new model are metaphorically identified
as properties of solids, i.e. shape, size, thickness and weight. In the last section
of the paper, the sociophonetic parameters proposed are compared with the
socially-marked variables proposed by Labov (2001), showing analogies and
differences. The advantages derivable from the model proposed are finally dis-
cussed, with the explicit acknowledgement of the need for the inspection of the
phonological system in sociophonetic analysis.- Introduction
Sociophonetics has a long history and a brief history at the same time. In Western
culture, with reference to language variation in terms of difference in education
and diatopic characterization, it goes back to at least the Republican period of
Roman culture, when Catullus was joking with Arrius in Carmen 84:
Chommoda dicebat, si quando commoda vellet
dicere, et insidias Arrius hinsidias,
(...)
Ionios fluctus, postquam illuc Arrius isset,
iam non Ionios esse sed Hionios.The example is not casual, as the typical lenition which Catullus was probably
referring to in his Carmen will be considered, with respect to its modern Tuscan
counterpart, in the following pages.