Doctoral Dissertation Research: Consonant Weakening in Florentine Italian

为什么有些辅音在不同的语境中发音与我们预期的完全不同？ 什么因素影响辅音在流利的讲话中的表现？某些声音比其他声音更容易发生变化吗？ 在伊丽莎白·兹加博士的指导下，克里斯蒂娜·维拉法纳小姐的博士论文将解决这些问题，因为它们与佛罗伦萨意大利语有关，佛罗伦萨意大利语是一种方言，表现出丰富的弱化辅音。Villafana小姐和其他人以前的研究表明，这种类型的过程需要详细的声学分析和理论解释。 所使用的研究方法将是：（1）控制弱化中涉及的语音学，语音学和社会因素的实验设计的发展;（2）对这种方言中弱化的声音进行收集，数字化和定量分析。 本论文的核心将是一个实验分析的宽容在佛罗伦萨，超越目前存在的文献。 它的第二个重点将是整合有关语音变化的既定理论和分析的因素，有助于在这种方言lenition.分析戈尔吉亚托斯卡纳是一个起点，评估语音理论的力量，并阐明我们的一般理解的生理和认知因素参与语言处理。 这样的评估有助于至少四个广泛的研究领域以外的理论音系学。 首先，这项研究的结果，特别是在其试图调和的语音（抽象）和语音（物理）因素参与的声音变化，将提供理论和应用语言学家更好地了解从第一语言到第二语言的共同过程。 对这些过程的透彻理解，已知会导致第二语言习得的问题，为第二语言教师（可能还有语音/语言病理学家）提供诊断和治疗与声音相关的语言问题和障碍的工具。 其次，对这种方言的声音模式进行详细的声学分析，可能对经常与不标准和口音语音作斗争的语音识别工程师有用。 第三，该项目将提高语言学家对语言与其非标准变体之间关系的知识和理解，特别是在音素库存和与声音相关的过程方面。 最后，收集和分析的广泛数据将有助于佛罗伦萨语言的保存-随着全球语言库存通过方言转移和吸收变得越来越小，少数民族语言现象的存档记录将对历史学家，人类学家，社会学家和语言学家有用。

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.