Comparing prosody of Italian varieties and dialects: data from Neapolitan

Abstract

The paper provides a preliminary, qualitative examination of the prosody of Neapolitan dialect (ND) as it relates to Neapolitan Italian variety (NI). Taking NI as baseline for comparison, ND data seem characterized by several phonetic-phonological strategies to enhance prosodic prominence, suggesting that phonetic parameters have a larger and more dynamic range of variation in ND than in NI. The data also highlight the interlacement between rhythmic, metric, and intonational facts, and the importance of sociolinguistic factors in shaping prosody. In particular, the larger variability of phonetic parameters observed in ND is likely to index dialectal speech as socially marked. We identify several prosodic discrepancies between ND and NI involving gradient features and tonal organization that call for further investigation. Future studies need to examine such differences in relation to sociolinguistic factors and consider the range of prosodic variation between Italian varieties and dialects spontaneously used by less linguistically-informed speaker. To strongly support our proposal, a larger sample of speakers is required.