The phonetics of Italian anaphonesis

In Florentine Italian high vowels /i/ and /u/ occur before a velar nasal instead of the expected /e/ and /o/, e.g., vinco ‘I win’ < VĬNCO, punto ‘point’ < PŬNCTUM. This phenomenon, referred to as ‘anaphonesis’, represents a tricky phonetic process from the history of Italian, which may have some relationship with the universals of vowel nasality and nasal consonants. An evident front–back asymmetry in the words triggering anaphonesis has also been observed: front vowels are more prone to anaphonesis than back vowels. Moreover, there appears to be an effect of the postnasal, since back vowels show anaphonesis only in the case of a voiced postnasal. In order to explore the parallels between documented synchronic and diachronic variation, the complexity and diversity of nasal vowel evolution in Romance are considered to have probative value and are reconsidered in the light of the results of two production and perception experiments.