Positionally constrained accentedness cues. A pilot study on Bari Italian

In the crowded vowel inventory of Bari Dialect (BD), quality alternations are governed by syllable type, stress position, and gender differences (Manzari, 2020). The vowel systems of BD and Bari Italian (BI) are in substantial contact (Stehl, 1990; Cerruti, 2011). Yet, in BI only [æ] has been identified as a dialect-oriented variant of the Italian /a/, appearing in open syllables (Canepari, 1983; Filipponio & Cazzorla, 2015). In this paper, the /a/ patterns of BI are furtherly investigated through the acoustic analysis of semi-spontaneous materials. The results highlight that not only palatalized but also velarized variants of /a/ occur in BI, in open and closed positions respectively, lawfully matching the [æ]-[ɒ] patterns of BD (Manzari, 2020). Hence, the substratum interference exerted by BD on BI results in positionally constrained accentedness cues that shape the /a/ targets (Marotta, 2014) and challenge the traditional classifications of the RI vowel systems (Schmid 1999).