Events

Abstract

“Continuum con addensamenti”, ‘continuum with agglomerations’: this is how Berruto once described the Italian linguistic repertoire. Much has been discussed about the extremes of this continuum; however, little do we know about those intermediate “agglomerations”. How many are there? How are they organized? Do they share features? To address these questions, we adopt a phonetic perspective and borrow a technique typically used in commercial profiling. Examining established Neapolitan phonetic features alongside new prosodic parameters, we identify possible speaker profiles and features agglomerations, shedding a new light on the intermediate varieties of the Italian standard-dialect continuum. In this talk, I will discuss preliminary studies and findings, applying this innovative methodology to offer new insights into the nature of the concept of variety.

PhD defense Melissa Farasyn:

Fitting in or standing out? Subject agreement phenomena in Middle Low German

Supervisor: prof. dr. Anne Breitbarth
Co-supervisor: prof. dr. Veronique Hoste

Location: Koninklijke Academie voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde (KANTL, Koningstraat 18, 9000 Gent)