Vowel Deletion in Italian

Vowel deletion is extensive in Italian. It is especially common in casual speech, but it also occurs in the written language. As in French, Italian vowel deletion occurs with articles and prepositions, but it also occurs with nouns, adjectives and prepositions.

Italian vowel deletion occurs with articles such as l'automobile (the automobile). This combines the feminine article la and the noun automobile. It also occurs with pronouns such as in L'ho visto (I have seen him). This combines the pronoun lo (him) with the verb visto (seen). To compare, in French these examples are l'auto and Je l'ai vu. They combine la and auto and also le and ai.

However, Italian vowel deletion occurs in many other instances. Here are examples:

mezz'ora (half hour)

nient'altro (nothing else)

quest'anno (this year)

senz'acqua (without water) 

trent'anni (thirty years)

These phrases combine mezza and ora, niente and altro, questo and anno, senza and acqua, and trenta and anni. The deletion of the vowel restructures the sequence of two vowels to one of consonant and vowel. This sequence is very common in not only Italian but in many languages.

The process of vowel deletion is very common. In Italian it is extensive in speech and in writing. The deletion of the vowel occurs not only with articles and pronouns but also with other grammatical categories.

Schwa in Catalan

Catalan shares many similarities with Spanish. However, the vowel system is not identical. Spanish has five vowels phonemes but Catalan has seven. As in Italian, Catalan has closed and open mid vowels represented by the orthographic e and o. In addition, Catalan has a schwa.

The schwa of Catalan is represented by the orthographic a or e. It is present in the words pare (father) and casa (house). However, the schwa is not restricted to word-final position. In Barcelona, the schwa occurs in every unstressed syllable, the first, second and fourth.

The schwa often occurs in unstressed syllables of Catalan. This is a vowel which does not occur in Spanish. Though the schwa is not a vowel phoneme of Catalan, it occurs in many words.

Loss of Vowel Harmony in Estonian

Estonian is a Finno-Ugric language. However, unlike in Finnish and Hungarian, the two most widely-spoken Finno-Ugric languages, Estonian has lost vowel harmony. It is thus more innovative than Finnish and Hungarian. 

Vowel harmony often involves dimensions such as backness, rounding, height and advanced tongue root. In Finnish vowel harmony is based on backness. In Hungarian, however, backness and rounding are both important.

Though Finnish and Hungarian both have vowel harmony, Finnish is much more closely related to Estonian. This is clear from their vocabulary. In Finnish, the word tänään means today. The vowels are low front unrounded with quantitative length. The first vowel is short, and the second is long. However, in Estonian the same word is täna. Vowel harmony is not present because the first word is low front unrounded and the second is low back rounded. The vowels do not agree in backness or in rounding.

Another example is the Finnish word kysymys, which means question. The vowel is high front rounded. In Estonian, the same word is küsimus. The vowels in the word are high front rounded, high front unrounded and high back rounded. Unlike in the Finnish word, the vowels neither agree in backness nor in rounding.

Though Estonian has lost vowel harmony, it restricts the vowels [æ], [ø], [y] and [o] to the initial syllable. They rarely occur in other syllables of the word. Estonian once had vowel harmony, but no longer does. This loss of vowel harmony exemplifies language change.

Spanish Vowel Sequences

Though Spanish has only five vowel phonemes, it has many vowel sequences. Vowels often combine to form diphthongs, but many vowel sequences resist diphthongization. Spanish has far more vowel sequences than English.

Here are examples of Spanish vowel sequences that are in hiatus and that are diphthongs:

aeropuerto (airport)

anchoa (anchovy)

deuda (debt)

feo (ugly)

héroe (hero)

heroína (heroine)

marea (tide)

muy (very)

país (country)

río (river)

Here is the analysis of the vowel sequences:

aeropuerto = a.e.ro.puer.to (5 syllables)

anchoa = an.cho.a (3 syllables)

deuda = deu.da (2 syllables)

feo = fe.o (2 syllables)

héroe = hé.ro.e (3 syllables)

heroína =he.ro.í.na (4 syllables)

marea = ma.re.a (3 syllables)

muy = muy (1 syllable)

país = pa.ís (2 syllables)

río = rí.o (2 syllables)

Though Spanish has few vowel phonemes, it allows many vowel sequences. They can combine into diphthongs to form one syllable or remain in hiatus and thus form separate syllables. The high vowels [i] and [u] are the ones that most often form diphthongs.

Pronunciation of Dutch Mid Vowels

The pronunciation of Dutch mid vowels varies. In northern Dutch, the mid vowels of southern Dutch and Belgian Dutch are diphthongized. In the southern Netherlands and Belgium they are thus monophthongs. This is a noticeable difference between the pronunciation of the northern Netherlands and the pronunciation of the southern Netherlands and Belgium. 

The mid front unrounded vowel that is pronounced [e] in Belgium and the southern Netherlands is pronounced [eI] in the northern Netherlands. The mid back vowel that is pronounced [o] in Belgium and the southern Netherlands is pronounced [oʊ] in the northern Netherlands. The mid front rounded vowel that is pronounced [ø] in Belgium and the southern Netherlands is the diphthong [øy] in the northern Netherlands.

Here are words that differ in pronunciation in Belgium and the southern Netherlands from the pronunciation of the northern Netherlands:

een (one)

thee (tea)

zee (sea)

boot (boat)

hoop (hope)

zoon (son)

heup (hip}

leuk (nice)

neus (nose)   

In the northern Netherlands, the diphthong [øy] is pronounced [ø] before the rhotic consonant. For example, the word deur (door) is pronounced with a mid front rounded vowel in both varieties of Dutch. However,  a number of northern Dutch speakers produce a high back rounded lax vowel. Nevertheless, all speakers produce a monophthong in this environment.

Dutch pronunciation can vary significantly from one dialect to another. One difference between the pronunciation of the northern Netherlands and that of the southern Netherlands and Belgium concerns that of diphthongs and monophthongs. Two mid front vowels and one mid back vowel of Belgium and the southern Netherlands are diphthongs in the northern Netherlands.

Structural Ambiguity with Ellipsis

The rules of sentence formation allow ellipsis. This is possible because the deleted information is understood. However, this can result in ambiguity.

Consider the following examples:

Mark and Victor or Linda will go.

We'll have bacon or ham and eggs.

The old man and woman have left.

It costs four or five hundred dollars.

These are the possible interpretations:

[Mark] and [Victor or Linda] will go.

[Mark and Victor] or [Linda] will go.

We'll have [bacon] or [ham and eggs].

We'll have [bacon or ham] and eggs.

The [old man] and [woman] left.

The old [man and woman] left.

It costs [4] or [500 dollars].

It costs [400 or [500 dollars].

Without ellipsis, the sentences are not ambiguous. For example, no ambiguity occurs in the sentence Mark will go and Victor or Linda will go. Though the sentences with ellipsis are ambiguous, one interpretation is more common than the other.

In the first example, the interpretation [Mark] and [Victor or Linda] is more common because most hearers assume that the choice is between one person or another. With the second example, the most common interpretation is [bacon or ham] and [eggs] because most hearers assume that the meal will include two items. In the third example, the interpretation The old [man and woman] is the most common because most hearers assume that both the man and the woman are old. The interpretation [400 or 500 dollars] is the most probably in the final example because 400 and 500 are much closer in value than 4 and 500.

Ellipsis is very common in sentence formation. However, the uses of ellipsis can create ambiguity. Nevertheless, one interpretation tends to be more common than any other.

Vowel Quality

Two features of vowel quality that are used to contrast one vowel with another are height and backness. The vowel of he is high front, and the vowel of to is high back. In the word cat, the vowel is low front. However, other features can also be used to contrast vowel quality.

Four other features are rhotacization, rounding, ATR and nasalization. Height, backness and rhotacization reflect auditory properties, and the other three reflect articulatory properties with acoustic properties that differ from vowel to vowel.

Lip rounding tends to lower the second formant, but in the case of high front vowels it is primarily the third formant that is lowered. ATR and nasalization affect different formants in different vowels. The vowel of red is a mid front unrounded lax vowel. However, instead of the term lax, the term -ATR can also be used. The quality of height precedes the qualities of backness, rounding and ATR. The term ATR means advanced tongue root. The vowel of seat is +ATR, and the vowel of sit is -ATR.

Rhotacization is found in rhotic vowels of English. The word bird has a rhotic vowel in most varieties of American English, but a non-rhotic vowel in most varieties of British English. English has vowels that are ATR and -ATR, but many languages, i.e. Spanish, do not. English has nasalized vowels such as the vowel of sand, but the vowel is not fully nasalized because the nasal is also articulated. However, in languages such as French, vowels are often fully nasalized. The French word vin (wine) has a fully nasalized vowel. The nasal segment is thus not articulated.

Vowel quality is an important feature of vowels. The two features that are most associated with vowel quality are height and backness. In the articulatory description of vowels, height is given before backness and rounding.