On the presence of metaphony in feminine plural nouns: New insights from the dialects of Campania

Abstract

The paper deals with the extension of metaphony to feminine plural nouns coming
from the first Latin declension, a real puzzle for Romance and Italian dialectology. The phenomenon was
attested in the history of Neapolitan until the end of the 19th century and has disappeared
from current use. However, it may still be found in some peripheral dialects of
Campania. In the present paper, we will present new data from the Irpinian dialect
of Montella, which is very relevant for the issue under consideration since it presents
a large number of metaphonic feminine plurals, and at the same time it keeps distinct
the qualities of the final unstressed vowels. Unlike
previous studies, we will demonstrate that a better fit to the data can be obtained if
the templates are conceived as discontinuous, so as to include not only the quality of
the final unstressed vowel but also the specific quality of the stressed vowel.