The voiceless labiovelar occlusive consonant in Calabrian dialects

A pilot study

Abstract

The objective of this research is to demonstrate with auditory and acoustic analysis the presence or absence of voiceless labiovelar stop consonant [k^w] in the dialect of Mormanno and San Pietro in Guarano through the phonetic realizations of demonstratives “quello, quelli, quella e quelle”. This pilot study is part of a larger project launched by Phonetics Laboratory which aims to define new boundaries between the Calabrian dialects and, consequently, to remodel those already existing and described in some researches. The analyzes conducted on the corpus of the research demonstrate the presence of [k^w] in Mormanno dialect. It is an important fact that to be explored in the future, because it could represent a stable feature able to determine a strong isophone to the considerable dialectological variability of Calabria.