Vowel reduction and deletion in Bolognese: Evidence for sonority faithfulness and Gradient Harmonic Grammar

This thesis presents a unified analysis of vowel reduction and vowel deletion in Bolognese, a Gallo-Italic language spoken in Bologna, Italy. The first part focuses on vowel reduction. While vowel reduction in many languages ​​is predictable from place features alone, Bolognese shows length-sensitive asymmetries: front-mid vowels reduce differently depending on underlying length. I proposed a constraint-based analysis where vowel height and length jointly determine sonority. A new faithfulness constraint, Maintain(sonority), penalizes changes in sonority across input-output correspondences. The second part examines idiosyncratic vowel deletion. Both reduction and deletion arise when stress shifts through suffixation, creating newly unstressed vowels. I argue deletion is best analyzed as a lexical exception modeled with Gradient Harmonic Grammar. Vowels in syllables with variable stress assignment across word forms have reduced input activity, with further differences in activity distinguishing reduction from deletion, yielding a unified account of morphologically derived environment effects and lexical exceptionality within Bolognese.

Recommended citation: Osgan, Brandon. 2026. Vowel reduction and deletion in Bolognese: Evidence for sonority faithfulness and Gradient Harmonic Grammar. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill M.A. Thesis. https://doi.org/10.17615/q0ja-mz97
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