The Lausberg area is a part of

southern Italy Southern Italy (, , or , ; ; ), also known as () or (; ; ; ), is a macroregion of Italy consisting of its southern Regions of Italy, regions. The term "" today mostly refers to the regions that are associated with the people, lands or cultu ...

, covering much of

Basilicata Basilicata (, ; ), also known by its ancient name Lucania (, , ), is an administrative region in Southern Italy, bordering on Campania to the west, Apulia to the north and east, and Calabria to the south. It has two coastlines: a 30-kilometr ...

and the northern edge of

Calabria Calabria is a Regions of Italy, region in Southern Italy. It is a peninsula bordered by the region Basilicata to the north, the Ionian Sea to the east, the Strait of Messina to the southwest, which separates it from Sicily, and the Tyrrhenian S ...

, where

Southern Italian dialects Neapolitan ( autonym: ; ) is a Romance language of the Italo-Romance group spoken in most of continental Southern Italy. It is named after the Kingdom of Naples, which once covered most of the area, and the city of Naples was its capital. On ...

are spoken that show vowel developments atypical of

Italo-Romance The Italo-Dalmatian languages, or Central Romance languages, are a group of Romance languages spoken in Italy, Corsica (France), and formerly in Dalmatia (Croatia). Italo-Dalmatian can be split into:Hammarström, Harald & Forkel, Robert & Haspe ...

. The area is named after

Heinrich Lausberg Heinrich Lausberg (12 October 1912 in Aachen; died 11 April 1992 in Münster) was a German rhetorician, classical philologist and historical linguist specialising in Romance studies. His 1960 treatise, ''Handbook of literary rhetoric'', is one of ...

, who brought it to the attention of scholarship in 1939.

Stressed vowel outcomes

There are three main subdivisions, as can be seen on the map to the right.

Romanian-like

Development_of_vowels_from_Latin_to_Romanian

Dubbed the (“outpost”) by Lausberg, this area encompasses the towns of

Castelmezzano Castelmezzano ( Castelmezzano dialect: ) is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Potenza, in the Southern Italian region of Basilicata. It is bounded by the comuni of Albano di Lucania, Anzi, Laurenzana, Pietrapertosa, Trivigno. It is one ...

Potenza Potenza (, ; ; , Potentino dialect: ''Putenz'') is a ''comune'' in the Southern Italian region of Basilicata (former Lucania). Capital of the Province of Potenza and the Basilicata region, the city is the highest regional capital and one of ...

, and

Picerno Picerno is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Potenza, in the Southern Italian region of Basilicata. It is bounded by the ''comuni'' of Balvano, Baragiano, Potenza, Ruoti, Savoia di Lucania, Tito, and Vietri di Potenza. References
...

. Here the Latin vowel merged with , while merged with . The same asymmetric vowel development characterizes

Balkan Romance languages The Eastern Romance languages are a group of Romance languages. The group comprises the Romanian language (Daco-Romanian), the Aromanian language and two other related minor languages, Megleno-Romanian and Istro-Romanian. The extinct Dalmati ...

such as

Romanian Romanian may refer to: *anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania **Romanians, an ethnic group **Romanian language, a Romance language ***Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language **Romanian cuisine, traditional ...

Transitional

The western part of Lausberg's (“central area”) encompasses the towns of

Lauria Lauria is a town and ''comune'' of the province of Potenza, in Basilicata, southern Italy, situated near the borders of Calabria. It is a walled, medieval town on the steep side of a hill, with another portion of municipal territory in the plai ...

Maratea Maratea (; ) is an Italian town and ''comune'' of Basilicata, in the province of Potenza. It is the only ''comune'' of the region on the Tyrrhenian coast, and is known as "the Pearl of the Tyrrhenian". Owing to the considerable number of its ch ...

Scalea Scalea ( Calabrian: , lit. "stair" or "ladder") is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Cosenza in the Calabria region of southern Italy. The town takes its name from its terraced layout on a hillside at the bottom of the Capo Scalea promontory ...

, Diamante, and

Verbicaro Verbicaro ( Calabrian: ) is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Cosenza in, Calabria, southern Italy. International relations Verbicaro is twinned with Oberstenfeld, Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is ...

. Here the majority of words show a stressed vowel development similar to that of Sicilian, although many words show Sardinian-like outcomes as well.

Sardinian-like

The eastern part of the encompasses the towns of

Senise Senise is a town in the province of Potenza, Basilicata, southern Italy. It is near Monte Cotugno Lake, one of the largest artificial basins in Europe. Twin towns * Busto Garolfo Busto Garolfo ( Lombard: ) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in t ...

Tursi Tursi (''Turse'' in Tursitano dialect; ; ) is an Italian ''comune'' of 4,712 inhabitants in the province of Matera in Basilicata, elevated to a city by decree of the President of the Republic Carlo Azeglio Ciampi on May 4, 2006.D.P.R. May 4, 2006 ...

, and

Oriolo Oriolo is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Cosenza in the Calabria region of southern Italy. It is one of I Borghi più belli d'Italia () is a non-profit private association of small Italian towns of strong historical and artistic in ...

. Here the tonic vowels developed approximately as in Sardinian. There is evidence, however, of an earlier distinction between Latin and . In the variety spoken in Senise, for instance, the outcomes of Latin and were subject to diphthongization when stressed and followed by a syllable containing a close vowel (namely or ), while the outcomes of and were not. Cf. Latin > > .

Selected lexical comparisons

Below are the (non-metaphonic) stressed vowel outcomes in the three regions, each represented here by one dialect. Here is a comparison of the present indicative conjugations of the verb meaning “to die” in the . Asterisks indicate forms that induce

syntactic doubling Syntactic gemination, or syntactic doubling, is an external sandhi phenomenon in Italian, other Romance languages spoken in Italy, and Finnish. It consists in the lengthening (gemination) of the initial consonant in certain contexts. It may also ...

Notes

References

Bibliography

* * * * {{cite book, last=Trumper, first=John, year=1997, chapter=Calabria and southern Basilicata, editor1=Maiden, Martin, editor2=Parry, Mair, title=The dialects of Italy, pages=355–364, location=London, publisher=Routledge Neapolitan language Italic phonologies Southern Romance languages