Southern Valencian

Southern Valencian () is a dialect of Valencian spoken in the south of the Valencian Community. It comprises two sub-varieties, Northern or Upper Southern Valencian (also known as ''proper'' Southern Valencian) and Southern or Lower Southern Valencian (traditionally known as Alicante's Valencian).

Southern Valencian is renowned by the presence of different types of vowel harmony.

Sub-varieties

Upper Southern Valencian

It includes all the ''comarques'' south of the Xúquer river that do not devoice the sibilants up to the line that joins the west to east the town of Biar with Busot. This dialectal zone is, broadly speaking, what we know as "General Valencian", in other words, the set of not Northern Valencian speeches that do not devoice the sibilants and do not participate of the linguistic singularity of the Lower Southern dialect.

Within the Upper Southern Valencian it is necessary to do a subdivision:

# Inland Zone. ''Comarques'' of la Costera, la Vall d'Albaida, el Comtat and l'Alcoià, that show some distinctive features, like for example:
::* The elision of final stops after nasals and liquids ( 'field', 'hundred', 'very'); or the falling diphthong in ('boiled') and ('empty').
::* In morphology it is almost universal the usage of (or ) instead of ('we') and ('you') in reflexive function, like Central Valencian: , instead of , ('we clean ourselves', 'you clean yourselves') of the ''comarques'' of the north and the south end.

# Coastal Zone. ''Comarques'' of la Safor and la Marina
::* Where final tends to sound velar ( > �'girl') and where are pronounced the stops of , , . Except for la Marina Baixa, becomes silent in ('box') and ('fish') and it is used the diphthong in ('boiled') and ('empty') (except for la Marina Baixa that pronounces it like the inland zone and Lower Southern Valencian).
::* In morphology, the substitution of and for is less extended, especially in the case of : 'we want us', (often simplified to ''mone'') 'we're leaving' (inland zone: , ). Within the coastal subdialect, we find one of the dialectal manifestations more singular of Valencian, the Majorcanised are of la Marina Alta and Baixa, where there were established a large contingent of Majorcan colonisers during the 17th century. As a result from this insularic colonisation, a large part of the comarca of la Marina maintains several linguistic features of Majorcan, especially in the towns of la Vall de Gallinera and, in a very special way, Tàrbena, where still survives the ''salat'' article.
:::These are some features of the Majorcan influence of la Marina Alta and Tàrbena (la Marina Baixa):
:::* Final is unstable in points of the region: it falls in Bolulla and Pedreguer and is unstable (or it was) in Dénia and Xàbia.
:::* Elision of in the digraph : > ''caxa'', > ''pex''. This elision also exists in the neighbouring region of la Safor (except in Gandia).
:::* Differentiated articulation of and between vowels: the affricated geminated sound of /, , opposed to the simple affricate of /, , still is active in some villages of la Marina Alta (Benissa, Senija, Xaló, Teulada, etc.). In addition to this, two villages (Benissa and Senija) feature the deaffrication of / like in Majorcan and Northern Valencian.
:::* Apheresis of initial : ''nar'' instead of ('to go'), ''ribar'' instead of ('to arrive').
:::* Pronunciation of unstressed followed by stressed as : ('grape'), ('morning'). Beltran states that final is close to in Benissa, Gata and Pedreguer: ('girl'), ('fly').
:::* Vowel in ''fr'd'' ('cold') and ''prim'r'' ('first'), reminiscing the Majorcan sound .
:::* Move from tonic to , ''tr'ure'' ('take out'), ''m'ula'' ('trap').
:::* Vowel closure of unstressed > in ('to swim') and by extension in ''nede'' ('I swim'), ''nedes'' ('you swim'), etc.
:::* Alternation between the unstressed sounds and by reminiscence of the Majorcan mid central vowel : ''devant'' () 'in front', ''d'ecí'' () 'from here', ''caregol'' () 'snail', ''llevor'' () 'seed', ''al gos'' () 'the dog', ''as diu'' () 's/he's called', ''famella'' () 'female', etc.
:::* Remains of the insularic consonantal assimilations: ''etzamen'' () 'exam', ''catsot'' () 'big headed', ''datsa'' () 'corn', ''dissatte'' () 'Saturday'.

Lower Southern Valencian

This dialect is called ''Alicante's Valencian'' () by some manuals of dialectology. To avoid confusion between the different dialectal realities of the comarques of this provincial demarcation, it is best using the term Southern or Lower Southern to describe the speeches that extend to the south of the line that links the settlements of Biar and Busot, that includes the south of l'Alcoià, l'Alacantí and the valleys of the river Vinalopó.
In the previously mentioned zone there are a series of features that singularise this dialectal set:
* becomes silent in ('strip, girdle'), ('grid') and ('same') > ''faxa'', ''rexa'' and ''matex''; like in la Safor and la Marina Alta.
* Final is maintained in the coastal regions, but similar to Castellon's Valencian it falls when the verb is accompanied by enclitics pronouns: ('greet you'), ('take away'). In el Camp d'Elx it also falls in the plain verbs of the second conjugation: , .
* The diphthong of is falling , like in a large part of the Upper Southern Valencian dialect and also in Catalonia and the islands.
* Intervocalic not only falls in the suffixes ''-ada'' and ''-ador'' but also in ''-uda'': ('dishevelled'), ('big-bellied'), etc. In el Camp d'Elx and Guardamar almost every between vowels is elided, also by syntactic phonetics: ''El Nal que ve anirem a la boa d’exa ona grenyua que viu al carre(r) (d)e la Roa'' (Standard Valencian: ) 'The following Christmas we will go to the wedding of that dishevelled woman who lives in the street of the Wheel'.
* The suffix -''esa'' is commonly reduced to ''ea'': ''bellea'' 'beauty'.
The region of the Valls del Vinalopó and neighbouring areas form a dialectal zone within the Lower Southern dialect with the following features:
* Final elision: , .
* Stops become silent in , and .
* The diphthongs (phonetically ) and (phonetically ) become homophones as (transcribed as for simplicity). By this rule, ('egg') is pronounced the same as ('bird') and ('well') the same as ('peace').
* The diphthong in and is rising like in general Valencian, and it is not falling like in the rest of the Lower Souther dialect.

In morphology the Lower Southern dialect has the following features:
* The article is invariable for the masculine and the feminine: ''es vaques'' and ''es bous'' for and .
* The system of demonstrative does not have and it only uses ('here'), ('there loser) and ('there urther) (only and by the most conservative speakers).
* The general demonstrative is replaced by ''astò'' and the pronoun ''li'' is changed to ''se'' in the combinations of pronouns: ''se la donarem'', ''dóna-se-la'' instead of ('we will give it to her'), ('give it to her').
* The full forms of the pronouns , , , , , do never reduce, including in enclitic position: ''me pareix que ta tia se troba malalta, posa-te la jaqueta i anem a vore-la'' () 'It seems to me your aunt is sick, put yourself a jacket and let's go to see her'.
* In verbal morphology, the desinences ''-am'' and ''-au'' from the imperative and subjunctive (, ) have evolved to ''-em'' and ''-eu'' (''diguem'', ''digueu''), except el Camp d'Elx, where survives the classic paradigma.

References

Bibliography

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