Bilingual Frequency in a Favorable Context (BFFC) in the Italian dialectal area. An analysis of geminate lateral retroflexion and aspiration in Antona (MS)

This work reports the results of a sociophonetic inquiry in the village of Antona (MS). Two dialectal features, geminate lateral retroflexion and voiceless plosive aspiration, are described by means of a three-step mixed-method protocol (quantitative reading task; qualitative matched guise test and funneled interview). Linear Mixed-Effects models were built to analyze the durational aspects of voiced retroflex and voiceless plosives; formant analyses were also conducted on the vowels in the vicinity of retroflex plosives. Then, the tools of the usage-based framework were adopted in order to investigate the advergence process of the Antonese dialect towards Italian. Subjective frequency estimates of dialect words were computed and compared with the objective frequency of their Italian cognates. A composite frequency parameter, the Subjective-Objective Bilingual Frequency in a Favorable Context (SOBFFC), was used to predict the emergence of retroflexion and aspiration in two experiments: a picture naming task and an acceptability rating task. Results are discussed in the light of the exemplar priming theory and cascading models of linguistic processing.