Benedetta Baldi

Propagation and preservation of rounded back vowels in Lucanian and Apulian varieties

This article addresses the descriptive and theoretical aspects of the relation between the cavity properties of vowels and consonants. This relation is studied on the basis of some vocalic harmonizing processes depending on the adjacency between [u] and a velar (or labial) consonant in the domain of the stressed nucleus. Propagation of /u/ and preservation of /u/ in pre-tonic position in Southern Italian varieties provide the crucial testing ground for our analysis; one last process we investigate is the distribution of the metaphonic outcomes in a Salento dialect. The nature of phonological representations is the other question we are concerned with. This point has been recently explored specifically in relation to the explanatory role of the structure and its relation with the melodic content of segments. Our proposal is that the phonological structure of the string corresponds in a direct and exhaustive way to the elementary melodic properties of the segments.

Il formalismo russo, Roman Jakobson e la linguistica nella prima metà del Novecento

This article addresses the relation between Russian Formalism and linguistic thought in the first decades of the twentieth century. The theory of literary language proposed by the Formalist School assigns a central role to the linguistic devices that characterize a text as poetic or literary; the basic idea is that these devices work as a system, a notion derived from Saussurean linguistics. The leading figure we consider is Roman Jakobson, a key interpreter of Formalism, and, at the same time, an original and influential linguist. In his work the interpretation of poetic language is related to an overall linguistic theory, where the properties of natural languages, crucially phonology, and the use (functions) of language have a theoretical characterization.

(De)Legitimization Strategies in the "Austere Prose" of Palmiro Togliatti *

This article illustrates the specific linguistic ways which introduce the pragmatics and semantics of de-legitimization and symbolic power in political discourse. We will show that the words produced in political discourse, represent an enabling tool to create the effects of meaning related to the process of (de)legitimization as a slip/change of meaning. Taking into account the few previous studies on de-legitimization strategies, our intention is to analyse this discursive practice in the political discourse of Palmiro Togliatti, considering as the focus of our analysis three speeches delivered in the period 1947-1952. We will show that Togliatti employed many different discursive strategies that can be included within the (de)legitimization spectrum