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TheTuscan gorgia (Italian:gorgia toscana[ˈɡɔrdʒatosˈkaːna],Tuscan pronunciation:[ˈɡɔɾdʒaθosˈkaːna]; 'Tuscan throat') is aphonetic phenomenon governed by a complex ofallophonic rules characteristic of theTuscan dialects, inTuscany,Italy, especially the central ones, withFlorence traditionally viewed as the center.[1][2]
Thegorgia affects thevoiceless stops/k//t/ and/p/, which are pronounced asfricative consonants in post-vocalic position (when not blocked by the competing phenomenon ofsyntactic gemination):
An example: the wordidentificare ('to identify')/identifiˈkare/ is pronounced by a Tuscan speaker as[ˌidentifiˈhaːɾe], not as[identifiˈkaːre], as standardItalian phonology would require. The rule is sensitive to pause, but not word boundary, so that/laˈkasa/ ('the house') is realized as[laˈhaːsa], while the two phonemes/t/ of/laˈtuta/ 'the overalls' are interdental[θ] in[laˈθuːθa], and/p/ is pronounced[ɸ] so/laˈpipa/ 'the pipe (for smoking)' emerges as[laˈɸiːɸa].
(In some areas the voiced counterparts/ɡ//d//b/ can also appear as fricative approximants[ɣ][ð][β], especially in fast or unguarded speech. This, however, appears more widespread elsewhere in the Mediterranean, being standard inSpanish andGreek.)
In a stressed syllable,/ktp/, preceded by another stop, can occasionally be realized as trueaspirates[kʰtʰpʰ], especially if the stop is the same, for example[apˈpʰunto] (appunto, 'note'),[atˈtʰiŋɡo] (attingo, 'I draw on'), or[akˈkʰaːsa] (a casa, 'at home', withphonosyntactic strengthening due to the preposition).
Establishing a hierarchy of weakening within the class/ktp/ is not an easy task. Recent studies have called into question the traditional view that mutation of/p/ and/t/ is less widespread geographically than/k/ →[h], and in areas where the rule is not automatic,/p/ is often more likely to weaken than/t/ or/k/.
On the other hand, deletion in rapid speech always affects/k/ first and foremost wherever it occurs, but/t/ reduces less often to[h], especially in the most common forms such as participles ([anˈdaːho]andato 'gone'). Fricativisation of/k/ is by far the most perceptually salient of the three, however, and so it has become a stereotype of Tuscan dialects.
The phenomenon is more evident and finds its irradiation point in the city ofFlorence. From there, the gorgia spreads its influence along the entireArno valley, losing strength nearer the coast. On the coast,/p/ and usually/t/ are not affected. The weakening of/k/ is a linguistic continuum in the entire Arno valley, in the cities ofPrato,Pistoia,Montecatini Terme,Lucca,Pisa,Livorno.
In the northwest, it is present to some extent inVersilia. In the east, it extends over the Pratomagno to include Bibbiena and its outlying areas, where/ktp/ are sometimes affected, both fully occlusive[k],[t],[p] andlenited (lax, unvoiced) allophones being the major alternates.
TheApennine Mountains are the northern border of the phenomenon, and while a definite southern border has not been established, it is present inSiena and further south to at leastSan Quirico d'Orcia. In the far south of Tuscany, it gives way to the lenition (laxing) typical of northern and coastalLazio.
The Tuscan gorgia arose perhaps as late as theMiddle Ages as a natural phonetic phenomenon, much like the consonant voicing that affected theGallo-Italic languages and the rest of theWestern Romance languages (now phonemicised as in/aˈmika/ 'friend' (f.) >/aˈmiɡa/), but it remained allophonic in Tuscany, as laxing or voicing generally does elsewhere in Central Italy and inCorsica.
Although it was once hypothesised that thegorgia phenomena are the continuation of similar features in the language that predated Romanization of the area,Etruscan, that view is no longer held by most specialists.[3][4]
Instead, it is increasingly accepted as being a local form of the same consonant weakening that affects other speech in Central Italy, extending far beyond, to Western Romance. Support for that hypothesis can be found in several facts:
But Izzo has completely demolished the hypothesis that Etruscan pronunciation- habits were the source of the Tuscan gorgia. It remains to be seen whether Izzo's definitive demonstration will suffice to lay this ancient but persistent ghost. (...) In his conclusion (173-6), Izzo flatly rejects the hypothesis of Etruscan substratum, on essentially two grounds: (1) that the gorgia is a matter of spirantization, not aspiration, attested only since the 16th century for /-k-/ and much later for /-p — t-/; and (2) that the premisses on which alleged Etruscan speech-habits are said to survive in the gorgia are either false or doubtful.