Nicosiano Database
The “Nicosiano Database” (NDB) is a publicly accessible document which was created with the purpose of assessing both the presence - in the lexis of Nicosiano - of phonetic traits traceable to northern dialects, and crucially, the productivity of endogenous phonological rules. The NDB contains around 5,800 nouns and verbs, all in citation form, extracted from the Vocabolario del dialetto galloitalico di Nicosia e Sperlinga (VNiSp; Trovato / Menza 2020). Each of these lemmas represents a plausible borrowing from Sicilian. It is the application of specifically Gallo-Italic phonological rules to Sicilian loanwords that constitutes evidence for their productivity (at least until the moment in which the loanward enters Nicosiano), and which conversely allows us to rule out the idea that a given phonetic trait is present in Gallo-Italic only through lexicalization. Lemmas of clear patrimonial origin were thus excluded from the database, since for these lexical items, the preservation of Gallo-Italic phonology does not confirm a recent application of synchronically productive rules. This approach recognizes that the intensity of language contact and the possible productivity of a given phenomenon can only be measured through phonological interference with borrowings from Sicilian or, possibly, from other varieties. On the basis of the available literature on the Gallo-Italic varieties of Nicosia and Sperlinga, we identified the following macro-phonological traits characteristic of northern repertoires:
- Lenition of intervocalic voiceless consonants (stops and fricatives) [LENIZ];
- Nasalization of vowels [NASAL];
- Degemination [DEGEM];
- Assibilation [ASSIB];
- Maintenance of the clusters -MB- and -ND- [DISSIM];
- Non-metaphonic diphthongization [DITT];
- Maintenance of the Northern stressed seven-vowel system [VOCAL];
- Maintenance of Gallo-Italic unstressed vocalism [included in VOCAL];
- Apheresis of initial a- [AFER];
- Palatalization of stressed /a/ [PALAT];
- Elimination of Sicilian allophonic variants in weak position [ELIM];
- Deretroflexion of the outcomes of TR, TTR, and STR [DERETR];
- Weakening of sonorants [INDSON].
Each macro-trait was subdivided into super-traits, and still further into a number of micro-traits, taking into account the orthographic conventions of both the source forms (Sicilian lemmas drawn from the Vocabolario Siciliano, VS) and the target forms (lemmas from the VNiSp). Each micro-trait was assigned a specific label in order to streamline the derivation process. The derivation mechanism begins with the Nicosiano (or Sperlinghese) lemma from the VNiSp and correlates it with possible derivational candidates drawn from the VS. For each candidate, the relevant micro-traits are identified, and the derivation proceeds backward (i.e., from right to left; see column X) until the Nicosiano lemma is reached. Among the proposed derivations, the most plausible one is selected through qualitative analysis. Consider the following derivation, where a correlation is drawn between the Nicosiano verb segutè ‘pursue’ and Sicilian assicutàri:
segutè <-vocal.7.b-- sigutè <-palat.5-- sigutàri <-leniz.1-- sicutàri <-degem.13-- ssicutàri <-afer.1-- assicutàri
In the derivational process from assicutàri to segutè, we obtain a “raw” derivational string - independent of the relative chronology of the application of the phenomena identified - according to which the micro-trait afer.1 is the first recognized, yielding the intermediate form *ssicutàri. In the next step, micro-trait degem.13 produces *sicutàri, followed by leniz.1 (sigutàri), palat.5 (sigutè), and finally vocal.7.b (segutè). The outcomes of the derivation can vary considerably (and require qualitative analysis for adjustments). They range from “zero derivation”, which show no application of Gallo-Italic phonological rules onto the corresponding Sicilian lemmas (as in anciòva ‘anchovy’, fastùca ‘pistachio’, and sausìzza ‘sausage’), to very long derivations such as that of böfetìn ‘small table’ from Sicilian bbuffittìnu, displaying six distinct derivational steps.
