italian-studies: Scholarly discussions in any field of Italian studies

Dear italian-studies colleagues,

I normally do not forward messages to the list from non-members, but  
I am making an exception for a fine colleague whose server has been  
creating technical problems in subscribing, and who has asked me for  
assistance. Rachel Panckhurst teaches at the Université de  
Montpellier 3, and asks for any help with any of the following  
queries. As you will see, these queries are concerned with SMS  
typologies in Italian, contrasted to French and Spanish.

If you have any answers for any of Dr Panckhurst's questions, please  
write directly to her at:
[log in to unmask]

Thank you for any assistance you may be able to provide.

Best wishes,
George Ferzoco

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

1) In the following "partial substitution" I have found examples of  
two letters which become just one (in Italian, ch->k) in text  
messages. I think that three letters becoming one probably wouldn't  
work for Spanish and Italian because spelling and pronunciation are  
much closer together than in French (where beau->bo works), but I may  
have missed an example. I also can't think of an example in Italian,  
where an intervocalic "s" might turn into a "z" as in "besos- 
 >bezos" (for Spanish) or "bises->bizes" (for French). Any ideas?

partial substitution: replacement of 1) digrams and 2) trigrams,  
corresponding to phonemes; spelling of the lexeme is partially modified
French: 1) ossi (aussi), allé (aller); 2) bo (beau);  intervocalic  
“s”: bizes (bises)

Spanish: 1) yamar (llamar), yave (llave), chikitina (chiquitina),  
xiquitina (chiquitina, from catalan); 2) N.A.;  intervocalic “s”:  
bezos (besos)

Italian: 1) kiudere (chiudere); 2) ?? ; intervocalic "s"????



2) I have a category which I call phonetic substitution with  
variation; in Italian, it seems that "ss" is often replaced by "x" in  
text messages. Can you confirm that this is an influence from Latin?  
(apart from being quicker to text of course!)
phonetic substitution with variation

French:  bisoo (bisou)

Spanish: weno (bueno), wapa (guapa)

Italian: poxo (posso) — from Latin: "x" became "ss".


3) does the hyphen or apostrophe exist in Italian? Like the French "  
' " ? in "m'en" for instance? Which often becomes "m en" in text  
messages?

graphical substitution: elision, typography, capitals/lower case: 1)  
replacement of the apostrophe or hyphen by spaces; 2) capitalising  
whole messages or substituting capitals with lower case or vice versa
French: 1) m en (m’en), est ce que (est-ce que); 2) upper/lower case  
substitution apparent

Spanish: 1) no hyphen or apostrophe in literary Spanish; 2) upper/ 
lower case substitution apparent

Italian: 1) no hyphen or apostrophe in Italian; 2) upper/lower case  
substitution apparent


4) In French, you can have the following types of examples, where  
there's a graphical variation, but the pronunciation doesn't change.  
I can't find any examples of this is the Italian corpus I have. Can  
you think of any examples you might have come across in Italian text  
messages?
graphical substitution with variation

French: bisoux (bisous) mwa (moi);

Spanish: not encountered in corpus

Italian: not encountered in corpus


5) I came across quite an interesting example for Italian, in my  
morpho-lexical shortenings (reductions) category. The two students  
speak "Napolitano": one is from Salerno and the other is from  
Avellino. They explained to me that in their dialect, words such as  
"scema" or "averti' are often shortened to "scem" or "avert".  
Therefore, finding them as such in text messages is not so  
surprising, since they are already pronounced that way in their oral  
Italian. Do you know about that? (I thought these were interesting  
examples).
1. morpho-lexical shortenings

1.1. truncations: 1) apocope; 2) aphaeresis

French: 1) ordi (ordinateur); 2)  ‘lut, Net (salut, Internet)
Spanish: 1) peli (pelicula); 2) stoy (estoy), stas (estas)

Italian: 1) scem (scema), avert (averti), veng (vengo), capi  
(capito), appunt (appuntamento); 2) na (una)


6) I can't find an example of phonetic reduction with variation in  
Italian, but there probably are some. IN French, oui is sometimes  
shortened to "ui" or "il" to "i". In Spanish I have only encountered  
it in part of a word: "adios" becoming "a2" therefore "dios" is  
reduced to "dos". I wonder if this exists in Italian?
phonetic reduction with variation

French: ui (oui), i (il)
Spanish: only encountered in complex neology: a2 (adios)

Italian: not encountered in corpus


7) I presume there are no mute word-endings in Italian as in Spanish,  
therefore the following is non applicable, right?
graphical reduction: suppression of mute word-endings

French: échange (échanges), vou (vous), peu (peut), chian (chiant),  
fou (m’en fous); drop of the unstable e: douch (douche)
Spanish: N.A.

Italian: N.A.


8) Are there any word-beginnings that might not be pronounced  
inItalian? See below for examples in French/Spanish.
2. suppression of mute word-beginnings

French: otel (hôtel)

Spanish: rmanos (hermanos): normally, "r" is pronounced "erre", so  
this also involves phonetic variation; n (en), l (el) with phonetic  
variation.

Italian: not encountered in corpus


9) I can't see any examples of double consonants which are reduced to  
one (like elle->ele or pourra->poura in French). I checked the corpus  
fairly carefully. I know double consonants are less frequent in  
Spanish than French. Is it the same for Italian?
3. 1) consonant contractions/clippings & abbreviations; 2) double  
consonants; 3) semantic abbreviations/initialisms (abbreviations  
reduced to initials)

French: 1) dc (donc), pr (pour), ds (dans); 2) ele (elle), poura  
(pourra); 3) t (te/tu) p (peux/pas)

Spanish: 1) mñn (mañana), pq (porque), hcr (hacer), td (todo); 2) not  
encountered in corpus; 3) q (que/qué), t (te/tu)

Italian: 1) dmn (domani), tnt (tanto), scs (scusa), ttt (tutto); 2)  
not encountered in corpus; 3) c (ce/ci), s (si/stare)


10) Apostrophes don't exist in Italian, or do they? I couldn't find  
any examples of agglutinations as in French: j'attends->jattends.  
However, I found a couple of interesting things: when there's  
agglutination in Italian, there seems to be double consonants! (see  
below)
4. agglutinations

French:  jattends (j’attends), jy (j'y), nai (n'ai), ten (t'en),  
lascenseur (l'ascenseur)

Spanish: N.A. for apostrope; noseke (no sé qué)

Italian: N.A. for apostrophe; kissà (chi sa), sennò (se no) — only  
appears also with character & diacritic increase or partial phonetic  
substitution
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