Tuscan Gorgia - Geographical Distribution

Geographical Distribution

Establishing a hierarchy of weakening within the class /k t p/ is not an easy task. Recent studies have called into question the traditional view that mutation of /t/ and /p/ is less widespread geographically than /k/ →, and in areas where the rule is not categorical, /p/ is often more likely to weaken than /k/ or /t/. On the other hand, fast-speech deletion affects /k/ first and foremost wherever it occurs, while /t/ can reduce to, especially in high-frequency items such as participles (e.g. andato). Fricativization of /k/ is by far the most perceptually salient of the three, however, and amongst Italians it has thus become a stereotype (geo- and sociolinguistic marker) of Tuscan dialects.

The phenomenon is more evident and finds its irradiation point in the city of Florence. From this point, the gorgia spreads its influence along the entire Arno valley, losing strength nearer the coast. On the coast the gorgia cannot already change /p/ and weakly changes /t/. The weakening of /k/ is a linguistic continuum in the entire Arno valley, in the cities of Prato, Pistoia, Montecatini Terme, Lucca, Pisa, Livorno. In the northwest it is present to some extent in Versilia, and in the east extends over the Pratomagno to include Bibbiena and outlying areas, where /k t p/ are all affected, although variably, both fully occlusive, and "lenited" (lax, unvoiced) phones the major alternates. The Apennines are the northern border of the phenomenon, and while a definite southern border has not been established, it is present in Siena and further south, through at least San Quirico d'Orcia. In far southern Tuscany it gives way to the lenition (laxing) typical of northern and coastal Lazio.