Differences From Standard Catalan
The Algherese variant is classified in the Eastern Catalan block, but it has many differences from Central Catalan. Some of the most obvious:
- Phonetics
- Like in other languages of Sardinia /ɛ/, /e/, /ɔ/, and /o/ may merge into mid vowels and, respectively.
- Coalescing of unstressed vowels /a/, /ɛ/ and /e/ to (unlike the rest of Eastern Catalan that uses ).
- Algherese preserves /v/ as a distinct phoneme from /b/, like Balearic and most of Valencian.
- Mutation of intervocalic /d/ or /l/ to ; e.g. 'Barceloneta' (little Barcelona): Eastern Standard, Algherese ; and vila ('town') and vida ('life') are homophones in Algherese .
- Mutation of syllable final /r/ to lateral, and the possible resulting group /r/ + consonant is further simplified to ; e.g. forn ('furnace, oven'): Standard, Algherese .
- Depalatalization of syllable final sonorants: lateral /ʎ/ to, nasal /ɲ/ to ; e.g. any ('year'): Standard, Algherese .
- Unlike most Catalan dialects, /l/ is never velarized in Algherese; e.g. sol ('sun'): Standard, Algherese .
- Morphology
- Simple past has been replaced by present perfect (present of haver "to have" + past participle), possibly due to Italian influence.
- Imperfect Past preserves etymological -v- in all the conjugations: 1st -ava, 2nd -iva, 3rd -iva (unlike modern eastern and western standard Catalan which has 1st -ava, 2nd -ia, 3rd -ia) (a feature shared with Ribagorçan Catalan).
- Large-scale lexical borrowing and calques from Sardinian, Spanish, and Italian.
Read more about this topic: Algherese Dialect
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