On the presence of metaphony in feminine plural nouns: New insights from the dialects of Campania

The paper deals with the extension of metaphony to feminine plural nouns coming from the first Latin declension (e.g. Old Neap. cure ‘tails’, cf. cora ‘tail’ < Lat. caudam), a real puzzle for Romance and Italian dialectology. The phenomenon was attested in the history of Neapolitan until the end of the 19th century and has disappeared from current use. However, it may still be found in some peripheral dialects of Campania. In the present paper, we will present new data from the Irpinian dialect of Montella, which is very relevant for the issue under consideration since it presents a large number of metaphonic feminine plurals, and at the same time it keeps distinct the qualities of the final unstressed vowels. Thanks to these new data, it will be possible to develop a framework that explains both the diachronic data of Neapolitan and the contemporary data of the Irpinian dialects. By assuming a morphophonological perspective on metaphony, we will argue for analogical processes based on the templates available in the feminine plural nouns from the third declension. Unlike previous studies, we will demonstrate that a better fit to the data can be obtained if the templates are conceived as discontinuous, so as to include not only the quality of the final unstressed vowel but also the specific quality of the stressed vowel.