Abstract
This study provides a comparative analysis of palatal stops and postalveolar affricates in two Rhaeto- Romance varieties, namely i) Jauer, a Romansh dialect spoken in the Canton of Grisons (Switzer- land), and ii) Maréo, a Ladin dialect spoken in the province of Bolzano (Italy). An acoustic analysis is carried out on the realizations of ten speakers of each variety, using the spectral mean or ‘Center of Gravity’ in order to verify the degree of difference between the two places of articulation. The results show an almost complete merger of the two categories in Jauer, whereas Maréo offers a more differentiated picture according to the age factor, given that older speakers appear to be more conservative.
Schmid, Stephan