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 //FRM7PZ
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UID:pretalx-athens-2026-FRM7PZ@conference-hub.linguistic-society.com
DTSTART:20260422T153000Z
DTEND:20260422T154500Z
DESCRIPTION:Abstract\nVlach is a spoken-only language and has been recorded
  as endangered\, lacking a unified written system (Beis &\nDasulas\, 2017)
 . Studies conducted on Vlach have been mostly descriptive\, with very few 
 focusing on phonology\n(Dinas\, 1987\; Beis\, 2000) or phonetics (Vrazitul
 is\, 2023). Though the vowel system of the Vlach language is\ncommonly rep
 orted to contain seven vowels (/i\, e\, a\, o\, u\, ə\, ɨ/)\, the Farshe
 rot dialect (part of which is the\nRimenian variety) does not contain the 
 central high vowel /ɨ/ (Caragiu-Marioţeanu\, 1968). The present paper\ni
 nvestigates acoustic properties of the vowels of the Rimenian variety of K
 efalovryso (Pogoni prefecture\,\nEpirus) which\, to our knowledge\, has ne
 ver been studied experimentally\, in order to provide an acoustic\ndescrip
 tion of its vowel space and to explore the status of the central vowels in
  this variety. We additionally\ncompare the acoustic properties of Rimenia
 n vowels with those of Greek\, identifying areas of overlap and\ndivergenc
 e that may bear on phonological categorization and language contact.\nOn t
 he basis of linguistic profiling\, the community can be characterized as G
 reek-dominant bilingual\, with\nVlach maintained as a regularly used secon
 dary language. For the purpose of this study ten bilingual speakers\nof Ke
 falovryso (five male\, five female) were recorded producing Greek and Vlac
 h vowels in directed speech.\nThe material consisted of carefully selected
  Greek and Vlach words with CV1CV2 syllabic structure\, all stressed\non t
 he first syllable. The first consonant was bilabial and the second bilabia
 l or alveolar. F1 and F2\nmeasurements were made with Praat (Boersma & Wee
 nink\, 2025) and were subsequently normalized using the\nLobanov method in
  NORM (Thomas & Kental\, 2007). Absolute and normalized vowel duration mea
 surements\nwere also conducted. A Linear Mixed Model in SPSS was employed 
 to locate differences between the two vowel\nsystems according to language
  and gender.\nPreliminary results indicate that Rimenian vowels /o/ and /u
 / are realized in a more open and front\nposition relative to their Greek 
 counterparts. Further comparisons among the Rimenian vowels showed that\nt
 he centrals /ə/ and /ɨ/ are acoustically close to /a/ and /e/ respective
 ly\, suggesting substantial overlap in the\nacoustic space. These patterns
 \, along with additional findings\, will be discussed in light of linguist
 ic contact\nbetween Rimenian and Greek
DTSTAMP:20260419T083036Z
LOCATION:Online Session
SUMMARY:Vowel realization in the Rimenian variety of Kefalovryso - Dorothea
  Bilbili
URL:https://conference-hub.linguistic-society.com/athens-2026/talk/FRM7PZ/
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