Which syntactic information gets interpreted by phonosyntactic processes? Evidence from /u/ propagation in Southern Italian dialects

This work addresses the classical problem of the relation between syntax and phonology adopting the idea that phonology is an interpretive component, working together with morphology and the lexicon as an externalization device. To this end we consider a set of phonosyntactic phenomena (i.e. syntactically conditioned phonological phenomena), involving the spreading of /u/ and the preservation of final –a in some Southern Italian varieties. In section 1 we consider the phonology of /u/ propagation, analysed within the Government Phonology framework (Kaye et al. 1990; cf. Savoia in press, this volume). In section 2 we address the syntactic conditions placed on it, arguing in favour of a model in which the externalization component directly reads the syntactico-semantic (LF) representation. In section 3 we provide a comparison with the syntactic conditions on the (non harmonic) process of final –a preservation.