Un contributo alla ricostruzione del vocalismo tonico toscano: le vocali toniche medio-basse

The origin of the Old Tuscan diphthongs ie/ uo is a controversial topic in the field of the historical approaches to the Romance languages. These outcomes appear in varieties devoid of metaphony, insofar as we can reconstruct their evolution and, however, on the basis of the current existing systems. Moreover, the diphthong uo of the old Tuscan does not occur in the present-day Tuscan varieties and it is absent from the Florentine system at least from the eighteenth century. The data we will discuss draw a geo-linguistic picture enough rich to set the Tuscan phenomena in a significant and convincing frame. Padan, Romagna and Montefeltro varieties together with the North-Western Tuscan varieties (Apuane, Garfagnana) bring to light the co-existence and interaction of some different phonetic tendencies (metaphony, syllabic distribution of the vowel length) that may provide clues for a more adequate comprehension of the Tuscan vocalism formation.