Southern Europe

Abstract

This chapter reviews the prosodic systems and intonational phonology of a group of Southern European languages: Italian, French, Greek, and Maltese. It describes their stress, phrasing, rhythm, and intonational phonology, with particular attention to phonologically informed experimental work. In the case of Italian, given the lack of a spoken standard (which is only used by professional speakers) and the descriptions of quite a number of varieties (e.g. Bari, Florence, Naples, Palermo, Pisa, and Rome, inter alia), this review highlights common prosodic and phrasing features first, and subsequently covers any definable variety-specific intonational features. For French, the survey focuses on hexagonal French, while Athenian Greek is the representative variety for Greek, with some excursions into regional varieties. For Maltese, the chapter only focuses on its standard.