Differential positional neutralization of back vowels in two Majorcan Catalan sub-dialects

The present paper explores the patterns of unstressed vowel reduction affecting the three back vowels of Catalan: /ɔ/, /o/ and /u/. In particular, we examine two reduction patterns found in the Catalan dialect spoken on the island of Majorca: (i) the general Majorcan pattern according to which /ɔ/ and /o/ merge to [o] in unstressed position and /u/ remains different (as [u]), and (ii) a pattern found only in one small village on the island of Majorca, Sóller, according to which /ɔ/, /o/ and /u/ all merge to [u]. Bymeans of an acoustic study, the present paper establishes that the traditional impressionistic descriptions of these subdialects of Catalan with respect to their back vowels are correct and that these processes are thus best described as categorical, phonological (rather than gradient, phonetic) processes.