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I am currently studying Talian (a language that is basically Veneto plus some influence from Brasilian-Portuguese and other notheren italian dialects - but is basically Veneto) and I noticed there are some variants on the use of the letter "V". In the Veneto region in Italy, some dialects of Veneto will not use the letter V when it is close to and A or an O (that pattern I found by myself and don't know if that's correct), e.g.:

It. lavoro Ve. laoro It. uva Ve. ua It. tavolo Ve. taola

I want to know more about why this phonomenon happens and how, from Latin, it got to the point where V goes missing. I tried searching for resources but could only find articles discoursing about the L-tagliata.

I know Veneto is much more soft, phonetically, then standard Italian. There are some examples, as for the L-tagliata, some missing Ds, a soft r, no double consonants, etc, and I am starting to think the missing V might be related to that.

If anyone can help with resources or an explanation, I'd very thankful.

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    Without knowing more than these three examples, it seems more likely to me that the loss of /v/ is governed by the presence of /u/ or /o/, rather than /a/ or /o/. Labial sounds tend to be most commonly lost in the vicinity of labial rounding, and the only two rounded vowels in Italian are /u o/, so they would be the obvious candidates. It may well be related to the ‘softness’, which sounds like widespread lenition, but it’s also not an unusual change in itself (cf. Spanish hueón < huevón or Latin coquō < quoquō). Commented May 11 at 0:34

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According to Ferguson's A Linguistic History of Venice (3.3.1), these are simply examples of intervocalic lenition, which apply to many other consonants (like /c/ turning into /g/ or /t/ turning into /d/ or disappearing completely).

The caveat here is that the process is highly irregular and full of exceptions due to the non-standardized and fluctuating nature of the language. Anecdotally I have the impression as well that it happens more often near /u/ or /o/, but there are examples of all possible combinations, for example

  • ovum > vovo
  • rivum > rio
  • caviculum > caichio
  • lavare > lavar

This is not an unexpected phenomenon. Rohlfs, in his Grammatica storica della lingua italiana e i suoi dialetti (§215), claims that the lenition of intervocalic /v/ is common in many Italo-Romance varieties, especially near back vowels (that are almost universally rounded in Italo-Romance) -- see for example the standard Italian bue from the Latin bovem.

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  • Thank's a lot for your answer. Also, is there a reason for why lenition happens? I am an amateur and I'd like to know what drives speakers to soften of harden sounds. Maybe some thing biological.... Commented May 15 at 0:28

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