ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the result of contact between some dialect groups which, historically, despite often being referred to as 'Italian dialects', are dialects or varieties of Latin that developed alongside the Florentine/Tuscan variety, which became the standard language of Italy. Given the syllable structure of the Val Bormida dialects, one might reasonably suppose that the Romance speakers of the valley, unlike the coastal Ligurians, shared the Gallo-Italian strong stress pattern that encouraged the syncope of weak vowels. The chapter describes the linguistic features of the dialects and their distribution; then, reviews the social and historical context, examines possible reasons for the dialects' unusual profile, paying particular attention to the phenomena of salience and markedness. It maintains that the profile can be naturally accounted for through a reconstruction of the area's linguistic history in the light of recent theories of language change and models of diffusion in contact situations.
