Vowel reduction and deletion in Archaic Latin: contact-induced phenomena?

This paper deals with the vowel reduction and deletion in non-initial syllables which occurred in Latin after the earliest documents between the 5th and the 3rd century BC. Specifically, it examines the well-known hypothesis according to which these phenomena would be contact-induced. In this regard, it aims to demonstrate, on the one hand, that the borrowed feature is not (only) the stress position on the first syllable but (also) a rhythmic tendency and, on the other, that there are linguistic and extra-linguistic reasons for assuming that it spread from the Sabellic languages to Etruscan and, probably later, to Latin.