An acoustic study on non-local anticipatory effects of Italian length contrast

Abstract

The present study investigates non-local temporal adjustments before an upcoming length contrast in Italian minimal pairs that differ only in the length of the medial consonant (e.g., geminate word palla "ball" vs singleton word pala "shovel"). This contrast is reportedly signaled by the duration of the singleton/geminate consonant and of the preceding vowel. Here, it is shown that the duration adjustment extends further to the word-initial consonant, e.g., the [p] in palla is significantly longer than that in pala (experiment 1). In experiment 2, an effect of syllable structure is ruled out, an unavoidable confound when comparing singleton and geminate words. The comparison of geminate words with cluster words (e.g., as palco "stage"), both of which have a closed first syllable, shows a similar lengthening. Implications for models of speech production are discussed.

Gemination in Northern versus Central and Southern Varieties of Italian: A Corpus-based Investigation

“…However, the magnitude of consonant lengthening is subject to variation by speakers and styles. The greatest amount of lengthening was (unsurprisingly) found in target words pronounced in isolation, with CC:C ratios ranging from slightly more than 2:1 to nearly 3:1, similar to other studies using target words in nuclear position (e.g., Farnetani & Kori, 1986; Pickett et al, 1999; Turco & Braun, 2016). Interestingly, consonantal lengthening is descriptively smaller for N than CS speakers in all speech styles tested, but differences are mostly not significant.…”

“…We found a significant shortening of Vcc in the context of isolated target words with a Vcc:Vc ratio of approximately 0.75:1. This result reflects similar findings on target words in isolation or in carrier sentences in nuclear position (e.g., Esposito & Di Benedetto, 1999; Turco & Braun, 2016). However, vowel shortening was much less consistent in continuous speech uttered by the same speakers, where it was of a limited magnitude and exclusively observed on vowels in stressed position (β = -5.19 ms, SE = 1.34, p < .001).…”

“…The results by Chang (2000) and Giordano and Savy (2012) only partially support claims of degemination in northern Italy, while the data observed by Farnetani and Kori (1986), Stevens (2011), Turco and Braun (2016) do not seem to highlight any major differences across northern and central/southern speakers. This suggests that the tendency of northern speakers to de-geminate, often mentioned in the literature, may have been overestimated.…”

“…The effect of gemination on the duration of the preceding vowel is therefore weaker and seems to have a limited role as a perceptive cue for Italian native speakers (Bertinetto & Vivalda, 1978; Rochet & Rochet, 1995). Additionally, Turco and Braun (2016) revealed the existence of non-local effects of gemination on the preceding word-initial consonant, for example, /p/ is longer in palla (ball) than in pala (shovel). The perceptive relevance of such lengthening has not been investigated so far.…”

“…Other evidence on the pronunciation of geminate consonants by northern speakers is provided by studies dealing with other topics, but which happen to report durations of singletons and geminates. We computed CC:C ratios and (when available) Vcc:Vc ratios for measurements reported by Bertinetto (1981, p. 283, Tables XX and XXI), Farnetani and Kori (1986, p. 25, Table 3) and Turco and Braun (2016, Table IV), as shown in Table 2. Additionally, other studies include relevant findings about (de-)gemination in northern varieties: Zmarich, Gili-Fivela, Perrier, Savariaux and Tisato (2011) report significant differences between geminates and singletons for three northern speakers and one central speaker, but do not specify ratios; Stevens (2011) finds comparable mean durations of geminate plosives for northern, central and southern speakers; Giordano and Savy (2012) report higher percentages of degemination for northern (15%) than central (8%) and southern (3%–5%) speakers, on the basis of impressionistic judgments.…”