Microprosodic timing rules for Italian consonant clusters

Abstract

Consonant durations as single sounds and in double and triple clusters, both in intervocalic and boundary posiwords uttered five times in sentence frames by a pro-tions, have been measured on spectrograms of 100 nonsense fessional speaker. Inherent durations, retrieved in single unstressed condition, appear consistently related to manner of articulation. Consonant durations in double clusters undergo to general lengthening in intervocalic and general shortening in initial positions, whereas lower effects were acknowledged in both cases by widening the clusters. Finally, variations have been expressed by modification coefficients of the inherent durations, obtaining rules which approximate measured values within a range lower than their Standard Deviation.

On the analysis of geminates in Standard Italian and Italian dialects

“…The output of this rule is then modified by coarticulation effects (or microprosodic timing rules, cf. Salza --Sandri 1986) As regards open syllables, the hierarchy in (7) could be refined by further analyzing the first context from the left: 'CVCV -> 'CVRV > 'CVLV > 'CVNV > 'CVPV, approximately. Moreover, the shorter duration of the stressed vowels of open syllables in the environment 'CV $ PRV, with respect to 'CV $ CV, has a straightforward phonetic explanation as well: it depends on an effect of temporal compensation.…”