This paper investigates the presence of voiceless stops' aspiration in Cosenza's dialect and regional Italian. To this purpose, speech samples from three speakers are spectrographically analyzed. Stop closure durations and voice onset time of geminate, postconsonantic and single stops are examined. Two other Italian regional varieties (Florence and Milan), that haven't in their system voiceless aspirates, are considered for a contrastive study. Results of acoustic analysis show that: 1) the VOT measure provides an adequate acoustic cue for separating aspirated stops from unaspirated ones; 2) in Cosenza's varieties (both dialect and Italian) aspiration regards only geminate and, in a lesser degree, post /r/ stops. As far as these last stops are concerned, VOT values of the Calabrian variety are very different from those observed in Florence and Milan Italian. On the contrary, VOT values of intervocalic stops are very similar for all three varieties. The last part of the study contains a discussion about the phonological status of the phenomenon. It's asserted that aspiration is an ambiguous process, because it presents, at the same time, both features of a strengthening phenomenon and those of a weakening process
Indici fonetici delle occlusive sorde nel cosentino
SORIANELLO, Patrizia
1996-01-01
Abstract
This paper investigates the presence of voiceless stops' aspiration in Cosenza's dialect and regional Italian. To this purpose, speech samples from three speakers are spectrographically analyzed. Stop closure durations and voice onset time of geminate, postconsonantic and single stops are examined. Two other Italian regional varieties (Florence and Milan), that haven't in their system voiceless aspirates, are considered for a contrastive study. Results of acoustic analysis show that: 1) the VOT measure provides an adequate acoustic cue for separating aspirated stops from unaspirated ones; 2) in Cosenza's varieties (both dialect and Italian) aspiration regards only geminate and, in a lesser degree, post /r/ stops. As far as these last stops are concerned, VOT values of the Calabrian variety are very different from those observed in Florence and Milan Italian. On the contrary, VOT values of intervocalic stops are very similar for all three varieties. The last part of the study contains a discussion about the phonological status of the phenomenon. It's asserted that aspiration is an ambiguous process, because it presents, at the same time, both features of a strengthening phenomenon and those of a weakening processI documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
