The interplay between prosodic phrasing and accentual prominence on articulatory lengthening in Italian

Caterina Petrone, Mariapaola D'Imperio, Leonardo Lancia, Susanne Fuchs

Research output: Contribution to journalConference articlepeer-review

Abstract

The distribution of preboundary lengthening within the phrasefinal word is controversial. In CV syllables immediately preceding a prosodic boundary, the acoustic duration of the syllable onset C is less involved than that of the following rime V in the lengthening phenomenon. Moreover, preboundary lengthening might be extended to the stressed/accented rime within the phrase final word. On the other hand, articulatory the constriction gesture for the onset consonant can be lengthened despite not being immediately adjacent to a boundary. In this preliminary study, we explore the effects of prosodic boundary and prominence in Italian, at both acoustic and articulatory level. Bilabial consonants in CV onset position were examined. The consonants were inserted in unstressed (word final) and stressed (penultimate vs. antepenultimate) syllables occurring close to prosodic boundaries of different levels. In final syllables, the acoustic duration of the onset consonant was not affected by the prosodic boundary manipulation whereas the closing gesture duration showed a pattern of lengthening which was stronger for higher level prosodic boundaries. In non-final syllables, no acoustic/articulatory effect was found for onset consonants but only on the stressed vowels in penultimate position. Structural, phonological and phonetic constraints might be at work in determining preboundary lengthening.

Original languageAmerican English
Pages (from-to)192-196
Number of pages5
JournalProceedings of the International Conference on Speech Prosody
DOIs
StatePublished - 2014
Externally publishedYes
Event7th International Conference on Speech Prosody, SP 2014 - Dublin, Ireland
Duration: May 20 2014May 23 2014

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Language and Linguistics
  • Linguistics and Language

Keywords

  • Articulatory movements
  • Italian
  • Onset duration
  • Pigesture
  • Preboundary lengthening
  • Prosodic hierarchy

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