Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to offer acoustic evidence for an unusual phonemic contrast in Rome Italian. In our corpus, about half of all tokens of intervocalic /p t k/ are realized with uninterrupted voicing (both word-internally and across word boundaries). Furthermore, the voiced realizations of /t/ and /k/ do not significantly differ from /d/ and /g/ in duration and/or degree of constriction (as acoustically determined). Phonemic contrast is maintained under substantial phonetic overlap. Regarding the labials, duration keeps /p/ and /b/ apart. Contrary to the universal tendency, it is /b/ that is considerably longer, due to complex diachronic facts.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 215-242 |
| Number of pages | 28 |
| Journal | Phonetica |
| Volume | 68 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jan 2012 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Language and Linguistics
- Acoustics and Ultrasonics
- Linguistics and Language