V. 58 N. 2 (2020)
Articoli

Rhotic degemination in Rome Italian

Rosalba Nodari
Università degli studi di Siena
Chiara Meluzzi
Università degli studi di Pavia

Pubblicato 2020-11-12

Parole chiave

  • rhotics,
  • gemination,
  • Rome Italian,
  • quantitative analysis,
  • qualitative analysis

Abstract

In this paper we analyse if, and how, Roman speakers produce rhotics degemination in RI. 10 speakers from Rome participated to a sentence-reading task, with 70 sentences of equal length and controlled prosodic contour containing one token with a singleton and/or geminate /r/, in stressed and/or unstressed condition. 700 tokens were annotated following the protocol by Celata et al. (2016), classifying rhotics as either taps, trills, approximants or fricatives according to their spectrogram realization. For quantitative analysis, we relied on preceding vowel and consonant duration to test the consonant gemination (Argiolas 1995). Results show that geminated rhotics were longer than singleton rhotics, and the same hold true for preceding vowel duration. Qualitative analysis shows, instead, a more complex picture. Intervocalic geminate rhotics seem to allow a greater range of possibilities: they can be realized mainly as trills, but approximants, fricatives, taps, and combined realizations (trill or tap with a fricative appendix) are found too. However, a great within-speaker variation has also been observed.

Riferimenti bibliografici

  1. ALBANO LEONI, F. (2006), Il corpus CLIPS. Presentazione del progetto, http://www. clips. unina.it/
  2. ARGIOLAS, F., MACRÌ, F. AND DI BENEDETTO, M.G. (1995), Acoustic analysis of Italian [r] and [l], in «Journal of the Acoustical Society of America», 97, 5, pt.2, pp. 3418.
  3. BAESE-BERK, M. AND GOLDRICK, M. (2009), Mechanisms of interaction in speech production, in «Language, Cognition and Neuroscience», 24, 4, pp. 527-554.
  4. BALTAZANI, M. AND NICOLAIDIS, K. (2013), The many faces of /r/, in SPREAFICO, L. AND VIETTI, A. (2013; eds), Rhotics: New Data and Perspectives. Bolzano University Press, Bolzano, pp. 125-144.
  5. BATES, D., MAECHLER, M., BOLKER, B., AND WALKER, S. (2015), Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4, in «Journal of Statistical Software», 67,1, pp. 1–48.
  6. BERNHARD, G. (1992), Per una caratterizzazione fenomenologica variazionale del “Romanesco di III fase”, in «Contributi di filologia dell’Italia mediana», 6, pp. 255-271.
  7. BERTINETTO, P. M., AND VIVALDA (1978), E., Recherches sur la perception des opposition de quantité en italien, in «Journal of Italian Linguistics», 3, pp. 97-116.
  8. BERTINETTO, P. M. AND LOPORCARO, M. (2009), The sound pattern of Standard Italian, as compared with the varieties spoken in Florence, Milan and Rome, in «Journal of the International Phonetics Association», 35, pp. 131-151.
  9. BLECUA, B. (2001), Las vibrantes del español: manifestaciones acústicas y procesos fonéticos, PhD dissertation, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
  10. BLECUA B., CICRES, J., AND GIL, J. (2014), Variación en las róticas del español y su implicación en la identificación del locutor, in «Revista de Filología Románica», 31, pp. 13–35.
  11. BRADLEY, T. G. (2006), Spanish rhotics and Dominican hypercorrect /s/, in «Probus», 18,1, pp. 1-33.
  12. BRADLEY T. G. AND WILLIS, E. W. (2012), Rhotic variation and contrast in Veracruz Mexican Spanish, in «Estudios de Fonética Experimental», 21, pp. 43-74.
  13. CANEPARI L. (2018), Italian pronunciation and accents. Geo-social applications of the natural phonetics and tonetics method, Lincom, München.
  14. CELATA, C., MELUZZI, C. AND RICCI, I. (2016), The sociophonetics of rhotic variation in Sicilian dialects and Sicilian Italian: corpus, methodology and first results, in «Loquens», 3,1, e025. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.3989/loquens.2016.025
  15. CELATA, C., VIETTI, A. AND SPREAFICO, L. (2019), An articulatory account of rhotic variation in Tuscan Italian: synchronized UTI and EPG data, in GIBSON, M. AND GIL J. (2019, eds.), Romance Phonetics and Phonology, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 92-117.
  16. COLINA, S. (2010), Rhotics in Spanish: A new look at an old problem, in BORGONOVO, C., ESPAÑOL-ECHEVARRÍA, M. AND PRÉVOST, P. (2010, eds.), Selected Proceedings of the 12th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium, Cascadilla Proceedings Project, Somerville, MA, pp. 75–86.
  17. CLOPPER, C.G. AND TAMATI, T.N. (2014), Effects of local lexical competition and regional dialect on vowel production, in «Journal of the Acoustical Society of America», 136,1, pp. 1-4.
  18. D’ACHILLE, P. (1995), L’italiano de Roma, in «Italiano and oltre», 10, pp. 38-43.
  19. D’ACHILLE, P. AND GIOVANARDI, C. (1995), Romanesco, neoromanesco o romanaccio? La lingua di Roma alle soglie del Duemila, in ROMANELLO, M. T. AND TEMPESTA I. (1995, eds.), Dialetti e Lingue nazionali. Atti del XXVII Congresso Internazionale di Studi della Società di Linguistica Italiana (Lecce, 28-30 ottobre 1993), Bulzoni, Roma, pp. 397-412.
  20. D’ACHILLE, P. AND GIOVANARDI, C. (2001), Dal Belli ar Cipolla. Conservazione e innovazione nel romanesco contemporaneo, Carocci, Roma.
  21. D’ACHILLE, P., STEFINLONGO, A. AND BOCCAFURNI, A. M. (2012), Lasciatece parlà. Il romanesco nell’Italia di oggi, Carocci, Roma.
  22. DMITRIEVA, O., CELATA, C., MELUZZI, C. AND CONCU, V. (2018), The effects of lexical status and lexical competitors on the production of Italian stops, Poster presented at the 16th Labphon conference, Lisbon (Portugal), 19-22 June 2018.
  23. ESPOSITO, A. AND DI BENEDETTO, M.G. (1999), Acoustical and perceptual study of gemination in Italian stops, in «Journal of the acoustical society of America», 106, pp. 2051-2062.
  24. FLEMMING, E. (1995), Auditory Representations in Phonology, PhD dissertation, UCLA.
  25. FLEMMING, E. (2002), Auditory Representations in Phonology, Routledge, London [revised version of Flemming 1995].
  26. GOLDRICK, M., VAUGHN, C. AND MURPHY, A. (2013), The effects of lexical neighbors on stop consonant articulation, in «Journal of the Acoustical Society of America»,134, pp. 172-177.
  27. HARRIS, J. (2002), Flaps, trills, and syllable structure in Spanish, in «MIT working papers in linguistics», 42, pp. 81-108.
  28. HUALDE, J. I. (2005), The sounds of Spanish, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
  29. HUALDE, J. I. AND NADEU, M. (2011), Lenition and phonemic overlap in Rome Italian, in «Phonetica», 68, pp. 215-242.
  30. KAWAHARA, S. (2005), Sonorancy and geminacy, in «University of Massachusetts occasional papers in linguistics», 32, Papers in Optimality Theory III, pp. 145-186.
  31. KAWAHARA, S. AND PANGILINAN, M. (2017), Spectral continuity, amplitude changes, and perception of length contrasts, in KUBOZONO, H. (2017, ed.), The phonetics and phonology of geminate consonants, Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 13-33.
  32. KUZNETSOVA, A., BROCKHOFF, P. B., AND CHRISTENSEN, R. H. B. (2017), lmerTest Package: Tests in linear mixed effects models, in «Journal of Statistical Software, 82,13, pp. 1–26.
  33. LABOV, W. (1972), Sociolinguistic Patterns. Blackwell, Oxford.
  34. LABOV W. (2014), The sociophonetic orientation of the language learner, in CELATA C. AND CALAMAI S. (2014; eds.) Advances in Sociophonetics, John Benjamin, Amsterdam/Philadelphia, pp. 17-29.
  35. LADEFOGED, P. AND MADDIESON, I. (1996), The sounds of the world’s languages, Blackwell, Oxford.
  36. LÖFQVIST, A. (2006), Interarticulator programming: effect of closure duration on lip and tongue coordination in Japanese, in «Journal of the acoustical society of America», 120, pp. 2872-83.
  37. LÖFQVIST, A. (2017), Articulatory coordination in long and short consonants. An effect of rhythm class?, in KUBOZONO, H. (2017; ed.), The Phonetics and Phonology of Geminate Consonants, Oxford, Oxford Studies in Phonology and Phonetics, pp. 118-129.
  38. LOPORCARO, M. (2009), Profilo linguistico dei dialetti italiani, Bari, Laterza.
  39. MAROTTA, G. (2005), Il consonantismo romano. Processi fonologici e aspetti acustici, in ALBANO LEONI, F. AND GIORDANO, R. (2005; eds.), Italiano parlato. Analisi di un dialogo, Napoli, Liguori, pp. 1-24.
  40. NÚÑEZ CEDEÑO, R. (1994), The alterability of Spanish geminates and its effects on the Uniform Applicability Condition, in «Probus», 6, pp. 23-41.
  41. PAYNE, E. (2005), Phonetic variation in Italian consonant gemination, in «Journal of the International Phonetic Association», 35, 2, pp. 153-181.
  42. PICKETT, E. R., BLUMSTEIN, S. AND BURTON, M. W. (1999), Effects of speaking rate on the singleton/geminate consonant contrast in Italian, in «Phonetica», 56, pp. 135-157.
  43. QUINTANA, A. (2006), Geografía lingüística del judeoespañol: estudio sincrónico y diacrónico, Bern, Peter Lang.
  44. RECASENS, D. AND PALLARÈS, M. D. (1999), A study of /r/ and /rr/ in the light of the ‘DAC’ coarticulation model, in «Journal of Phonetics», 27, pp. 143-169.
  45. RECASENS, D. AND ESPINOSA, A. (2007), Phonetic typology and positional allophones for alveolar rhotics in Catalan, in «Phonetica», 64, pp. 1-28.
  46. ROHLFS, G. (1966), Grammatica storica della lingua italiana e dei suoi dialetti, Torino, Einaudi.
  47. ROMANO, A. (2003), Indici acustici di alcune geminate iniziali salentine, in MAROTTA, G. AND NOCCHI, N. (2003; eds.), La coarticolazione. Atti delle XIII Giornate di studio del gruppo di fonetica sperimentale, Roma, Edizioni ETS, pp. 233-241.
  48. ROMANO, A. (2013), A preliminary contribution to the study of phonetic variation of /r/ in Italian and Italo-Romance, in SPREAFICO, L. AND VIETTI, A. (2013; eds), Rhotics: New Data and Perspectives. Bolzano University Press, Bolzano, pp. 209-225.
  49. SCOBBIE, J. (2006), (R) as a variable, in BROWN, K. (2006, ed.), Encyclopaedia of Language and Linguistics (2nd ed.), Oxford, Elsevier, pp. 337–344.
  50. SHELTON, M. (2013), Spanish rhotics: more evidence of gradience in the system, in «Hispania», 96, 1, pp. 135-152.
  51. SOBRERO, A. A. (1994), Code switching in dialectal communities in Italy, in «Rivista di Linguistica», 6,1, pp. 39-55.
  52. (1994), pp. 39-55
  53. SOLÉ, M.-J. (2002), Aerodynamic characteristics of trills and phonological patterning, in «Journal of Phonetics», 30, pp. 655-688.
  54. STEFINLONGO, A. (1985), Note sulla situazione sociolinguistica romana, in «RID. Rivista italiana di dialettologia», 9, pp. 43-67.
  55. STEFINLONGO, A. (1999), “Neoromanizzazione” del territorio. La lingua delle scritte murali nell'area metropolitana romana, in DARDANO, M., D’ACHILLE, P., GIOVANARDI, C. AND MOCCIARO, A. G. (1999; eds.), Roma e il suo territorio. Lingua, dialetto, società, Roma, Bulzoni, pp. 267-285.
  56. STEVENS, M. AND REUBOLD, U. (2014), Pre-aspiration, quantity, and sound change, in «Laboratory phonology», 5,4, pp. 455-488.
  57. TAGLIAPIETRA, L. AND MCQUEEN, J. M. (2010), What and where in speech recognition: Geminates and singletons in spoken Italian, in «Journal of Memory and Language», 63, pp. 306–323.
  58. TRIFONE, P. (1992), Roma e il Lazio, Torino, Utet.
  59. TRIFONE, P. (2008), Storia linguistica di Roma, Roma, Carocci.
  60. TRIFONE, P. (2017), “Tera se scrive co’ddu ere, sinnò è erore”. Nuovi appunti sullo scempiamento di rr in romanesco, in GERSTENBERG, A., KITTLER, J., LORENZETTI, L. ANDSCHIRRU, G. (2017, Hrsg), Romanice loqui. Festschrift für Gerald Bernhard zu seinem 60. Geburtstag, Tübingen, Stauffenburg, pp. 89-96.
  61. TRUDGILL, P. (1972), Sex, covert prestige and linguistic change in the urban British English of Norwich, «Language in society», 1,2, PP. 179-195.
  62. WILLIS, E. W., AND TRAVIS, B. (2008), Contrast maintenance of taps and trills in Dominican Spanish. Data and analysis, in COLANTONI, L. AND STEELE, J. (2008, eds.), Selected proceedings of the 3rd conference on laboratory approaches to Spanish phonology, Somerville, MA, Cascadilla Proceedings Project, pp. 87-100.