We report the results of a pilot study investigating the effect of 2 regional accents on stressed vowel duration according to word-position and syllable type in Central v. Northern accents of Standard Italian. While there is overall convergence, we also find significant regional differences in some contexts, i.e. closed syllables, and antepenultimate position. We then consider the implications of our results for the phonological description and phonetic investigation of Italian

Hajek, John

Lee, Wai-Sum

Stevens, Mary

English

Universität München: Elektronischen Publikationen

ICPhS XVII Regular Session Hong Kong, 17-21 August 2011 
 
803 
 
V O W E L DUR A T I O N IN ST R ESSE D POSI T I O N IN C E N T R A L & 
N O R T H E RN V A RI E T I ES O F ST A ND A RD I T A L I A N: A PI L O T ST UD Y 
John Hajeka & Mary Stevensb 
aSchool of Languages & Linguistics, The University of Melbourne, Australia; 
bInstitut für Phonetik und Sprachverarbeitung (IPS), Ludwig-Maximilians Universität,  
München, Germany 
johnth@unimelb.ed.au;;  mes@phonetik.uni-­muenchen.de  
A BST R A C T 
We report the results of a pilot study investigating 
the effect of 2 regional accents on stressed vowel 
duration according to word-position and syllable 
type in Central v. Northern accents of Standard 
Italian. While there is overall convergence, we also 
find significant regional differences in some 
contexts, i.e. closed syllables, and antepenultimate 
position. We then consider the implications of our 
results for the phonological description and 
phonetic investigation of Italian. 
K eywords: Italian, vowel duration, syllable 
compression, stress, lengthening, regional variation 
1. IN T R O DU C T I O N 
The principal aim of this study is to examine the 
possible difference in effect of 2 regional accents 
on the duration of stressed vowels in a range of 
inter-related prosodic contexts in Italian. We 
consider specifically interaction between accent 
and the following factors: (a) syllable structure 
(open vs. closed syllables); and (b) relative stress 
position in the word (final vs. penultimate vs. 
antepenultimate syllables).  
Although the duration effects of temporal 
structure have been previously investigated for 
Italian, e.g. [2, 3, 5, 11, 12], with the exception of 
[4], interaction with different regional accents has 
been overlooked. This omission is somewhat 
surprising given the extent of regional variation on 
the pronunciation of Standard Italian, even 
amongst highly normative speakers. With few 
exceptions, it is usually possible to accurately 
identify the accent of a native speaker of Italian 
according to at least supra-regional level 
(Northern, Central or Southern), and even down to 
a more localized sub-regional level. This situation 
reflects the strong regional influence of local Italo-
Romance dialects on of Standard Italian in Italy. 
While many speakers are now monolingual in 
Standard Italian only, regional, if not local, 
influence on their spoken accent is still normally 
evident (see also below). 
1.1. Previous exper imental investigation of 
Italian temporal structure and vowel duration 
Many aspects of the temporal structure, especially 
of stressed vowels, in Italian, remain uncertain 
and/or debated (see also [4, 5]). For instance, there 
is disagreement as to the extent, if any, of word-
level compression effects on stressed vowel 
duration (see [12] for overview). However more 
recently, [2, 5] and [12] have confirmed a regular 
phonetic compression effect as post-tonic syllables 
are added, at least in a comparison between 
penultimate and antepenultimate stress ('CVCV 
and 'CVCVCV). There is, in general, less, and 
often conflicting, information on compression 
effects on word-final (CV'CV) vowels vs. other 
positions (cf. [5, 7]). 
Questions also remain about the general 
applicability of specific findings. There is, for 
instance, agreement that stressed vowels in closed 
syllables in Italian are always much shorter in 
duration than stressed vowels in open syllables - at 
least in penultimate position. Whether stressed 
vowels in all open syllables are also necessarily 
longer than vowels in closed syllables, as well as 
equally long, remains in our view unclear. This is 
an important point since phonological descriptions 
of Italian, e.g. [14] usually consider stressed 
vowels in final position to be identical in terms of 
length/duration to vowels in closed syllables i.e. 
always short both in phonological and phonetic 
terms. On the other hand, stressed antepenults and 
penults in open syllables are normally considered 
to be phonologically and phonetically equivalent 
as long, although [3] argues against this traditional 
position. 
Our understanding of the interaction between 
basic prosodic structure and vowel duration in 
Italian has been hampered by substantial 
ICPhS XVII Regular Session Hong Kong, 17-21 August 2011 
 
804 
 
methodological differences in previous 
experimental phonetic investigation that do not 
allow for useful comparisons (see [4] for an 
overview). However, of greatest relevance to this 
study is that little or nothing has been made of the 
possible consequence of regional origin on results 
presented (the recent investigation of Central vs. 
Southern accents by [4] is an exception). 
2. DI V E R G E N C E IN I T A L O-RO M A N C E : 
N O R T H VS. SO U T H  
From a historical perspective, the Italo-Romance 
dialects spoken throughout Italy are normally 
divided into two major groupings: (1) Northern; 
and (2) Centro-Southern which are further divided 
into Central and Southern. Standard Italian is a 
variety of Tuscan, spoken in Central Italy. As a 
result of divergent historical development, the 
phonological structures of Central (and Southern) 
and Northern Italo-Romance are known to differ 
significantly. 
In Northern dialects, there is, amongst other 
things, regular loss of word-medial long 
consonants often matched by the development of 
contrastive vowel length, e.g. /'pappa/ > /'papa/ 
and the complete absence of sandhi gemination at 
word-
known as raddoppiamento sintattico (RS) and 
typical of Centro-Southern Italian [1, 6, 8, 14]). 
While Northern speakers typically omit RS in their 
pronunciation of Standard Italian, a failure to 
maintain the long/short consonant contrast in 
word-medial position is also sometimes noted. In 
any case, phonological accounts, and normative 
descriptions of Standard Italian always describe it 
without these Northern features.  
While Standard Italian (as spoken in Central 
Italy) retains long consonants medially and at word 
boundary, it is also traditionally characterised as 
having an entirely predictable (i.e. non-contrastive) 
distribution of vowel length/duration in stressed 
position, as already pointed to in §1.1: vowels are 
always long in word-medial open syllables, e.g. 
['pa:pero] 
-final 
open position, e.g. /pa'pa/ [pa'pa] 'dad' (see, e.g. [6, 
7, 8, 14] for details). By way of contrast, the 
precise characterisation of vowel length/duration in 
Northern accents of Standard Italian remains to be 
properly investigated and understood. 
The traditional view, e.g. [2, 6, 8, 14], that 
stressed vowels are short in word-final position, 
both phonologically and phonetically, in Italian is 
typologically unusual [11, 13]. This shortening 
runs counter to the more general word-level 
compression hypothesis that stressed vowel 
duration will be greatest in word-final position and 
will be compressed through the addition of a post-
tonic unstressed syllable, i.e. all other things being 
equal, the stressed vowel in /'papa/ (+1 post-tonic 
syllable) will be shorter in duration than final /a/ in 
/pa'pa/. However, not all sources (in particular [1, 
10]) on Italian agree on short final vowels, 
claiming instead that final stressed vowels need not 
surface as short, as they are also subject to 
(optional) lengthening, i.e. /pa'pa/ [pa'pa] ~ [pa'pa:] 
in Italian spoken in Centro-Southern Italy.  
3. M E T H O D O L O G Y 
We recorded eight native speakers of Italian 
divided equally according to regional origin and 
linguistic affiliation, i.e. Central and Northern Italy 
respectively. Each group of 4 speakers comprised 
2 male and 2 female subjects, between the ages of 
24 and 40, all middle-class university graduates 
born and educated in Italy. While all subjects 
speak a normative variety of Italian, the general 
regional origin of each individual could still be 
identified on listening by their spoken accent, 
primarily through differences in intonation and 
minor phonetic isoglosses. 
Five real words were selected for recording. In 
each case the stressed vowel was /a/. Minimal pairs 
were chosen that would allow for direct 
comparison of: (a) open vs. closed syllable (/'papa/ 
stressed syllable pos
 
Subjects were asked to insert test items into the 
carrier phrase Dico __________ lentamente 
for each item. We then measured, using Praat, the 
duration of stressed vowels across all contexts 
under examination. There were 32 tokens for each 
item in each recorded context. After results were 
collated, they were first tested for normality using 
Q-Q plots, before we conducted to further 
statistical analysis (t-tests and ANOVAs where 
appropriate) of the results for the entire group as 
well as for each regional sub-group. To save on 
ICPhS XVII Regular Session Hong Kong, 17-21 August 2011 
 
805 
 
space in discussion below: (a) only ANOVAs are 
specifically identified, otherwise a t-test is 
assumed); and (b) only p values are given. 
4. R ESU L TS 
4.1. The effect of syllable structure 
We first examine stressed vowel duration in open 
and closed syllables in penultimate position. This 
comparison is uncontroversial, at least for Central 
speakers  we expect to find a clear (syllable-
conditioned) difference in long vs. short vowel 
duration. As such, it also provides a useful baseline 
for long and short vowel duration in all other 
conditions. 
Table 1: Stressed vowel duration before short and 
long /p pp/ respectively (std deviations in brackets). 
 overall Central Northern 
pàpa 174 (28) 183 (33) 164 (19) 
pàppa 117 (27) 132 (23) 101 (21) 
Our results show highly significant vowel 
shortening in closed syllables (p< 0.001)  across 
regional variety and all speakers. 
There was no effect of regional variety on the 
duration of the stressed vowel in the open penult (p 
=0.07). However, the difference (31ms.) in the 
duration of the stressed vowel in the closed penult 
was significant (p<0.001), with all Northern 
speakers producing shorter vowels, and always 
below the overall average.  
4.2.  The effect of stress position 
Vowel duration values in open syllables in the 
three stress positions are given in Table 2. 
Table 2: Open syllable vowel duration in 3 stress  
positions (std deviations in brackets). 
Ss overall Central Northern 
pàpero 148 (31) 167 (22) 129 (27) 
pàpa 174 (28) 183 (33) 164 (19) 
papà 168 (33) 179 (28) 157 (35) 
ANOVA testing of results in Table 2 shows that 
overall stressed vowel duration is significantly 
influenced by word position (p=0.003). Tukey 
post-hoc testing indicates this outcome is caused 
by a significant difference between the antepenult 
and the final (p=0.03) and the antepenult and the 
penult (p=0.003), but not between penult and final 
positions (p=0.73). Further analysis shows these 
results are dependent on regional origin. 
The shortening effect on the antepenult 
/'papero/ compared to /'papa/ is noticeably greater 
and only significant for Northern speakers (-35 
ms., p< 0.001) than it is for Central speakers (-16 
ms., p=0.17). 
Similarly, the difference in duration between 
antepenultimate /a/ in /'papero/ and final /a/ in 
/pa'pa/ was again significant only for Northern 
speakers (p= 0.02) but not for Central speakers 
(p=0.17). 
With respect to the question of possible open 
syllable lengthening, the long nature of the stressed 
vowel in /pa'pa/ is confirmed by the same degree 
of significance (p<0.001) reported for /'papa/ when 
the former is also compared with the short stressed 
vowel in /'pappa/. 
Not surprisingly, the stressed vowel in /'papero/ 
(Table 2) is significantly longer than short /a/ in 
/'pappa/ (Table 1) both overall and at regional level 
(always p< 0.002). However, we note that for at 
least one Northern subject (EF), antepenultimate 
duration was noticeably shorter (at 94 ms.), and 
was very close to vowel duration in (short) closed 
syllable position in /'pappa/ (83 ms.) for the same 
speaker. For all other speakers, antepenults were 
always much longer than short closed /a/. 
5. DISC USSI O N A ND C O NC L USI O NS 
The results of our pilot study indicate that while 
there are many shared duration patterns in the 
contexts specifically tested, Central and Northern 
accents also differ with respect to some vowel 
duration effects in Standard Italian. 
In the first instance, syllable structure has a 
fully predictable impact on stressed vowel duration 
- both overall, and across regional variety: vowels 
are much shorter in closed than in open syllables. 
Unexpected, however, was the significantly lower 
duration (av. -31ms.) of the short vowel in closed 
syllable position in the Northern variety when 
compared to the Central variety. The reason for 
this finding remains unknown. A similar effect was 
also found in an earlier comparison of Central and 
Southern accents [4]. 
With respect to possible right-to-left 
compression effects triggered by the addition of 
post-tonic unstressed syllables, our results give 
only partial confirmation of earlier findings of 
word-level compression, e.g. [5, 12]: the addition 
of a post-tonic unstressed syllable has an effect on 
stressed vowel duration in Italian but only in the 
case of antepenultimate (+2 post-tonic syllables) 
vs. penultimate stressed vowel (+1 post-tonic 
syllable) and final stressed vowel (+0 post-tonic 
ICPhS XVII Regular Session Hong Kong, 17-21 August 2011 
 
806 
 
syllable) positions. There is, however, no strictly 
linear effect (i.e. 0, +1, +2 syllables). Moreover, 
while the effect appeared to occur overall, 
additional statistical analysis found the effect to be 
significant only in the Northern variety (av. -35 
ms.), but not in Central Italian (-16 ms.). It may be 
better to describe antepenult vowels in the north as 
only half-long (cf. [3] on this point). Indeed, as 
already noted, for at least one Northern speaker 
(EF), antepenultimate shortening is particularly 
marked  with duration values equivalent to that 
found in short closed syllable position.  
With regard to word-final vowel duration, there 
is no significant difference  whether overall or at 
regional level - between /'papa/ (+1 post-tonic 
syllable) and /pa'pa/ (no post-tonic syllable), with 
consistently similar high duration figures across 
regions.  
Our results for final vowels are simply not in 
line with traditional accounts, which, as noted in 
§2, propose that word-final stressed vowels are 
always short in all circumstances. We suggest that 
descriptions of Standard Italian should now accept 
final length or lengthening as inherently 
characteristic, as already proposed by [1], and [9] 
and previously confirmed experimentally by [4] 
for Central and Southern accents and now also 
here for Northern accents of Italian. 
The results of our pilot study here on Northern 
vs. Central accents confirm earlier work by [4] on 
Central vs. Southern accents that at least in some 
contexts different regional accents can have a 
significant effect on the interaction between basic 
prosodic structures and vowel duration in Italian, 
in ways not previously tested nor clearly 
understood. We now plan to run a much larger 
scale experiment that compares the effect of all 
three major regional accent types (Northern, 
Central and Southern Italian) together - with a 
larger number of participants and a more complex 
data corpus controlling for the same features as in 
this pilot study. 
In the meantime, researchers investigating 
prosodic structures and temporal properties, such 
as vowel duration, in Standard Italian need also to 
be aware of the possible influence of different 
regional accents on findings. 
6. R E F E R E N C ES 
[1] Absalom, M., Hajek, J. 1997. Raddoppiamento sintattico: 
what happens when the theory is on too tight? In 
Bertinetto, P.M., Gaeta, L., Jetchev, G., Michaels, D. 
(eds.), Certamen Phonologicum III. Turin: Rosenberg & 
Sellier, 159-179. 
[2] 
phonology of main stress in Italian. Phonology 16, 1-28. 
[3] Hajek, J. 2000. How many moras? Overlength and 
maximal moraicity in Italy. In Repetti, L. (ed.), 
Phonological Theory and the Dialects of Italy. 
Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 111-135. 
[4] Hajek, J., Stevens, M. 2008. Vowel duration, 
compression and lengthening in stressed syllables in 
Central and Southern varieties of Standard Italian. Proc. 
Interspeech Inc. SST Brisbane, 516-519 
[5] Hajek, J., Stevens, M., Webster, G. 2007. Vowel 
duration, compression and lengthening in stressed 
syllables in Italian. Proc. 16th ICPhS Saarbrücken, 1057-
1060. 
[6] Maiden, M. 1995. A Linguistic History of Italy. London: 
Longman. 
[7] Marotta, G. 1985. Modelli e Misure Ritmiche: La Durata 
Vocalica in Italiano. Bologna: Zanichelli. 
[8] Rohlfs, G. 1966. Grammatica Storica Della Lingua 
Italiana e Dei Suoi Dialetti. Fonetica Vol. 1. 
[9] Stevens, M., Hajek, J. 2006. Blocking of word-boundary 
consonant lengthening in Sienese Italian: some auditory 
and acoustic evidence. Proc. SST 11 Auckland, 176-181. 
[10] Stevens, M., Hajek, J., Absalom, M. 2002. 
Raddopppiamento sintattico and glottalization 
phenomena in Italian: A first phonetic excursus. Proc. 
SST 9 Melbourne, 154-159. 
[11] Vayra, M. 1994. Phonetic explanations in phonology: 
Laryngealization as the case for glottal stops in Italian 
word-final stressed syllables. In Dressler, W.U., 
Prinzhorn, M., Rennison, J.R. (eds.), Phonologica 1992: 
Proc. 7th International Phonology Meeting. Turin: 
Rosenberg & Sellier. 
[12] Vayra, M., Avesani, C., Fowler, C.A. 1999. On the 
phonetic basis of vowel-consonant coordination in 
Italian: A 
Proc. 14th ICPhS San Francisco, 495-498. 
[13] Vayra, M., Fowler, C.A., Avesani, C. 1987. Word-level 
coarticulation and shortening in Italian and English 
speech. Studi di Grammatica Italiana 13, 249-269. 
[14] Vogel, I. 1982. La Sillaba Come Unit à Fonologica. 
Bologna: Zanichelli. 


Vowel duration in stressed position in central & northern varieties of standard Italian

Open Access LMU

ICPhS XVII Regular Session Hong Kong, 17-21 August 2011  803  V O W E L DUR A T I O N IN ST R ESSE D POSI T I O N IN C E N T R A L & N O R T H E RN V A RI E T I ES O F ST A ND A RD I T A L I A N: A PI L O T ST UD Y John Hajeka & Mary Stevensb aSchool of Languages & Linguistics, The University of Melbourne, Australia; bInstitut für Phonetik und Sprachverarbeitung (IPS), Ludwig-Maximilians Universität,  München, Germany johnth@unimelb.ed.au;;  mes@phonetik.uni-­muenchen.de  A BST R A C T We report the results of a pilot study investigating the effect of 2 regional accents on stressed vowel duration according to word-position and syllable type in Central v. Northern accents of Standard Italian. While there is overall convergence, we also find significant regional differences in some contexts, i.e. closed syllables, and antepenultimate position. We then consider the implications of our results for the phonological description and phonetic investigation of Italian. K eywords: Italian, vowel duration, syllable compression, stress, lengthening, regional variation 1. IN T R O DU C T I O N The principal aim of this study is to examine the possible difference in effect of 2 regional accents on the duration of stressed vowels in a range of inter-related prosodic contexts in Italian. We consider specifically interaction between accent and the following factors: (a) syllable structure (open vs. closed syllables); and (b) relative stress position in the word (final vs. penultimate vs. antepenultimate syllables).  Although the duration effects of temporal structure have been previously investigated for Italian, e.g. [2, 3, 5, 11, 12], with the exception of [4], interaction with different regional accents has been overlooked. This omission is somewhat surprising given the extent of regional variation on the pronunciation of Standard Italian, even amongst highly normative speakers. With few exceptions, it is usually possible to accurately identify the accent of a native speaker of Italian according to at least supra-regional level (Northern, Central or Southern), and even down to a more localized sub-regional level. This situation reflects the strong regional influence of local Italo-Romance dialects on of Standard Italian in Italy. While many speakers are now monolingual in Standard Italian only, regional, if not local, influence on their spoken accent is still normally evident (see also below). 1.1. Previous exper imental investigation of Italian temporal structure and vowel duration Many aspects of the temporal structure, especially of stressed vowels, in Italian, remain uncertain and/or debated (see also [4, 5]). For instance, there is disagreement as to the extent, if any, of word-level compression effects on stressed vowel duration (see [12] for overview). However more recently, [2, 5] and [12] have confirmed a regular phonetic compression effect as post-tonic syllables are added, at least in a comparison between penultimate and antepenultimate stress ('CVCV and 'CVCVCV). There is, in general, less, and often conflicting, information on compression effects on word-final (CV'CV) vowels vs. other positions (cf. [5, 7]). Questions also remain about the general applicability of specific findings. There is, for instance, agreement that stressed vowels in closed syllables in Italian are always much shorter in duration than stressed vowels in open syllables - at least in penultimate position. Whether stressed vowels in all open syllables are also necessarily longer than vowels in closed syllables, as well as equally long, remains in our view unclear. This is an important point since phonological descriptions of Italian, e.g. [14] usually consider stressed vowels in final position to be identical in terms of length/duration to vowels in closed syllables i.e. always short both in phonological and phonetic terms. On the other hand, stressed antepenults and penults in open syllables are normally considered to be phonologically and phonetically equivalent as long, although [3] argues against this traditional position. Our understanding of the interaction between basic prosodic structure and vowel duration in Italian has been hampered by substantial ICPhS XVII Regular Session Hong Kong, 17-21 August 2011  804  methodological differences in previous experimental phonetic investigation that do not allow for useful comparisons (see [4] for an overview). However, of greatest relevance to this study is that little or nothing has been made of the possible consequence of regional origin on results presented (the recent investigation of Central vs. Southern accents by [4] is an exception). 2. DI V E R G E N C E IN I T A L O-RO M A N C E : N O R T H VS. SO U T H  From a historical perspective, the Italo-Romance dialects spoken throughout Italy are normally divided into two major groupings: (1) Northern; and (2) Centro-Southern which are further divided into Central and Southern. Standard Italian is a variety of Tuscan, spoken in Central Italy. As a result of divergent historical development, the phonological structures of Central (and Southern) and Northern Italo-Romance are known to differ significantly. In Northern dialects, there is, amongst other things, regular loss of word-medial long consonants often matched by the development of contrastive vowel length, e.g. /'pappa/ > /'papa/ µPXVK¶ DQG SDSD ! SDSD µSRSH¶ UHVSHFWLYHO\and the complete absence of sandhi gemination at word-ERXQGDULHVHJSMXODWWH>SMXODWWH@µPRUHPLON¶ LQVWHDGRIQRUPDWLYH >SMX OODWWH@ RWKHUZLVHknown as raddoppiamento sintattico (RS) and typical of Centro-Southern Italian [1, 6, 8, 14]). While Northern speakers typically omit RS in their pronunciation of Standard Italian, a failure to maintain the long/short consonant contrast in word-medial position is also sometimes noted. In any case, phonological accounts, and normative descriptions of Standard Italian always describe it without these Northern features.  While Standard Italian (as spoken in Central Italy) retains long consonants medially and at word boundary, it is also traditionally characterised as having an entirely predictable (i.e. non-contrastive) distribution of vowel length/duration in stressed position, as already pointed to in §1.1: vowels are always long in word-medial open syllables, e.g. SDSD >SDSD@ µSRSH¶ SDSHUR ['pa:pero] µJDQGHU¶ EXWDUH DOZD\V VKRUW LQ FORVHG V\OODEOHVHJ SDSSD >SDSSD@ µPXVK¶ DQG LQ ZRUG-final open position, e.g. /pa'pa/ [pa'pa] 'dad' (see, e.g. [6, 7, 8, 14] for details). By way of contrast, the precise characterisation of vowel length/duration in Northern accents of Standard Italian remains to be properly investigated and understood. The traditional view, e.g. [2, 6, 8, 14], that stressed vowels are short in word-final position, both phonologically and phonetically, in Italian is typologically unusual [11, 13]. This shortening runs counter to the more general word-level compression hypothesis that stressed vowel duration will be greatest in word-final position and will be compressed through the addition of a post-tonic unstressed syllable, i.e. all other things being equal, the stressed vowel in /'papa/ (+1 post-tonic syllable) will be shorter in duration than final /a/ in /pa'pa/. However, not all sources (in particular [1, 10]) on Italian agree on short final vowels, claiming instead that final stressed vowels need not surface as short, as they are also subject to (optional) lengthening, i.e. /pa'pa/ [pa'pa] ~ [pa'pa:] in Italian spoken in Centro-Southern Italy.  3. M E T H O D O L O G Y We recorded eight native speakers of Italian divided equally according to regional origin and linguistic affiliation, i.e. Central and Northern Italy respectively. Each group of 4 speakers comprised 2 male and 2 female subjects, between the ages of 24 and 40, all middle-class university graduates born and educated in Italy. While all subjects speak a normative variety of Italian, the general regional origin of each individual could still be identified on listening by their spoken accent, primarily through differences in intonation and minor phonetic isoglosses. Five real words were selected for recording. In each case the stressed vowel was /a/. Minimal pairs were chosen that would allow for direct comparison of: (a) open vs. closed syllable (/'papa/ µSRSH¶ YV SDSSD µPXVK¶ DQG E GLIIHUHQWstressed syllable posLWLRQV SDSHUR µJDQGHU¶ YVSDSDµSRSH¶YVSDSDµGDG¶ Subjects were asked to insert test items into the carrier phrase Dico __________ lentamente µ,VD\BBBBBBB VORZO\¶ ZKLFK ZDV UHSHDWHG IRXU WLPHVfor each item. We then measured, using Praat, the duration of stressed vowels across all contexts under examination. There were 32 tokens for each item in each recorded context. After results were collated, they were first tested for normality using Q-Q plots, before we conducted to further statistical analysis (t-tests and ANOVAs where appropriate) of the results for the entire group as well as for each regional sub-group. To save on ICPhS XVII Regular Session Hong Kong, 17-21 August 2011  805  space in discussion below: (a) only ANOVAs are specifically identified, otherwise a t-test is assumed); and (b) only p values are given. 4. R ESU L TS 4.1. The effect of syllable structure We first examine stressed vowel duration in open and closed syllables in penultimate position. This comparison is uncontroversial, at least for Central speakers ± we expect to find a clear (syllable-conditioned) difference in long vs. short vowel duration. As such, it also provides a useful baseline for long and short vowel duration in all other conditions. Table 1: Stressed vowel duration before short and long /p pp/ respectively (std deviations in brackets).  overall Central Northern pàpa 174 (28) 183 (33) 164 (19) pàppa 117 (27) 132 (23) 101 (21) Our results show highly significant vowel shortening in closed syllables (p< 0.001) ± across regional variety and all speakers. There was no effect of regional variety on the duration of the stressed vowel in the open penult (p =0.07). However, the difference (31ms.) in the duration of the stressed vowel in the closed penult was significant (p<0.001), with all Northern speakers producing shorter vowels, and always below the overall average.  4.2.  The effect of stress position Vowel duration values in open syllables in the three stress positions are given in Table 2. Table 2: Open syllable vowel duration in 3 stress  positions (std deviations in brackets). Ss overall Central Northern pàpero 148 (31) 167 (22) 129 (27) pàpa 174 (28) 183 (33) 164 (19) papà 168 (33) 179 (28) 157 (35) ANOVA testing of results in Table 2 shows that overall stressed vowel duration is significantly influenced by word position (p=0.003). Tukey post-hoc testing indicates this outcome is caused by a significant difference between the antepenult and the final (p=0.03) and the antepenult and the penult (p=0.003), but not between penult and final positions (p=0.73). Further analysis shows these results are dependent on regional origin. The shortening effect on the antepenult /'papero/ compared to /'papa/ is noticeably greater and only significant for Northern speakers (-35 ms., p< 0.001) than it is for Central speakers (-16 ms., p=0.17). Similarly, the difference in duration between antepenultimate /a/ in /'papero/ and final /a/ in /pa'pa/ was again significant only for Northern speakers (p= 0.02) but not for Central speakers (p=0.17). With respect to the question of possible open syllable lengthening, the long nature of the stressed vowel in /pa'pa/ is confirmed by the same degree of significance (p<0.001) reported for /'papa/ when the former is also compared with the short stressed vowel in /'pappa/. Not surprisingly, the stressed vowel in /'papero/ (Table 2) is significantly longer than short /a/ in /'pappa/ (Table 1) both overall and at regional level (always p< 0.002). However, we note that for at least one Northern subject (EF), antepenultimate duration was noticeably shorter (at 94 ms.), and was very close to vowel duration in (short) closed syllable position in /'pappa/ (83 ms.) for the same speaker. For all other speakers, antepenults were always much longer than short closed /a/. 5. DISC USSI O N A ND C O NC L USI O NS The results of our pilot study indicate that while there are many shared duration patterns in the contexts specifically tested, Central and Northern accents also differ with respect to some vowel duration effects in Standard Italian. In the first instance, syllable structure has a fully predictable impact on stressed vowel duration - both overall, and across regional variety: vowels are much shorter in closed than in open syllables. Unexpected, however, was the significantly lower duration (av. -31ms.) of the short vowel in closed syllable position in the Northern variety when compared to the Central variety. The reason for this finding remains unknown. A similar effect was also found in an earlier comparison of Central and Southern accents [4]. With respect to possible right-to-left compression effects triggered by the addition of post-tonic unstressed syllables, our results give only partial confirmation of earlier findings of word-level compression, e.g. [5, 12]: the addition of a post-tonic unstressed syllable has an effect on stressed vowel duration in Italian but only in the case of antepenultimate (+2 post-tonic syllables) vs. penultimate stressed vowel (+1 post-tonic syllable) and final stressed vowel (+0 post-tonic ICPhS XVII Regular Session Hong Kong, 17-21 August 2011  806  syllable) positions. There is, however, no strictly linear effect (i.e. 0, +1, +2 syllables). Moreover, while the effect appeared to occur overall, additional statistical analysis found the effect to be significant only in the Northern variety (av. -35 ms.), but not in Central Italian (-16 ms.). It may be better to describe antepenult vowels in the north as only half-long (cf. [3] on this point). Indeed, as already noted, for at least one Northern speaker (EF), antepenultimate shortening is particularly marked ± with duration values equivalent to that found in short closed syllable position.  With regard to word-final vowel duration, there is no significant difference ± whether overall or at regional level - between /'papa/ (+1 post-tonic syllable) and /pa'pa/ (no post-tonic syllable), with consistently similar high duration figures across regions.  Our results for final vowels are simply not in line with traditional accounts, which, as noted in §2, propose that word-final stressed vowels are always short in all circumstances. We suggest that descriptions of Standard Italian should now accept final length or lengthening as inherently characteristic, as already proposed by [1], and [9] and previously confirmed experimentally by [4] for Central and Southern accents and now also here for Northern accents of Italian. The results of our pilot study here on Northern vs. Central accents confirm earlier work by [4] on Central vs. Southern accents that at least in some contexts different regional accents can have a significant effect on the interaction between basic prosodic structures and vowel duration in Italian, in ways not previously tested nor clearly understood. We now plan to run a much larger scale experiment that compares the effect of all three major regional accent types (Northern, Central and Southern Italian) together - with a larger number of participants and a more complex data corpus controlling for the same features as in this pilot study. In the meantime, researchers investigating prosodic structures and temporal properties, such as vowel duration, in Standard Italian need also to be aware of the possible influence of different regional accents on findings. 6. R E F E R E N C ES [1] Absalom, M., Hajek, J. 1997. Raddoppiamento sintattico: what happens when the theory is on too tight? In Bertinetto, P.M., Gaeta, L., Jetchev, G., Michaels, D. (eds.), Certamen Phonologicum III. Turin: Rosenberg & Sellier, 159-179. [2] '¶,PSHULR 0 5RVHQWKDOO 6  3KRQHWLFV DQGphonology of main stress in Italian. Phonology 16, 1-28. [3] Hajek, J. 2000. How many moras? Overlength and maximal moraicity in Italy. In Repetti, L. (ed.), Phonological Theory and the Dialects of Italy. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 111-135. [4] Hajek, J., Stevens, M. 2008. Vowel duration, compression and lengthening in stressed syllables in Central and Southern varieties of Standard Italian. Proc. Interspeech Inc. SST Brisbane, 516-519 [5] Hajek, J., Stevens, M., Webster, G. 2007. Vowel duration, compression and lengthening in stressed syllables in Italian. Proc. 16th ICPhS Saarbrücken, 1057-1060. [6] Maiden, M. 1995. A Linguistic History of Italy. London: Longman. [7] Marotta, G. 1985. Modelli e Misure Ritmiche: La Durata Vocalica in Italiano. Bologna: Zanichelli. [8] Rohlfs, G. 1966. Grammatica Storica Della Lingua Italiana e Dei Suoi Dialetti. Fonetica Vol. 1. [9] Stevens, M., Hajek, J. 2006. Blocking of word-boundary consonant lengthening in Sienese Italian: some auditory and acoustic evidence. Proc. SST 11 Auckland, 176-181. [10] Stevens, M., Hajek, J., Absalom, M. 2002. Raddopppiamento sintattico and glottalization phenomena in Italian: A first phonetic excursus. Proc. SST 9 Melbourne, 154-159. [11] Vayra, M. 1994. Phonetic explanations in phonology: Laryngealization as the case for glottal stops in Italian word-final stressed syllables. In Dressler, W.U., Prinzhorn, M., Rennison, J.R. (eds.), Phonologica 1992: Proc. 7th International Phonology Meeting. Turin: Rosenberg & Sellier. [12] Vayra, M., Avesani, C., Fowler, C.A. 1999. On the phonetic basis of vowel-consonant coordination in Italian: A VWXG\RIVWUHVVDQG³FRPSHQVDWRU\VKRUWHQLQJ´Proc. 14th ICPhS San Francisco, 495-498. [13] Vayra, M., Fowler, C.A., Avesani, C. 1987. Word-level coarticulation and shortening in Italian and English speech. Studi di Grammatica Italiana 13, 249-269. [14] Vogel, I. 1982. La Sillaba Come Unit à Fonologica. Bologna: Zanichelli. 

A Linguistic History of Italy.

Blocking of word-boundary consonant lengthening in Sienese Italian: some auditory and acoustic evidence.

How many moras? Overlength and maximal moraicity in Italy.

La Sillaba Come Unità Fonologica.

Modelli e Misure Ritmiche: La Durata Vocalica in Italiano.

On the phonetic basis of vowel-consonant coordination in Italian: A VWXG\RIVWUHVVDQGFRPSHQVDWRU\VKRUWHQLQJ´

Phonetic explanations in phonology: Laryngealization as the case for glottal stops in Italian word-final stressed syllables.

Raddoppiamento sintattico: what happens when the theory is on too tight?

Raddopppiamento sintattico and glottalization phenomena in Italian: A first phonetic excursus.

Vowel duration, compression and lengthening in stressed syllables in Central and Southern varieties of Standard Italian.

Vowel duration, compression and lengthening in stressed syllables in Italian.

Word-level coarticulation and shortening in Italian and English speech.

https://epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de/14211/1/ICPhS2011.pdf

Vowel duration in stressed position in central & northern varieties of standard Italian

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