Pubblicato 2022-07-27
Parole chiave
- phonetic reduction, spontaneous speech, Italian
Abstract
In spontaneous conversational speech, reduction is a pervasive phenomenon attested across different languages. Given the sporadic nature of studies on speec reduction in Italian, this contribution aims to: (i) explore the different strategies of reduction in Italian spontaneous speech, showing new empirical evidence, through a spectrographic phonetic analysis, and (ii) provide quantitative data
on the main patterns of the phenomenon. After a review of phonetic reduction studies conducted on different languages, including Italian, the paper presents an analysis based on a dialogue of around 30 minutes between two native speakers of Italian coming from Bolzano. The analysis of the conversation allowed to draw up a very rich collection of cases of phonetic reduction. Both qualitative and quantitative analysis was carried out to detect the main patterns of reduction.