Acoustic Analysis of Singleton and Geminate Affricates in Italian

http://www.essex.ac.uk/web-sls/,published 22nd February 2001 The aim of this study was to analyze gemination of affricate consonants in Italian. Disyllabic VCV (vowel-consonant-vowel) and VCCV (vowel-consonant-consonant-vowel) words were considered, where C was one of the four affricate Italian consonants [ʧ, , ʦ, dz], in singleton and geminate forms, while V was one of the three Italian point vowels [a, i, u]. Time-related, frequency-related, and energy-related parameters were estimated; These parameters were measured at different sampling times, in order to observe their variation within an utterance. Results showed that the preconsonant vowel and consonant durations varied significantly among singleton vs. geminate utterances. Frequency and energy parameters did not present differences as large as durational parameters, although they were significantly different in the two groups. While results in the time- domain are in agreement with previous studies on Italian gemination of consonants (stops, liquids, fricatives and nasals), frequency and energy significant variations among single vs. geminate groups seem to be peculiar to the class of affricates.