Italian Phonology - Consonants

Consonants

Notes:

• Between two vowels, or between a vowel and an approximant or lateral (/l/, /r/, /j/ or /w/), consonants can be both single or geminated. Geminated consonants shorten the preceding vowel (or block phonetic lengthening) and the first geminated element is unreleased. For example, /fato/ ~ /fatto/ (first one means "fate, destiny" and the second means "fact"). However, /ɲɲ/, /ʃʃ/, /ʎʎ/, are always geminated word-internally. Similarly, nasals, liquids, and sibilants are pronounced slightly longer before medial consonant clusters.
• /z/ is the only consonant that cannot be geminated.
• /t/, /d/, /t͡s/, /d͡z/ are denti-alveolar, while /l/ and /n/ are alveolar.
• The trill /r/ is sometimes reduced to a single vibration when single, but it remains potentially a trill, not a flap .
• Nasals assimilate to the point of articulation of whatever consonant they precede. For example, /nɡ/ is realized as .
• The distinction between /s/ and /z/ is neutralized before consonants and at the beginning of words: the former is used before voiceless consonants and before vowels at the beginning of words; the latter is used before voiced consonants. It can only contrast between two vowels within a word. According to Canepari, though, the traditional standard has been replaced by a modern neutral pronunciation which always prefers /z/ when intervocalic, except when the intervocalic s is the initial sound of a word or a morpheme, if the compound is still felt as such: for example, presento /preˈsɛnto/ ('I foresee', with pre meaning 'before' and sento meaning 'I see') vs presento /preˈzɛnto/ ('I present'). There are many words in which dictionaries now indicate that both pronunciations with /z/ and with /s/ are acceptable. The two phonemes have merged in many regional varieties of Italian, either into /z/ (Northern-Central) or /s/ (Southern-Central).