Italian phonology

This article is about the phonology of the Italian language. It deals with the phonology and phonetics of Standard Italian as well as with geographical variants.

Consonants
Notes:
 * Between two vowels, or between a vowel and an approximant or a liquid, 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, (first one means "fate, destiny" and the second means "fact"). However, , , , are always geminated word-internally.  Similarly, nasals, liquids, and sibilants are pronounced slightly longer before medial consonant clusters.
 * is the only consonant that cannot be geminated.
 * are laminal denti-alveolar,  commonly called 'dental' for simplicity.
 * are pre-velar before.
 * have two variants:
 * Dentalized laminal alveolar (commonly called 'dental' for simplicity), pronounced with the blade of the tongue very close to the upper front teeth, with the tip of the tongue resting behind lower front teeth.
 * Non-retracted apical alveolar . The stop components of the 'apical' affricates is actually laminal denti-alveolar.
 * are apical alveolar, but the first two have additional allophones: laminal denti-alveolar  before ,  palatalized laminal postalveolar  before   and ( only) velar  before.
 * and don't contrast before  and, where they're pronounced  and , respectively.
 * In a large number of accents, is a fricative.
 * is sometimes reduced to a single vibration when single, but it remains potentially a trill, not a flap.
 * The distinction between and  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 (meaning  is an allophone of  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 According to Canepari, though, the traditional standard has been replaced by a modern neutral pronunciation which always prefers  when intervocalic, except when the intervocalic s is the initial sound of a word, if the compound is still felt as such: for example, presento  ('I foresee', with pre meaning 'before' and sento meaning 'I see') vs presento  ('I present'). There are many words in which dictionaries now indicate that both pronunciations with  and with  are acceptable. The two phonemes have merged in many regional varieties of Italian, either into  (Northern-Central) or  (Southern-Central). Geminate  can be pronounced as single.

Vowels


In Italian there is no phonemic distinction between long and short vowels, but vowels in stressed open syllables, unless word-final, are long. Adjacent identical vowels found at morpheme boundaries are not resyllabified, but pronounced separately ("quickly rearticulated"), and they might be reduced to a single short vowel in rapid speech.

Although Italian contrasts high-mid and low-mid  vowels in stressed syllables, this distinction is neutralised in unstressed position, where only the high-mid vowels occur. The height of these vowels in unstressed position is context-sensitive; they are somewhat lowered in the vicinity of more open vowels. The distinction between high- and low-mid vowels is lost entirely in many Southern varieties where only low-mid vowels occur; similarly, some Northern varieties only present a high-mid realisation of the two phonemes.

Word-final stressed is only found in loanwords. Word-final unstressed is rare. Major exceptions are onomatopoeic terms (babau); loanwords (guru); and place or family names of Sardinian origin (Gennargentu, Porcu).

When the last phoneme of a word is an unstressed vowel and the first phoneme of the following word is any vowel, the former vowel tends to become non-syllabic. This phenomenon is called synalepha and should be taken in account when counting syllables, e.g. in poetry.

In addition to monophthongs, Italian has diphthongs, but they're not phonemic. The grammatical tradition has classified them as falling diphthongs and rising diphthongs; however, since rising diphthongs are composed of one semiconsonantal sound or  and one vowel sound, they are not technically diphthongs, and this has led to criticism from phoneticians like Luciano Canepari.

Onset
Italian allows up to three consonants in syllable-initial position, though there are limitations:

CC CCC
 * + any voiceless stop or . E.g. spavento ('fright')
 * + any voiced stop, . E.g. srotolare ('unroll')
 * , or any stop + . E.g. frana ('landslide')
 * , or any stop except + . E.g. platano ('planetree')
 * , or any stop + . E.g. fiume ('river'), vuole ('he/she wants')
 * In words of foreign (mostly Greek) origin which are only partially assimilated, other combinations such as (e.g. pneumatico),  (e.g. mnemonico),  (e.g. tmesi), and  (e.g. pseudo-) occur, though in more casual speech these may be simplified:, , and  etc.
 * + voiceless stop or + . E.g. spregiare ('to despise')
 * + + . E.g. sclerosi ('sclerosis')
 * + voiced stop + . E.g. sbracciato ('with bare arms'), sdraiare ('to lay down'), sgravare ('to relieve')
 * + + . E.g. sbloccato ('unblocked')
 * or any stop + + . E.g. priego (antiquated form of prego 'I pray'), proprio ('(one's) own' / proper / properly), pruovo (antiquated form of provo 'I try')
 * or any stop + + . E.g. quieto (quiet')

Nucleus
The syllable nucleus is the only mandatory part of a syllable (for instance, a is a word) and must be a vowel or a diphthong. In a diphthong the most common second elements are or  but other combinations such as idea /iˈdɛa̯/, trae /ˈtrae̯/ may also be interpreted as diphthongs. Combinations of /j w/ with vowels are often labelled diphthongs, allowing for combinations of /j w/ with real diphthongs to be called triphthongs. It is more practical to label /j w/ as normal consonants and /jV wV/ as normal consonant-vowel sequences. In that interpretation, Italian has only falling diphthongs (phonemically at least, cf. Synaeresis) and no triphthongs.

Coda
A coda is only permissible in case of monophthong nuclei, and can be one of:
 * . E.g. per ('for'), parte ('part')
 * . E.g. al ('to the'), alto ('high')
 * . E.g. con ('with'), conto ('count'), which undergoes assimilation if a consonantal onset follows, e.g. un poco ('a little')
 * . E.g. compro ('I buy'), ampio ('ample')
 * an occlusive or fricative usually creating gemination with the following syllable onset. E.g. tutto ('everything'), avvertire ('to warn')

Syntactic gemination
Word-initial consonants are geminated after certain vowel-final words in the same prosodic unit. The words that trigger this include unstressed some proclitic particles, paroxytone prepositions, monosyllabic words, and oxytonic polysyllabic words. For example, casa ('house') is pronounced but a casa ('homeward') is pronounced. This is not a purely phonological process, as the la in la casa ('the house') does not trigger this gemination:.

Regional variation
The above IPA symbols and description refer to standard Italian, based on a somewhat idealized version of the Tuscan-derived national language. As is common in many cultures, this single version of the language was pushed as neutral, proper, and eventually superior, leading to some stigmatization of varying accents. Television news anchors and other high-profile figures had to put aside their regional Italian when in the public sphere. However, in more recent years the enforcement of this standard has fallen out of favor in Italy, and news reporters, actors, and the like are now more free to deliver their words in their native regional variety of Italian, which appeals to the Italian population's range of linguistic diversity. The variety is still not represented in its wholeness and accents from the South are maybe to be considered less popular, except in shows set in the South and in comedy, a field in which Naples, Sicily and the South in general have always been present. Though it still represents the basics for the standard variety, the loosened restrictions have led to Tuscan being seen for what it is, just one dialect among many with its own regional peculiarities and qualities, many of which are shared with Umbria, Southern Marche and Northern Lazio.
 * In Tuscany (though not in standard Italian, which is derived from, but not equivalent to Tuscan Italian), voiceless stops become fricatives (or approximants) between vowels. That is, → : e.g. i capitani ('the captains') . In a much more widespread area of Central Italy, postalveolar affricates are deaffricated when intervocalic so that in Cina ('in China') is pronounced  but la Cina ('the China') is .  Since  surfaces as long post-vocalically, this can produce minimal pairs distinguished only by length of the word-initial consonant:  la cena vs.  la scena.
 * In nonstandard varieties of Central and Southern Italian, some stops at the end of a syllable completely assimilate to the following consonant. For example, a Venetian might say tecnica as  or  in violation of normal Italian consonant contact restrictions, while a Florentine would likely pronounce tecnica as, a Roman on a range from  to  (in Southern Italian, complex clusters usually are separatede by a vowel: a Neapolitan would say , a Sicilian ). Similarly, although the cluster /kt/ has developed historically as /tt/ through assimilation, a learned word such as ictus will be pronounced [ittus] by some, [iktus] by others.
 * In popular (non-Tuscan) Central and Southern Italian speech, and  tend to always be geminated ( and ) when between two vowels, or a vowel and a sonorant (,, , or ). Sometimes this is also used in written language, e.g. writing robba instead of roba ("stuff" or "property"), to suggest a regional accent, though this spelling is considered incorrect. In Tuscany intervocalic (non geminated)  is realized as  (whereas intervocalic [non geminated]  is realized as  as in parts of Centro-Southern Italy).
 * The two phonemes and  have merged in many varieties of Italian: when between two vowels within the same word, it tends to always be pronounced  in Northern Italy, and  in Central and Southern Italy (except in the Arbëreshë community). A notable example is the word casa ('house'): in Northern Italy it is pronounced ; in Southern-Central Italy it's pronounced.
 * In several Southern varieties, voiceless stops tend to become voiced if following a sonorant, as an influence of the still largely spoken regional languages: campo becomes, and Antonio  becomes.

Phonological development
Very little research has been done on the earliest stages of phonological development in Italian. This article primarily describes phonological development after the first year of life. See the main article on phonological development for a description of first year stages. Many of the earliest stages are thought to be universal to all infants.

Phoneme inventory
Word-final consonants are rarely produced during the early stages of word production. Consonants are usually found in word-initial position, or in intervocalic position.

18 months
Most consonants are word-initial: They are the stops /p/, /b/, /t/, and /k/ and the nasal /m/. A preference for a front place of articulation is present.

21 months
More phones now appear in intervocalic contexts. The additions to the phonetic inventory are the voiced stop /d/, the nasal /n/, the voiceless affricate /t͡ʃ/, and the liquid /l/.

24 months
The fricatives /f/, /v/, and /s/ are added, primarily at the intervocalic position.

27 months
Approximately equal numbers of phones are now produced in word-initial and intervocalic position. Additions to the phonetic inventory are the voiced stop /g/ and the consonant cluster /kw/. While the word-initial inventory now tends to have all the phones of the adult targets (adult production of the child's words), the intervocalic inventory tends to still be missing four consonants or consonant clusters of the adult targets: /f/, /d͡ʒ/, /r/, and /st/.

Stops are the most common manner of articulation at all stages and are produced more often than they are present in the target words at around 18 months. Gradually this frequency decreases to almost target-like frequency by around 27 months. The opposite process happens with fricatives, affricates, laterals and trills. Initially, the production of these phonemes is significantly less than what is found in the target words and the production continues to increases to target-like frequency. Alveolars and bilabials are the two most common places of articulation, with alveolar production steadily increasing after the first stage and bilabial production gently decreasing. Labiodental and postalveolar production increases throughout development, while velar production decreases.

6–10 months
Babbling becomes distinct from previous, less structured vocal play. Initially, syllable structure is limited to CVCV, called reduplicated babbling. At this stage, children’s vocalizations have a weak relation to adult Italian and the Italian lexicon.

11–14 months
The most-used syllable type changes as children age, and the distribution of syllables takes on increasingly Italian characteristics. This ability significantly increases between the ages of 11 and 12 months, 12 and 13 months, and 13 and 14 months. Consonant clusters are still absent. Children’s first ten words appear around month 12, and take CVCV format (e.g. mama 'mother', papa 'father').

18–24 months
Reduplicated babbling is replaced by variegated babbling, producing syllable structures such as C1VC2V (e.g. cane 'dog', topo 'mouse'). Production of trisyllabic words begins (e.g. pecora 'sheep', matita 'pencil'). Consonant clusters are now present (e.g. bimba 'female child', venti 'twenty'). Ambient language plays an increasingly significant role as children begin to solidify early syllable structure. Syllable combinations that are infrequent in the Italian lexicon, such as velar-labial sequences (e.g. capra 'goat' or gamba 'leg') are infrequently produced correctly by children, and are often subject to consonant harmony.

Stress patterns
In Italian, stress is lexical, meaning it is word-specific and partly unpredictable. Penultimate stress (primary stress on the second-to-last syllable) is also generally preferred. This goal, acting simultaneously with the child's initial inability to produce polysyllabic words, often results in weak-syllable deletion. The primary environment for weak-syllable deletion in polysyllabic words is word-initial, as deleting word-final or word-medial syllables would interfere with the penultimate stress pattern heard in ambient language.

Phonological awareness
Children develop syllabic segmentation awareness earlier than phonemic segmentation awareness. In earlier stages, syllables are perceived as a separate phonetic unit, while phonemes are perceived as assimilated units by coarticulation in spoken language. By first grade, Italian children are nearing full development of segmentation awareness on both syllables and phonemes. Compared to those children whose mother tongue exhibits closed syllable structure (CVC,CCVC, CVCC, etc.), Italian-speaking children develop this segmentation awareness earlier, possibly due to its open syllable structure (CVCV, CVCVCV, etc.). Rigidness in Italian (shallow orthography and open syllable structure) makes it easier for Italian-speaking children to be aware of those segments.

Sample texts
From the Bible, Luke 2, 1-7 (for an English version click here)

You can [[Media:It-Vangeli.ogg|listen]] to a rendition of this text as recorded by an Italian native speaker from Milan. As a northerner, his pronunciation lacks syntactic doubling (/ˈfu ˈfatto/ instead of /ˈfu f'fatto/) and intervocalic /s/ (/ˈkaːza/ instead of /ˈkaːsa/).

2:1 In quei giorni, un decreto di Cesare Augusto ordinava che si facesse un censimento di tutta la terra. 2 Questo primo censimento fu fatto quando Quirino era governatore della Siria. 3 Tutti andavano a farsi registrare, ciascuno nella propria città. 4 Anche Giuseppe, che era della casa e della famiglia di Davide, dalla città di Nazaret e dalla Galilea si recò in Giudea nella città di Davide, chiamata Betlemme, 5 per farsi registrare insieme a Maria, sua sposa, che era incinta. 6 Proprio mentre si trovavano lì, venne il tempo per lei di partorire. 7 Mise al mondo il suo primogenito, lo avvolse in fasce e lo depose in una mangiatoia, poiché non c'era posto per loro nella locanda.

Standard pronunciation (the velar is an allophone of  and the long vowels are allophones of the short vowels, but are shown here for clarity):

Rough transcription of the audio sample:

2:1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Below is the Standard Italian pronunciation of the text.

2:1 2 3 4 5 6 7