Rhythmic analysis and quantitative measures: the essence of rhythm as temporal patterning
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.36505/ExLing-2008/02/0048/000107Keywords:
language typology, Italian dialects, rhythmic valuesAbstract
A comparison of Standard Italian and Southern Italian dialects is carried out using acoustic measures related to structural properties: vowel-interval and consonantal inter-vowel-interval durations are used to obtain rhythmic measures based on a number of approaches. Italian is usually considered to be "syllable-timed." The structural features found in the dialects offer support for a divergence from the traditional assumption of syllable-timing. Rhythm measures are calculated according to Ramus et al. 1999, Grabe and Low 2002, Barry et al. 2003, and Russo and Barry (to appear). In agreement with predictions derived from phonological observation, the results of the measures show a "rhythm plot" in which the Pairwise Variability Indices (PVIs) place the Italian dialect speakers nearer to "stress-timed" languages than traditional typology statements would lead one to expect.
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Copyright (c) 2008 Michela Russo (Author)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
