The production of Italian dental affricates by Portuguese speakers

Abstract

This work deals with the production of Italian dental affricates /ts dz/ by 2 female Portuguese speakers. Due to the lack of affricates in their L1, the aim was testing whether an affricate articulation and lengthening is preserved across phonological contexts. Through sentence-list reading, it will be shown how the affricate articulation is generally preserved, although /dz/ tends to reduce into a fricative /z/ more than the voiceless /ts/. An intermediate degree of sonority has also been detected together with a peculiar lengthening of the affricate involving only the occlusive part, whereas the fricative remains unvaried. These results may indicate a different phonological status of dental affricates for LS speakers.