A comparison of rhythm metrics in different speaking styles and in fifteen regional varieties of Italian
Giordano Rosa, Department of Linguistic and Literary Studies, University of Salerno
D'Anna Leandro, Department of Linguistic and Literary Studies, University of Salerno
In the present work three different speaking styles and fifteen regional varieties of Italian, an isosyllabic language, are compared in order to evaluate if, and to what extent, inter-speaker variability and contextual variation can condition the temporal dynamics of speech. Several metrics are used, in particular \%V, ΔC, ΔV, nPVI and rPVI; as the samples tested do not present internal variation in segmental phonology and phonotactics, very similar values are expected for the subsets. Interestingly, results show high variability across the three groups, as rhythmic indices reach values similar to both isosyllabic and isoaccentual languages. The phenomenon is due, in our opinion, to factors external to the rhythmic structure and related to high level prosodic domains, which can also influence segmental duration variability.