Word final schwa is driven by intonation—The case of Bari Italian

Abstract

In order to convey pragmatic functions, a speaker has to select an intonation contour (the tune) in addition to the words that are to be spoken (the text). The tune and text are assumed to be independent of each other, such that any one intonation contour can be produced on different phrases, regardless of the number and nature of the segments they are made up of. However, if the segmental string is too short, certain tunes-especially those with a rising component-call for adjustments to the text. In Italian, for instance, loan words such as "chat" can be produced with a word final schwa when this word occurs at the end of a question. This paper investigates this word final schwa in the Bari variety in a number of different intonation contours. Although its presence and duration is to some extent dependent on idiosyncratic properties of speakers and words, schwa is largely conditioned by intonation. Schwa cannot thus be considered a mere phonetic artefact, since it is relevant for phonology, in that it facilitates the production of communicatively relevant intonation contours.

The tune drives the text

“…(2) /a kjaˈmato ˈkarɔl(ə)/ 'Carol called' (Grice et al, 2018) These quantitative assessments are in line with many cross-linguistic observations throughout the literature. For instance, Martínez-Gil (1997) reports on Galician vowel insertion in phrase-final position, a pattern that is very similar to the Bari Italian case.…”

“…In one of the more detailed acoustic studies, Grice, Savino, and Roettger (2018) report on experimental evidence from a production study of Bari Italian speakers: In a number of varieties of Italian, the pronunciation of loan words ending in consonants (e.g. internet, blog) is often characterized by a word final schwa (e.g.…”

"No duration without intonation": The interplay of lexical and post-lexical durational differences

“…Such higher F0 might be the consequence of intonational differences between the two varieties, for example in the number and type of tonal events that can be expected to take place sentenceinternally. This would lend further support to current research on the impact of post-lexical accents on lexical material ( [22], [23]). However, given the highly constrained elicitation method employed for this study, it is possible that the reported differences in F0 are instead the consequence of speakers' reactions to the task.…”

Comparing prosody of Italian varieties and dialects: data from Neapolitan

“…Note that both the relevance and frequency of dialectal features, even in the variety of Italian, might depend on the interplay of various factors, such as the level of instruction, the (perception of the) social distance or even the speaker's age. Our data also highlight the interlacement between rhythmic, metric, and intonational facts, pointing to a relationship between rhythmic/metric and intonational structure more complex than a simple one-way influence of rhythm on intonation [33]. Finally, the data discussed here also point to the need of taking carefully into account sociolinguistic factors and collecting (spontaneous) speech material that is representative of sociolinguistic variation.…”