Help talk:IPA/Italian

message: English approximations of Italian speech sounds are inevitably rough and unreliable. This problem can, however, be overcome if a Standard Italian speaker makes audio recordings of the Italian examples, uploads them to the Commons, and finally links to them on this help page. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 07:36, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I may try to see if I can, but that may take me long.  イヴァンスクルージ九十八（会話） 08:30, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Either of these options sound like a step forward, thanks. Vaselineeeeeeee★★★ 15:50, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: A great idea, because native English sounds vary so much. In England, the vowels in show/coach and story are completely different. (Actually, being long English sounds, might they all be wrong here if a short Italian sound is required?) Sean, pronounced identically with shorn, bears no relation to off. I pronounce tour and rule as if each word has two syllables, but a different two. I just wanted to know how to pronounce latte, but the table doesn't help because alto, must and fast use three different sounds. (But I see where that one is coming from because my Greek friend Dimitri would have said they were the same; he pronounced the English words cat and cut identically and couldn't hear the difference when I tried to demonstrate.) MSOrschel (talk) 08:27, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why not audio? 

message: What does it mean in IPA for a letter to be doubled? My edit asking for someone to verify why the IPA on Capocollo is [kapoˈkɔllo] and [ˈkɔppa] was reverted and I was told to just look at the linked source where the pronunciation is copied from but I am pretty sure whoever wrote that page doesn't know IPA because I've never seen a doubled letter before. Skimming the article about the IPA I also don't see a mention of that. Surely you don't pronounce it by saying /l/, taking a brief pause and saying /l/ again and extended letters are marked using ː. Akeosnhaoe (talk) 19:38, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: See gemination.  What it actually represents phonologically is a bit complicated, but it's intuitive to competent speakers of Italian and some other languages. --Trovatore (talk) 20:00, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

text: Right, no pause, just like Tom Mix in English in normal connected speech. Contrast English ten ales vs. ten nails, Phil Esh vs. Phil Lesh, Bob Olan vs. Bob Bolan, etc. etc. In Italian, geminates are distinct (phonemic) word-internally, so that fatto /ˈfat.to/ and fato /ˈfa.to/ are different words with different syllable structures and different pronunciations. To your point, I think: representation varies from one tradition to another, and among linguists generally, but one common custom is to use e.g. /tt/ at the phonemic level, [tː] for phonetics. The first allows showing the syllable structure easily: /t.t/. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 22:36, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

text: The first footnote of this help page says to write them doubled in phonetics brackets. --Ørjan (talk) 01:57, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:  Good. Definitely the more readable solution. Clear and easy to show stress placement for fattore, for example: [fatˈtoːre]. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 12:13, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:  I was surprised to find that the IPA symbol ː can even be used for consonants at all, but apparently it can.  I find this peculiar, at least for stops.  A [t] can't really be "long"; something else is going on (maybe a longer delay between the stop and the following aspiration?). --Trovatore (talk) 17:46, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: The only requisite component of a stop is the closure. Approach and release are only optional. If [t] can't be long, then neither can t in hint be considered a [t] as it lacks approach and possibly release. Nardog (talk) 18:16, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I guess I'm thinking of the closure as an instant, just the moment at which the air stops, which really can't be extended.  It seems weird to think of it lasting as long as the air is stopped, because there's no sound during that time. --Trovatore (talk) 18:31, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, whatever you think, lots of languages contrast stops this way and lingusts regard and transcribe them as double or long [t] etc. I bet you too can and do distinguish pastime and past-time. Nardog (talk) 18:51, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, I understand gemination; I speak Italian decently well, though not as well as I used to.  I'm just not sure I would describe it as the consonant being "long".  It seems more complicated than that. --Trovatore (talk) 19:36, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I wonder if you're making a simultaneous glottal stop during the closure (glottal reinforcement), which is common in English before voiceless stops, and perceiving gemination (which is mere elongation of a consonant by definition) as more complex than it is as a result. I don't know if it happens in Italian, but even if so, it would be considered a language-specific allophonic epiphenomenon, not part of gemination itself. Nardog (talk) 23:57, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:  I don't see how you can "elongate" a stop.  A stop means the air stops, right?  At some later point it starts again, but the stop is just the instant of stopping, not the time in between.   --Trovatore (talk) 00:47, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Huh? Surely anyone can hold the breath for at least a fraction of a second, no? In fact that's what a stop is. Gemination of a stop is holding the breath for just a little longer. Otherwise what do you think you're doing when you pronounce geminates in Italian? Nardog (talk) 01:04, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I just mean that I wouldn't call that "elongating the consonant".  When the air stops, you're not making sound, so ipso facto there's no consonant, right?  You're elongating the delay between two sounds, maybe.  --Trovatore (talk) 01:08, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: No, that's what a voiceless stop is. It's silent. We only distinguish different kinds of voiceless stops ([p, t, k] etc.) by how the surrounding sounds are warped. The meat of them all sounds the same, which is silence. Nardog (talk) 01:12, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:  Hmm, that's not an intuitive way of putting it, to me.  The two t's in fatto strike me as separate sounds (I suppose what you're calling the "approach" and "release", maybe?) which is why it makes perfect sense to transcribe it as /'fat.to/ rather than /'fatːo/, even granting that the two t's are not the same sound. --Trovatore (talk) 03:03, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

text: It's not a "way of putting it", it's literally what linguists mean when they say "a voiceless stop". If you open any phonetics textbook, one of the first things you learn is that a stop consists of up to three phases: approach, closure, and release, and that it may lack approach and/or release depending on position (while it always has closure by definition). I'd really rather we stop discussing in terms of what's intuitive to us and start discussing what literature says on these talk pages. Nardog (talk) 05:49, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Doubled letters /ll/ /pp/