ISCA Archive issp 2024
ISCA Archive issp 2024

Spatiotemporal features of bilabial geminate and singleton consonants in Italian

Francesco Burroni, Sireemas Maspong, Nicole Benker, Philip A Hoole, James Kirby

We investigate the production of Italian bilabial geminate and singleton consonants using electromagnetic articulography. The results reveal differences in closure duration, peak velocity, movement amplitude, and stiffness between geminate and singleton consonants. Timing analyses suggest earlier closure initiation and shorter trans-consonantal vocalic lags for geminates. Taken together, these findings suggest a distinct gestural specification for geminates, beyond longer gestural activations, and shed light on their acoustic manifestations, particularly the well-known shortening of vowels before geminate consonants and previously reported differences in how rate affects lags of geminates and singletons. Keywords: articulation, geminates, Italian, speech production, electromagnetic articulography