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RfC: Should intervocalic r's be transcribed [r] or [ɾ]?

The consensus is that the Italian pronunciation given in articles and on Help:IPA/Italian should not show [ɾ] (tap) instead of [r] (trill) for single intervocalic r's in unstressed syllables.

Cunard (talk) 06:00, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Should the Italian pronunciation given in articles and on Help:IPA/Italian show [ɾ] (tap) instead of [r] (trill) for single intervocalic r's in unstressed syllables? 20:27, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

• Support: Ultimately pronunciation guides are supposed to help non-native speakers pronounce foreign language words in the most natural-sounding way. I have a source which states “the trill (poly-vibrant alveolar [r]) /r/ [...] between vowels becomes a tap (mono-vibrant [ɾ])”, and another confirming the phenomenon, and that it is not limited to any particular dialect: “Taps appear only in the positions allowed by a phonetic reduction rule. Their realisation is restricted to the intervocalic unstressed position [...] Regional varieties of Italian follow the same distribution, with intervocalic single rhotics realised as single-strike sounds.” The conclusions states “In the first part of the paper, I have illustrated the normal basic realisations of /r/ ([ɾ], [r] and [rː] for Italian)”.

The same study also mentions a small survey of Florentine students, which found that “7 speakers out of 10 realised /r/ as a monovibrant, 2 as a flap and 1 as a “multivibrant”.” Keep in mind that a “flap” (also denoted by [ɾ]) is distinct from a tap, which would come under monovibrant. Now part of the ambiguity is that “monovibrants” could also include so-called “single-cycle trills” mentioned in Help_talk:IPA/Italian#r_and_rr, which may explain evasive phrasing such as “single-strike sounds”. However, source one implies the idea of “monovibrant trills” but transcribes them as [ɾ] as well, likely because they are so similar to taps as to be virtually indistinguishable. In any case, I think this sets the precedent of denoting all "monovibrants" as [ɾ].

The only problem is that there are also cases of single intervocalic /r/s realised as [r], such as the one "multivibrant" among the Florentine students, and so technically they are in free variation. However, I think the previous sources show that [ɾ] is common enough in this specific context that it should be considered the "default" sound provided by Wikipedia's phonetic guides. This is also supported by a basic count I did of a short phonetic transcription (7 intervocalic [ɾ]s vs 2 [r]s), and this source, based on the 2002 Lo Zingarelli dictionary, which consistently transcribes [ɾ] as standard. ─ ReconditeRodent « talk · contribs » 20:27, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

References

That makes sense to me and there's even additional corroboration at Italian phonology. But why are we doing an RfC over it? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 22:05, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

There was a lot of debate about it at Talk:Italian_phonology#flap_vs_trill but I've only just found one of the sources so maybe that clears things up a bit. ─ ReconditeRodent « talk · contribs » 23:47, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose for the reasons I explained at the above talk, i.e. the constant opposition in Italian of long-short consonants (unlike it is for other languages) and the aforementioned wide variation among realizations of short /r/. イヴァンスクルージ九十八_（会話） 09:00, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose, keep [r]. If intervocalic single /r/ was always realized with a single contact, it wouldn't be unreasonable to transcribe it with ⟨ɾ⟩ and /rr/ as ⟨r⟩. In reality, however, the difference between intervocalic /r/ and /rr/ is not in the manner of articulation but in the number of tongue contacts. From SOWL (p. 221):

  In repetitions of the words karo and karro from a total of five speakers of Standard Italian we found none of the intervocalic single trills to have more than two contacts. The geminate trills showed no fewer than three contacts and up to seven.

  And from A Course in Phonetics (6th ed., p. 175):

  [In the given example of Icelandic] in the short [ r ] there is one contact of the tongue on the roof of the mouth, while in the long [ rː ] there are three contacts. In both cases, the tongue contacts in the trill are driven by an aerodynamic force in much the same way that vocal fold vibration in voicing is driven by airflow. So, even in the case of a very short trill in which there is only a single contact with the roof of the mouth, the movement is different from that in a tap, or a flap. In a trill, the tip of the tongue is set in motion by the current of air.

  It is nevertheless the case that single-contact trills are often transcribed with ⟨ɾ⟩, but if we used it to represent a single intervocalic /r/, then what should we transcribe geminate /r/ with? ⟨rr⟩ would be redundant because we would then never use single ⟨r⟩ in this position, while ⟨r⟩ would deviate from the phonemic representation and obfuscate the fact that it's a geminate. Therefore I see no reason to transcribe the rhotics any differently from the way they are transcribed in the phonemic representation, especially when intervocalic single /r/ may have more than one tongue contacts. Nardog (talk) 09:20, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

This is from the intro to Trill consonant: "Usually a trill vibrates for 2–3 periods, but may be up to 5, or even more if geminate." This may require rewording, as single-cycle trills do not seem unusual at all, they frequently occur.

And this is from the intro to Dental, alveolar and postalveolar trills: "In most Indo-European languages, the sound is at least occasionally allophonic with an alveolar tap [ɾ], particularly in unstressed positions." I wonder if a distinction between taps and single-cycle trills (which the article fails to mention) is made here. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 11:29, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

/r/ and /rr/ are still distinguished in cases such as parlare or morte (/r/) vs terra (/rr/), which is why Romano lists all three of them (as normal basic realisations). Ultimately we are looking for a phonetic representation; taps and flaps share the same symbol, even though though they are articulated differently, so why not do the same for "monovibrants", especially since the phonetic guides to Italian do? ─ ReconditeRodent « talk · contribs » 12:04, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

Parlare and morte are not intervocalic... What are you trying to illustrate? No one is disputing /r/ and /rr/ are distinguished. Nardog (talk) 12:53, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

@Nardog: Ah, I misunderstood your point. I would say that just because it means we no longer have a use for VrV (though I think we still would for stressed syllables) doesn't mean the alternative notation is redundant: there are plenty of cases within a language where sounds can be inferred by someone who already knows all the rules but specificity is relevant here because a) this is for non-native speakers and b) Wikipedia uses a narrow transcription for foreign pronunciations. If it were just phonemic I wouldn't be pushing it. ─ ReconditeRodent « talk · contribs » 13:21, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

@ReconditeRodent: We use broad phonetic transcription for foreign pronunciations. What you might be confusing here is narrow transcription (which is a subset of phonetic transcription) with phonemic transcription which is broad by definition. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 14:44, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

@Kbb2: Whoops, yeah, I just meant phonetic as opposed to phonemic. ─ ReconditeRodent « talk · contribs » 23:27, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

@ReconditeRodent: that last part of what you said is exactly why it is enough to leave the whole explanation about the tap/monovibrant in a note or maybe directly linking to Italian phonology without having to change the transcription, which is of course not phonemic, but in any case usually case-to-case conventional in the helps for various reasons (e.g. [ə] is used for a different English vowel from the French one transcribed the same). イヴァンスクルージ九十八_（会話） 14:57, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

@IvanScrooge98: I see what you mean: why can't we just use [r] to stand for both a multi- and monovibrant trills and have that be a convention for Italian? But based on the sources I've found, [ɾ] is the convention for monovibrants in Italian. (Zamborlin (following Colorni), Romano (following Canepari), IPASource.com (following Lo Zingarelli) – and although Rogers and d'Arcangeli don't discuss the idea of a monovibrant trill, that means either all the [ɾ]s in the transcription were taps or they too couldn't tell them apart. While Vagges et al. (the survey) don't use symbolic notation within the given extract, they do also group taps and monovibrant trills together under a single "monovibrant" category instead of trying to distinguish them.) A single-strike sound is just not what a trilled r means to people. I grant, on the other side of the scales, the two sources provided by Nardog, which use [r]. However, the first assumes all intervocal /r/s are trills and so doesn't compare them with taps at all, and the second approaches the topic from the angle of articulation rather than acoustics, the latter of which I would argue is more pertinent for our purposes. I can appreciate that it feels inconsistent with the straightforward length distinction for other consonants, but if you look at the sounds solely within the given context, "single intervocalic /r/s are rendered as monovibrants" is a neater statement than "single intervocalic /r/s are rendered as monovibrant trills or taps or sometimes flaps only you can't tell them apart". ─ ReconditeRodent « talk · contribs » 23:27, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

These are sounds so similar that professional linguists can't seem to tell them apart just by listening (which is why we don't have data on the proportion of taps vs monovibrant trills), whereas even a casual listener can tell the difference between them and "multivibrants". Doesn't it make more sense instead to leave the technical details about variable manner of articulation to people who read the footnotes? ─ ReconditeRodent « talk · contribs » 13:21, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose: The length opposition in consonants is central for Italian phonology. Italian does not require the tapped pronunciation – as opposed to, say, Spanish. A three-way differentiation in our transcription seems overly complicated. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 21:22, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose per the above. I agree that trying to account for every case will be overcomplicated, and the sourcing so far is pretty convincing. A further issue is that there are actually several Italian languages and dialects in a continuum, and they have significant differences. It's unlikely that any one size of narrow nit-pick on a matter like this would actually fit all. Yet we're not using a different IPA transcription system for Tuscan, Venetian, Romanesco, Napoletano, etc., etc. The only way for one size to fit all, for a purpose like that served by this page, is to be very broad and general, glossing over the details that are going to vary from region to region. This is the approach we take at Help:IPA/English, too (e.g., we do not try to account for the fact that "purple" loses its r in many dialects, or that law gains one at the end in some of them, or that mother may lose its).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:06, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Non-native vowels

Moved from User talk:Nardog

The nonnative vowels listed are not marginal segments. Therefore, I have removed them. If you feel like there is reasonable rationale to restore the nonnative vowels section, please do so, but please replace the formerly listed examples with real Italian examples, not foreign language words like Churchill and Führer. Yes, I know that they are exclusive to loanwords (duh!), but the listed examples are real foreign language words, not loanwords. Just as how 北京 is a Mandarin Chinese word, but Beijing is an English loanwords from Mandarin. IPA editor (talk) 17:07, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

EDIT: Thanks for moving. IPA editor (talk) 17:13, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

First, you should never remove something from a pronunciation key when it's already used by transcriptions. That engenders discrepancy between the key and transcriptions, which defeats the whole point of the key being a guide.

Viveur, goethiano, parure, and brûlé (or brulé) are included as Italian words on Wiktionary as well as in Dizionario di pronuncia italiana online and transcribed with [ø] or [y] so I have no reason to doubt the status of those sounds as marginal segments. I also don't understand your argument that they are not loanwords. If a foreign word is ingrained in speakers' lexicon and assimilated to the phonology of Italian at least to an extent, that is a full-fledged loanword. I don't know about Churchill and Führer in particular, but the aforementioned four words do appear to be part of the Italian lexicon as far as I can tell. Nardog (talk) 17:31, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

@Nardog: Yes, I understand. Have you restored the four words? IPA editor (talk) 17:58, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

Excuse me, can somebody explain to me why Churchill and Führer were removed from the examples? Was it because they are proper nouns? Or for another reason? Natzione (talk) 20:01, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

In Canepari's Dizionario di pronuncia italiana online Churchill is [ˈʧɛrʧil, -ør-; ↓-ɔr-], and Führer yields no result (“nessun risultato”). Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 21:10, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Okay, I understand now. Canepari's is one dictionary, there are many others of Italian language. Churchill is registsred with [ø] so it can be inserted, isn't it? Thatcher and Perez are registered with the non-native consonant in the last example and after a ";", Churchill in the 2nd after a ",". Führer is registered for example in Olivetti's Dizionario Italiano as /ˈfjurer/, a pronunciation more similar to Italian phonology, and in Treccani's Vocabolario as ‹fü′ürër›, a non-IPA transcription of the original pronunciation. IMHO, the examples Churchill and Führer fit, and they are sourced. What do you think about it, LiliCharlie? Natzione (talk) 09:03, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

1. I prefer pronouncing dictionaries to general dictionaries whose editors don't study the actual pronunciations in use in the entire sprachraum.
2. The PDF version of Canepari's Dizionario di pronuncia italiana mentions the pronunciations ['fyrer, ↓'fju-] for führer. (The down arrow means pronuncia trascurata/da evitare.)
3. You forgot to mention why you want those examples. If it is to give an example for the sound [y] with the spelling ⟨ü⟩ it is probably better to take a DIPI entry that has no variant pronunciation with another vowel, that is, one of chin chü, Dürrenmatt, gewürztraminer, Kitzbühel, Müller Thurgau, Müstair, schützen, über alles, volapük, Wüber or Würzburg. (I haven't checked for [ø] spelled ⟨u⟩.) Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 10:57, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Okay, pure pronouncing dictionaries fit better for examples like these. I ignored that the PDF version of Canepari's exixted, I have to thank you for finding it out! In the case of Führer it registers ['fyrer, ↓'fju-] which reflects what the 12th note says: /y/ is often pronounced as [u] or [ju]. I want to mention these examples for what you have said, but not just for the orthography, also for the original pronunciation which in Italian is reduced to. So Führer should be inserted for an example of ü pronounced [y] and Churchill for an example of original [ɜ] reduced to [ø]. They do not have to be needs these examples, it is just that I have noticed that these examples were removed some days ago by a user who was blocked by checkusers and IMHO it is not up to this individual to decide what must be kept or not in a page like this. I can tell you that I am Italian and I have hardly ever, if not never, heard your examples in place of Führer which is alas far too well known. If you are not convinced by that word can you propound another? Natzione (talk) 14:11, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Hm. This is a help page for editors of en.WP. To be honest, I can't imagine we would ever want to indicate the Italian pronunciation of an English word. (German is a language of Italy, so things may be less clear for things and people of Italy with a German(-derived) name. However at this point most Italians would call the South Tyrolean People's Party Partito Popolare Sudtirolese, though Südtiroler Volkspartei is also used by some Italian speakers.) We do have examples of Italian [y] from foreign [y], but none for [y] derived from [ʏ] (as in Dürrenmatt, gewürztraminer, Müller Thurgau, schützen or Würzburg), but I doubt that any further example would ever help a single en.WP editor adding the Italian pronunciation to an Italian word of foreign origin that is mentioned here as such. Unless some Ötzi Müller becomes Italy's next President. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 17:30, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Do you think that Führer could be a better example than the others? I have searched the PDF and found the following words and names with ü pronounced in Italian [y] or [u/ju]: Atatürk, müesli, müsli, Wertmüller, Wührer, würstel. I do not think it is a problem if English names or words are inserted as examples, they can tell with which sounds Italians pronounce English foreignisms, not for nothing are listed as examples Thatcher, Sean and many English common nouns. Natzione (talk) 18:20, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Another user has inserted other examples in place of Churchill and Führer which IMHO fit perfectly. Let's keep them. Natzione (talk) 11:20, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

What about substituting also the other proper nouns among the examples of foreign sounds with simple words as for Churchill and Führer? I have searched the PDF and found the following possible substitutions: Thatcher-thriller, Pérez-capataz, Bach-mach, Fuji-rajah. Do you think that this could be okay? Natzione (talk) 14:03, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

Player/Bombay

Moved from User talk:Nardog § June 2019

 – Nardog (talk) 01:59, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

escuse me, but as another user has already pointed out (Foghe) in Italian both pronunciations "plɛ" and "ple" are used, also Treccani confirms what I said [1] so "player" is not the example that fits best, "Bombay" does because it is always pronounced "bɛi" and never "bei" but maybe you have a better example that fits even better than this. 79.116.55.17 (talk) 11:33, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

Help talk:IPA/Italian is where you should put your message if you want your edit to be kept. Nardog (talk) 16:04, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

so how does this work? do I write a message there to explain the reason of the example change and then make the edit? if you tell me it's ok I'll do it now. 79.116.55.17 (talk) 16:27, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

No, you have to gain a consensus with other editors on the talk page before you reinstate your edit. See Wikipedia:Edit warring. Nardog (talk) 16:35, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

so how does this work? do I write a message there to explain the reason of the example change and then what? what must happen before the edit can be done? 79.116.55.17 (talk) 16:40, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

That others agree with you. Once an edit is challenged, as done by IvanScrooge98 and Aeusoes1 in this case, the correct course of action is to discuss the matter on the talk page because consensus is the fundamental model for decision making on Wikipedia. Nardog (talk) 17:09, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

I am perfectly fine with Bombay. イヴァンスクルージ九十八_（会話） 17:14, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

Oh, my bad. Because player is an English word, I had assumed that line was for English approximations when making my revert. I think a compelling enough case for Bombay as an example word has been made that I wouldn't oppose it. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 17:34, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

I hope this has demonstrated why it is important to prompt a discussion both when reverting and when being reverted. Nardog (talk) 17:44, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

Yes, almost everything is better than player, which frankly was just crazy—as I used to say. Please, for people who know nothing of Italian, let others to act. Thanks! :-) --Foghe (talk) 21:21, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

Hmm, maybe better than it was, but still not suitable, let alone good. If you ask me the best choice is to remove those examples. Why should English Wikipedia users indicate the Italian pronunciation of English words? The page is a Wikipedia help page, not a course that teaches possible pronunciation-to-spelling relations in Italian loanwords. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 01:54, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

Intervocalic ⟨s⟩

It has been brought to my attention that edits like this (by @IvanScrooge98:) may be problematic by showing the less common variant of a variable pronunciation first. Italian phonology seems to back this up. What do we think is the best way to deal with this issue? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 16:00, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

@Aeusoes1: I felt it made more sense to list the traditional pronunciations first (as they have been the only standard for longer and still carry some distinctive value) and the ones that have become accepted standard only in recent times (and now maybe more common in some educated speech, even though I personally hear both in TV ads etc.) after. At least for the sake of having a definite order. 〜イヴァンスクルージ九十八［IvanScrooge98］（会話） 16:43, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Bertinetto & Loporcaro (2005: 133) say:

Intervocalic /s/ is voiceless in [Rome Italian], so that [Standard Italian] minimal pairs, such as [ˈkjɛːse] 'asked.3sg' vs. [ˈkjɛːze] 'churches' (both spelled chiese), are neutralised as [ˈkjɛːse] in RI. On the other hand, the growing influence of the Northern pronunciation on [Florence Italian] has levelled out some traditional contrasts, such as the one cited, so that [ˈkjɛːze] is now increasingly accepted in both meanings, although normative pronunciation treatises still record the contrast. In [Milan Italian], the same pair is neutralised into [ˈkje̞ːze] ... for another reason, since in this variety (as opposed to RI) voiceless intervocalic [s] does not occur morpheme-internally, but only after vowel-final prefixes (e.g. risollevare [ˌrisolːeˈaːre] 'to raise again'), unless the prefix is no longer synchronically analysed as such (e.g. risaltare [rizalˈtaːre] 'to stand out').

Krämer (2009: 41) says:

Canepàri (DiPI 1999) criticizes contemporary dictionaries for giving forms which are not in use anymore even by the most trained professional speakers from Tuscany or Florence. Accordingly he gives almost all forms that have an intervocalic voiceless coronal fricative in the other dictionaries with a voiced fricative as the preferred form ("la piú consigliabile" 'the most advisable') and an 'outdated' form with the voiceless fricative ("la piú consigliata un tempo" 'the most advisable some time ago"). Those forms that are recommended with a voiced fricative by the other dictionaries have no alternative formerly recommended or non-recommended rendition. This leaves Canepàri's recommended pronunciation of Italian with an imbalanced contrast (if it is a contrast at all) leaning towards the other side: only very few forms, such as presidente 'president', or preservativo 'preservative, condom' are recommended with a voiceless fricative. These are those forms which, according to my experience, educated speakers from northern Italy, for whom intervocalic s-voicing can be regarded as operative, produce with a voiceless fricative. It is not quite clear if these speakers treat these words as loanwords or as morphologically complex.

So Canepari, which I assume you were referring to when you said Italian phonology seems to back this up, seems to be weighing heavily on Northern varieties, and the fact it is neutralized to [s], i.e. in the opposite direction, in Rome according to B&L is hard to dismiss. So the present question can hinge on what varietie(s) we choose to represent in our transcriptions. According to B&L (pp. 131–2):

Today's SI is based on the Tuscan (more precisely Florentine) dialect ... It is nowadays spoken with distinct local accents ... Among these, the Roman and the Milanese varieties are especially prominent owing to their use in the media, alongside the Florentine variety, which is very close to SI. Over the past few decades especially the Milanese accent seems to be increasingly gaining prestige ... SI is nowadays part of the active verbal repertoire of just a minority of educated people from Central Italy (especially Tuscany), besides being used by professional speakers or trained stage actors (the single idiolects spoken by these groups of people may, however, include sporadic features typical of RI). Due to its cultural, social and political relevance, the definition of (the status of) SI has been the topic of a long-lasting debate.

In B&L's samples, intervocalic s appear seven times, and while RI and MI consistently produced [s] and [z] respectively, SI and FI had [z] in sposo, mise (twice) and sposa, and [s] in riposarsi, riposatasi and rispose. The authors remark, "lexically-conditioned change seems to be in process under northern influence".

In Rogers & d'Arcangeli's (2004) sample of "a woman in her thirties who was brought up in a middle-class household in Rome, and has travelled extensively in Italy and abroad" and who is representative of "contemporary 'mainstream Italian' ... a variety under construction by speakers wishing to give themselves a national appeal, a process driven by the media and by workplace mobility", she pronounced all intervocalic s with [z] (in decisero, cosí and ammise).

Given these, I think I would give [z] precedence. The change is apparently undergoing and may be "lexically conditioned" in Tuscany, but for consistency's sake I agree with Ivan in that we should stick to one order. Nardog (talk) 22:49, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

I would like to point out that the Sicilian-derived word Puglisi which Ƶ§œš¹ linked to has only /z/ in Canepari's DIPI. By contrast, pugliese and other adjectives with the Tuscan-derived ending -ese show variation and are pronounced with /z~s/ in Standard Italian, and with /s~z/ in Tuscany, according to Canepari. (However, Canepari reports /z/ to be preferred in the proper name Pugliese even in Tuscany.) Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 06:37, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

This one case is peculiar, as the original Sicilian pugghisi is pronounced with the voiceless variant (as is actually usual for all instances of intervocalic ⟨s⟩ in southern Italy, but in this and several other cases the original local pronunciation matches the traditional Italian, which may be a reason to give it prominence; especially since the name has not been “fully Italianized”). I was about to publish this reply, but just noticed DOP, by far more conservative, only reports /z/ as well, meaning I made a mistake when providing the IPA—I apologize, I usually check the websites before, unless I am in some hurry.

In any case, we should not forget that Canepari is from northern Italy himself, so maybe that is one more reason why he tends to recommend voiced fricatives. As a northern Italian speaker who uses them natively, I still feel it is a little premature; I have heard Florentine speakers use /z/, but generally not in widespread suffixes etc. such as -oso, -ese (though this my personal experience and reality may be very different). And of course, I think we should be careful about not lying too much towards northern varieties, as we are supposed to be as neutral as possible. 〜イヴァンスクルージ九十八［IvanScrooge98］（会話） 08:38, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

My argument is based on Bertinetto & Loporcaro and Rogers & d'Arcangeli, not Canepari. Nardog (talk) 10:23, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

Yes, but considered the change is still in progress, and that both the voiceless and voiced seem to be fine now, I would keep the voiceless first until there is agreement that the main standard is /z/ (I had even encountered transcriptions that only used that on Wikipedia, which is a huge no-no if you ask me). And we should not forget that one thing are common pronunciations, and another is the standard (e.g. the sample from Rogers & d’Arcangeli lacks many instances of syntactic gemination, I suppose hypercorrection if the speaker is from Rome). 〜イヴァンスクルージ九十八［IvanScrooge98］（会話） 12:53, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

This is a spontaneous idea, and probably not a good one: We could show variation between /s/ and /z/ not through sequentially ordered symbols, but by using ⟨s̬⟩ and ⟨z̥⟩, in which the base symbol indicates the preferred pronunciation in the traditional standard.

Should we continue to use ⟨s⟩ and ⟨z⟩ for intervocalic intramorphemic orthographic ⟨s⟩ (and we probably will) and want to stick to a fixed order everywhere, I think the first pronunciation to indicate should be the progressive "contemporary 'mainstream Italian'" one that the model speaker of Rogers & d'Arcangeli (2004) uses, i.e., ⟨z⟩ first, ⟨s⟩ second. This seems more descriptive and less presciptive: it reflects what "pan-Italian" speakers do, not what they are traditionally expected to do. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 17:30, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

Using ⟨s̬⟩ and ⟨z̥⟩ would be a nice solution, but yes, it’s probably overly complex for a help that we (hopefully) seek to maintain as simple as possible (four symbols for two sounds, and we would have to extend ⟨s̬⟩ to cases of preconsonantic ⟨s⟩, as in sbaglio etc.). Also, what I’m saying is, as there is a restricted number of (educated) speakers of Standard Italian, so the descriptive aspect still wouldn’t be “pan-Italian” anyways. And I just don’t want to make it look like most natural speakers from central-southern Italy should prefer the voiced realization over theirs even when that’s the traditional one in Standard Italian too. But as long as we find an agreement once and for all on which goes first, I’m fine. 〜イヴァンスクルージ九十八［IvanScrooge98］（会話） 19:07, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

I'd fully support ⟨s̬⟩, using it seems to be perfectly logical. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 06:44, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Seriously? I would never support adding an archiphoneme to phonetic transcriptions. Nardog (talk) 09:08, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with archiphonenemes/diaphones in principle if it can reduce the burden of transcriptions, but this is not an instance where I think it's justified or transparent. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 15:18, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

@Kbb2: Aside from the question of whether to introduce such a symbol, do you have an opinion on which one to give precedence if we were to transcribe both? Nardog (talk) 18:55, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

Interesting topic. I'd like to say my piece too, I'm Italian and that could be useful. I think there're 2 options:

It's possible to strick to what Italian dictionaries generally prescribe, i.e. a single pronunciation, the most traditional, considered the "purest". This should be not only for s/z but also for e/ɛ and similar cases and would give readers the same information they can find in an orthoepy handbook.

It's possible to adopt a less narrow approach as suggested by the sources brought here, starting from the dictionary using I.P.A. transcriptions. The pronunciation of ⟨s⟩ between vowels, when it isn't the first letter of a suffix as in "sta⟨s⟩era", should be indicated first voiced and then unvoiced, to give reader the actual 3rd millennium pronunciation, recommended by the cited sorces.

They're both valid. Your opinions are slightly leaning toward the second as far as I can tell, I'm not saying my opinion for the moment because I'm not sure. ITskandros (talk) 19:09, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

I recommend, too, sticking to what Italian dictionaries prescribe, bearing in mind that people from Northern Italy have a more consistent attitude than Florentine speakers (in between "s" is always pronounced [z] like in rosa, casa, peso, posa, sposi, etc.), while speakers from the South cannot generally reproduce the sound [z], not even in their family name (like Puglisi or the inhabitants of Apulia). Although Italian film-makers from Cinecittà tend to have people from Rome starring in their movies, the Milanese [z] has gotten the upper hand, and that is an advantage for foreign learners as "s" is pronounced in a consistent way.--Luensu1959 (talk) 15:33, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

• I got a note on my German Wikisource talk page asking me to help wrap this discussion up. Have you all come to a conclusion on what the recommended order of transcriptions should be? Wug·a·po·des​ 21:50, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

RfC: When should we transcribe word-initial gemination?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Background: There appears to be a long-term, wide-ranging, low-key edit war going on in some articles such as Luca Zingaretti, Città di Castello, Life Is Beautiful, Dolce & Gabbana, and A cappella concerning the transcription of phrase-internal word-initial geminates. Without an explicit consensus any remedy could simply prolong the war like whack-a-mole, so I'd like to first gauge the opinion of the community. Nardog (talk) 12:17, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Word-initial gemination in Standard Italian occurs in the following contexts (Payne 2005; Bertinetto & Loporcaro 2005; Maiden & Robustelli 2014):

• "Intrinsic" gemination: /ts, dz, ʃ, ɲ, ʎ/ following any vowel, as in la sciarpa
• Syntactic gemination (raddoppiamento sintattico):
  • Any consonant following a stressed vowel (and not followed by an occlusive), as in virtù diversa
  • Any consonant following a certain preposition or conjunction (and not followed by an occlusive), as in e Roma
  • /d/ in dio or its inflected form following any vowel, as in gli dei

Which of these should be reflected in transcriptions using the Help:IPA/Italian key? 12:17, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Survey

• Transcribe all. I'm having a hard time understanding why some users have removed word-initial gemination in the first place. Any description of the sound system of Standard Italian mentions both types of gemination as far as I've looked. Although apparently northern varieties generally lack the syntactic type, they still exhibit the "intrinsic" gemination, especially /ts, dz/ (Bertinetto & Loporcaro 2005:134), and even syntactic gemination is spreading in Turin (Crocco 2017:111–2). Write [la ʃˈʃarpa, virˈtu ddiˈvɛrsa, e rˈroːma, ʎi dˈdɛi], or if a reasonable number of people find it confusing, write [la‿ʃˈʃarpa, virˈtu‿ddiˈvɛrsa, e‿rˈroːma, ʎi‿dˈdɛi], with the undertie often used for liaison in French, as done in the Syntactic gemination article. Nardog (talk) 12:17, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
• I agree we should transcribe all geminations that are obligatory in Standard Italian. — I'm not sure, but if we use underties we could also use spaces and write [la‿ʃ ˈʃarpa, virˈtu‿d diˈvɛrsa, e‿r ˈroːma, ʎi‿d ˈdɛi] which perhaps better preserves/shows the isolated "citation" forms of the constituent words. — I don't understand why the copula è in La vita è bella is transcribed with a stress mark. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 14:24, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
• This topic has been discussed before, notably at [2] (December 2015).
  At that time, the consensus was that we should not show the syntactic gemination symbol (*) on individual words, except in articles that are specifically about Italian phonology, but that we should show it in the interior of phrases.
  On reflection, I'm not sure I even agree with the "interior of phrases" case, because many varieties of Italian spoken outside central Italy do not show syntactic gemination at all.
  Given the variability of Italian phonetics among speakers of standard Italian, it's not even clear that we should try for phonetic (as opposed to phonemic) transcriptions in general. --Macrakis (talk) 17:05, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
• Transcribe all. Standard non-regional Italian version. Must admit I don't understand why there's any question about this. As for the transcription norms, I vote for phonetic, in this version: [la ʃˈʃarpa, virˈtu ddiˈvɛrsa, e rˈroːma, ʎi dˈdɛi] (the ligatures are unnecessary, and might even be confusing). Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 19:34, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
• Transcribe all. The right transcription should be like [la ʃˈʃarpa] with a space between the two words. It's the same thing for words with reverted syntactic gemination, very rarely encountered in Italian and almost always for foreign words, when a word ending with [ts, dz, ʃ, ʎ, ɲ] precedes a word starting with a vowel and the preceding consonant doubles. Other solutions would be confounding: [la‿ʃˈʃarpa, laʃˈʃarpa, laʃ ˈʃarpa]. Junghiano (talk) 18:10, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
• Transcribe all. Per other users mentioned related points. Ali Ahwazi (talk) 14:13, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

Let's do the Wikipedian thing and consult a Reliable Source:

Florentine features, such as... syntactic doubling as in [a kkása] are not used in actual fact in northern Italy and do not even constitute a theoretical model which people there try to imitate: they are felt to be either parochial and alien, or affected.

Note that the authors (university professors of Italian) are intimately familiar with this feature, and devote several pages to it in the section on Florentine phonology (p. 67-69), but are clear that it is not a feature of all prestige versions of standard Italian, and indeed even in central and southern versions which have it, the pattern is different (p. 75).

So I don't believe it should be notated. --Macrakis (talk) 23:45, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Even the sources given above agree:

Raddoppiamento also applies in RI [Rome] and FI [Florence], ... Most Central and Southern varieties only possess the latter type of raddoppiamento, although with a lexical distribution that varies from place to place.... By contrast, raddoppiamento is unknown in MI [Milan], as in all Northern varieties. -- Bertinetto, p. 135

...the extent to which the rules of [raddoppiamento] can vary regionally... -- Maiden, p. 11

Type 4 is present also in other central and southern dialects and varieties of Italian, though trigger words vary regionally. Type 3 is present only in certain central dialects and varieties of Italian... -- Payne, p. 154, where Types 3 and 4 are varieties of raddoppiamento.

--Macrakis (talk) 00:21, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

1) The Lepschys are from the north (nevertheless, the first place I heard the striking unmistakable RS of (Italian pronunciation: [oltreˈpɔ ppaˈveːze] was in Pavia, from a native of the Oltrepò). 2) We're not doing either Florentine or Northern Italian. Sources should be describing region-neutral Standard Italian. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 01:53, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Yes, we should be transcribing neutral Standard Italian. Except that that doesn't really exist. All four sources make it clear that RS varies considerably by region. Which is why we should not try for a narrow phonetic transcription that commits us to a particular regional variant. Raddoppiamento is not consistent across regions, but is predictable given the region. So we should not be notating it. --Macrakis (talk) 02:33, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Raddoppiamento ... is predictable given the region You just quoted Bertinetto & Loporcaro and Maiden & Robustelli saying the triggering words vary by region. Nardog (talk) 03:42, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Exactly. What are you disagreeing with? --Macrakis (talk) 16:29, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Don't northern varieties often lack word-internal gemination as well? But I don't think anyone would advocate doing away with that. And, in the other direction, some of them can have RS (see above). Also, Lepschys' proposal (or the idea of northern-influenced pronunciation as the new prestige replacing the Tuscan-based standard) is far from being accepted (Crocco 2017:110). I don't see any reason to deviate from describing the established standard in this case (unlike with #Intervocalic ⟨s⟩, where sources do suggest the northern influence is taking hold), the biggest and obvious benefit of which being it is easier to find reliable sources for individual words. Nardog (talk) 03:42, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. Neutral Standard Italian does exist as a diastratic/diaphasic register, reported in just about any dictionary. Canepari, using his term co-gemination for RS, makes it clear, while also observing that it's creeping in in the north, in "chunks": "Co-gemination is part of neutral pronunciation, exactly as lexical gemination, which is marked in spelling [...] However, this is not the case in the north (natively, except in some common, set expressions, as è vero, ha detto, used by young people raised with high levels of exposure to the television)." Its status is also widely misunderstood by the general population: "Too often, it is erroneously considered as if it were a regional characteristic of the central-southern areas." p. 139 ([3]) It's true that RS varies diatopically in italiano/i regionale/i. But so do lots of other local features, all of which are irrelevant to providing Standard Italian citation forms for non-native speakers. Città [dd]i Castello, Oltrepò [pp]avese, etc. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 14:54, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

All four sources we have are clear that RS varies significantly across regions in Standard Italian, not just between the North and the rest, but even between the Center and the South. The Lepschys' proposal about what variety to teach to foreigners is irrelevant here; the material of theirs I quoted above was descriptive.

Including RS is both pedantic and misleading. We should stick to a more diaphonemic notation. --Macrakis (talk) 16:29, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

We don't expect users to be familiar with the phonology of foreign languages, so our foreign-language transcriptions are not phonemic let alone diaphonemic. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 17:11, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Well said. Phonemic transcriptions would reduce the information offered, not enhance it (even less helpful, diaphonemic). Including RS is accurately descriptive of Standard Italian; not noting it would mislead non-native speakers. Again, yes, it's true that RS varies diatopically in italiano/i regionale/i -- good fodder for the Regional Italian article, but an obstacle to offering guidance to pronunciation of Standard Italian ("italiano senza aggettivi"). Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 17:47, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

There's not much to discuss, syntactic gemination is a phenomenon of standard Italian and occurs in a set number of cases. In a phonetic transcription it should be shown, unless there's a valid reason to propose not to show it here. It doesn't matter that in some regions it doesn't exist or it's different, we're talking about standard Italian. Maybe we could discuss about showing it or not in doubtful cases, for example the preposition da or the conjunction se which don't mandatorily double the following consonant, or some adverbs such as qui and là which south of Tuscany double the first consonant when preceded by vowel. Talking about the articles mentioned above, any of us could add the syntactic gemination right now, I can do it by myself if you agree, I've already fixed a few articles with wrong phonetic transcriptions and I'm looking for further errors to fix. Junghiano (talk) 18:14, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

This is an attempt to summarize the above discussion: 1. Everyone who accepts the existence of a "Standard Italian that requires no further qualification" (italiano senza aggettivi) is in favour of transcribing syntactic gemination and "intrinsic" gemination of /ts, dz, ʃ, ɲ, ʎ/, but one person argued that there are "regions in Standard Italian". So it seems a consensus can be reached if that person declares: "I believe syntactic and 'intrinsic' gemination are subject to regional variation in Standard Italian, but since Wikipedia's foreign-language transcriptions are phonetic, not diaphonemic, and we therefore have to decide on one form of speech anyway, we can choose the one that my fellow editors have in mind when they say Standard Italian, which is certainly within the limits of my notion of Standard Italian; it is the form used in Central Italy." — 2. Some said they favour [la ʃˈʃarpa]-style trancsriptions without underties, and no one said they prefer any other transcription style. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 13:32, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Standard Italian has "no regions": it is a sort of compromise between the central dialects (Tuscany and, to a lesser extent Rome) and Northern Italian. Basically it is a Florentine-based Italian without gorgia, scempiamento and other features perceived as dialectal (or vernacolari in Italian, since we don't use the term dialetti for Tuscan dialects). That "Standard Italian" is an abstraction: no one speaks it at home, but it's nevertheless very important. It's the form of Italian you'll find on most prestigious pronunciation dictionaries (such as DOP – Dizionario d'ortografia e di pronunzia by Migliorini, Tagliavini and Fiorelli and DiPI – Dizionario di pronuncia italiana by Canepari) and – most important of all – it's the language spoken in TV programs, by actors and by dubbers (remember that dubbing has a very important role in Italian culture since shows and films in original language are extremely rare in Italian).--Carnby (talk) 16:28, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

The original question was of a purely practical nature, and I believe we can reach a consensus whether or not we agree on the exact definition of Standard Italian (variation within Italy, Standard Italian of Switzerland, etc.). Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 17:42, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

References

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.