Aim of this paper is providing a preliminary account of some intonational features useful for identifying a large number of Italian accents, estimated as representative of Italian regional variation, by analysing a corpus of comparable speech materials consisting of Map Task dialogues. Analysis concentrates on the intonational characteristics of yes-no questions, which can be realised very differently across varieties, whereas statements are generally characterised by a (low) falling final movement. Results of this preliminary investigation indicate that intonational features useful for identifying Italian regional accents are the tune type (rising-falling vs falling-rising vs rising), and the nuclear peak alignment in rising-falling contours (mid vs late).
Cite as: Savino, M. (2009) Intonational features for identifying regional accents of Italian. Proc. Interspeech 2009, 2423-2426, doi: 10.21437/Interspeech.2009-305
@inproceedings{savino09_interspeech,
author={Michelina Savino},
title={{Intonational features for identifying regional accents of Italian}},
year=2009,
booktitle={Proc. Interspeech 2009},
pages={2423--2426},
doi={10.21437/Interspeech.2009-305}
}