4.1.¿QUÉ SON LOS CANALES DE COMERCIALIZACIÓN?
4.3. LOS CANALES DE VENTA EN LA AGROECOLOGÍA
There is a major and systematic feature of Italian pronunciation which is almost never represented in writing, and tends therefore to be neglected by non-natives.
This is so-called ‘syntactic doubling’, variously known in Italian as raddoppia-mento sintattico, rafforzaraddoppia-mento sintattico, rafforzaraddoppia-mento fonosintattico. Rafforzaraddoppia-mento fonosintattico (henceforth RF) is a phenomenon whereby a consonant at the beginning of a word receives a ‘double’, or a little more accurately a
‘lengthened’, pronunciation when preceded by certain other words within the same phrase. This occurs principally when the immediately preceding word (including all monosyllabic verb forms, monosyllabic nouns, monosyllabic adverbs, monosyllabic numerals and monosyllabic pronouns of all kinds other than clitics) ends in a stressed vowel:
città persa [itta ppεrsa] ‘lost city’
Sarà bello. [sara bbεllo] ‘It’ll be nice.’
Che fai? [ke ffai] ‘What are you doing?’
Chi sei? [ki ssεi] ‘Who are you?’
Ciò ti piace. [ɔ tti pjae] ‘You like that.’
A me la mandi? [a mme lla mandi] ‘Are you sending it to me?’
le cose che fai [le kɔse ke ffai] ‘the things that you are doing’
lunedì prossimo [lunedi pprɔssimo] ‘next Monday’
4Except rizzare [rittsare] ‘to stand up, on end’.
colibrì blu [kolibri bblu] ‘blue humming bird’
già preparato [a ppreparato] ‘already prepared’
oblò chiuso [oblɔ kkjuso] ‘closed porthole’
Parlò forte. [parlɔ ffɔrte] ‘He talked loudly.’
caffè turco [kaffε tturko] ‘Turkish coffee’
virtù naturale [virtu nnaturale] ‘natural virtue’
gnu selvatico [u sselvatiko] ‘wild gnu’
più grosso [pju rɔsso] ‘larger’
qui sotto [kwi ssotto] ‘down here’
scià morto [ʃa mmɔrto] ‘dead shah’
tre giorni [tre dorni] ‘three days’
Va bene. [va bbεne] ‘It goes well.’
Ho fame. [ɔ ffame] ‘I’m hungry.’
È vero. [ε vvero] ‘It’s true.’
Note that RF does NOT operate in the following circumstances:
● At the beginning of words where a consonant is immediately followed by another consonant (e.g., ho studiato [ɔ studjato] ‘I’ve studied’; a psicologi [a psikɔloi] ‘to psychologists’); but if the second consonant is [r] or [l], RF applies (e.g., è troppo [ε ttrɔppo] ‘it’s too much’, è fluido [ε ffluido] ‘it’s fluid’).
● After the stressed diphthongs ai, au, ei, eu, oi, ui (e.g., lui viene [lui vjεne] ‘he comes’, poi parto [poi parto] ‘then I leave’).
● After words ending in stressed vowel + apostrophe (e.g., un po’ caldo [um pɔ
kaldo] ‘a bit hot’); this category includes notably those monosyllabic second person singular imperatives5written with an apostrophe (see 14.9) (e.g., sta’
fermo [sta fermo] ‘stand still’, va’ sotto [va sotto] ‘go under’, di’ la parola [di la parɔla]) ‘say the word’.
RF is further caused by the prepositions and conjunctions a, come, da, dove, e, fra/tra, ma, né, o, sopra, su, and by the words se (‘if’), che ‘that’ (complementizer) and qualche ‘some’:
a me [a mme] ‘to me’
Vedo che vieni. [vedo ke vvjεni] ‘I see that you are coming.’
come lui [kome llui] ‘like him’
da capo [da kkapo] ‘from the start’
Dove vai? [dove vvai] ‘Where are you going?’
io e te [io e tte] ‘I and you’
ma sai [ma ssai] ‘but you know’
né Mario né Luigi [ne mmarjo ne llwii] ‘neither M nor L’
me o lui [me o llui] ‘me or him’
qualche volta [kwalke vvɔlta] ‘sometimes’
Se canti. [se kkanti] ‘If you sing.’
sopra Milano [sopra mmilano] ‘over Milan’
Note that come meaning ‘like’, ‘as’ causes RF when followed by a noun phrase or a pronoun or an adjective, but not when followed by a verb phrase, an adverb phrase or a conjunction:
5It is a nice object lesson in the extent to which the rules of RF can vary regionally that one of the authors of this book (Robustelli, herself a Tuscan) reports that in her speech RF does occur after these imperatives (as it also does after come) regardless of what follows. In contrast, RF does not occur for her after sopra.
Consonant lengthening 11
come me [kome mme] ‘like me’
come sindaco [kome ssindako] ‘as mayor’
come tanti altri [kome ttantialtri] ‘like so many others’
but
come fai [kome fai] ‘as you do’
come se fosse [kome se ffosse] ‘as if it were’
come già ti dissi [kome a tti dissi] ‘as I already told you’
The word Dio, with its plural dei (see 3.6) and feminine dea, dee, undergoes RF whenever it is preceded by a vowel, stressed or unstressed. The double consonant appears to have its origin in Iddio, a Tuscan form (also sometimes encountered in the standard language) derived historically from il Dio.
Parla di Dio. [parla di ddio] ‘He speaks of God.’
gli dei [ʎi ddεi] ‘the gods’
queste dee [kweste ddεe] ‘these godesses’
Note also Spirito Santo often pronounced [spirito ssanto] ‘Holy Spirit’. For many speakers, monosyllabic names of letters of the alphabet also trigger RF:
e.g., la P [la ppi], due C [due ti].
RF may impinge upon spelling if a word triggering RF and the following word undergoing it are written as a single word. In this case, the long consonant generally appears as a double consonant in spelling. Included here are certain prefixes (contra-, sovra-), and monosyllabic second person singular imperatives followed by clitic pronouns (see 6.3):
contraddire ‘contradict’
dappoco ’worthless’
daccapo ‘from the beginning’
frapporre ‘interpose’
giacché ‘since’, ‘because’ (già + che) il daffarsi ‘what is to be done’ (da + farsi) piucchepperfetto ‘pluperfect’ (più + che + perfetto)
sebbene ‘although’
Exceptions are tremila ‘3000’ and trecento ‘300’ which show RF neither in spelling nor in pronunciation. The spellings piuccheperfetto, sopratutto, sovraprezzo are also possible.
For a more detailed account of RF and its regional variants, see Canepari (1992:
138f.).
Mention should also be made of lengthening at the end of words. Words (usually borrowed from foreign languages) which end in a consonant, especial-ly if they are stressed on the final syllable, often lengthen their final consonant when the following word begins with a vowel: e.g., tram elettrico [tramm
elεttriko] ‘electric tram’, radar egiziano [radarr eittsjano] ‘Egyptian radar’, ras etiopico [rass etjɔpiko] ‘Ethiopian chieftain’.
2.7 The type Isvizzera for Svizzera
In old Italian, words beginning with s + consonant sometimes developed an i in front of the s (e.g., istrada, ispalla, iscuola, Isvizzera). Such pronunciations are now considered archaic, but are sometimes still encountered in phrases such as in Isvizzera ‘in Switzerland’, per isbaglio ‘by mistake’, etc.