Prosody in Italian particle verbs: A preliminary study

In this study we investigate the prosody of Italian Particle Verbs (henceforth, PrtV's). After comparing two alternative hypotheses about the prosodic constituent PrtV's correspond to, we concentrate on three rules of Italian phonology that differ in their domain of application: the phonological word (ω) vs. the phonological phrase (φ). We then report on a production experiment carried out with 2 speakers of Central-Southern Italian and 3 speakers of Northern Italian. By concentrating on the phonetic correlate of duration, we provide experimental evidence that V and Prt cannot be mapped onto a single ω but can be mapped onto a single φ.