Consonanti slovene e italiane – dall’analisi contrastiva alla pronuncia slovena dell’italiano
Slovene and Italian consonants – from contrastive analysis to Slovene pronunciation of Italian

Summary/Abstract: The article deals with similarities and differences between consonant phonemes and their allophones in Standard Slovene and Standard Italian, the phonotactic phenomena of consonant devoicing and voicing in both languages, and the problematic issues related to the pronunciation of Italian consonants by Slovene learners (at the university level). The phonological contrastive analysis has shown a relatively strong similarity between the two languages in the case of consonant phonemes (18 phonemes in common out of 22 Slovene and 23 Italian consonant phonemes); the number of allophones present in both languages is much lower (4 allophones in common out of the total of 19 Slovene and 12 Italian consonant allophones). The contrastive analysis of consonant devoicing and voicing in Slovene and Italian (the study examines also the situation in Regional Italian) has shown that, in the languages analysed, the two phenomena are triggered mostly in different phonetic contexts and that they involve different consonant groups. The auditory analysis of the Italian pronunciation by Slovene (university) students has revealed some problematic points: the substitution of some Slovene phonemes absent in Slovene by similar Slovene phonemes (in particular, /ɲ ʎ/ → /lj, nj/, /r/ → /ɾ/, /v/ → /ʋ/, /kw, ɡw/ → /kʋ, ɡʋ/), a different distribution of some phonemes with respect to the Standard Italian (particularly, /s z/ and /ʦ ʣ/), and the presence of consonant devoicing and voicing typical of Slovene. Beside the influence of Slovene, it can be assumed that at least some problematic points could be caused by the northern Regional Italian (in particular, the Regional Italian in Venezia Giulia) and the incoherent Italian orthography (see the “phonetic values” of the graphemes ‹s›, ‹z›, ‹i›). Some problematic points of the Italian pronunciation by Slovene (university) students tend to gradually disappear during a continuous exposure to Standard Italian, while others (mainly those linked to the influence of Slovene) may be more persistent.

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